Closing Conference: "New Directions in Transcultural Studies"

By October 31, 2019, the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" will have completed its run of some 12 years. Its main contribution to scholarship over this period has been the formulation of a transcultural perspective as a research outlook and method for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The intellectual spirit and transcultural agenda of the Cluster will continue to grow through the research and teaching activities of the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS), the permanent institution that succeeds the Cluster.

To academically frame this continuation of the transcultural agenda at the moment of transition from Cluster to HCTS, the Cluster invites members of Heidelberg University to participate in the one-day conference "New Directions in Transcultural Studies" on Thursday, October 31, 2019, to carry the discussion further to point to new directions of growth – to fresh questions and impulses. Particular those scholars who have participated in the activities of the Cluster Asia and Europe are invited to join this shared conversation.

How can the transcultural approach be further refined? How can the nexus between transculturality and individual disciplines be further explored? What can individual disciplines do for Transcultural Studies and how can different disciplines benefit from Transcultural Studies? What are the possibilities and limits of a concept of culture beyond anthropocentrism? Where do we come up against the limits of a transcultural approach?

How useful is a transcultural perspective in bringing a fresh view to controversial debates of the present – such as the restitution cultural objects or understanding the rise of populism, to name only two examples.

You can find the conference programme
here.

At the same time, the Cluster "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" would like to extend its sincerest thanks and gratitude to everyone in the Cluster-HCTS-Team, and especially, all recent and former members of the Cluster-HCTS-Directorate: Alexandra Heidle, Madeleine Herren-Oesch, Nikolas Jaspert, Monica Juneja, Oliver Lamers, Thomas Maissen, Joseph Maran, Brigitte Merz, Axel Michaels, and Rudolf G. Wagner.