Cultural Transfer Studies

"ΠΡΩΤΗ ΕΓΚΥΚΛΙΟΣ.
Το ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα «Νεοελληνική Γραμματολογία και Ιστορία των Ιδεών (18ος-20ός αι.)» του Τμήματος Νεοελληνικών Ερευνών του ΙΙΕ, σε συνεργασία με το διατμηματικό/διιδρυματικό ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα «Θαλής»: «Πολιτισμικές διαμεσολαβήσεις και διαμόρφωση του  ‘εθνικού χαρακτήρα’ στον περιοδικό τύπο του 19ου αιώνα (Χρυσαλλίς)», συνδιοργανώνουν Επιστημονικό Συμπόσιο με γενικό θέμα: Ελληνικότητα και ετερότητα: Πολιτισμικές διαμεσολαβήσεις και ‘εθνικός χαρακτήρας’ στον 19ο αιώνα."

"It is known that the German-born art and architecture historian Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) took British nationality in 1946. However, lesser known are the circumstances of this naturalisation, which was accelerated in order to enable him to take part in a research trip to the British occupation zone of Germany in the summer of 1946.
This paper tackles the possibility of Anglo-German cultural transfers operating in reverse(Rückwirkung). As a refugee, or to use the official term coined by the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning in the 1930s, as a ‘displaced’ scholar, Pevsner was given a unique opportunity to return to Germany at a crucial time for the country: the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
The personal correspondence in which Pevsner shares his impressions on being back in his own country bears many similarities to contemporary autobiographical writings of literary figures who had experienced a similar displacement. A comparison with the narratives of Carl Zuckmayer and Alfred Döblin reveals a common struggle to negotiate a new Sense of Self. These texts, relating to the years 1946 and 1947, underscore the topos of exile as ‘the journey of no return’ that has made it impossible for these intellectuals who found refuge abroad to identify again fully with Germany, their former Heimat.
Changes in attitude and mentality are induced by wearing the uniform of one of the Allied nations: American for Zuckmayer and British for Pevsner. In the latter case, where naturalisation was so recent, Pevsner's letters tell of a true dilemma in the formation of his new identity, and an uncertainty as to how he should present himself in his encounters with German people.
These circumstances create a hybrid perspective. Although Pevsner, Zuckmayer or Döblin, as ex-Germans, should theoretically have been culturally closer to the local population than citizens of their adopted nations, they nonetheless found themselves to be outsiders in their own homeland. The analysis of their state of in-betweenness and of its expression in their writings represents a fresh take on the study of occupied Germany, traditionally seen from the perspective either of the Allied forces or of the inhabitants. Pevsner’s views on the state of the country were formed at a crossroads of contradictory inner feelings and experiences, and they are intertwined with the ongoing debate on collective guilt, yet they describe the ruins of familiar places and the chaos that dominate the landscape with undeniable compassion."

Les commentateurs de l’accueil de Paul Celan (1920-1970) en France ont souvent insisté sur le retard pris par l’édition française de son œuvre. Il est vrai que pendant longtemps le débat français sur cet auteur s’est déroulé sur une base textuelle extrêmement mince. Or rien ne serait plus faux que de conclure de cette sous-représentation sur le plan des publications à un manque d’intérêt pour l’œuvre de Celan en France. En effet, l’histoire de la réception française de Celan démontre que si retard il y a, celui-ci n’est pas uniquement imputable au système d’accueil, mais résulte également d’une attitude qu’on pourrait qualifier de protectionniste de la part du poète. Le souci de Paul Celan de protéger son œuvre et d'influer sur son image s'exprime notamment à travers ses interventions sur les traductions françaises de ses poèmes. Celles-ci ont en partie été massivement corrigées par ses soins, si bien qu'on peut parler dans certains cas d'une forme d'auto-traduction. Sur la base d’un examen de l’appareil génétique de certains de ces traductions françaises datant des années 1960, il s’agit d’analyser et d’interpréter les interventions de l’auteur, et d’en décrire l’évolution jusqu’à sa mort.

From 1828–35, while Goethe was introducing his idea of world literature to the European public, Matija Čop and France Prešeren were engaged in the complex process of the cultural transfer of Schlegelian Romantic cosmopolitanism to Slovenia. In this way they hoped to ground the emerging and peripheral literature of Slovenia, tied to a national movement, in the universality of aesthetic humanism, and, by connecting it to the repertoire of European literary traditions from antiquity to Romanticism, to establish it as a modern classic at the world level. Čop and Prešeren, though without using the term, were realizing Goethe’s idea of world literature. There is a strong probability that Čop was also familiar with Goethe’s early remarks on Weltliteratur.

"Chapter one: “Reading Choiseul in the Gaps of the Orientalist Archive”

Chapter two: “In the Shadow of ‘les Grands’: Cassas’s Orientalist Self-Fashioning”

Chapter three: “The Translator’s Art: Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Ottoman Dragoman in Paris”

Chapter four: “Miniatures in Black and White: Melling’s Istanbul”

Chapter five: “Skin of Nation, Body of Empire: Louis Dupré in Ottoman Greece”

Chapter six: “A Painter’s Renunciation: Delacroix in North Africa” "