Our first seminar “History of Modern Mythology” starts on February 27 at the University of Turin, at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Modern Cultures.
The experimental module will be held by Fabrizio Modina and Emanuela Zilio, in collaboration with Professor Gianluca Coci, professor of Japanese language and literature and former creator of the manga translation course.
The seminar intends to contribute to bridging that gap in the educational offer of languages in Italy, made up of literary and narrative genres of Anglo-Saxon and Japanese derivation. Modern Mythology, a term that is rapidly replacing that of “pop culture”, is a new discipline, which recognizes the historical relevance of artists and works considered “minor”, giving them the value of essential interpretations of the Twentieth Century and the new Century.
Taken from an undefined intellectual limbo, Walt Disney, Elvis Presley, J.R. R. Tolkien, Stan Lee, Osamu Tezuka and Coco Chanel (to name but a few), have been relocated to the pantheon of key artists, rising to the role of icons for merits often not recognized in life. With such a late recognition, therefore, the need emerges to make up for lost time in the educational transmission of this story, which, having existed for over a hundred years now, risks being alienated from the new generations, born and raised with modern mythology integrated into their DNA, but often unaware of that historical-artistic journey that led from “Frankenstein” to “Demon Slayer”.