In the last decades, cities have undergone unprecedented transformations, and are still rapidly changing. Not only because their dimension is steadily growing and their population becoming more and more intercultural, but also because of the technological and media revolution, which is affecting social and emotional relations, public and private spaces, the world of work, street protests, and culture-at-large.
In the last century, philosophy offered important contributions to the understanding of urban forms of life. Today, this seminal philosophical heritage risks to be lost in a variety of approaches that dissipate its theoretical import.
Aiming at designing a phenomenological map of the urban forms of life, we will focus primarily on the city of Rome, yet in a comparative perspective. Our ambition is to offer a prism for shedding light on a city that no single citizen can comprehend, and at the same time ¿ by way of comparisons with other big and small cities in Italy and around the world ¿ could help grasping the peculiarity of Rome, warts and all. In so doing, we shall throw a new philosophical-theoretical (that is, affective-cognitive, aesthetic and moral) light on neglected and overlooked aspect of Rome¿s urban life-world through the prioritization of a relational, bottom-up approach, which differently from top-down approaches (such as those of economics, political theory, or even urban studies) will let our life with urban volumes and spaces speak first and orient our philosophical reflection on it.
A study of this scope, centered on Rome, but in the broader context of global urban life-forms, simply does not exist yet.
We aim at creating an indispensable tool both for scholars of different disciplines ¿ who are willing to have an articulated specimen of the current philosophical resources for studying the life-forms of big cities -, and for all the citizens or visitors interested in understanding the complex forms of life that Rome makes possible.
A study of this scope, centered on Rome, but in the broader context of global urban life-forms, simply does not exist yet and has long been called for.
We aim at creating an indispensable tool both for scholars of different disciplines ¿ who are willing to have an articulated specimen of the current philosophical resources for studying the life-forms of big cities -, and for all citizens or visitors interested in understanding and deciphering the complex forms of life that Rome makes possible.
We are planning to gather in a dedicated website not only the results of our research (texts mostly in open access), but also a vast and heterogeneous material: documents, new and found images and videos, re-mediated visual and sound products, and, possibly, a blog section open to comments by the common readers/visitors. A work of "montage" that, even after the end of the project, could either be re-financed and grow, or stay on the web as a permanent reference for everybody. We will try to use the resources and the language of philosophy without unnecessary jargon, avoiding the technical tools that make urban planning inaccessible to most readers.
Our ambition is to offer a prism for shedding light on a city that - like all big cities - no single citizen can comprehend, and at the same time - by way of comparisons with other big and small cities in Italy and around the world - could help grasping the peculiarity of Rome, warts and all. In so doing, we shall throw a new philosophical-theoretical (that is, affective, cognitive, aesthetic and moral) light on neglected and overlooked aspect of Rome¿s urban life-world through the prioritization of a relational, bottom-up approach, which differently from more detached, top-down approaches (such as those of economics, political theory, or even urban studies) will let our life with urban volumes and spaces speak first and orient our philosophical reflection on it. One key and distinctive feature of this project, which makes it unlike more traditional approaches, is that of not using architecture to do philosophy (as for example Foucault and Deleuze did most recently), but rather using philosophy to conceptualize ¿ and hence rephrase and revise ¿ the very question of what cities have become, with Rome as our key study and object of closest interest.