Übergang, Übergangszeit, Übertragung. Eine Hommage an Bernhard Waldenfels

The “own” (das Eigene) and the “alien” (das Fremde) have always been conceived as completely separate entities. And the “extraneous” has been painted as absolute “other”. The deconstruction of these categories is today not only a “political”, but also a historical necessity. The presence of the extraneous has put in crisis the presumed homogeneity of the “own” and deconstructed the monocultural society. The transit of the stranger is the presupposition for bringing in the own foreign languages, ideas and even foreign commodities, and this opens the space for an intercultural communication. However, a topography of the “alien” aims at building a typology of the stranger and the forms of the reactions to the meeting with him. Waldenfels means that “alien” has to be perceived as an “Elsewhere”, an exceptional one, who is beyond the existing order. Crossing, transition period, transmission are the forms for the meeting, perceiving and describing of it. When the cultural dislocation happens inside of us in the figure of the heterotopy and in the in-between, we find a special trans-position which brings us to a new form of communication and trans-cultural project.