In the Vanguard of Cultural Transfer

This volume is the first publication within the project 'PeripheralAutonomy? Longitudinal analyses of cultural transfer in the literary fields of small language communities', financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The project started in 2006 and was one of the spin-offs of the project 'Scandinavian literature in Europe: the influence of language politics, gender and aesthetics' in Groningen. Three universities are involved in the project: Ghent, Groningen and Uppsala. The first workshop 'Reflection on theoretical and methodological points of departure' was held at Ghent in December 2006. A selection of papers from the workshop were published on the project's website, which has been developed to function as a scholarly environment favourable to intellectual exchange concerning the 'Peripheral Autonomy' programme.The essays in this volume, the second in the series Studies on Cultural Transfer and Transmission (CTaT), focus on cultural transfer from the late nineteenth century until 1950. Emphasis is placed on the institutional conditions for cultural transfer, the social role of cultural transmitters and the function of the literature transferred. Gender aspects of cultural transfer are also studied, as well as the connection between changing national identities and varying definitions of national literatures.The volume makes clear that the cultural transmitter has a very important role in cultural transfer and transmission. She/he is active or present in all phases of the process, discovering new authors and genres, and shaping, reconstructing or deconstructing images. Whether or not the foreign literature is received on fertile soil and becomes part of a new literary field, cultural transmitters are pioneers and in the vanguard of cultural transfer.