Cultural Transfers: Developments, Transformations, and Perspectives
Helga Mitterbauer
Cultural Transfers are processes of delocalization and transformation of cultural artifacts (goods, meanings, ideas etc.) from one cultural formation into another. According to the sociological background of the approach, transmitters such as translators, publishers, editors, art dealers etc. initiate the process.
In the lecture, I shall survey the evolution and transformations of the concept from the beginning in the mid 1980s when Michel Espagne and Michael Werner established the theory of cultural transfer as a concept opposing the widely accepted history of hegemonic influence (Einflussgeschichte). After their first publications on transfers between France and Germany (mostly on the 18th century), the bias towards analyses of bilateral transfers between the two nation states was enhanced to include regional studies and to triangular and later on to quadrangular configurations.
