The theme of this latest number of Transtext(e)sTranscultures provides the occasion to remove a misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the concept transcultural, primarily by indicating that which it does not mean. To be quite clear, “transcultural studies” in our theoretical imaginary is diametrically opposed to that which substitutes the substantive intercultural for transcultural; intercultural being a term frequently considered, owing to a lack of intellectual rigour or to just plain i..

VILLARD, Florent

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Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化
Journal of Global Cultural Studies 
7 | 2012
Transcultural Identity and Circulation of Imaginaries
Editorial
[English Version]
Florent VILLARD
Édition électronique
URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/478
DOI : 10.4000/transtexts.478
ISSN : 2105-2549
Éditeur
Gregory B. Lee
 
Référence électronique
Florent VILLARD, « Editorial », Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化 [En ligne], 7 | 2012, mis en ligne
le 01 décembre 2012, consulté le 22 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/
transtexts/478  ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/transtexts.478 
© Tous droits réservés
Transtext(e)s
Transcultures 跨文本跨
文化
Journal of Global Cultural Studies
7 | 2012 :
Transcultural Identity and Circulation of Imaginaries
Editorial
[English Version]
FLORENT VILLARD
Texte intégral
The theme of this latest number of Transtext(e)sTranscultures provides the
occasion to remove a misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the concept
transcultural, primarily by indicating that which it does not mean. To be quite
clear,  “transcultural  studies”  in  our  theoretical  imaginary  is  diametrically
opposed  to  that  which  substitutes  the  substantive  intercultural  for
transcultural; intercultural being a term frequently considered, owing to a lack
of intellectual rigour or to just plain ignorance, as synonymous with the term
transcultural.
1
The intercultural perspective whose vacuous humanism pretends to favour
tolerance  and the  respect  for  cultural  diversity  today  infuses  its  hegemonic
discourse through numerous disciplines and is totally instrumentalized by the
acritical  language  of  marketing  and  the  Business  School.  The  “dialogue  of
cultures” and the fashion for “ethnic products” reiterates in the commercial
sphere,  while  conforming  to  the  latter’s  demand  for  economic  efficiency,  a
cultural interpretation of human societies as first developed in the nineteenth
century in support of the construction of modern nation-states.
2
Intercultural discourse legitimates a representation of the world in which, in
a Heidgerrian manner, a language, a culture and a people are systematically
(con)fused. This culturalist equation constitutes a prerequisite to imagining the
world as fragmented into civilisational and national communities. In contrast,
the  transcultural  approach  signals  the  transcendence  of  an  anthropological
3
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http://transtexts.revues.org/478
definition of culture rendered obsolete by the history of recent colonialism and
politically  problematic  because  intimately  imbricated  in  ethnicist  and
nationalist ideologies.
Without wanting to deny the importance of this intercultural reading of the
world in contemporary social imaginaries, the transcultural approach aims to
establish  its  historicity  and  uncover  the  ideological  significance  of  such  a
reading.
4
The performative and reifying dimension of that which manufactures and
diffuses the identity-biased categories of culturalism constitutes the blind spot
of  the  “dialogue  of  cultures.”  Reintroducing  the  question  of  power  into
intercultural  discourse  renders  possible  the  recognition  of  its  implicit
constructivism  and  the  acknowledgment,  along  with  Christine  Delphy,  that
“hierarchy does not come after division, it comes with it — or even a quarter of
a second before — as intention.” Groups are created at the same moment both
distinct and hierarchically ordered.” The historical postcolonial conjuncture of
the  world  demands  that  we  focus  our  attention  on  multiplicity,  metissage,
hybridity  while  liberating  ourselves  from  old  dominant  epistemologies,
normative  categories  of  identification,  and  from  the  classification  and
verification of identities.
5
The ambition of this journal, then, is to investigate not what lies “between”
but  “beyond”  and  “across”  these  cultural  categories  while  focussing  on  the
diasporic circulation of practices, of texts, and of imaginaries without effacing
the  question  of  power.  The  contributions  to  this  seventh  volume  of
Transtext(e)sTranscultures consecrated to the question of  the “Transcultural
Identities and the Circulation of Imaginaries » are in line with this logic. For
instance, there is Sophie Coavoux’s article on the question of ethnic, cultural
and  gender  identity  in  Christos  Tisolkas’s  Loaded  (1995)  and  Jeffrey
Eugenides’s  Middlesex  (2002).  Hailing  from  the  American  and  Australian
Greek diasporas, the protagonists of these two novels “seem to be caught in a
series of identity dilemmas.” They attempt to escape from the categories and
definitions to which society, and its discourses and its institutions, assign them.
6
In his her study of the representation of the Chinese and the question of
multi-ethnic casting in “intercultural theatre,”  Vanessa Lee skillfully reveals
the deep-seated difficulties of European and North American theatre in ridding
themselves of old Orientalist stereotypes and in transcending an ethnocentric
western  perspective,  notably  in  the  choice  of  actors  to  play  parts  in  works
borrowed from a non-European repertoire.
7
Wu  Yujun  proposes  a  historical  and  philosophical  approach  in  his
assessment  of  the  recurrent  issue  of  the  construction  of  a  modern  Chinese
national  identity.  His  solidly  dialectical  interpretation  confirms  the  crucial
importance of the West as “Other” in the making of a modern Chinese national
consciousness.
8
In his “Theoretical Propositions for Asian Studies,” Michael Dutton asks why
“Area  studies”  show  themselves  incapable  of  freeing  themselves  from  a
descriptive methodology in which Asia still remains confined to its status as a
locus of field work and an object of applied research. Dutton demonstrates an
exemplary  use  of  the  theoretical  tenets  of  postcolonial  criticism  in  the
interrogation of the epistemological effects of a Euro-American history which
made  impossible  the  production  of  theoretical  thought  grounded  in  an
empirically and geographically Asian context.
9
Editorial
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The complex relations between the luxury goods industry, contemporary art
and cultural identity constitute the problem broached by Gilles Guillot in his
article on the commercial strategy of Louis Vuitton on Taiwan. The author puts
forward a convincing critique of  the French company which has taken over
public  space  and appropriated elements  of  the  island’s  cultural  and artistic
heritage in attempt to impose its image on Taiwan and in Asia in general.
10
Raphaël Languillon-Aussel takes a long historical perspective in his analysis
of the social imaginary of Japan. Taking the architectural project “Tokyo Sky
Tree” as his starting point, proposes an original reflection on the “culture of
flows, of impermanence and of rebirth” in a society marked by the historical
consciousness of its vulnerability.
11
Concluding the present volume of Transtext(e)sTranscultures, the rich essay
of  the  cultural  critic  Geng  Zhanchun  耿占春  provides  a  commentary  on  a
collection of poems written by the Xinjiang poet Shen Wei 沈苇 in the wake of
the riots in Urumqi on 5th July 2009. A consequence of the colonial practices
of  the  Chinese  presence  in  Xinjiang,  the  explosion  of  inter-ethnic  violence
between Han Chinese  and Uighurs  — resulting in  the  death of  at  least  197
members  of  the  civilian  population  (mostly  Han)  and  the  arrest  of  several
thousand rioters — followed the lynching of two Uighur workers in a toy factory
at Shaoguan in Guangdong Province. Evoking the censorship of these events,
Geng  Zhanchun  notes  that  the  void  left  by  the  absence  of  commentary  in
China’s societal and digital space was filled by the contradictory monologue of
official media whose main characteristic was “the presence of a mouth but the
absence  of  ears.”  These  poems  written  just  a  few  days  after  the  drama,
constitute  the  only  instance  of  voice  emanating  from  an  “independent  and
subjective individual who observed these events at close quarters.” Through his
poetry, Shen Wei offers a singular space of rhetorical freedom in an otherwise
suffocating climate. By inventing “a new language rising up on the corpse of the
old,”  he  uncovers  what  is  the  unspoken and the  obscure  of  this  now open
conflict  and  proposes  a  poetic  narration  of  a  tragic  social  and  historical
situation in China’s “Western territories.”
12
5th July
A hundred and ninety catastrophes hover over a hundred and ninety corspes
As if a hundred and ninety souls floated in the smoke-spewing sky
Henceforth, sorrow as blood-tie, as sovereign, as that which unites us
Under the upturned roof, the hope that God may forgive ever undone human
nature
Awakened demons and monsters pace the streets and alleyways, committing
odious acts,
Terror transforming the town into its oasis of entertainment
13
7 July
Grasping sticks the Han roam the streets,
Like warriors in the jungle
As if the stone age were back
A postmodern vigilance clinging to the corner of the mouths
Of bandits fleeing in disarray in little groups
In the remotest cellars, they sniff out
Their dreams of flames and méchoui
14
Cited in Geng Zhanchun, “When sufferings come face to face: A Reading of
“Requiem”  a collection of poems by Xinjiang poet, Shen Wei».
15
Editorial
http://transtexts.revues.org/478
Pour citer cet article
Référence électronique
Florent VILLARD, « Editorial », Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化 [En ligne],
7 | 2012, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2012, consulté le 22 novembre 2013. URL :
http://transtexts.revues.org/478
Auteur
Florent VILLARD
Florent Villard is Maître de conferences at the University of Lyon 3. His doctorate on the
Chinese theoretician Qu Qiubai (1899-1935) was completed in 2004. His current
research focuses on language and nationalism, and cultural history.
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