1920-2020 : Phantasmagories of war. Forms of antimimesis in the representation of conflict in Western and Eastern literatures (Palerme)

International Conference University of Palermo, Department of Humanities

1920-2020: Phantasmagories of war. Forms of antimimesis in the representation of conflict in Western and Eastern literatures

Complesso Steri - Sala Magna 11th-12th December 2025

The term Phantasmagoria was coined in the late-1700s to refer to the shows made with the magic lantern, which impressed the audience by way of projecting demonic figures. Today, these shows are considered as a sort of precursors to contemporary cinema. In the 20th century, the concept migrated from theatre to literature, describing narrative expedients that could give back the sequence of colours, sounds, and images, usually exploited by the fantastic genre. Thereafter, phantasmagoria, influenced by psychoanalysis studies, as well as by the change of the social, economic, technological and media frame, acquires a more complex resonance, being a personal representation of a disturbed reality. These preliminary considerations highlight how phantasmagoria, as a multimedia and polysemic concept, must be analyzed as the object of a historical, social, and cultural investigation in an interdisciplinary way.

The conference investigates the reallocation function process that transforms phantasmagoria, and the phantasmagorical, in rhetorical and aesthetical-conceptual categories. Based on the extensive studies on the 18th century fantastic element, the conference focuses on forms of reality, manipulation, alteration, and suspension. Such forms distinguish a time span that goes from the first Post-war to most recent times, on which the state of the art, instead, appears incomplete. Even in the constant theoretical reference to the 19th-century phantasmagorical element, the crisis of realism is to be understood as the fundamental and propulsive moment for the transformation of phantasmagoria, now freed from the register of the fantastic.

The reasons are to be traced in the impossibility of a mimetic return of reality in the aftermath of the two wars, a creative stumbling block which pushes for new developments of modes of representation also due to the occurrence of new perceptive stimuli.
Proposals should investigate the crucial issues of the reallocation function process that invests the phantasmagoria of war since 1920s-1930s up to the most recent contemporary years within Western and Eastern literatures. They should also identify the forms it takes as a rhetorical and aesthetic/conceptual category and reflect upon how the creative reworking of facts affects the social, political, cultural, and psychoanalytical perception of war.

By tracing the forms of antimimesis that abandon the regime of realistic verisimilitude, such approaches may adopt a sociological turn to show how phantasmagoria displays different specificities according to the socio-historical context in question and how it transforms into a symbolic figure representative of the relationship between literature and society. Additionally, we will study the rhetoric and semantic aspects of phantasmagoria within the text. We will focus on the functions it assumes in the general economy of the text (symbolic, narrative, etc.), on its semantic structure and organization, on the relationship with the 

narrative categories of time and space, including a genetic study of the stages of its elaboration through the analysis of manuscripts and the writing process.
Proposed contributions may follow these thematic axes:

Axis I: Hyperreality and the Suspension of the Real
Forms of suspension of reality through media devices and technological tools that distort perception, influencing both linguistic structures and diegetic dimensions.

Axis II: Memory and Identity
Trauma as a catalyst for a phantasmagorical mode of writing, inherent in the reconfiguration of reality and self-perception. This axis encompasses psychoanalytic, neurobiological, and cognitive perspectives, as well as Trauma Studies.

Axis III: History and Society
Manifestations of surreality as an alteration of data in literary discourse, analysed in relation to regimes, power structures, and symbolic systems.

Proposals for papers (maximum 500 words) must be submitted along with a brief bio- bibliographical note (maximum 200 words) to phantasmagories2025@unipa.it by 30 April 2025. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 30 June 2025. The conference languages will be Italian, English, and French. The conference proceedings will be published.

Scientific Directors: Riccardo Donati (University of Naples Federico II), Fabrizio Impellizzeri (University of Catania), Daniela Tononi (University of Palermo).

Scientific Committee: Natascia Barrale, Lavinia Benedetti, Luca Capponcelli, Roberta Coglitore, Michele Cometa, Riccardo Donati, Fabrizio Impellizzeri, Chiara Sciarrino, Maria Grazia Sciortino, Daniela Tononi, Bianca del Villano.

Organising Committee: Antonio Del Castello, Martina Guccione, Margherita Malta, Cristina Mineo, Giovanni Testa, Giulia Zoli.

Administrative Office:

Department of Humanities – University of Palermo
Viale delle Scienze, Building 12 – 90128 Palermo, Italy website: http://www.unipa.it/dipartimenti/scienzeumanistiche

Conference office, Mr Vincenzo Lo Grasso vincenzo.lograsso@unipa.it Tel. +3909123899553

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