Transatlantic Cultures

Transcultur@ is a joint research project led by a Franco-Brazilian team of scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Its purpose is to develop an online Dictionary of Transatlantic Cultural History to be published in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. This encyclopaedia is conceived as an innovative scientific and technological tool for analyzing the cultural dynamics of the Atlantic Area and its central role in the contemporary process of globalization. The project aims at presenting an interconnected history of the Atlantic Area since the 18th century via a collection of analytical essays exploring the cultural relations between Europe, Africa and the Americas. The project necessarily implies a multidisciplinary approach involving historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, musicologists, or specialists of literature, the visual arts, drama and cinema. Reflecting the most recent research and debates, the dictionary engages the question of transatlantic circulations and cultural globalization as well as the process of identification and the role of borders in the creation and the reshaping of major cultural areas since the 18th century. Supported by the TGIR Huma-Num, Transcultur@ aims at promoting digital humanities in order to measure, map out and analyze transnational cultural circulations in the Atlantic Area. The project will be led by three main partners: the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 University, and the University of São Paulo.