Komparatistik 2023

Imagining Cultural Transfers -Poetics of Cultural Contact, Circulation and ExchangeIntroductory noteThe articles of the group session explore the dynamics of cultural exchangein literature, examining the circulation of narratives, images, concepts, andideas travelling within and beyond cultural boundaries on a global scale. Culturalexchange proves to be a powerful stimulating agency of creative energyentailing a considerable transformative potential. Moreover, multiple forms ofcultural contact and transfer have been the object of individual and collectiveimaginations in a contemporary as well as a historical perspective. They constitutekey relationships at the very core of literary productions and artifacts inother media. In this context, the imaginative process of modeling and reflectingcultural transfer is not restricted to the limits of physical contact and empiricalfactuality. Far from being limited to mere exotism, imaginings and aesthetic representationsof cultural contact play a crucial part in the evolution of cultures.They may also, for instance, draw on oral as well as recorded sources of myth,folklore, fantasy or even the phenomena of virtual reality.The panel's contributions focus on the different imaginings of cultural transfersand their dynamics in literary texts. They analyze the poetic and stylisticforms designed to express and capture the cultural circulation of concepts,images, and experiences as well as their innovative and transformative implications.(Translations, for example, play an important role in this context.)Furthermore, they may also reflect on the relation between notions of culturaltransfer and comparative literature as an academic discipline. For example,key terms of the discipline such as 'world literature' can be questioned (e. g.the relevance of cross-cultural contacts for the thinking of 'world literature'and examined in regard to their implicit evaluations (e. g. the dominance of aWestern canon, relationships between 'major' and 'minor' literatures).