How do metaphors of borders enable us to understand interdisciplinarity better? What does interdisciplinarity tell us about concepts of facilitating, policing, transgressing? How does the border crossing relate to fragmentation? How do ideas of emancipation and freedom fit in?
The main areas we discussed were border crossing and transgressing. We looked at the fact that the literary rhetorical load of the great work of art in Italy made it more difficult for Italians to transgress. We also looked at how much the establishment recognized the transgression, especially in relation to the time lag between the border crossings in the arts and its recognition in Universities and other parts of the establishment. Croce’s influence on early 20th society was of particular importance, as effectively policed the boundaries of art to exclude, for example, fashion (an attitude that postmodernism, with its fusing of high and low art, changed).
However, conversely, the use of the avant-garde by the fascist establishment means that there is a utility to saying “no”, i.e. when border-crossing is taken on by particular powers within the establishment. Boundaries may then need to be reinstated. As Eco tells us, of course, the revolutions of the past become the conventions of the present.
In other words, there is a “multispeed” aspect to porosity which needs to be taken into account. In early twentieth century, there was a porosity between the high arts, but not really between high and low. We thought it interesting to explore further which boundaries were, and were not, porous.
We brought in the architectural term of “refunctioning” in relation to traditional arts and the idea of “disorderly return” which springs up at the borders between the reactionary and the progressive.
We also touched on policy in relation to transgression: in the current teaching of Italian Studies, there is a sidelining of literature in favour of an interdisciplinary approach. To go against the dominant ideology of interdisciplinarity is in this context revolutionary.
In relation to creativity, the group generally felt that boundary crossing between the arts in Modernism was not necessarily a magic formula for creativity. Being constrained can increase creativity.
