Silvio Carta

Photograph of Silvio CartaPhD title: Documentary Film and Observational Cinema in Sardinia: A Visual Anthropology

Supervisor: Dr Clodagh Brook

I was educated in Italy, where I graduated cum laude in Philosophy. I am currently working on ethnographic films and documentaries in Sardinia – my native island. I am interested in Film Studies, Italian Studies, and History of Ideas, but my intellectual direction is Visual Anthropology.

Activities

I write scholarly articles on documentary and ethnographic cinema, and have published in leading journals in the fields of Visual Anthropology and Italian Studies – e.g. Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Review, and Modern Italy.

I have acted as peer reviewer for Visual Anthropology and attended the 12th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film held in London, 23-26 June 2011.

I am a member of EASA (European Association of Social Anthropologists).

I’ve been admitted to the Video Workshop 2012 taught by David and Judith MacDougall from 7-13 September, and invited as a guest to the SIEFF festival to follow from 15-23 September.

Recent conference papers

  • “Visual Anthropology in Contemporary Sardinia: David MacDougall’s Tempus de Baristas” - BIRTHA funded Third Annual Postgraduate Conference of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI), University of Bristol, 15th June 2011.
  • “Sensory Self-inscription in Ethnographic Filmmaking and the Inadequacy of the Technologies of Written Language” – Technologies of the Self. New Departures in Self-Inscription, University College Cork, 2-3 September 2011.
  • "A difficult marriage: ethnographic film and mainstream anthropology" - Uncertainty and Disquiet: Contemporary Hybrids in Visual Anthropology. Nanterre University, France, 10/07 - 13/07/2012.

Publications

Journal articles

  • 2011. Orientalism in the Documentary Representation of Culture. Visual Anthropology 24: 5, 403-420.
  • 2012. Visual Anthropology and Sensory Ethnography in Contemporary Sardinia: a Film of a Different Kind. Modern Italy 17: 3 (305-24).
  • 2012. Documentary Film, Observational Style and Postmodern Anthropology. Visual Anthropology (forthcoming).
  • 2012. Film Studies. The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies. Maney Publishing: Vol.73 (2011)
  • 2013. Ethnographic Film as Filmic Autobiography: David MacDougall's The Age of Reason. Visual Studies(forthcoming).
  • 2013. Vittorio De Seta's Banditi a Orgosolo (1961): an Ethnographic Film. Studies in Documentary Film (second issue, forthcoming).
  • 2012/2013. The Ethno-Orientalism of the Sardinian Culture. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (forthcoming).
  • 2013. Film Studies. The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies. Maney Publishing: Vol. 74 (2012, forthcoming).
  • 2013. Sardinia in Fascist Documentary Films (1922-45). Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 1: 2 (forthcoming).

Film reviews

Book reviews

  • 2011. Homo Videns: televisione e post-pensiero by Giovanni Sartori. Political Communication 28: 2, 260-261.

Articles in Italian

  • 2010. Relativismo Culturale a priori: diagnosi di una dottrina illiberale. Politeia XXVI: 100, 59-67. ISSN 1128-2401.
  • 2011. Antropologia, spazio e immaginazione geografica. Intersezioni A. XXXI, n. 1. aprile, 129-142, Il Mulino. ISSN 0393-2451.
  • 2012. Affiliazioni multiple: 'cultura,' 'civiltà' ed identità culturale. Rivista di Scienze Sociali, n. 3. febbraio. Identità, culture e migrazioni. ISSN 2239-1126.
  • 2012. L`Occidente in antropologia: Occidentalismo. Visual Ethnography, n. 1 (forthcoming).

Teaching

  • Postgraduate Tutor – academic year 2011-2012, second semester.
  • Modules: A History of Italian Cinema; Contemporary Italian Cinema and Media.