Framework and Objectives

Frameworks and Objectives

From circumstances such as those described above reconstruction on new terms follows, and which we as scholars of literature and culture must learn to understand and teach. Literary transculturation does not provide a theory, but rather a matrix through which a set of critical tools and vocabularies can be refined for the study of texts from a localized world, but institutionalized globally. In the network we see this matrix, or grid, as having three key elements: 

 i) the transformation from Commonwealth Literatures (related largely to the former British Empire) to Postcolonial literatures and on to Transcultural literatures which include issues of identity, biculturalism, multiculturalism, linguistic differences, internal colonization, and ways of expression,  

ii) ethnic and indigenous writings, and 

iii) the recognition of how this literature mediates the cultural history of the present.   

 The hybrid character of what is often subsumed under the larger heading of Cultural Studies has posed a challenge to English departments due to the “new” literatures and their non-canonical nature. One faces the danger of losing sight of the aesthetics of literary inquiry, and instead emphasizing cultural aspects first and foremost, whereas these should and must be studied together. This is a pedagogical as well as theoretical and practical issue. Similarly, literary transculturation is also linked to other cultural phenomena from folklore to film, further emphasizing the need for creating and developing interdisciplinary approaches. The emphasis on the simultaneity of multiple sites, heterogeneity and heterochronos is also important in helping to create an understanding of the contemporary cultural and social aspects of everyday life. After all, it is through the practices of the everyday that the various nodes in the social grid of a global world are linked first and foremost. This is very much what underlies theories of globalization processes, and of course it is not coincidental that precisely postcolonial theories of culture and identity politics have so strongly influenced how we understand our own current and interconnected realities. This interconnectedness, of routes/roots and cultures, is not a phenomenon “elsewhere;” it increasingly circumscribes and describes the realities and lives lived in our own contemporary societies here in the North, evident in the processes of migration, border crossings and responses to an integrated Europe.   

While considerable social science research is being done on this, the study of how the aesthetics of “routes” and “routing” feed into and/or define and refine these realities remains scant in the Nordic countries. Whereas the interest among students and scholars for postcolonial and intercultural literatures has grown steadily over the past two decades, particularly in Nordic English departments, these interests are with few exceptions pursued in scattered environments dependent on individuals, and the work is generally conducted in isolation. To this day there does not exist a research venue in these countries that would gather and systematize research carried out in intercultural and transculturation studies. This means that graduate and postgraduate students must seek their venues of intellectual and professional exchange outside of the Nordic countries. Apart from the usual disadvantages of this version of ‘brain drain’, it also means that the focus of some individual projects are oriented more along Anglo-American concerns than continental European, let along Nordic, concerns or approaches in the field.   

There is furthermore no doubt that the emphasis on transculturation will grow in significance and scope, but younger Nordic researchers lack an environment that provides sufficient and competitive training. This means in turn that as the need for teaching resources will increase, recruitment does not follow pace and our institutions lag behind. This ties into another concern, which is how middle and high schools increasingly emphasize “other” kinds of literatures in their educational programs: our institutions must be able to train teachers for this task. We want to stimulate and secure these efforts and utilize the synergy generated by the participation of Nordic experts by creating a joint Nordic research and research-training environment. This is even more important from the perspective of the Baltic countries, where the after shocks of colonialism and post-colonialism are only now being factored into literature departments’ agendas. Moreover, there is an expressed desire from Baltic countries to explore their own perspectives in the field, which for historical and cultural reasons may be done meaningfully under the rubric of a Nordic network.