Barbara Carnevali is full professor of philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France, and a recurrent visiting professor of social aesthetics at the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) in Mendrisio, Switzerland. She is leading the project City of Signs: Understanding Logos.
Carnevali was born in Milan, Italy, and earned her MA from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 1997 and PhD from the University of Urbino in 2001. She completed her education as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Chicago, US, and held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Following appointments as assistant professor at the University of Pisa and the University of Piemonte Orientale, Carnevali joined EHESS as associate professor in 2013. In 2021, she obtained her “Habilitation à diriger des recherches” from the École Normale Supérieure and was promoted to full professor (Directrice d’Études) in 2022.
She was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Paris and at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University, US. She has taught as a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan, and she regularly teaches at USI. Between 2022 and 2023, she curated the lecture series “The State of Art” at Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
Research Focus
Carnevali’s research centers on social aesthetics, examining the interplay between social phenomena and aesthetic forms. She is the author of Romantisme et reconnaissance (Geneva 2012, English edition in press) and Social Appearances (New York, 2020, winner of the Siracusa Prize for best philosophical essay in its Italian edition). Her articles have appeared in several international journals such as Les Annales, Critique, Revue de métaphysique et de morale, WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung and Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie. She is currently completing a new book, The Red Line: Milan and the Design of Modernity. She serves on the editorial board of the European Journal of Philosophy, is a scientific curator for the Italian Philosophy Festival, and is a regular columnist for the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Feature image: portrait courtesy of Barbara Carnevali. Right: Denise Scott Brown, Architettura Minore on The Strip, Las Vegas, 1966, Carnegie Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Elise Jaffe & Jeffrey Brown.