Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature straniere e Culture moderne

Raissa Baroni got a BA in Foreign Languages and Cultures from the University of Urbino "Carlo Bo" in 2014, including a semester in Bamberg, Germany, through the Erasmus program.
In 2017, she completed her Master's degree in Foreign Languages for International Communication at the University of Turin, achieving full marks and honours for her thesis on "Models of Corporeality in Nazi Cinema as Propaganda Vehicles". This research work earned her the "Best Graduates" award from the University of Turin in 2019.
Throughout her academic career, Raissa Baroni has collaborated with Villa Vigoni, the Italo-German Centre for European Dialogue, which keenly welcomed her in their professional team for having contributed to the organisation of international events, and the British Council, where she was responsible for the set-up and administration of IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exams.
She received a merit scholarship in 2018 for a Master in Global Marketing, Communication & Made in Italy, organised by Centro Studi Comunicare l’impresa and the Italy-USA Foundation. That same year, Raissa Baroni published the article “Biopolitics and the Body in Nazi Cinema” in "RiCognizioni", the scientific journal of the Department of Foreign Languages and Modern Cultures at the University of Turin.

Since 2019, she has been a member of the editorial board of the A-level scientific journal CoSMo | Comparative Studies in Modernism, published semi-annually by the Centre for Comparative Modernisms (CSAM). In 2022, she joined the board of directors of CSAM and assumed the role of secretary, also renovating their official website.

In 2022, Raissa Baroni presented at the international conference "1922-2022 Total Modernism" in Turin; her paper "Le manifestazioni sensibili dell'uomo moderno. Dall’estetica metropolitana al cinema come riscatto: Simmel, Balázs, Kracauer" was published in the proceedings of the conference in 2023.
In 2022, her contribution "Lo sguardo del cinema italiano sulla crisi dei migranti" was published in the volume "Passato e presente nel cinema italiano. Storia e società sul grande schermo" by Vecchiarelli Editore.
In 2023, she has been appointed Fellow (“cultrice della materia”) in Cinema, photography, and television (academic field and discipline L-Art/06).
From 2020 to 2023, Raissa Baroni worked as a Corporate Innovation Strategist and Communication Manager for Connetto Srl, a consulting company. She was responsible for drafting projects for companies applying for national tenders, seeking subsidised financing, and accessing incentives for entrepreneurship.
Her research interests revolve around visual culture studies and global media studies, exploring media theory and the aesthetics of Otherness through an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach.

Title: "Migrant mediascapes: il cinema delle migrazioni come medium della comprensione interculturale nel patrimonio filmografico italiano e tedesco (2011-2026)” || “Migrant Mediascapes: Migration Cinema as a Medium for Intercultural Comprehension in the Italian and German Film Heritage (2011-2026)"
The project aims to identify cultural and aesthetics models in Italian and German cinematic representations of contemporary migrations that are able to foster intercultural dialogue.
While the migration theme itself is not novel, there is an urgent need to draw the attention of European citizens and institutions to the global responsibility regarding the issue of migrants' reception and the importance of cultural diversity for socially sustainable development. As compared to the extensive European literature on the subject, the specific contribution of this project explores new aesthetic and cultural perspectives in examining the agency of films focused on migratory processes and the symbolic, imaginary, and mythological dimensions of migration cinema.
With a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary theoretical-methodological approach, we reference the field of Global Media Studies, which offers an underexplored angle in Italy, and to which we will include the aesthetics perspective. The project will also examine audiovisual narratives of Otherness through the lenses of postcolonial studies, visual anthropology, film studies, and visual culture studies to further enrich the interdisciplinary perspective and promote a pluralistic outlook.
Borrowing from Arjun Appadurai the concept of “mediascapes”, emphasis is placed on media landscapes and global cultural flows in shaping individual and collective imaginaries, amplified by the pervasiveness of globally widespread electronic mediation devices. The contemporary ubiquity of media, coupled with technological advancements, has imparted unprecedented qualities to the crossings we witness. These qualities (beyond the increasing quantity of movements worldwide) pertain to cultural and symbolic exchanges occurring within media landscapes through the imaginary, actively contributing to the construction of narratives about the Other and alterity. The transmedial audiovisual storytelling or "ethno-fiction" (M. Augé), as it spreads and circulates through global flows intersecting "ethnoscapes" and "mediascapes", increasingly and decisively influences conceptions of "us" and "others," as well as concrete intercultural dynamics.
Furthermore, tracing the tradition of encounters and clashes between Mediterranean cultures, the research will consider the potential spread of a model of cultural pluralism that, recognising diversities, fosters intercultural dialogue in the spirit of a cosmopolitanism grounded in human coexistence and unitas multiplex.
The current significance of the theme is strongly evident in the proliferation of artistic and audiovisual representations of migrations, especially in countries like Italy and Germany – respectively, the first European destination for migrants in geographical terms and the largest in terms of reception. A comparative approach between Italian and German representations will also help construct an audiovisual grammar of migration tòpoi, myths and narratives and foster a fruitful exchange of perspectives, preventing the risk of self-reference and promoting the development of a cosmopolitan culture.
By investigating the potential of understanding inherent in cinema, and the level of agency in films related to migration processes since the Arab Spring, the project will lead to enhancing and systematising the film heritage in question. The tool for expressing the research outcomes will be a website-archive, enriched with artificial intelligence functionalities and including a film database, aimed at both disseminating innovative digital models for academic research and promoting social inclusion among a wider audience.