Figura

Figura Archive: Studies on the Classical tradition

Figure: Studies on Classical Tradition was founded in 2013 by prof. Dr. Luiz Marques with the aim of being a space for the dissemination of studies on the classical tradition. Linked to the Brazilian Society of Renaissance Studies (SBER), its publication was carried out by researchers and professors from UNICAMP, UERJ and UNIFESP. The magazine soon became a lively space, housing studies from various temporalities, disciplines and geographies. Its publication contributed enormously to consolidating, in Brazil, medieval and Renaissance studies in the field of Art History.
In 2023, after completing 10 years, the magazine goes on hiatus. At this stage, your files will become available on the UNIFESP electronic platform, kindly hosted by Imagem: Revista de História da Arte. We thus guarantee public access to published research, in accordance with the journal's original philosophy, as well as preserving its memory, in the hope that this important project can be resumed in the future.

                                                                                           
Focus and scope
Figure: Studies on Classical Tradition is an international magazine to be published online and with unrestricted access, in order to disseminate current research and writing on the repertoire of the classical tradition. The magazine covers studies of the visual and textual culture of Antiquity, as well as appropriations and transfigurations of this legacy in the ancient and post-ancient world. Post-antiquity can be considered to include the contemporary period; therefore, the cut-off point used as a frame of reference for the content proposed by Figura is conceptual and not temporal, which requires a distinction in this regard.

 

Focus and scope
Figure: Studies on Classical Tradition is an international magazine to be published online and with unrestricted access, in order to disseminate current research and writing on the repertoire of the classical tradition. The magazine covers studies of the visual and textual culture of Antiquity, as well as appropriations and transfigurations of this legacy in the ancient and post-ancient world. Post-antiquity can be considered to include the contemporary period; therefore, the cut-off point used as a frame of reference for the content proposed by Figura is conceptual and not temporal, which requires a distinction in this regard.

Classical Tradition
It is useful to note the multidimensionality of the notion of “classic” by adopting an approach previously seen as negative. Classical here does not refer to a style codified in the various historical classicisms whose shared characteristics, so to speak, were a preference for an elevated repertoire, a sense of centrality, unity, structural transparency, an ideal of simplicity, a taste for disciplined play. between rule and variety. Secondly, the classic here has no relationship with a psychology of perception that would see it as a constant of the spirit. Thirdly, the classic here would not be associated with any judgmental residue, within the framework of a classical/anti-classical antithesis, in which the second term would be reserved for impulses or impulses of a creative, innovative, experimental or subjective nature.
Once freed from these three “classical” senses wrapped in overly specific perspectives, the notion of classical tradition can be defined more objectively. It refers to the historical process by which the cultures that emerged from Mediterranean Antiquity structured their mental coordinates, topics and argumentative procedures to constitute a repertoire of forms (visual, literary, rhetorical, mythological, philosophical, religious, scientific, musical, etc.) in an incessant movement of crystallization, transmission and transformation of the meanings of ancient models.

 

Objective
In this conceptual perspective, the objective of the Figure is to stimulate academic studies of clearly delimited specific phenomena and issues, but with the spirit of encouraging dialogue between different fields of knowledge and expanding the debate, taking into account the autonomous – and at the same time interconnected – character of spheres of visual and textual culture.
In short, it encourages research that does not lose sight of the various aspects of the term for which the journal was named – Figure – disseminated by Erich Auerbach's unfailingly contemporary 1938 essay [1]. From exile in Istanbul, Auerbach had a much greater reach when narrating the gesture of a European word whose plasticity is inscribed in its own history. Its original meaning was concrete and visual – “object modeled in clay” by a potter (figulus [2]), but more layers of meaning were gradually added, encompassing sensible appearance and forms related to grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and then even music and dance.

Utque Novis facilis signatur wax figuris
Nec manet ut fuerat Formas ne SERVAT easdem,
Sed tamen ipsa eadem est... [3]

 

Editorial Structure
Figura hopes to publish studies in archeology and art history, remaining open to aesthetics and history of literature, music, rhetoric, philosophy and religion, prioritizing approaches that do not lose sight of Antiquity as the frame of reference in which the phenomena studied are situated.
This editorial structure aims to offer a range of texts in which current studies and texts in the repertoire are balanced and correspond to each other, whether they are sources or significant markers in the history of reflection on the classical tradition.

Whenever possible, therefore, each edition of the Figure will contain:
1. a thematic dossier;
2. occasional studies;
3. a comment on an exhibition or museum initiative;
4. a review of an essay or new publication;
5. a source or text from the repertoire, preceded by an introduction contextualizing it and justifying its relevance.

 

Figura will accept contributions in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
*The Journal does not charge any type of fee for submitting or editing proposals and access is free.
* The Journal does not charge for submissions or processing. Figura is an open access journal.
_________________________________________________________________
[1] See Erich Auerbach, “Figure”. Archivium Romanicum, 22, 1938, pp. 436-489, republished in Neue Dantesudien, Istanbul: I. Horoz, 1944.
[2] Cf. A. Ernout, A. Millet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine (1932), Paris: Klincksieck, 2001, p. 235: “fingo, -is, finxi, fictum, -gere: property ‘modeler dans l'argile’, cf. figulus, «potier» (…); fictitious ‘pâtissier’ and ‘sculptpteur’; (…) Varr., LL 7: fictor cum dicit fingo, figuram imponit [“The creator of images (fictor), when he says fingo (I form), puts a figure in the thing”]. Puis par extension: “façonner” (in general, physical and moral sense)”.
[3] Ovid, Met., XV, 169-171, ed. G. Lafaye, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1962, vol. III, p. 126. (“And as the soft wax is stamped with new figures and does not remain as it was, nor maintains the same forms, although it remains the same…”).

 

Publisher History

2013 – 2014
Luiz Marques
Luciano Migliaccio

2015 – 2016
Alexandre Ragazzi

2017 – 2020
Alexandre Ragazzi
Patricia Meneses
Cassio Fernandes

2020 – 2022
Fernanda Marinho
Evelyne Azevedo

Editorial Board
Cássio Fernandes - Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil
Alexandre Ragazzi - State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Maria Berbara - State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Luiz Marques - State University of Campinas, Brazil
Tamara Quírico - State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

International Advisory Board
Juliana Barone - Birkbeck University of London, United Kingdom
Jens Baumgarten - Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil
José Emilio Burucúa - National University of San Martín, Argentina
Liana de Girolami Cheney - SIELAE, University of Coruña, Spain
Gerardo de Simone - Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara, Italy
Maurizio Ghelardi - Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy
Juan Luis González García - Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
Alessandro Nova - Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Italy
Carlo Rescigno - Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Italy
Neville Rowley - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany
Claudia Valladão de Mattos - State University of Campinas, Brazil

Cataloging in Publication prepared by: Gildenir Carolino Santos - CRB-8ª/5447 Copyrights
The journal Figura: Studies on the Classical Tradition uses the Creative Commons (CC) license, thus preserving the integrity of the articles in an open access environment. The journal allows the author to hold the publication rights without restrictions.

Ethics
Figure: Studies on the Classical Tradition (Sistema de Bibliotecas/UNICAMP), electronic ISSN 2317-4625, is dedicated to complying with good practices regarding moral conduct consistent with scientific journal editing, based on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) code of conduct . The prevention of negligence is also a crucial responsibility of the editor and the editorial team: any form of unethical behavior, as well as plagiarism in any instance, is not accepted in Connections. Authors submitting articles to the journal declare that their content is original and guarantee that the work has not been published nor is it in the process of review/evaluation in any other journal.