Of 'Contact Zones' and 'Liminal Spaces'

Of 'Contact Zones' and 'Liminal Spaces' introduces the publication Series "Diversity / Diversité / Diversität" of the International Research Training Group (IRTG) Diversity (Trier/Montreal/Saarbrücken). The contributions to this volume address core concepts and research perspectives of our interdisciplinary research group. The IRTG Diversity focuses on a comparative and historically situated analysis of discourses and representations of diversity and cultural pluralism in North America and Europe. The empirical research published in this volume demonstrates how these discourses and representations of diversity create overlapping zones of geographical and chronological reach. These overlapping and highly dynamic zones bear the characteristics of 'contact zones' and 'liminal spaces'. However, they receive their social and cultural dynamism from everyday practices of cultural translation. Contributors: Ursula Lehmkuhl (Trier), Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Saarbrücken), Laurence McFalls (Montreal), Ludger Pries (Bochum), Régine Robin (Montreal/Paris), Philipp Rousseau (Montreal), Werner Schiffauer (Frankfurt/O.), Bertrand Westphal (Limoges).

Ursula Lehmkuhl is Professor of International History at the University of Trier and director of the International Research Training Group Diversity: Mediating Difference in Transcultural Spaces. Her research interests include migration history, colonial history, environmental history, and the history of international relations. She has published several books, among them Pax Anglo-Americana: Machtstrukturelle Grundlagen anglo-amerikanischer Asien- und Fernostpolitik in den 1950er Jahren (1999), From Enmity to Friendship: Anglo-American Relations in the 19th and 20th Century (2005) (co-edited with Gustav Schmidt), Historians and Nature: Comparative Approaches to Environmental History (co-edited with Hermann Wellenreuther) (2007), Regieren ohne Staat? Governance in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit (2007) (co-edited with Thomas Risse), and Provincializing the United States (2014) (coedited with Norbert Finzsch and Eva Bischoff). She is currently working on a book enTitled Das Dilemma der Gleichheit: Die Konstruktion und Repräsentation von 'Vielfalt' und 'Differenz' im euro-atlantischen Raum des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts.