Introduction: The Interpretation of Cultures at Fifty

Introducing the symposium “The Interpretation of Cultures at Fifty,” editors Andrea Cossu and Matteo Bortolini reflect on the dynamics of the iconicization of texts and the paradoxical quality of so-called “classics”: their being present while being rewritten and forgotten. A brief illustration of the papers by the contributors to the symposium — Joan W. Scott, Anne Taylor and Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ann Swidler and Ronald Jepperson, Simon Susen, and Monika Krause — completes the introduction.