Reflections on Distance: A Dialogue with Carlo Ginzburg and Gian Paolo Gri, Discussing Wooden Eyes

Abstract

Seeing things as if it was the first time: this possibility opens up when we adopt a distant gaze, we operate an estrangement, a disorientation. “We are all disoriented in relation to something or someone,” wrote Carlo Ginzburg, inviting us to reflect on the cognitive and ethical potential of an estranged gaze. Starting from the recent re-edition of Ginzburg’s pivotal essay on distance, in this interview, Sergia Adamo talks with the author and Gian Paolo Gri, an anthropologist and a scholar of traditional and popular knowledge. The interview was carried out in Udine, on July, 3rd 2021, during the Vicino/Lontano festival. The video of the interview can be found on Youtube. The event was organized in collaboration with the “Straniamenti” research group of the Department of Humanities of the University of Trieste.