La catastrofe fra natura e cultura: riflessioni semiotiche sulla fine del mondo

The theme of the “end of the world” has always been largely present in the collective imaginary, from mythical and religious eschatology to ecological policies, from dystopian fiction to contemporary journalism, and so on and so forth. Such representations are generally characterised by one or more catastrophic events causing the destruction of the Earth and/or the annihilation of mankind. However, if sometimes such events are to be understood in the sense of natural disasters or calamities, other times they rather take the shape of cultural catastrophes. In fact, these catastrophic genres have always been interconnected: while natural disasters seem to be partially related to ecological or social dislocations caused by (sometimes unconscious, sometimes irresponsible) human actions, cultural catastrophes can also be conceived as “natural” entropic degenerations of complex organisations. This paper draws on these observations, as well as on the analysis of relevant case studies, with the main aim of studying catastrophes and their collective representations in relation to the crucial issue of “multi–naturalism” — or “inter–naturality” — and the heuristic and ontological value of the anthropological categories of Nature and Culture.