ABSTRACT
Today, the globality of emotions is apparent in, for example, the daily use of ‘emoticons’ in electronic communication, in rock and youth styles termed ‘emo’, and in political parties appealing to voters’ emotions the same way global advertising is appealing to consumers’ emotions. Questions about the emotional aspect of transcultural processes have been implicitly raised since the beginning of recent discussions in transcultural studies. Next to notions of external connectedness and internal hybridity of cultures, the German philosopher Wolfgang Welsch considers the transculturality of individuals and claims that they are ‘increasingly transcultural within themselves’ (Welsch 2010: 2773). In doing so, he not only calls for a deepened understanding of the emotional dimensions of transculturality, but also emphasizes the importance of transculturality for emotion studies. While I would not go as far as to hypothesize about the rise of a separate field of ‘transcultural emotions’, it seems reasonable to ask about the layer of transculturality which is, so to speak, most intimate to the individual. It is of interest for transcultural studies to learn about the formation of this layer, as well as about the ways in which it interacts with, and complements, larger transcultural processes within and across cultures as highlighted by transcultural studies.
