Presentation. In Other Words

Twenty-five years ago, in 1999, the first issue of Chiasmi International appeared.Only two years prior I had sent my first email.It is important to note this because it is obvious that, without electronic messaging, a trilingual international journal published once a year would have been unthinkable.Two years before September 11, 2001, the world was still immersed in a decade Jean Baudrillard considered devoid of any "symbolic event on a global scale", 1 whereas, from that date on, a succession of such events began -almost always of the catastrophic type -and has not since been interrupted.However, for studies in Merleau-Ponty's thought, this was a decade where a real turning point did take place.It began with the publication of two monographic works, the result of two doctoral theses, which -after twenty years of silence -reread, restored, and releaunched Merleau-Pontian philosophy: mine in 1990, Renaud Barbaras' in 1991. 2 That same year, this crucial decade continued in Grenoble, France with a conference that, for the first time, brought together a number of young specialists in Merleau-Ponty's thought, and highlighted a difference in their point of view from the Merleau-Ponty scholars who came before them. 3 In addition, this decade saw the publication of decisive unpublished material: the Collge de France course notes from the half of the 1950's. 4 These publications were accompanied by a series of international conferences that took place in short intervals -in Paris 1995 led by Barbaras, in Seattle 1997 led by Patrick Burke, and in Milan 1998 led be me -which immediately studied and debated the ideas emerging from those very publications.Finally, the decade ended with the birth of the present trilingual international journal dedicated, as I wrote on the back cover of the first issue, "not only to the work of Merleau-Ponty but, more generally, to the field of thought which was born and develops around his philosophy".It is precisely this task that we have pursued for twenty-five years, even if it is strange to summarize so succinctly a long journey, never taken for granted, by which, little by little, we have become an essential landmark for the international community of Merleau-Ponty specialists, a community that, at the same time, was also formed thanks to the decisive contribution of Chiasmi International.On the one hand, we have encouraged, accompanied, and federated the Merleau-Pontian Forschung ; on the other hand, we have been increasingly led -by exactly the same community of which this review is the expression

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