The Homo mimeticus and the need for a mimetic turn. Interview with Nidesh Lawtoo

Autori

  • Nidesh Lawtoo Universiteit Leiden
  • Valeria Maggiore Università di Palermo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54103/2039-9251/22249

Parole chiave:

Mimesis, Mimetic Turn, Homo mimeticus, mimetic unconscious.

Abstract

The present interview with Nidesh Lawtoo (lecturer at the University of Lausanne, Johns Hopkins University and KU Leuven and holder of the ERC project re-titled Homo Mimeticus: Theory and Criticism from 2017 to 2022) wants to highlight the “broad” and “complex” character of mimesis. The guiding idea is that mimesis – understood not simply as a copy or representation of reality but rather as a drive that leads humans to imitate other humans – provides us with a rich, wide-ranging, and paradoxically original perspective to knowing ourselves better. Thus, in a constant confrontation with the Greek roots of the term and the reflections of some modern and contemporary philosophers, the interview intends to clarify the scope and breadth of that mimetic turn proposed by Lawtoo in contemporary aesthetical debate.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle, transl. by S. Halliwell, University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill, 1987.

Lawtoo, N., Conrad’s Shadow: Catastrophe, Mimesis, Theory, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 2016.

Lawtoo, N., The Phantom of the Ego: Modernism and the Mimetic Unconscious, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 2013; trad. it di E. Cantoni, Il Fantasma dell’Io: la massa e l’inconscio mimetico, Mimesis, Milano – Udine 2018.

Lawtoo, N., (New) Fascism: Contagion, Community, Myth. Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 2019; trad. it di S. Caroni, (Neo)Fascismo: Contagio, Comunità, Mito, Mimesis, Milano – Udine 2020.

Lawtoo, N., Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation, Leuven University Press, Leuven 2022 and available Open Access here: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/59184.

Lawtoo, N., Violence and the Oedipal Unconscious: vol. 1, The Catharsis Hypothesis, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 2023.

Lawtoo, N., Violence and the Mimetic Unconscious. Volume 2: The Affective Hypothesis, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 2023.

Pubblicato

2024-01-09

Fascicolo

Sezione

Mimesis come conditio humana, edited by Valeria Maggiore and Salvatore Tedesco