Traveling Concepts: The Transfer and Translation of Ideas in the Humanities

Although they remain tied to the contexts in which they are produced and are embedded in specific cultural and artistic traditions, concepts travel worldwide, from one culture to another, between disciplines and historical periods, across traditions and through time. On their journey, following specific cultural and aesthetic traditions, concepts are transformed, reshaped and negotiated thanks to their “unbreakable stability and a near-unlimited extendibility” (Bal, 2002). This conference seeks to map out the surprising trajectories of traveling concepts in literature, within a transnational, interdisciplinary and pluralistic view of literatures and cultures. It aims at charting the transformations and renegotiations of concepts as they emerge in the traveling processes in order to highlight different conceptual uses, links with the multifaceted field of culture and their importance for intersubjective understanding.