Foucault (Panopticon)

3 Março 2026, 11:00 • Marzia D'Amico

In addition to further developing the concept of truth in relation to the dynamics of power, following Michel Foucault’s insight, we examined in detail the Panopticon through a close engagement with the assigned reading, which is essential for the written examination. Particular attention was given to the application of a social condition of panopticism through CCTV and social media. The collective reflection focused on regimes of visibility and invisibility, and on the datafication of the contemporary landscape, particularly through technologies of reproduction that centralise visuality.

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The Death of the Author + Foucault

27 Fevereiro 2026, 11:00 • Marzia D'Amico

In class, we discussed The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes, with enthusiastic collective participation in the comprehension and critical analysis of the text, which is fundamental for the written examination. In the second part of the lecture, we introduced the figure of Michel Foucault and examined the principle of truth as a historically relational – and never objective – construct, drawing on examples from cultural (and) artistic practices.

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Roland Barthes - Mythologies

24 Fevereiro 2026, 11:00 • Marzia D'Amico

Today’s lecture focused on the historical and theoretical significance of Mythologies by Roland Barthes, examined both formally and through several examples drawn from the text (from wrestling to advertising campaigns). Students participated actively by proposing further examples of signs that become myths at a second-order level, applying critical thinking and specific vocabulary (i.e. the red carnation of the Portuguese Revolution, now mythologised as a bloodless revolution, insofar as it overlooks the bloodshed in the former colonies).

The session then introduced the theme of the “Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes, which will be revisited once students have completed the reading of the primary text, as scheduled for the next class.

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Saussure, Barthes

20 Fevereiro 2026, 11:00 • Marzia D'Amico

The students were introduced to Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotic theory of the sign and to Barthes’s subsequent expansion of these concepts, adopting this terminology to examine several examples. Similarly, we referred to Hall’s theories of encoding/decoding and discussed the usefulness of these functions in relation to textual analysis, whether verbal, visual, or multimodal. We also introduced Barthes’s concept of myth, which will be explored further next week.

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Learning to Look: A Prologue

19 Fevereiro 2026, 15:30 • Ana Rita Martins

Learning to Look: A Prologue

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