Philosophy and Aesthetics

Thinking through Fermenting: Microbes, Identities, and the Culture of Care
Archive Three-year degree thesis Philosophy and Aesthetics

Thinking through Fermenting: Microbes, Identities, and the Culture of Care

18 February 2026 Giorgia Cravero Elena Mancioppi, Nicola Perullo

This thesis investigates fermentation as a material, philosophical, and relational practice, exploring the dynamic relationship between microbes, identity, and care. Moving beyond a purely biochemical understanding, fermentation is examined as a site where human and microbial agencies intersect, challenging anthropocentric assumptions about authorship, control, and subjectivity. By engaging with microbial life not merely as an … …read more

Fermentation As Making-With Microbial Life: Fostering A Sourdough Starter As A Way To Reimagine Mortality
Archive Master's thesis Philosophy and Aesthetics

Fermentation As Making-With Microbial Life: Fostering A Sourdough Starter As A Way To Reimagine Mortality

17 November 2025 Teresa Tessari Nicola Perullo, Elena Mancioppi

Fermentation, the human acquired practice of transforming food through the collaboration with microorganisms such as yeasts and bacteria, is a wide and interdisciplinary matter, concerning vastly different disciplines: from microbiology to anthropology, from chemistry to philosophy. Simply put, fermentation demonstrates the infinite connections existing within our reality and its consideration can be fruitful both from … …read more

DULCIS IN PRINCIPIO: Indagine scientifica, estetica e culturale del gusto dolce
Archive Three-year degree thesis Philosophy and Aesthetics

DULCIS IN PRINCIPIO: Indagine scientifica, estetica e culturale del gusto dolce

20 August 2025

La tesi affronta il tema del gusto dolce, proponendo un’indagine filosofica che si sviluppa, al tempo stesso, attraverso un approccio transdisciplinare, capace di esplorarne le dimensioni scientifiche, estetiche e culturali. Tradizionalmente relegato a mera conclusione conviviale, il dolce viene qui assunto non come epilogo, ma come incipit di una riflessione che mira a restituirgli una … …read more

A History of Wine, Spirits and Drunkenness in Art
Archive Master's thesis Philosophy and Aesthetics

A History of Wine, Spirits and Drunkenness in Art

17 May 2024 Joel Welch Nicola Perullo

This thesis explores the intertwining narratives of wine, spirits, and drunkenness in art history, examining the cultural, social, and symbolic significance of these elements. In this case, I have examined the presentation of wine, spirits, and drunkenness in art in two significant art periods: the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century and late 19th/early … …read more

Agriculture as a tool to overcome the urban crisis of imagination
Archive Three-year degree thesis Philosophy and Aesthetics

Agriculture as a tool to overcome the urban crisis of imagination

20 July 2022 Philip Linander Prof. Dr. Nicola Perullo

A creative journey to the margins of being   This thesis is a philosophical/auto-ethnographic/artistic inquiry into the beneficial aspects of farming, in the light of individualisation and commodification of society, as I show it to be a marginal experience of both identity and body. The following philosophers with respective concepts are used: Tim Ingold and … …read more

La Mia Camicia di Fatica
Archive Master's thesis Philosophy and Aesthetics

La Mia Camicia di Fatica

29 June 2022 Diliara Mukhamedzhanova Prof. Dr. Nicola Perullo

Approaching the Aesthetic Sensibility and Epistemology of An Artisan-Farmer and its Cosmogonic Possibilities The two central problematics of this thesis are the historical marginalisation of artisanal knowledge and practices, and the increasingly endemic crisis of reality which is being experienced in Western modernity. I argue that these two seemingly distant problems are in fact symptoms … …read more