TRANSCULTURALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES

The words of Ludwig Wittgenstein: “when we think of the world’s future, we always mean the destination it will reach if it keeps going in the direction we can see it going in now; it does not occur to us that its path is not a straight line but a curve, constantly changing direction” are quite alive today, perhaps even more alive than when they were written. After the traditional concept of respect for and knowledge of individual cultures, the need for interculturality has developed within societies, followed by multiculturality, while most recently the idea of transculturality is propagated, which Wolfgang Welsch defined as “a consequence of the inner differentiation and complexity of modern cultures”. Containing interpenetration of cultures and hybridization, transculturality gives a new quality to globalization, which has important support in the digital humanities.

Digital humanities represent a state-of-the-art link between our highly digital contemporary world and humanities, and deal with the challenges that the permeation of these two engender. The aim of this paper would be to consider digital humanities in relation to the notion of transculturality. We want to emphasize the fact that it is precisely through digital environment that various cultures are mixed and merged and that the understanding and interaction is achieved on a global level. We intend to determine the current place of transculturality within digital humanities, but also consider its possible future role in the framework of this modern discipline. We will base our research on the most significant documents in terms of digital humanities, such as the Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0 by Schnapp and Presner, Epstein’s manifesto The Transformative Humanities as well as the book Digital Humanities by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld (et al.). This research will result in conclusions that will discern the current and future place of transculturality within digital humanities, but it will also offer an overview of the current state and possible future solutions for the digital presence and permeation of less-known cultures on the Internet. More broadly, the paper will explain how the idea of transculturality is confirmed, decomposed and build upon in the light of digital humanities.