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DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies Imaginaria of Force

Photo: Creative Commons/YaYapas

Prof. em. Dr. Victor Stoichita

 

Curriculum

Victor I. Stoichita (Bucharest 1949) is Emeritus at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He was awarded the Louvre Chair in 2014, the Erwin Panofsky Chair at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, the Bernard Berenson Lectures at Harvard University's Centre for Renaissance Studies (I Tatti) in 2016, the European Chair at the College de France in 2018 and the Hegel Lecture at the Freie Universität in Berlin 2022. In 2020, he was awarded the scientific prize of the Aby Warburg Foundation in Hamburg and the Martin Warnke Medal. He is the author of several works on the history of art, translated throughout the world, and of an autobiographical novel which was awarded the Prix de l'Académie Française in 2015.

Publications (selection)

  • The Self-Aware Image. An Insight into the Earyl Modern Metapainting, 1993 (second improved edition), London/Turnhout, Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2015 (German, French, Italian, Spanish, Rumanian, Polish, Japanese, Portuguese, Farsi, Chinese translations).
  • Brève Histoire de l’ombre, 2000 (new improved edition), Geneva, Droz, 2019 (English improved edition 2019; German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Rumanian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic translations).
  • Darker Shades. The Racial Other Early Modern Art (The Louvre Lectures “L’Image de l’Autre. Noirs, Juifs, Musulmans et Gitans à l’aube des Temps Modernes”, 2014), London, Reaktion Books, 2019 (French, Rumanian, Spanish, Italian translations).
  • L‘Effet Sherlock Holmes. Variations du regard de Manet à Hitchcock, Paris, Hazan, 2015 (Romanian, Italian and Spanish translations).
  • The Pymalion Effect, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2008 (Spanish, Italian, Japanese, French, Romanian, German and Portuguese translations).
  • Oublier Bucarest, Arles, Actes Sud, 2014 (Médaille de Vermeil of the Académie Française; Spanish, Italian and Rumanian translations).

Research project: Gender Troubles. The Achilles Heel

We know the story: Thetis would have plunged Achilles into the Styx, one of the rivers of the Underworld, to harden his skin. His body became invulnerable but his heel, by which his mother held him, was not soaked and remained that of a mortal, which would later lead to his destruction under the walls of Troy.  The legend is posthomeric and there have been difficulties in tracing its sources. It will only be in the Achilleid of Statius (94-96 AD) that the acquisition of invulnerability (partial and therefore illusory) through an action which symbolically crosses death and resurrection will find its literary expression. But this magical ritual, – Thetis knows – would be insufficient for the acquisition of impenetrable skin, which is why, obstinately, the nereid develops a cunning plan: to provide her child, even if only for a time, with another protective envelope, capable of keeping him far from the Trojan War. A paradoxical envelope, if ever there was one, because these are women's clothes.

The interest aroused by the episode of Achilles in Scyros, and in particular by the transgender intrigue addressed by Statius, has long gone beyond the strict domain of classical studies. Anthropology, cultural history, gender studies, psychology, even psychoanalysis have looked at him and investigations are still underway.

My project questions the way in which two famous painters of early modernity (Rubens and Poussin) confronted the construction of this narrative.

Research results: Gender Troubles. The Achilles Heel

The project has developed in an unexpected direction, centred around the ‘transgender story’ of Achilles on Skyros. According to the Achilleis by P. P. Statius (94–96 AD), Thetis knows that immersing her son Achilles in the Styx will not be enough to make his body invulnerable; however, she persists and devises a cunning plan: she must provide her son with another protective covering – even if only for a certain time – a covering that is capable of keeping Achilles away from the war in Troy. A paradoxical covering, if it is one at all, for these are women's clothes. Thetis tries to show that such a disguise would not affect the young man's actual nature (nil nocitura animo), for it would have the function of an ad hoc ‘protective layer’ (tegumen) <I.268-270>.

The interest aroused by Achilles' adventure on Skyros, where Thetis ‘hid’ him among Lycomedes' daughters, and the transgender story of Statius in particular, have long since ceased to be the subject of classical antiquity studies alone: anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, psychology and psychoanalysis are now concerned with the subject and investigations are still being carried out.

In my research, I try to show the way in which two famous painters of the early modern period, Rubens and Poussin, visualised this theme. Rubens demonstrates a reflection on ‘similarity’ that is dissolved, deactivated, reversed and inverted in favour of ‘difference’. Poussin's ‘concetto’ has a twofold effect: on the one hand, an object relating to beauty and traditionally attributed to women (the mirror) is transferred to a scenario of male identity-finding, while on the other hand the original scenario of the Achilleis (I, 844-866) is deconstructed.