Hermeneutical understanding and the transcultural challenge: Reflections on the theoretical development and its literary relevance

Abstract

Deriving from the assumption that there is no such thing as a ‘pure’ culture, since culture is always mixed and hybrid, this article defines and discusses the concept of transculturality (Welsch 1997, Ette 2005, Iljassova-Morger 2009) in the context of other theoretical models of cultural encounters, interactions and demarcations, such as multiculturality and interculturality. Theories of transculturality, however, are not primarily to be understood as merely literary theories. Rather, these concepts contribute to a scholarship concerned with a more comprehensive interpretation and understanding that problematises the basis of what we normally refer to as ‘culture.’ Looking at the use of notions of transculturality in literary studies, however, it becomes apparent that this approach is mostly applied in the analyses of so-called migration literature, which is problematic from an epistemological point of view. In light of this, my article inquiries into the relationship between transculturality and literature in general in order to consider the significance of theories of transculturality for literature that is not normally understood as migration literature.