Transnationalism can be understood as both a methodological approach and as a descriptive concept. Methodologically speaking, transnationalism is an approach that calls into question the “methodological nationalism” that has long prevailed in social and human research, by introducing transnational perspectives and objects. In this acceptation, the notion can be seen as encompassing a variety of socio-historical approaches such as cultural contacts and transfers, connected history, histoire croisée, global history, and so on. As a descriptive concept, transnationalism focuses on cross-cultural networks that are formed out of the framework of formal international relations and on the circulation of products and models: examples will be provided from the academic field, the literary field, the publishing field, the intellectual field, underscoring the role of migrants, exiles, and cultural producers endowed with a transnational symbolic capital in the formation of such networks, but also that of journals, conferences, and other forms of networking and exchanges beyond national borders. Finally, the presentation will address the theoretical question of the relationship between the national and transnational fields of cultural production.
Gisèle Sapiro is Professor of Sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Senior Researcher at the CNRS (CESSP, Paris), member of Academia Europaea. She is the author of French Writers’ War (Duke UP, 2014 [1999]) The Sociology of literature (Stanford UP 2023 [2014]), La Responsabilité de l’écrivain (Seuil 2011), Les Ecrivains et la politique en France (Seuil 2018), Des mots qui tuent (Points 2020), Peut-on dissocier l’œuvre de l’auteur? (Points 2024; forth. in Engl. SUP), Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur mondial? Le champ littéraire transnational (Gallimard/Seuil/EHESS, 2024; forth. Engl. Polity), Intelectuais, Os: Autonomização, Profissionalização, Internacionalização (Edusp, 2025; Spanish version Cordova 2017). Among the books she has edited: Ideas on the move in the Social Sciences and Humanities (Palgrave 2020), Dictionnaire international Bourdieu (CNRS 2020), and The Routledge Handbook of the History and Sociology of Ideas (Routledge 2023).
Zoom link for the seminars (valid for all sessions): LINK
An online seminar series, focused on East/Central Europe within the international and transnational academic and cultural context.
In an age when walls are being rebuilt — physically, politically, and epistemically — transnationalism is no longer just a buzzword. It has re-emerged as one of the most pressing cultural and intellectual questions of our time. Brexit, Trump’s return, and the steady rise of nationalist and illiberal movements across Europe and beyond have shaken the very idea of cross-border solidarities. Yet these new nationalisms are themselves transnational phenomena: they feed on circulating narratives, shared symbols, and contagious affects that move across borders and media.
Our seminar series, Reclaiming Transnationalism, revisits the concept as both an analytical framework and a socio-cultural phenomenon. Rather than seeking a comprehensive account of neo-nationalisms, we focus on concrete lines of inquiry: transnational comparisons, cultural and literary production across genres and media, and the symbolic geographies of contested borderlands such as the Donbas or Upper Silesia. We explore how transnationalism emerges in video games, literature, film studies,memory practices, and intellectual life — as method, as critique, and as lived cultural reality.
By centering East-Central and Eastern Europe, we test the promise and limits of transnationalism in regions marked by shifting borders, imperial legacies, migration, and conflict. Together, our speakers will ask: not only what transnationalism is, but what it does.
- 15 Jan — Gisèle Sapiro (Paris): What Does Transnationalism Mean? Some Reflections through the Sociology of Intellectuals and of Culture
- 22 Jan — Jasmina Lukić (Vienna): Transnational Turn in Literary Studies
- 29 Jan — Eneken Laanes (Tallinn): Memory and Environment
This seminar series is jointly organised by Natalya Bekhta (Tampere), Stanisław Krawczyk (Wrocław), Jana-Katharina Mende (Halle), Denys Shatalov (Kryvyi Rih/Berlin) and Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg) within the framework of the research network “Young Network TransEurope ” based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Contact: Natalya Bekhta