Political and Transnational Cultures

Research Area 7: Political and Transnational Cultures

This research area focuses on the effect the concept of transnationalisation has had on the historical and heuristic reconfiguration of culture, society, and the polity. The notion of transnationalisation challenges established concepts denoting modern collectivities, such as the nation-state and the polity. At the same time, it draws attention to the interconnections between polity, nation, and culture in its various manifestations as represented by language, memory, identity, and media, thus establishing links to other research areas, especially areas 1 (Memory Cultures), 5 (Culture, Language and the New Media) and 6 (Culture and Identities).

Background

The notion of ‘political culture’ lends itself particularly well to a description of the cultural processes through which a collectivity constitutes itself within history. The concept of transnationalisation is a key for the analysis of phenomena such as the transition of the former socialist countries, the emergence of the EU as a cultural and political entity and the use of major European languages as transnational ‘link languages’. In sociology and cultural anthropology transnationalisation is conceived of as redefining the mechanisms of cultural integration. In political science it is treated as a major challenge to commonly held concepts of (national) sovereignty. In history it has directed attention to the long-term dimensions of globalisation (reaching back at least to the fifteenth century), thus contributing to a historicisation of the nation-state as an institution located in time and space rather than as a pre-existing object of research. In postcolonial studies it is seen as an epistemic fissure in the fundamentals of the Western study of culture.

Participating scholars

• Dr. Doris Bachmann-Medick
• Theresa Beilschmidt
• Prof. Frank Bösch
• Ina Brandt
• Ariane Brill
• Prof. Hubertus Büschel (speaker)
• Prof. Horst Carl
• Jürgen Dinkel
• Francis Ipgrave
• Florian Greiner (speaker)
• Prof. Peter Haslinger
• Christoph Hilgert
• Dr. Peter Hoeres
• Jelena Kovacevic-Löckner
• Prof. Regina Kreide
• Prof. Andreas Langenohl
• Susana Leite
• Prof. Friedrich Lenger
• Glory Lueong
• Christina Norwig
• Kai Nowak
• Andreas Schneider
• Florian Schnürer
• Michael Zok
• Andreas Hübner