Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research

The Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research (CTTR) provides a research environment for interdisciplinary investigation into the history and continuing pertinence of internationalism, cosmopolitanism, and other inter-cultural configurations of consciousness and identity, including their manifestation in micro-cosmopolitan contexts (e.g. the national, regional, or local).

Research aims

The Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research:

• brings together the terms ‘transnational’ and ‘transcultural’ in recognition of the mutuality of spatial/geographical and aesthetic/cultural modes of identity;
• emphasises the importance of longitudinal study from the eighteenth-century to the present;
• is consciously multi- and inter-disciplinary, drawing its researchers from Literary Studies, Modern Languages, American Studies, European Studies, Linguistics, Politics, and other disciplines;
• has an established international collaborative dimension, with active international Honorary Research Fellows and International Advisors representing a world-wide community of scholars;
• provides opportunities for early career and post-doctoral research, post-graduate study, and public outreach.

Research areas

The Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research hosts three sub-groups representing its principal focus areas:

Europe Trend and Transformation (ETAT)

This research group, originally constituted within the former History and Governance Research Institute, comprises researchers from a variety of disciplines whose work is characterised by a European or European diasporic dimension.

Members of the group have formed the core of European Studies Units of Assessment in successive RAEs.

They have a substantial track record of high quality research outputs, external funding (including European funding) and international collaboration, among other areas of achievement. The group's convenor is Martin Dangerfield, Jean Monnet Professor in European Integration.

Areas of activity include:

• Communism and post-communism
• European integration and enlargement
• Immigration and identity
• Comparative European literature
• European linguistics: Pragmatics and discourse analysis
• European identity
• Past histories, present opportunities and future prospects of European social democracy

Global Consciousness and Culture (GCC)

This research group comprises researchers in Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, and Area Studies. Its focus is on the ideas, faiths, and group identities manifest in global cultures, including migrant communities within the United Kingdom. The group has particular strengths in Punjabi studies and Cuban studies.

Areas of activity include:

• Dalit Punjabi identity
• Contemporary Indian feminism
• Sikh studies

Writing, Culture, and Identity (WCI)

This research group comprises researchers in English literature, language, creative writing, drama, and film. The group focuses on the language, literature, and related media of cosmopolitan and regional formations, including historical and modern configurations of consumer-driven (or anti-consumerist) culture.

Areas of activity include:

• Literature and identity
• Travel writing and cross-cultural literary exchange
• American (and trans-Atlantic) literature
• Comparative European literature
• Caribbean and black British writing
• 1930s Welsh writing in English
• Popular literature and culture
• Literature, Film, and adaptation
• William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement

• Why not take a look at the CTTR Research Seminars?
• Find out more about CTTR highlights.
• Read more about the research staff  in this centre.