De Gruyter Brill, forthcoming, 17 Dec 2026
This book offers the first systematic philosophical account of fictional books as fictional entities, defining the category and examining its main functions from antiquity to the present.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2026. Fictional Books: Theory and Functions of a Fictional Entity. De Gruyter Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004775893.
Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2025
This paper examines asemic writing through the concepts of sense and meaning, using Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus (1981) as its main case study.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2025. “Sense Without (Semantic) Meaning? The Case of Asemic Writing.” Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics 16: 160–192.
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Comparatismi, 2024
This paper retraces Alice’s journey through the three moments of entering, dwelling in, and leaving Wonderland, describing it as a possible world constructed through literary nonsense.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2024. “Vivere Wonderland: Entrare, Abitare e Uscire.” Comparatismi 9: 254–274. https://doi.org/10.14672/20242689.
Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2024
This programmatic paper surveys major debates on literary nonsense, challenging predominantly negative definitions and proposing a positive and productive aesthetics based on recurring formal features. Its main case study is Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark (1876).
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2024. “For the Snark was a Boojum.” Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics 15: 384–395.
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Filosofia, 2024
Co-authored with Carola Del Pizzo, this paper introduces the special issue Sci-Phi by reflecting on the philosophical value of science-fictional visions.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino, and Carola Del Pizzo. 2024. “Ma i filosofi sognano (pecore elettriche)?” Filosofia 69: 9–14. https://doi.org/10.13135/2704-8195/11235.
Rivista di Estetica, 2023
This paper examines the reading of hypertexts, especially narrative ones, reconstructing its phenomenology and reflecting on readerly freedom in non-linear texts.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2023. “Per una fenomenologia dell’iper-lettura.” Rivista di Estetica 84 (3): 137–155. https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.9711.
Discipline Filosofiche, 2022
This paper develops an early version of my account of fictional books, focusing on truth-in-fiction and on the sense in which such entities can mislead or deceive.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2022. “Esistono libri che non esistono. Pseudobiblia: una definizione e uno studio degli effetti.” Discipline Filosofiche 32 (2): 215–236. https://doi.org/10.1400/290225.
Critica Letteraria, 2021
This paper analyzes Italo Calvino’s “Il conte di Montecristo” (Ti con zero, 1967) in light of Calvino’s reflections on combinatorics and reader-response theories of the reader’s role in the co-creation of narratives and literary meaning.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2021. “La macchina letteraria.” Critica Letteraria 49 (191): 363–378. https://doi.org/10.26379/1507.
Filosofia, 2020
This paper examines ruins from philosophical and anthropological perspectives, proposing a definition and a typology of ruins, debris, and sites, and exploring their aesthetic experience and possible reuses.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2020. “Rovine. Una tipologia ed un tentativo di definizione.” Filosofia 65: 9–16. https://doi.org/10.13135/2704-8195/5238.
Studies in Lewis Carroll’s Logic, forthcoming
This chapter offers the first close reading of Lewis Carroll’s A Tangled Tale (1885), reconstructing its context, locating it within Carroll’s literary and scientific work, and examining its distinctive conception of logic through comparison with contemporary debates on rule-constituted entities.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. (2026). “The Logic Playground: Untangling A Tangled Tale.” In Studies in Lewis Carroll’s Logic, edited by F. F. Abeles, A. Moktefi, and M. Richards. Springer.
Dreams of an Electric Critic, 2026
This chapter asks whether generative-AI chatbots can genuinely read and interpret literary texts, especially poetry. It argues for a renewed emphasis on the human dimension of interpretation and supports an instrumental conception of AI.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2026. “Cold Interpretations: AI and the Phenomenology of Reading.” In Dreams of an Electric Critic, edited by D. Raffini, B. Lenk, and C. Caloro, 161–169. Lithos.
Pensare (con) la “letteratura”. Temi e modelli di “filosofia della letteratura”, 2025
This chapter reflects on the relation between philosophy and literature through Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and two of its later receptions: Antonin Artaud’s engagement with Carroll at Rodez in the 1940s and Gianni Celati’s in Bologna in 1977.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2025. “Down the Rabbit Hole. Disambientamenti tra letteratura e filosofia.” In Pensare (con) la “letteratura”. Temi e modelli di “filosofia della letteratura”, 143–162. Mimesis.
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Sguardi dal Mediterraneo, 2024
This chapter examines Mediterranean noir, starting from Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseille Trilogy (1995, 1996, 1998), as a distinctively Mediterranean mode of writing situated within a long cultural tradition extending from Genesis and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to Albert Camus.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2024. “Il mare colore del vino.” In Sguardi dal Mediterraneo, edited by M. Manca, 47–61. Mesogea.
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Sguardi dal Mediterraneo, 2024
This essay introduces the volume Sguardi dal Mediterraneo, written by the Encrucijada research group between 2020 and 2022, reconstructing its shared theoretical framework and its conception of the Mediterranean as a frontier.
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino. 2024. “Encrucijada.” In Sguardi dal Mediterraneo, edited by M. Manca, 5–11. Mesogea.
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Mesogea, 2024
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino, ed. 2024. Sguardi dal Mediterraneo. Mesogea.
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Filosofia, 2024
Recommended citation: Manca, Martino, and Carola Del Pizzo, eds. 2024. Sci-Phi. Special issue of Filosofia 69. Mimesis.
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