Battles and Borders. Perspectives on Cultural Transmission and Literature in Minor Language Areas

Battles and Borders. Perspectives on Cultural Transmission and Literature in Minor Language Areas is about literature on the fringes of Europe. The authors all discuss the often unique ways in which literary history and cultural transfer function in peripheral and central regions against the background of shifting national borders in the last two centuries. Special attention is paid to minority and migrant groups in Northwest Europe.

The present volume aims to prompt a reconsideration of the concepts of ‘minority’ and ‘migrant’ cultures and literatures in the past and the present day. It also suggests a new topic for further study: the importance of cultural transfer for migrant groups (whether or not they form a diaspora) and their ability to write new words and identities.

This volume is the final result of the research project ‘Peripheral Autonomy? Longitudinal analysis of cultural transfer in the literary fields of small language communities’. This project was carried out by scholars at the University of Groningen, Ghent University and Uppsala University. It started in 2006 and concluded with the publication in 2012 of Rethinking Cultural Transfer and Transmission. Reflections and New Perspectives, the seventh volume in the Studies on Cultural Transfer and Transmission (CTaT) series.