The transnational research seminar is dedicated to the study of cultural transfers from very different regions with the German-speaking area, but also far beyond. The relationship between cultural transfer research, transnational history and transregional studies will be discussed using examples from the speakers’ research practice. The sessions take place monthly (usually ten sessions during the academic year between September and June). They are open to all MA and PhD of ENS Paris, the Global and European Studies Institute (GESI) and the Graduate School Global and Area Studies (GSGAS) at Leipzig University as well as interested researchers.
In the academic years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, the seminar was carried out for the first time in its current concept and was part of the DAAD-funded project “IVAC – International Virtual Academic Collaboration 2020-2021” at GESI, which promotes transnational and interdisciplinary cooperation in European studies in virtual formats. The seminar will continue in this context in the academic year 2021/2022.
The seminar is organized entirely online, which should enable a significant increase in participation from locations other than Paris and Leipzig and take into account the peculiarities of the situation under Corona conditions. It is based on the long-term collaboration between the French Study Centre and the Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe) at Leipzig University and the École normal supérieure Paris (UMR Pays germaniques-transferts culturels), whose partnership has inspired a large number of joint publications and events since the early 1990s. The sessions of this seminar are held in French, English or German, whereby the language of the lecture results from the given working title, while interventions in the discussion are possible in all three languages.
The central theme of the various sessions is the question of the vectors that explain and promote the various shifts in intellectual content in space and time, as well as the resemantizations that necessarily go hand in hand with these shifts. The topics dealt with are deliberately diverse in order to facilitate contacts between the disciplines and methodological discussions. A common theme is the history and epistemology of the human sciences with a focus on questions of spatialization in historiographical constructions.
Photos courtesy of: 1) LPLT; 2) Christian Hüller / Universität Leipzig, SUK