Queer Theory in Transit: Reception, Translation, and Production of Queer Theory in Polish and German Contexts

酷儿理论在过境致力于酷儿理论在人文学科，重点是文化和文学研究。自20世纪90年代以来，美国对异性恋规范性和酷儿理论的批评一直有助于形成和制定欧洲各学科的酷儿理论方法，以至于当地产生的概念和先例往往被忽视。这个项目的重点是波兰和德国的翻译和接收，以及贡献酷儿理论。它解决了这一理论体系在美国学术界的起源及其随后在非常不同的地理，政治和文化背景下的接受，适应和挪用之间的紧张关系，并使其富有成效。本文以波兰和德国为例，追溯和比较了两国在历史特殊性支配下的采纳、修改和抵制的关键过程。这包括对美国视角和知识生产与当地理论传统相联系和相结合的方式进行更仔细的检查，以及它们如何影响正在进行的酷儿理论的当地生产，因为它是在回应当地讨论和问题时出现的。这种研究设置将首先使我们能够强调这两个欧洲国家之间的相互联系和分歧，其次，发展对美国文化霸权的批判性观点，历史上一直被认为是非常不同的波兰和德国，并在最近一段时间更普遍地成为一个有争议的问题，在欧洲不断变化的政治格局，并在一个更全球化的框架。该项目呼吁爱德华·赛义德的旅行理论的讨论，其中强烈强调当地的背景下，制定和应用理论概念的重要性。近二十年来，德国和波兰在酷儿理论领域进行了活跃的交流，自21世纪初以来举行了联合会议并发行了出版物。如果酷儿理论被理解为包括可追溯到现代主义及更早时期的批评和文学先例（例如，在性学领域），那么这种跨文化和学术对话就可以延伸到更远的过去。自从酷儿理论在20世纪80年代末作为一个领域形成，并在20世纪90年代和21世纪初转移到德国和波兰以来，根据当前的理论表述来识别这些前因已经成为可能。此外，酷儿理论在这两个国家的迅速吸收，也促使我们对该领域的翻译和当地工作进行比较分析。酷儿理论在运输将有助于在全球化背景下知识生产的持续辩论，并批判性地审视来自美国的文化概念的主导地位。

Queer Theory in Transit is dedicated to queer theory in the humanities, with an emphasis on cultural and literary studies. Since the 1990s, critiques of heteronormativity and queer theory production in the US have been instrumental in forming and formulating queer theoretical approaches in various academic disciplines in Europe to a point that locally produced concepts and antecedents were often ignored. This project focuses on Polish and German translations and receptions of, as well as contributions to queer theory. It addresses and makes productive the tension between the origins of this body of theory in US-American academia and its subsequent reception, adaptation and appropriation in very different geographical, political and cultural contexts. It takes the example of Poland and Germany to trace and compare the key processes of adoption, modification and resistance governed by the historical specificities in these two countries. This includes a closer inspection of the ways US-American perspectives and knowledge production have been linked to and integrated in local theoretical traditions and how they have affected the ongoing local production of queer theory as it emerges in response to local discussions and issues. This research set-up will firstly allow us to stress interconnections and divergences between these two European countries and, secondly, to develop a critical perspective on US-American cultural hegemony that historically has been viewed very differently in Poland and Germany and that in recent times has more generally become a debated issue with changing political landscapes in Europe and in a more global framework. The project calls on Edward Said’s discussion of traveling theory, which strongly emphasizes the importance of local contexts in formulating and applying theoretical concepts. Germany and Poland have had a robust exchange in the realm of queer theory for almost two decades, holding joint conferences and issuing publications since the early 2000s. And this intercultural and academic dialogue extends much further into the past if queer theory is understood to include critical and literary antecedents that date back to Modernism and beyond (e.g. in the area of sexology). Since the formulation of queer theory as a field in the late 1980s and its transit to Germany and to Poland in the 1990s and 2000s, it has become possible to identify those antecedents in the light of current theoretical formulations. Moreover, the rapid uptake of queer theory in the two countries invites a comparative analysis of the translations and local work in the field. Queer Theory in Transit will contribute to the ongoing debate about knowledge production in a globalizing context and critically examine the dominance of cultural concepts emanating from the US.