Cultural globalization (dir. Gisèle Sapiro)

This program proposes to study the multiple forms that globalization takes in the various arts and creative practices, the circulation between different models of globalization and their relationship with postcolonial problems (especially in the field of Francophonie). The study of globalization of culture is of course already well established and the first step of the project will consist in an evaluation of the state of the art. But most globalization- studies tend to be monocausal explanations and many of them extrapolate from one specific type of practice to the whole field of creative practices as such, without taking into account the diversity of the globalizing dynamics depending on the creative practice (and this means also : depending on the history of that practice). The main goal of this pilot-project is to develop a pluralistic outlook on globalization and a multicausal and interactionnist perspective on its diverse dynamics. To achieve this goal, the team is pluridisciplinary, regrouping researchers in art history, literature, ethnomusicology, sociology and anthropology from the EHESS (CESSP, CESPRA, Centre Georg Simmel, Cral), the Collège de France and the ENS (LiLa department). International contacts have already been taken with the Harvard Institute for World Literature and the Exzellenzinitiative Dahlem Humanities Center of the FU Berlin. One of the more specific goals of the program, which will be addressed to through the collaboration with the Harvard Institute for World Literature is to evaluate the fecundity of quantitative methods and mathematical models in the study of the international diffusion of literary works, literary genres and literary canons.