Word and Image: Theory in the 21st Century Texte et image : la théorie au 21ème siècle En Fr

Résumé En

Issue 5 of Interfaces – which is reproduced in this number – contains among other contributions papers by John Dixon Hunt, W.J.T. Mitchell and Jean-Michel Rabaté as well as by Marie-Odile Bernez and Maurice Géracht. Michel Baridon also provided a survey of research centres and periodicals, and an up-to-date bibliography devoted to the question, in which he carefully listed the then most recent major contributions to text/image theory in the fields of arts and literature, psychology, linguistics and sciences. His concluding words were “les perspectives qui s’ouvrent sont neuves et profondes […] Tout cela n’ira pas sans beaucoup de travail […] mais toute démarche novatrice court des risques qui sont à la taille de ses ambitions, et qu’est-ce qu’un chercheur qui recule quand une voie s’ouvre ?” (246). Those encouraging words were to find an echo in Dijon in June 2010 when the most recent Interfaces conference attempted to look once again at the question of the theories underlying the interactions between image and text. It was held in memory of Michel Baridon, the founder of our review, who made his life an example of interdisciplinary work, since he was able to embrace many fields of knowledge, from eighteenth-century England to garden history and the history of sciences. As a true gentleman and genuine lover of mankind, he will be fondly remembered by former colleagues and generations of students. A part of the grounds of the University of Burgundy is now devoted to his memory, with a small remembrance garden, including trees and a stone bench and plaque, inaugurated during the conference. This was also a way of marking the return of the Interfaces conferences to Dijon, after being hosted for many years either in Paris by Paris-Diderot or in the United States by The College of the Holy Cross. The partnership between the three universities was renewed by both Frédéric Ogée (Paris-Diderot) and Maurice Geracht (Holy Cross) who kindly agreed to chair sessions. Some of the participants in the 1993 conference were back, among whom Jean-Michel Rabaté and John Dixon Hunt, one of the guest speakers associated from the start with Michel Baridon’s studies on landscape gardening in the eighteenth century. Our other guest speaker was Liliane Louvel who gave a presentation of her current research. Young researchers were also given an opportunity to present their on-going research in two workshops devoted to them.