Dialogue, a Space between, across and beyond Cultures and Disciplines : A Case Study of Lectures in Transcultural and Transdisciplinary Communication

The application of a transcultural and transdisciplinary approach to dialogue, underpinned by the contribution of the philosophy of dialogue, appears to be little investigated within the context of intercultural dialogue. Starting from transcultural and transdisciplinary teaching in two academic contexts, I propose an approach to dialogue as a space of relationship between, across and beyond cultures and disciplines. In academic year 2011-2012, I held two courses of transcultural dialogue in a Italian philosophical-theological faculty and three intensive schools of communication of scientific research for young researchers. There were twenty undergraduate students from five countries, with a majority of religious students from non-European countries, in the first context and thirty postgraduates, with a majority of Italian PhD students and post doctoral fellows of more than twenty scientific disciplines, in the second one. In both academic experiences I found an increasing students’ awareness to the meaning of dialogue, among cultures and disciplines, as opportunity to meet the other. The result has been a growing responsibility towards the contents and the method of courses and schools. Their comprehension did not depend on culture, choice of life (religious or lay students) or discipline, it was mediated by dialogue and was based on human experience. Dialogue may offer the space where cultures and disciplines may meet. This space of relationship between, across and beyond cultures and disciplines implies a call for a dialogue as a “lifestyle”, an attempt to apply this approach in everyday life, in addition to teaching and research on intercultural dialogue.