Vittoria Borsò

Vittoria Borsò (born October 26, 1947 in Pisa ) is a literary and cultural scientist in the Romance Studies department and holds the Chair of Romance Studies I for Romance Literature and Cultural Studies (French, Italian, Spanish) at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf (1998-2013) . She was born in Italy , lived in Rome until she graduated from high school and studied Romance and German at the University of Mannheim .

academic career

Vittoria Borsò received her doctorate in 1985 at the University of Mannheim ( metaphor as a means of experience and knowledge , Tübingen: Narr 1985). From 1985 to 1987 she was a Feodor von Lynen Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation to carry out a research project in the USA ( Rice University Houston / Texas and University of Texas at Austin ). She completed her habilitation in 1991 with a study on the criticism of the discourses of magical realism in Latin American literature ( Mexico beyond loneliness. An attempt at an intercultural analysis , Frankfurt: Vervuert, 1994). In the same year, she took over the chair for French and Italian at the University of Freiburg . In 1992 she received a call to the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf for the C-2 professorship in “French and Spanish Literature”. In 1998 she was offered a chair for French and Spanish literature at the University of Duisburg and the chair for Romance Studies I at the University of Düsseldorf, which she has held since 1998. In 2002 she was a founding professor of the "Media and Cultural Studies" course at the University of Düsseldorf.

As a visiting professor, Vittoria Borsò a. a. at several European and American universities such as UNAM and Colegio de México , México, Stanford University , University of California at Irvine , Rice University, Houston / Texas. From 2005 to 2008 she was a member of the MIWFT- funded NRW research program “Humanities Shaping Future Perspectives” and headed the research project “Migration Cultures : Contributions to a Peaceful Epistemology of Social Space in Globalized Societies”. She is the applicant for the DFG graduate college 1678 “Materiality and Production” at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, member of the Steering Committee of the project “Iberian Postcolonialities: A metahistory of material practices of power” (with Alberto Moreiras and José Luis Villacañas) and of the project “The Italian Difference: Philosophy of Life”.

Since April 2008 she has been a member of the Steering Committee of the American Mexican Research Group "UC Intercampus Research Group" (UC Mexicanists) at the Universities of California and the Advisory Board of the Institute for Cultural Studies and Theater History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences .

Since 2012 she has been elected reviewer of the DFG for the subject “European and American literatures”. She is also active as a reviewer for various scientific funding institutions (DFG, Humboldt Foundation, DAAD , Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft ).

She held several teaching positions, as Dean of the Philosophical Faculty (1998–2002) and Vice-Rector for International Affairs (2003–2007) at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. In October 2007 she was appointed to the University Council of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

In 2000 Vittoria Borsò was awarded the Italian Order of Merit of the Cavaliere Ufficiale al merito della Repubblica Italiana and in 2013 the University Research Award of Dr. Günter and Imme Wille Foundation (together with Ulrich von Alemann) awarded. In the winter semester 2013/2014 she was a Senior Fellow at the IKKM (International College for Research on Cultural Technology and Media Philosophy) at the Bauhaus University in Weimar.

Thematic focus

Cultural theory

• Materiality and production: New Materialism, procedural ontologies and aesthetics (historical and systematic processing of philosophical and literary texts)
• Memory theories in the tension between cultural and neurosciences
• Topology and Transatlantic Topographies
• Visual culture and intermediality in Romania (international research project with the Università degli Studi di Palermo)

Literary and cultural studies

• World literature
• Hispanic American literatures and cultures of America
• Italian literature
• 19th Century and Modern French Literature
• Spanish literature of the 18th century and modern

Current research projects

• Biopolitics, Bio-Poetics and Epistemology of Life / Italian Thought
• Materiality and production
• Iberian Postcolonialities: A Metahistory of Material Practices of Power
• Mexican and cultural studies
• Memory theories in the tension between cultural and neurosciences.

Third-party funded projects and graduate funding

• Head of the "External Views of Europe" department in the Graduate School "European Historical Representations" (DFG) (2003-2006)
• Head of the research project “Migration and Cultures of Remembrance. Contributions to a peaceful epistemology of social space in globalized societies ”in the research program in the NRW excellence competition“ Humanities Shaping Future Perspectives ”(2005)
• Successful nomination of Giorgio Agamben for the research award of the Humboldt Foundation (2005)
• International Graduate Conference (DFG) at the Villa Vigoni: "Transfigurations of Power: Politics and Popular Culture in the 20th Century" (in cooperation with the Free University, Berlin) (2006)
• Binational doctoral program with the University of Trieste (double PhD) (2007–2010), funded by the German-Italian University Center.
• International Graduate Conference (DAAD) "Biopolitics - Bioeconomy - Biopoetics in the Sign of the Crisis" (January 2010)
• Mexico Conferences (DFG): 2009, 2011 and 2014.

Publications (selection)

Monographs

• (1994): Mexico Beyond Solitude. An attempt at an intercultural analysis - critical review of the discourses of magical realism . Frankfurt a. M .: Passed away.
• (2008): Think, write, see the other. Writings on Romance Cultural Studies . With an introduction by Bernhard Waldenfels. Bielefeld: transcript (= Transcript Lettre).
• (2015): Thinking Latin America differently. Literature - power - space . With a foreword by Dieter Ingenschay, ed. by Vera Gerling / Santiago Navarro / Yasmin Temelli / Karolin Viseneber. Düsseldorf: dup.

Editorships

• (with Ponzi, Mauro) (eds.) (2006): Topografia dell'estraneo. Confini e passaggi. Milan: Mondadori.
• (with Schwarzer, Christine) (Ed.) (2006): Translation as a paradigm of the humanities and social sciences . Oberhausen: Athena.
• (with Brohm, Heike) (eds.) (2007): Transkulturation. Literary and media border areas in German-Italian cultural contact. Bielefeld: transcript.
• Borsò, Vittoria et al. (Ed.) (2010): Benjamin - Agamben. Politics, Messianism and Kabbalah. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
• (with Temelli, Yasmin / Viseneber, Karolin) (eds.) (2012): México: migraciones culturales - topografías transatlánticas. Acercamiento a las culturas desde el movimiento . Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert.
• (with Cometa, Michele) (ed.) (2013): The art of 'managing' life. Biós between politics, economy and aesthetics . With the assistance of Sieglinde Borvitz / Sainab Sandra Omar / Aurora Rodonò. Bielefeld: transcript.
• Borsò, Vittoria (ed.) (2014): Knowledge and Life - Knowledge for Life: Challenges of an Affirmative Biopolitics . Bielfeld: transcript.
• (with Seydel, Ute) (Ed.) (2014): Espacios históricos - espacios de rememoración: la historia mexicana decimonónica en las letras y la cultura visual de los siglos XX y XXI. México, DF: Bonilla Artigas Editores / Düsseldorf: dup.

• iMex Revista (co-editor): Borsò, Vittoria (ed.): El Arte de gobernar , 4, summer 2013/2014. ( Online )

Web links

• Literature by and about Vittoria Borsò in the catalog of the German National Library
• Page on the website of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
• Research Training Group "Materiality and Production"