2012 Reports

Social Anthropology and History of Art in a Holy Drama in Northern Italy

Faeta, Francesco

In this seminar, I would like to briefly illustrate, also using some images, the study I am working on in Cerveno, a small valley town in the Italian Alps. This involves, as is customary in cultural and social anthropology, a phase of fieldwork, which began with my first visits in March 2011 and is still in progress. This will culminate in the observation of a religious representation, which I will discuss later, on May 20, 2012. My fieldwork also involved an exploration of the local civil and religious archives, which was obviously crucial in understanding the phenomenon being studied, as well as raising a whole range of as yet unanswered questions for the ethnographer. There is also a phase of study linked to a precise theoretical and methodological problem, taking place in New York with the precious contribution of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University.