Luigi Casolino

Research Project

Role of the Contemporary Cultural Industry in Shaping Forms of Subjectivity that are Less Capable of Democratic Experience

My stay at the Center for Post-Kantian Studies at the University of Potsdam is part of REACT, an MSCA Staff Exchanges project that, within a theoretical-critical framework, investigates the role of the contemporary cultural industry in shaping forms of subjectivity that are less capable of democratic experience. During the Potsdam phase, I will engage with the philosophical debates on autonomy, subjectivity, and aesthetic experience, contributing to their transfer to the relevant research unit, where these results will be reconsidered from a critical-aesthetic perspective and translated into prompts useful for the work of the artistic partners involved in the subsequent phases of the project.
This task closely intersects with my doctoral research, which aims to reconstruct the philosophical image of music emerging from a cross-reading of Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. Starting from the concept of repetition, investigated in its sonic forms, my work traces the emergence of implications that move from the aesthetic field toward sociological and historical dimensions. In this context, the main purpose will be to provide an operational framework for a theoretical and practical-performative dialogue between the articulated binomial of music-language and contemporary forms of music production.

This project is conducted as part of the Marie Curie Staff Exchange Project REACT, examining how the dynamics of the contemporary culture industry and digital capitalism expose the crisis of contemporary liberalism, reshape subjectivity, and foster authoritarian tendencies.