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Carola Barbero is a philosopher of language and literature and works mainly on the metaphysics and ontology of fictional entities, aesthetics and emotions, the phenomenology of reading, the distinction between literary and ordinary language. She has been visiting at the University of Auckland (2007) and visiting professor at ETH Zurich (2020). She has been member of the Steering Committee of the European Society for Analytic Philosophy (2010-2012). She is the author of many papers published in international reviews, and among her books are Madame Bovary: Something Like a Melody (Milan, 2005), Who fears Mr. Hyde? (in Italian - Genoa, 2010), Philosophy of Literature (in Italian - Rome, 2013), Meaning (in Italian, with S. Caputo - Rome 2018), The door of Phantasy (in Italian – Bologna 2019) and That Shiver in the Back. The languages of literature (in Italian – Bologna 2023). 

I am currently the PI of a PRIN PNRR project on how we perceive atmospheres (ATMOS) of ca. 230,000 € and of a FIS project on the relationship between sound and memory (HeaR) of ca. 1 million €. My main research interests are in the philosophy of mind and aesthetics. I also work on a number of topics in the philosophy of language and philosophy of music. I published extensively on auditory perception, the metaphysics of sound, and the content of perceptual experience.
I obtained my Ph.D. in Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (Milan) and the Institut Jean Nicod (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris). During my Ph.D. course, I spent research periods at the New York University, as a Fulbright Scholar, and the University of Sydney, as an ARIA (Association for Research between Italy and Australasia) Grantee.
Before joining the Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences in Turin as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Mind, I spent more that four years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Polonsky Academy at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (Israel). Before that, I held postdoctoral positions at the Italian Academy of Columbia University (NYC), Freie Universität Berlin (sponsored by DAAD), and University of Turin (sponsored by Franco and Marilisa Caligara Foundation).

I am currently Assistant Professor (rtd-b) at the University of Turin, Italy, and one of the founding members of the MUMBLE Research Group, at the Center for Logic, Language, and Cognition (LLC). I am also the co-Information Officer of the European Society of Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP) and the co-founder of Neural Mechanisms Online, the first world-wide series of synchronous online events dedicated entirely to  the interaction between philosophers and neuroscientists. My research interests fall at the intersection between philosophy and neuroscience, focusing on the cognitive and neural substrates of lexical and sentential meaning, mental imagery, perception, and reasoning, as well as foundational issues in cognitive neuroscience more generally. On these topics, I have published two monographs, one edited book, and several articles in national and international journals. 

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turin, specializing in philosophy of mind with additional interests and competence in metaphysics and philosophy of language. My research focuses on metaphysical questions concerning the nature and the structure of consciousness. My general goal is to offer a comprehensive account of conscious phenomena and their place within the mind and nature. 

So far, my research has concentrated on three core themes: (i) the relation between consciousness and intentionality; (ii) affective states (in particular, emotions and moods); and (iii) the experience of time. Currently, I am interested in high-level perceptual properties, what are their perceivability conditions, and their contribution to the phenomenal character of perceptual experience.

I obtained my PhD from the University of Milan. During my PhD, I was visiting scholar at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a visiting student at the Institut Jean Nicod (École Normale Supérieure) in Paris. On both occasions, I worked under the supervision of Prof. Uriah Kriegel.

Before coming to Turin, I worked as a postdoc the University of Fribourg, at the University of Liège, at the Centre for Philosophy of Time in Milan, and at the University of Macau.