University of Heidelberg

It is our Research Area’s aim to understand how transcultural flows between Asia and Europe are initiated, directed and negotiated in different public spheres and how the asymmetric relations that characterize these flows function. We ask how the asymmetries involved are shaped, received, negotiated, coped with, incorporated and/or resisted by the actors involved. We would like to study the tensions involved in this process and observe how and why asymmetries are shifting within different public spheres at different moments in time. (Shifting) asymmetries become tangible, for example, in literature, music and the visual arts, in changing gender relations and technologies, or the uses of religion, satire and music. It is the ultimate aim of our Research Area to complicate our perceptions of transcultural entanglements and globalization, delineating their multiple meanings both with a view to the historical depths and contemporaneities of cultural practice.