ABSTRACT
Forgive me if I begin my afterword with a sentence which might be perceived as a self-serving humility topos, but it is impossible to offer in a few pages a fair account of the quality, variety and complexity of the arguments so admirably discussed in the essays collected in this volume. The credit for all this most interesting reading goes to the authors as well as to James Elkins’ and Robert Williams’ brilliant regia. If I dare to add my opinion to this very distinguished chorus, it has to do with my own biography, which is characterized by prolonged professional experiences in four completely different geographical areas, namely Italy, the United Kingdom, California, a land with its own distinctive intellectual panorama, and Germany. This fact should not be misinterpreted as a claim to “objectivity”; it means only that I inevitably evaluate certain issues through the filter of my own prejudices and shortcomings, from multiple standpoints. Such a background can be both an asset and a liability. It is an asset in that it has given me a deep respect for different methodological traditions: for example, the great tradition of Italian scholarship devoted to the study of theoretical writing on the arts yet not especially engaged with modern critical theory. It is a liability in that the brilliant array of possibilities it offers me can be overwhelming: seeming
to point to an inevitable and all-consuming relativism, it can induce a kind of aphasia or paralysis.
