The Invasion of Books in Peripheral Literary Fields

The Invasion of Books in Peripheral Literary Fields. Transmitting Preferences and Images in Media, Networks and Translation, focuses on the period between 1950 and the present day. It considers the function and appreciation of the literature transmitted in the media, as well as the role of cultural transmitters, their networks and why in some cases they disappeared from the field of cultural transfer and transmission history. The gender aspects of cultural transfer are also studied, as well as the connection between changing national identities and the varying definitions of national and minority literatures. The volume, the second publication within the project 'Peripheral Autonomy', reveals that against the backdrop of globalisation various centres and peripheries have changed positions. Moreover, it finds that in addition to institutions, individual actors such as cultural transmitters still play an essential role in cultural transfer despite the growing significance of the commercial environment. The 'Peripheral Autonomy? Longitudinal analyses of cultural transfer in the literary fields of small language communities' project is financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The project started in 2006 and was one of the spin-offs of an earlier project, 'Scandinavian literature in Europe: the influence of language politics, gender and aesthetics' undertaken 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 in Ghent in December 2006. Selected 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. A second workshop has resulted in the previous volume, In the Vanguard of Cultural Transfer. Cultural Transmitters and Authors in Peripheral Literary Fields (2010), focussing on cultural transfer from the late nineteenth century until 1950.