Global Fences: Literatures, Limits, Borders

International audienceIn a recent book, published after a series of conferences held in Japan, French philosopher Regis Debray makes a praise of "frontiers"1. His stand is polemical, paradoxical, and challenging in a world more and more influenced both by discourses on globalization and internationalization, as well as by an (inter)national withdrawal to (imagined) national traditions, beliefs, narratives. The polemical intent was effective, and the essay was received with many critics; of course we do not endorse a discourse that defines what is in and what is (or shall be) out; but it surprising how effective and potentially explosive every politically incorrect stand against a world without frontier could still resonate in a consensual intellectual milieu. The interesting point in Debray's essay is a re-evaluation of the borders; of course, not intended as seclusion or a closure, but as a source of (intellectual) pleasure: crossing a border could be an exciting experience, meant to fuel curiosity, to arouse questions and relativize a worldview that could become claustrophobic. The idea is to discuss and give nuance to a category too often given for granted