Migrant Knowledge

New Book from the Network: Cultural Translation and Knowledge Transfer

Susanne Korbel and Philipp Strobl have co-edited a new volume titled Cultural Translation and Knowledge Transfer on Alternative Routes of Escape from Nazi Terror: Mediations Through Migrations (Routledge, 2022), which takes up a theme that Strobl blogged about earlier here. Description from the publisher's website:

The book investigates and compares the role of artistic and academic refugees from National Socialism acting as "cultural mediators" or "agents of knowledge" between their origin and host societies. By doing so, it locates itself at the intersection of the recently emerging field of the history of knowledge, transnational history, migration, exile, as well as cultural transfer studies. The case studies provided in this volume are of global scope, focusing on routes of escape and migration to Iceland, Italy, the Near East, Portugal and Shanghai, and South-, Central-, and North America. The chapters examine the hybrid ways refugees envisaged, managed, organized, and subsequently mediated their migrations. It focuses on how they dealt with their escape in their art and science. The chapters ask how the emigrants located themselves—did they associate with ethnic, religious, and/or cultural affiliations, specific social classes, or specific parts of society—and how such identifications were portrayed in their knowledge transfer and cultural translations. Building on such possible avenues for research, this volume aims to offer a global analysis of the multifarious processes not only of cultural translation and knowledge transfer affecting culture, sciences, networks, but also everyday life in different areas of the world.

One of this blog's and network's cofounders has also contributed: Swen Steinberg, "Knowledge from Five Continents: Escape Destinations in Publications of German-Speaking Political Refugees, 1933–1940." See the publisher's website for a preview of the book and a list of all thirteen chapters.

Happily, although Routledge has priced the hardcover for libraries ($160 in the United States), the eBook price is set for individual consumers ($41.60, with an additional discount for two or more ebooks at the moment).