Summary
With the rapidly developing globalization of various sectors of modern life, individuals, organizations, and nations are becoming increasingly aware of the ways in which cultural diversity may not only be a potential cause of conflict but also a source of growth, creativity, and inspiration. If, traditionally, intercultural mediation has been understood as a conflict-solving strategy, or as a means to facilitate communication between individuals from different cultural backgrounds, this book aims at providing a framework and a set of theoretical reflections towards a larger vision of the field, presenting mediation as a particular form of critical intervention within the different domains of the humanities. The contributions in the present volume take intercultural mediation to be a multifaceted, interdisciplinary phenomenon, impacting upon the fields of linguistics and literature as well as translation and cultural studies, where themes such as interculturality, multilingualism, and cultural transfer are continual and urgent features of contemporary discourse and debate.
Ciara Hogan is a teaching and research fellow at Université Paris Descartes. Her research interests are in the fields of literature, interculturalism, and Irish cultural studies. Nadine Rentel is a professor of Romance languages (French and Italian) at the University of Applied Sciences, Zwickau. Her research interests are contrastive linguistics, academic discourse, business communication, and the communication in the new media and social networks.Stephanie Schwerter teaches translation studies, intercultural mediation, and comparative literature at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Her current research interest lies in intercultural communication and the exploration of intercultural connections in European literature.
