The Stone Art Theory Institutes is a series of books that centre on the status of art theory as it is thought and used in academia and in the art world. Each volume is devoted to particular 'words' and 'concepts' that are thought-provoking, wide-reaching in terms of research and thus in need of much deconstruction. This first volume focuses on words like globalisation, translation, governmentality, and hybridity, and is a result of a week-long event attended by international scholars held in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The contributors, unlike giving lectures and conventional paper presentation, attended long sessions of seminars and panel discussions, the result of which are transcribed into texts that are edited into this volume. This explains the straightforwardness of the texts within the book.

'The “biennale culture” now determines much of the art world. Literature on the worldwide dissemination of art assumes nationalism and ethnic identity, but rarely analyzes it. At the same time there is extensive theorizing about globalization in political theory, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, political economy, sociology, and anthropology. Art and Globalization brings political and cultural theorists together with writers and historians concerned specifically with the visual arts in order to test the limits of the conceptualization of the global in art.
Among the major writers on contemporary international art represented in this book are Rasheed Araeen, Joaquín Barriendos, Susan Buck-Morss, John Clark, Iftikhar Dadi, T. J. Demos, Néstor García Canclini, Charles Green, Suman Gupta, Harry Harootunian, Michael Ann Holly, Shigemi Inaga, Fredric Jameson, Caroline Jones, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Anthony D. King, Partha Mitter, Keith Moxey, Saskia Sassen, Ming Tiampo, and C. J. W.-L. Wee.' - from publisher's website.

The Seminars are rough-edited, participants-reviewed scripts from the event. The Assessments section are written by those who did not attend the seminars. The resulting volume is hence an articulate and intimate conversation across geographical boundaries.

Includes notes on the contributors and an index.