Transculturalism is defined as "seeing oneself in the other".Cuccioletta, Donald
Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a Cosmopolitan Citizenship.
, LONDON JOURNAL OF CANADIAN STUDIES 2001/2002 VOLUME 17, Plattsburgh State University of New York, Interdisciplinary Research Group on the Americas Transcultural is in turn described as "extending through all

human culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

s"transcultural
thefreedictionary.com or "involving, encompassing, or combining elements of more than one

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

".transcultural
yourdictionary.com

Other definitions

In 1940, transculturalism was originally defined by Fernando Ortiz, a Cuban scholar, based on the article ''Nuestra America'' (1881) by José Marti. From Marti Gra's idea, Ortiz thought that transculturalism was the key in legitimizing the emisphericidentity. Thus Ortiz defined transculturalism as the synthesis of two phases occurring simultaneously, one being a deculturalization of the past with a '' métissage'' (see

métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

, as in the Métis population of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

) with the present, which further means the "reinventing of the new common culture". Such reinvention of a new common culture is in turn based on the meeting and intermingling of the different peoples and cultures. According to Lamberto Tassinari, the director of ''Vice Versa'', a transcultural magazine in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Canada, transculturalism is a new form of

humanism Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and Agency (philosophy), agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The me ...

based on the idea of relinquishing the strong traditional identities and cultures which ..were heproducts of imperialistic empires ..interspersed with dogmatic religious values. Tassinari further declared that transculturalism opposes the singular traditional cultures that evolved from the

nation-state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) con ...

. He also stated that transculturalism is based on the breaking down of boundaries, and is contrary to

multiculturalism Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''Pluralism (political theory), ethnic'' or cultura ...

because in the latter most experiences that have shown einforcesboundaries based on past cultural heritages. And that in transculturalism the concept of culture is at the center of the nation-state or the disappearance of the nationstate itself. In this context, German cultural scholar Dagmar Reichardt stresses the didactical relevance of a

paradigmatic shift A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist a ...

in academia through Transcultural Studies, mainly focusing on the European model of conviviality in a globalized world focusing on French didactics and on Italian culture. Another source of transculturalism is the work of American and Russian critical thinker Mikhail Epstein, beginning in 1982, and later supported by Ellen Berry, Arianna Dagnino, Slobodanka Vladiv–Glover and others. The theory of transculture is developed in Mikhail Epstein's book ''After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture'' (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, 392 pp.) and especially in Mikhail Epstein's and Ellen Berry's book ''Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication'' (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1999, 340 pp.; of 23 chapters, 16 are written by M. Epstein). Within a comparative literary context, the theory of the transcultural is further developed by Dagnino in her book
Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility
' (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2015, 240 pp).

Characteristics

According to Richard Slimbach, author of ''The Transcultural Journey'', transculturalism is rooted in the pursuit to define shared interests and common values across cultural and national borders. Slimbach further stated that transculturalism can be tested by means of thinking "outside the box of one's motherland" and by "seeing many sides of every question without abandoning conviction, and allowing for a chameleon sense of self without losing one's cultural center".Slimbach, Richard
The Transcultural Journey
, Essays, Frontiers Journal, Azusa Pacific University, pp. 205-230. According to Jeff Lewis, transculturalism is characterised by cultural fluidity and the dynamics of cultural change. Whether by conflict, necessity, revolution or the slow progress of interaction, different groups share their stories, symbols, values, meanings and experiences. This process of sharing and perpetual 'beaching' releases the solidity and stability of culture, creating the condition for transfer and transition. More than simple 'multiculturalism', which seeks to solidify difference as ontology, 'transculturalism' acknowledges the uneven interspersion of Difference and Sameness. It allows human individuals groups to adapt and adopt new discourses, values, ideas and knowledge systems. It acknowledges that culture is always in a state of flux, and always seeking new terrains of knowing and being.Jeff Lewis *2008) 'Cultural Studies', Sage, London. Transculturalism is the mobilization of the definition of culture through the expression and deployment of new forms of cultural politics. Based on Jeff Lewis’ From Culturalism to Transculturalism, transculturalism is charactized by the following:Lewis, Jeff
The Cultural Dynamic
, From Culturalism to Transculturalism *Transculturalism emphasizes on the problematics of contemporary culture in terms of relationships,

meaning-making In psychology, meaning-making is the process of how people (and other living beings) Construals, construe, Understanding, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships, and the self. The term is widely used in Constructivism (psychologi ...

, and power formation; and the transitory nature of culture as well as its power to transform. *Transculturalism is interested in dissonance, tension, and instability as it is with the stabilizing effects of social conjunction, communalism, and organization; and in the destabilizing effects of non-meaning or meaning atrophy. It is interested in the disintegration of groups, cultures, and power. *Transculturalism seeks to illuminate the various gradients of culture and the ways in which social groups ''create'' and ''distribute'' their meanings; and the ways in which social groups interact and experience tension. *Transculturalism looks toward the ways in which language wars are historically shaped and conducted. *Transculturalism does not seek to privilege the semiotic over the material conditions of life, nor vice versa. *Transculturalism accepts that language and materiality continually interact within an unstable locus of specific historical conditions. *Transculturalism locates relationships of power in terms of language and history. *Transculturalism is deeply suspicious of itself and of all utterances. Its claim to knowledge is always redoubtable, self-reflexive, and self-critical. *Transculturalism can never eschew the force of its own precepts and the dynamic that is culture. *Transculturalism never sides with one moral perspective over another but endeavors to examine them without ruling out moral relativism or meta-ethical confluence.

Transculturing in film theory

Within the field of

film theory Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for und ...

/ film analysis, transculturing is the adaptation of a literary work into historically and culturally colonised contexts before being transformed into something new. For example,

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

's ''

Throne of Blood is a 1957 Japanese epic ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film transposes the plot of English dramatist William Shakespeare's play ''Macbeth'' (1606) fr ...

'' (1957) recontextualised ''

Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...

'' (written in the early 17th century) to the Japanese civil war of the 15th century.

References

{{Culture Cultural concepts Human migration Cultural geography Multiculturalism Cultural studies Interculturalism

Other definitions

Characteristics

Transculturing in film theory

See also

References