Paper short abstract:

Opening remarks.

Paper long abstract:

Opening remarks.

Paper short abstract:

This paper uses marginalia and annotations in the Latin manuscripts of an originally Arabic astrological text as a case study for taking on the complexities and methodological concerns associated with knowledge transfer in the medieval Mediterranean.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents a case study of the readership of an Arabic astrological text through an analysis of the marginalia and annotations of its Latin readers. The text, al Qabisi's (Alcabitius') Introduction to Astrology, was first written in Aleppo in about 960, and translated into Latin along with several other Arabic astronomical and astrological texts in the 1130s. According to the marginalia in several manuscripts at the Vatican library, ranging from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the cross-references to other authors, exposition of technical doctrine, and careful attention to linguistic choices show that the Christian readership of the text was both enthusiastic and critical. Comparing the various manuscripts reveals subtle shifts in attitude towards Arabic astrology among Latin readers. The fact that this text was originally written in Arabic, however, raises interesting methodological questions which are seldom asked in studies of reception or appropriation. What is lost in our understanding of the text by not incorporating a thorough examination of its Islamic origins or its Arabic readership? What hidden assumptions are there in studying the reception of an Arabic text by beginning with its earliest Latin manuscripts? How might a philological analysis of the translation help or hinder our goals to broaden our epistemological scope? By posing these questions, the paper aims to identify and come to terms with the constraints that have thus far limited our historical understanding of the transmission and circulation of knowledge in the medieval Mediterranean.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the challenge of absence of transfer of ideas where one would expect its presence, as in development of regional concepts in the Baltic Sea region. Despite it being quite a compact region geographically, regional approaches have had a limited reach among the region's scholars.

Paper long abstract:

Concepts as transfers, exchange, circulation etc are often applied alongside approaches proposing alternatives to a nation state as a unit of historical analysis, for example a region. Both aim to overcome the hegemony of the national approach; historical regions are often defined as networks of interactions and transfers, and their histories as transnational ones. One example is the Baltic Sea region, especially after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the event which encouraged approaches favouring border-defying categories such as transfer, entanglement, not only as the object of research, but also its result, in the sense of connecting the region by a network of transfers of ideas and common regional concepts between scholars.

Yet, setting out to map this network, one notices that while the enthusiasm for the Baltic Sea region was embraced throughout its north-western part, it did not penetrate the south-eastern part, despite it being most affected by the liberation from, among others, restrictions imposed on scholarship and its methodology. Factors of geopolitics, security, economy and intellectual traditions led to some actors staying outside of this epistemological network of shared ideas and concepts pertaining to the region, or forming an alternative one. The aim of this paper is to discuss the surprising absence of transfer where its presence would be expected, and the challenges of making sense of this absence - which can lead to questions about the diffusion of ideas and applicability of certain categories in this geographically compact, but otherwise heterogeneous region.

Paper short abstract:

We would like to explore the various ways of defining, professionalizing, and exercising public relations practices and how to reflect about their resonances through the borders of various countries and fields.

Paper long abstract:

Propaganda, marketing, public relations, communication, ad, were among the most developing practices during the Interwar period. Transfers, exchanges, translations, circulations were extremely dense and multi-polarized. The professionalization of the spin doctors in the US echoed agit-prop institutionalization in the SU, propaganda vs propaganda. The practical reflection on esthetic efficiency was embodied in intensely circulating movies, photographs, posters, slogans, and the like. How to historically think about these complex phenomena having a locally defined birth and a global life? Only opposing local and global would not suffice if we do not follow the manifold translations between languages, technologies, know-hows, political programs, and academic disciplines as linguistics, psychology, or even sociology.

Paper short abstract:

Taking the security sector reform arena in Guinea-Bissau as an example, this paper intends to show the multilayerdness and ambiguity relating to different logics of planning and implementing the reform, analysing how the implied knowledge transfer is interpreted and envisioned.

Paper long abstract:

Colonialism pretended to contribute to the "civilization" and "assimilation" of supposedly "backward" and "underdeveloped" African societies. Even after the independence of Europe's colonies, the one-way transfer of "global North" values to the "South" did not come to an end. Decades after decolonisation the question of how African countries can and should be "developed" continues to fuel debates among resident citizens, development practitioners, and politics. The implementation of security sector reform in Guinea-Bissau is no exception: Development policies normatively demand "local ownership" and thus seem to subscribe to the translation and negotiation of "Western" concepts into local approaches, thus stressing the idea of exchange among equals. By contrast, practice shows that, to a large extent, security project implementers often prefer a one-to-one-transmission of "Western" knowledge. However, these approaches are only partly successful, and security sector reform projects take different paths than originally planned from "Western" point of views. Contrariwise, local citizens reveal a variety of opinions and demands in this regard, oscillating between negotiated translation and top-down diffusion.

Taking the security sector reform arena in Guinea-Bissau as an example and based on several month of field research on-site, this paper intends to show the multilayerdness and ambiguity relating to different logics of planning and implementing the reform, expressed by competing discourses. It will be analysed how "development" and "security sector reform" are imagined and contested by different actors and how the implied knowledge transfer is interpreted and envisioned while memorizing/revitalizing colonial discourses in present-day postcolonial settings.

Paper short abstract:

Particular cases will show how Europeans absorbed elements of Indigenous knowledge as well as how Amerindians absorbed European elements, attempting to see the collected objects as part of the ethnological encounters Everard im Thurn (1852-1932) experienced when he was in British Guiana (now Guyana)

Paper long abstract:

This paper turns to specific objects, in particular to the ones held by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, setting them in historical and contemporary context, using both archival sources and information gathered at a trip to Guyana (former British Guiana) in 2010, discussing aspects of Everard im Thurn's collecting practices, and seeking to restore the 'cross-cultural histories'. The objects discussed were collected not only by Everard im Thurn but also by G.S. Jenman (1845-1902), his colleague in British Guiana. I will expose some examples in which it is possible to see the histories beneath the objects. By knowing more about the objects' histories changes the way they are perceived and hopefully will also contribute to a better understanding of the collections. Here, particular cases will show how Europeans absorbed elements of Indigenous knowledge as well as how Amerindians absorbed European elements. Through the objects, this paper aims to understand im Thurn's interest in certain items and comprehend why and how they were obtained. It also attempts to see these same objects as part of the ethnological encounters im Thurn experienced when he was in British Guiana. These cross-cultural encounters also revealed how the Europeans influenced the Amerindians in the way their objects were produced. Through im Thurn's descriptions of his Amerindian encounters it is possible to trace a portrait of this Victorian character which will be also discussed.

Paper short abstract:

Architectural histories and cultural transfer paradigm versus documents, buildings, dates: subverting theoretical constructs on Brutalism by the careful collation of data and the daring proposition of proper inquiring.

Paper long abstract:

The idea of "cultural transfer" permeates historiographical studies dealing on non-European modern architecture. It establishes as an implicit corollary that facts, works, debates and architectural trends occur necessarily first and foremost on the north, and then and a posteriori on the south. Though the concept may be relatively accurate when studying some first modernity manifestations (1910-1940), its indiscriminate adoption to deal with facts, works, discourses, debates and architectural trends of the second modernity (1945-1975) tends to impair or preclude other more appropriate interpretations. The careful and unbiased consideration of documents and dates may become a simple but most effective conceptual instrument, able to overcome the uncritical conceptual crystallization of some current theoretical constructs.

That also happens on the subject of Brutalism, an architectural trend of mid-20th century that is commonly considered, in the canonical books and discourses, as a predominantly European and / or British phenomenon, later extended to other continents. Yet, the careful examination and the systematic collation of a wide geographical range of architectural documents of the period between the 1940s and the 1960s may prove otherwise. Our current investigation on Brutalism is being grounded on the study of the buildings, carefully considering their correct design dates. The ample material already collected and processed has put forward alternative readings and interpretations on the subject, that go completely outside the narrow boundaries of the "cultural transfer" historiographical paradigm, and points to a complex worldwide web of simultaneous and connections, with no single or predominant point of origin.

Paper short abstract:

This paper studies how the concept of circulation can be used to analyze the exchanges between different parts of the Portuguese Empire and between these regions and foreign nations in the late eighteenth century.

Paper long abstract:

This paper studies how the concept of circulation can be used to analyze the exchanges between differents parts of the Portuguese Empire and between these regions and foreign nations in the late eighteenth century. Our perspective will fall specifically in the trade of pharmaceutical products, in which there is a two-way insertion of imported drugs in America and an output colonial products to Europe. It should be noted that transformations occurring in Portugal and overseas, due to measures taken by the Marquis of Pombal, resulted in increased imports of drugs in different regions of the Americas, among other things. The aim of this work is to show the dynamics of circulation of knowlegde, pratices and products entailed by the trade of remedies. Ee will use as the basis of our analysis documents the Companhia de Comércio do Grão-Pará e Maranhão, located in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo and the documents about the input and output of medicines in the Alfândega de Lisboa.

Paper short abstract:

The paper proposes to apply translation strategies to the complex debate about what is lusophony, in order to negotiate different approaches to the concept and open new horizons of meaning that potentially offer larger unanimity and deeper understanding of its tacit undertones.

Paper long abstract:

The current debate in the Portuguese speaking world about the concept of lusophony is extraordinarily complex as the different positions are not always expressed clearly. The sensitiveness of this topic, result of historically tangled postcolonial implications, leads to a superficially polite and politically correct exchange of meanings, which, however, on a second glance reveals some lack of dialogical coherency, some gaps in the knowledge about the Other and some meaningful omissions. These deficiencies in communication can be remedied by translation in the same way as the deficiencies of inter-lingual communication can be met by translation proper. Choosing the concept of translation in this case implies the admission of other assumptions inherent in the translation concept, as there is for example the premise of the dependence of context of any statement. Poststructuralist and postcolonial translation strategies, as e.g. proposed by Bhabha, Bassnett/Trivedi and Niranjana, put a stronger focus on the productivity of translation in the sense that meaning does unfold through translation, opening up new spaces for understanding. The paper aims to show the usefulness of the concept of translation for the perception of lusophony, as well as for the mutual perception of positions inside the lusophony debate. Furthermore, the paper aims to find the limits of the applicability of the translation concept here.

Paper short abstract:

The analysis of a novel of the Brazilian author Aluísio Azevedo considering the relations between the diffusion, circulation and appropriation of Gaboriau's novels in Brazil in the end of 19th century.

Paper long abstract:

Aluísio Azevedo, besides being a Brazilian naturalism reference, wrote a variety of feuilleton in the Brazilian newspapers of that time. One of them, Mattos, Malta ou Matta?, was published in the newspaper A Semana in the beginning of 1885. The story was inspired in the news about a case of disappearance occurred in the end of 1884.

Émile Gaboriau, French writer of detective novels, obtained success in the world of that time during the decades of 1870 and 1880, including in Brazil. Considering a case-studies about the novel Mattos, Malta ou Matta?, this paper will take the concepts of circulation, diffusion and appropriation of novels in a specific historical context to provide greater complexity to the analysis of this novel. It is intend to take into account a "social history of interpretations", considering the meanings provided to the texts are consequence of certain practices. In this case, it is relevant the practice of reading of Gaboriau's novels in Brazil of that time, the success of this "case" of crime in that society and the meanings provided by Aluísio Azevedo and the readers to the novel Mattos, Mattos ou Matta?. The following questions could be done: Is it possible that Mattos, Malta ou Matta? was it a novel inspired by the Gaboriau's novels? Did Aluísio Azevedo do an appropriation of the way of writing of Gaboriau? Referring to the concept of appropriation, it will be useful for this analysis?

Paper short abstract:

My paper aims at reviewing attempts to analyze mechanisms of image transfer within the discipline of Art History. As a testing field for different concepts from Aby Warburg to Régis Debray and beyond, I will focus on one specific event, namely the visualization of the Portuguese Restauração in Macau in 1642.

Paper long abstract:

In Art History and Visual Studies, concepts of pictorial transfer have attracted new attention. Research groups focusing on "Transcultural Negotiations in the Ambits of Art" (Berlin, FU) are springing up and books like "Transmission Image. Visual Translation and Cultural Agency" (Mersmann/Schneider 2009) are being published. Art historians are also looking back for advice: Only recently, an ambitious research group at the London Warburg Institute started to review Aby Warburg's "concept" of Bilderfahrzeuge (image vehicles) and test it for its suitability within the future of iconology and within the increasingly popular research field of global art history.

My paper focuses on a group of image transfers that were undertaken in the wake of the Portuguese Restauração of 1640: This central event in Portugal's history had to be communicated not only to the European nations but to all the regions that belonged to the vast Portuguese overseas empire. I will analyze the visualization of the Restauração on the Chinese peninsula of Macau that had been under Portuguese administration since 1557. From a written account of 1644 we learn that fireworks, processions and ephemeral sculptures were used to acquaint the inhabitants with the new political situation. Images, however, do not only transport information - they actually shape it. They are at the same time transmitters and agents of culture. And it is this fundamental insight that makes the long-distance transport of images such a fascinating topic. It is worth questioning how and if at all we are able to really grasp the mechanisms of global image traffic.

Paper short abstract:

Final discussion session.

Paper long abstract:

Final discussion session.