Text and Context: Genius Loci (A Preface)

Abstract

This book illustrates the talks and discussions in the ‘Dialogue’ that was held on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, in September 2012. A small group of experts and scholars from different cultural and professional backgrounds addressed the theme, ‘Re-visioning the World: Myths of Universal Knowledge and Aesthetics of Global Imaging’. This preface will help the reader grasp the logic and spirit of this book by setting it in the temporal, spatial, and institutional context that generated it. Since 2004, the San Giorgio Dialogues have eschewed the traditional format of academic conferences. They emphasize spontaneous conversation over erudite prepared papers, crossovers of language, and epistemology over specialized disciplines, and give equal importance to sensory knowledge and aesthetic communication and to intellectual and discursive knowledge.