Dear all, next week Marco Maggi (Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano) joins us on zoom to give a presentation. I hope to see many of you there in Dacke! Captioned landscapes: from iconology to the ecomedial turn Marco Maggi Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland marco.maggi(a)usi.ch Abstract: The presence of writing in natural environments is perhaps as ancient as literature itself. Traditionally, these “captioned landscapes” have been studied from an iconological or reception-aesthetic perspective; in all cases, the approach adopted is “correlationalist”, in the sense indicated by Richard Grusin of considering nature as an object opposed to the human subject. Examining “captioned landscapes” in light of the latest advances in the field of intermedial ecocriticism allows us to overcome this one-sidedness, enabling us to grasp the intertwining of human and non-human mediality that characterises them. Bio: Marco Maggi is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory and Director of the Master's programme in Italian Language, Literature and Civilisation at the Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland. His studies focus on the intermedial relations of literature, particularly with the visual, from a theoretical, historical and critical perspective. His most recent publication is the proceedings of the national conference of the Swiss Association of General and Comparative Literature entitled On the Edge of the Visible: Comparative Literature and Visuality. He is currently engaged in a project on the Italian genealogies of inter-arts studies funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (20th Century Italian Studies of Literature and Arts). Another recent aspect of his work concerns intermedial ecocriticism; a multi-author work in two volumes entitled Captioned Landscapes: Intermedial Combinations Beyond the Human, edited by him, is due to be We meet in Dacke 10.15-12 or in Zoom on the link below: https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/8060837779 Meeting ID: 806 083 7779 Passcode: 2547 Best wishes, Erik