Inner Shorthands: Physiognomy and the Limits of Biopolitics in the Neurosic Century

Nicoletta Pireddu (Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UCLA; Dottorato di Ricerca, Università di Venezia “Ca’ Foscari”, Italy) visits BFA Visual & Critical Studies to talk about the discontinuities in the “natural history of man” that informs 19th-century European scientific discourse, in which physiognomy plays a pivotal role. Within the positivistic project of normalization, the talk highlights the tug of war between suppression of and fascination with transgressive and excessive states (be it the individual and collective search for pleasures or the perpetration of crimes under the influence of “suggestion”), epitomizing the contradictions and anxieties of the fin de siècle. Presented by BFA Visual & Critical Studies, the event will conclude with a Q&A.