2020 issue of "The Journal of Transcultural Studies” available

The
Journal of Transcultural Studies is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal committed to promoting research on transculturality. Launched in 2010, it is published by the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies and hosted by Heidelberg University´s publishing branch
heiUP. The 2020 issue revolves around a few core themes, such as the formation of transcultural collective memories; the political, ideological, and ethnic dimensions of transculturality; the tensions between transculturation and historical traumas; the transculturation potential of various media; and the relationship between geographic positionality and transcultural propositions.

The opening article on “
Transculturality, Postmigration, and the Imagining of a New Sense of Belonging”, by Anne Ring Petersen (University of Copenhagen), explores the active role that public art and culture play in the collective reimagining of cultural citizenship, home-place, and belonging. The piece introduces the concept of “postmigrant imaginary,” which refers to a postmigrant and transcultural sense of collective identity enacted by new forms of community life.

The three contributions of the themed section on “Fluid Mediterranean Memories” investigate how transnational/transcultural memory is constructed and negotiated through visual and textual representations in various Mediterranean port cities. The articles were first presented at a conference titled “Transcultural Memories of Mediterranean Port Cities: 1850 to the Present,” which took place in London in May 2017. By focusing on case studies distributed across the Middle and Eastern Mediterranean, the authors confront the multiple dimensions of memory as well as a range of individual and collective responses to shared remembrance.

Katia Pizzi’s contribution on “
The Granular Texture of Memory: Trieste between Mitteleuropa and the Mediterranean” explores how the hybrid, transcultural memories of Trieste - a Mediterranean cosmopolitan port city in Italy - were mediated in the urban and non-urban landscape, in fiction, and in cinema; in particular, she focuses on the role of contemporary novelists in reshaping the city’s collective memory.

Gianmarco Mancosu’s paper “
Sardinian, Italian, Mediterranean: The Significance of Cagliari’s Liminality in Post-war Documentaries and Newsreels” deals with the process of modernization of Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari, as documented in twenty-five newsreels produced between 1947 and 1964; following the transcultural memories paradigm, the author shows how the city´s identity remains fluid, fluctuating between insular isolation and state-driven modernization.

Lastly, in “
Sites of Transcultural Exchange: Algiers in the Cinema of Merzak Allouache,” Joseph McGonagle retraces the recent history of Algiers through the eyes of one of Algeria’s most prominent contemporary filmmakers, Merzak Allouache; engaging in a discussion on the symbolism of some of his crucial film sequences, the author looks at how Allouache´s gaze on the city has evolved over time, partly to adapt to domestic and international audiences.

The current issue of the Journal of Transcultural Studies is available in open format
here. A list of all previous issues can be accessed
here.

Those interested in submitting a manuscript for publication can contact the editorial team:
jts-editors@hcts.uni-heidelberg.de.