Editing Umberto Eco (section)

=== Anthropology of the West and ''The Island of the Day Before'' (1988–2000) ===
In 1988, Eco founded the Department of [[media studies|Media Studies]] at the [[University of the Republic of San Marino]], and in 1992 he founded the Institute of Communication Disciplines at the University of Bologna, later founding the Higher School for the Study of the Humanities at the same institution.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Umberto Eco|url=https://wordlift.io/blog/en/entity/umberto-eco/|access-date=18 August 2020|website=WordLift Blog|language=en-US|archive-date=16 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416011844/https://wordlift.io/blog/en/entity/umberto-eco/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Umberto Eco, academic, novelist and journalist, 1932–2016|url=https://www.ft.com/content/73952754-d7f3-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe09?mhq5j=e3|access-date=29 June 2017|website=Financial Times|date=20 February 2016|archive-date=27 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170927202333/https://www.ft.com/content/73952754-d7f3-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe09?mhq5j=e3|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1988, at the University of Bologna, Eco created an unusual program called ''Anthropology of the West'' from the perspective of non-Westerners (African and Chinese scholars), as defined by their own criteria. Eco developed this transcultural international network based on the idea of [[Alain le Pichon]] in [[West Africa]]. The Bologna program resulted in the first conference in [[Guangzhou, China]], in 1991 entitled "Frontiers of Knowledge". The first event was soon followed by an Itinerant Euro-Chinese seminar on "Misunderstandings in the Quest for the Universal" along the silk trade route from [[Guangzhou]] to Beijing. The latter culminated in a book entitled ''The Unicorn and the Dragon'',<ref>''The Unicorn and the Dragon'', Le Pichon, Alain; Yue Dayun (eds.) (1996), Beijing University Press. (bilingual French/English edition). French edition republished in 2003 and can be downloaded from publisher at: https://www.eclm.fr/livre/la-licorne-et-le-dragon/</ref> which discussed the question of the creation of knowledge in [[China]] and in [[Europe]]. Scholars contributing to this volume were from China, including [[Tang Yijie]], Wang Bin and Yue Daiyun, as well as from [[Europe]]: Furio Colombo, [[Antoine Danchin]], [[Jacques Le Goff]], [[Paolo Fabbri (semiotician)|Paolo Fabbri]] and [[Alain Rey]].<ref>{{Citation|last=Coppock|first=Patrick|title=A Conversation on Information|date=February 1995|url=http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/itc/eco/intro.html|type=interview|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100609064331/http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/itc/eco/intro.html|place=Denver|publisher=UC|access-date=9 June 2010|archive-date=9 June 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Eco published ''The Limits of Interpretation'' in 1990.

From 1992 to 1993, Eco was a [[Visiting scholar|visitor]] at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry. His [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures|Norton Lectures]] were subsequently collected and published as ''[[Six Walks in the Fictional Woods]]'' by [[Harvard University Press]] in 1994.<ref>{{cite book|title=Six Walks in the Fictional Woods|last=Ecco|first=Umberto|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=1994}}</ref>

That same year, Eco published his third novel, ''[[The Island of the Day Before]]'' (1994). The book, set in the 17th century, is about a man stranded on a ship within sight of an island which he believes is on the other side of the international date-line. The main character is trapped by his inability to swim and instead spends the bulk of the book reminiscing on his life and the adventures that brought him to be stranded.

He returned to semiotics in ''[[Kant and the Platypus]]'' in 1997, a book which Eco reputedly warned his fans away from, saying, "This a hard-core book. It's not a page-turner. You have to stay on every page for two weeks with your pencil. In other words, don't buy it if you are not Einstein."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Blackburn|first=Simon|title=Review of Umberto Eco: Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition, New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1999, 464pp. $28.00|url=http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Eco.htm|access-date=19 August 2020|website=www2.phil.cam.ac.uk|archive-date=2 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202222353/http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Eco.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

From 2001 to 2002, Eco was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor in [[comparative literature|Comparative European Literature]] at [[St Anne's College, Oxford]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=Weidenfeld Visiting Professorship in Comparative European Literature|url=https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/this-is-st-annes/about-us/weidenfeld-visiting-professorship-in-comparative-european-literature/|website=St Anne's College, Oxford|date=24 May 2023|access-date=7 October 2019|archive-date=5 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180905121903/http://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/about/weidenfeld-visiting-professorship-in-comparative-european-literature|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2000, a seminar in [[Timbuktu]] was followed up with another gathering in Bologna to reflect on the conditions of reciprocal knowledge between East and West. This, in turn, gave rise to a series of conferences in [[Brussels]], [[Paris]] and [[Goa]], culminating in [[Beijing]] in 2007. The topics of the Beijing conference were "Order and Disorder", "New Concepts of War and Peace", "Human Rights" and "Social Justice and Harmony". Eco presented the opening lecture. Among those giving presentations were anthropologists Balveer Arora, [[Varun Sahni]], and [[Rukmini Bhaya Nair]] from India, Moussa Sow from Africa, Roland Marti and [[Maurice Olender]] from Europe, Cha Insuk from [[Korea]], and Huang Ping and Zhao Tinyang from China. Also on the program were scholars from the fields of law and science including [[Antoine Danchin]], [[Ahmed Djebbar]] and Dieter Grimm.<ref>{{Citation|title=Vegetal and mineral memory|date=November 2003|url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/bo3.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040201224219/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/bo3.htm|place=EG|publisher=Ahgram|access-date=1 February 2007|archive-date=1 February 2004|url-status=dead}} Considers, among other things, [[encyclopedia]]s.</ref> Eco's interest in east–west dialogue to facilitate international communication and understanding also correlates with his related interest in the international auxiliary language [[Esperanto]].