Transitive Modernities - Mobilities, Mediations, Circulations

This interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and cross-national, research-based program invites attendees to explore established and hitherto uncharted connections between modern trajectories across Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean and aims to examine the impact of transnational connections and dialogues in (re)shaping modern cultural,  social and individual civic identity and agency on a national, European, international, and global level.

This interdisciplinary program will be delivered by a pool of experts who share topics from their areas of expertise in order to enable the attendees to gain new perspectives on European cultures, identities, civil society and citizenship. By working on specific case studies across a range of cultural forms and contexts, and through a focus on research methodologies and theoretical frameworks, attendees will have the opportunity to bring their own background and experience to the program.

Throughout the program’s duration, lectures, seminars, roundtables and workshops will be delivered by scholars and practitioners who work across and within disciplinary fields, spanning history, literature, art history, geography, philosophy, and semiotics. Non-academic experts will also be invited to deliver talks and participate in roundtables with a view to stimulating an awareness of the role of institutional mediators (e.g. cultural institutions, libraries, archives and museums) in facilitating cultural transitivity across borders. In order to achieve this goal, visits to local institutions will be organized; one of the aims of this program is to go further and create synergies with institutional partners so as to involve other cultural agents (editors, writers, translators, choreographers, artists, etc.), developing thereby innovative forms of teaching and learning.

Main topics addressed

The school will be organised into 5 strands:

• Migration and Mobility across the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea
• Artistic Routes and Trajectories across and beyond Europe
• Literary Dispossessions of Europe in Transcontinental and Transatlantic contexts
• Translation and/as Trans-European Cultural Practice
• Race and Ethnicity across and beyond the borders of Europe

The course also involves the following:

• A lecture and discussion at Art Exhibition Space Accelerator, Stockholm University
• A PhD. Open Forum & PhD training
• Invited guest lectures

Learning outcomes

• Characterize and critically discuss recent theories and methodologies on transitive modernities in relation to mobilities, mediations and circulation of individuals and collectives, discourses and objects.
• Examine and reflect upon the impact of transnational connections and dialogues in (re)shaping modern cultural, social and individual civic identity on a national, European, international, and global level.