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  6. Paradoxes and Misunderstandings in Cultural Transfers

Paradoxes and Misunderstandings in Cultural Transfers

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22 May 2019

24 May 2019

Louvain-la-Neuve

Sénat académique et Musée L

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Introduced in Cultural History in the late 1980s to cover the dead angles of comparative studies, the notion of cultural transfer refers to diverse phenomena of circulation, transformation and reinterpretation of cultural and textual goods across geo-cultural areas. As a research method intended to override national frameworks, Cultural Transfer Studies have inspired an increasing amount of interdisciplinary work in various fields such as Literary Studies (e.g., Lüsebrink 2008, Roland 2016), Translation Studies (e.g., Göpferich 2007, Roig-Sanz & Meylaerts 2018), or Cultural and Art History (e.g., Espagne 2013, Middell 2014). Beyond the sole idea of displacement between a source and a target culture, cultural transfers aim to do justice to the heterogeneity of each cultural zone and to the logics of intersection and hybridity by identifying enclaves, networks and vectors of exchanges. Inspired by the promises of ‘entangled history’/’Verflechtungsgeschichte’ (Werner & Zimmerman 2003) – which takes into account the reciprocity and multidirectionality of (re-)transfers –, recent studies have investigated the diversity, intertwining and non-linearity of a broad spectrum of transfer practices, including translations, thus giving voice to mediating activities and agencies largely ignored so far (e.g., D’hulst 2012).

Despite its conceptual relevance and the proliferation of case studies on mediators and border crossing phenomena, Transfer Studies seem to have reached a turning point. On the one hand and as already pointed out by Werner and Zimmerman (2003), even entangled objects, entities and practices do not escape pre-established categorizations and the essentialist pitfalls they entail. On the other hand, the insistence on coincidence and the methodological flattening out of any pre-existing borders, sometimes at the expense of historicity, risk to precipitate the methodological framework toward unproductive relativism. As a result, and because of a certain lack of consensus among theorists (Joyeux 2003), the added value and the merits of Transfers vis-à-vis related concepts in e.g. Postcolonial Studies, Translation Studies, transnational historiography or transcultural studies have been questioned.

What is the specificity of cultural transfers? Can it be thought outside the West European context? Can the notion of transfer help us to overcome disciplinary, national and linguistic borders? Or does it reaffirm them? How should we apprehend the (non-)linearity and asymmetry of transfer processes over various spaces and times? Is it possible to measure the impact of transfers and (how) can we evaluate their relative ‘success’?

Facing these questions and paradoxes, this conference would like to (re)think the viability of the concept of cultural transfer, its current and future challenges as well as its tools, objectives and epistemological framework(s) in an interdisciplinary perspective. The main issues we would like to discuss are related, but not limited, to four topics: (1) linearity, (2) borders/boundaries, (3) competing/connected concepts and (4) impact/success.

1) (Non-)Linearity. Transfer is a continuous process involving various moving sources and targets, such as institutions, languages, cultures, agents. How can we adequately apprehend them across time within or outside the reductionist source-target binarity, with its hierarchical and often too unidirectional frames?

2) Borders/Boundaries. Do transfers and translations create (Pym 1998), enforce (Leerssen 2014) and/or surpass borders? What is the impact of the researcher’s position on the way he/she conceives boundaries?

3) Competing/Connected concepts. Transfer is an omnipresent cultural phenomenon linked to concepts from other disciplines (e.g. hybridity, métissage, in-betweenness, transculturality, pluriculturality, translation, networks, third space, etc.). Do these related concepts go beyond purely conceptual discrepancies, and if so, can concepts from other disciplines bring insight to Transfer Studies, and vice versa?

4) Impact/success. (How) can we evaluate the function(s), impact and success of transfer processes over time? What can we learn from failed transfers? What are the consequences of misunderstandings and how to deal with them? How and when do researchers define a transfer as ‘successful’ or not?

 

Registration :

The participants of the conference are kindly asked to register before May 5, 11.59 PM at the latest.

The registration fee amounts to €10/day; this covers coffee breaks and the evening drink on the first night (on Wednesday 22/05). An optional contribution of €15/day needs to be paid to cover lunch costs, but you are free to make your own lunch arrangements.

Participation in the conference dinner, which takes place on Thursday evening, is optional and costs €50.

Any additional costs related to bank transfers are to be paid by the participants. It is possible to pay cash at the conference register desk (however, foreign currencies will not be accepted). Please inform the organisers in advance if you wish to pay cash.

Participants who wish to apply for a financial aid are kindly invited to register before April 7, 11.59 PM at the latest and to indicate this in the online registration form.  They are asked to send a cost estimate to the organizing committee, who will examine each application and decide on its eligibility, taking into account the number of requests and the available budget. Only tickets (airplane, train, public transport) in economy class will be considered for partial reimbursement and only those tickets and accommodation costs of which the price has been communicated in advance. Taxi costs will not be reimbursed.

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