The 2nd International Congress of Transcultural Studies, jointly organised by three European universities — the Latvian Academy of Culture in Riga, the University of Macerata (Università di Macerata) in Italy, and KU Leuven in Belgium — will take place in Riga from 30 June to 2 July 2026. This year, the congress focuses on the theme “Give and Take: Transdisciplinary Spaces of ‘Cohesive Netting’”, which encompasses a wide range of topics, from concepts of glocal history to digitalisation, augmented reality and artificial intelligence technologies.
Inspired by the latest publication of German philosopher and founder of the postmodern concept of transculturality, Wolfgang Welsch — Die Welt als Gewebe (“The World as a Web”, 2025) — the congress aims to critically and innovatively examine the “euphoria of netting” described by Welsch. The event will feature Wolfgang Welsch himself, alongside researchers of culture, literature, film, education and music, as well as art therapists and semioticians. Among the speakers is also German-American artist Till Nowak, who created the virtual environment for Francis Ford Coppola’s recent feature film Megalopolis (2024). The congress will analyse Welsch’s transcultural phenomenology, with particular attention to its methodological applications in the arts and to the “netting” metaphor introduced by Welsch in the early 1990s. The programme aims to connect this metaphor with analogue and digital concepts of reality across various fields of art, culture, literature and education.
Given the clear parallels between Welsch’s theoretical concept of netting and the global digitalisation of cultures, communication channels and societies, the congress uses his approach as a starting point for analysing artistic practice, creative industries and the development of transcultural studies in the digital age, while simultaneously expanding the boundaries of this approach. The “web” created by transculturality, the internet and the arts opens new interdisciplinary opportunities in teacher education, didactics and pedagogy, as well as in the so‑called “third spaces” that emerge in post‑migration contexts and are continuously restructured on both social and technological levels, including in the cultural fusion processes shaped by postcolonial histories.
On the threshold of a new era characterised by nomadic mobility, advanced media technologies, shifting federal structures and transnational networks, the web‑like or cohesive human paradigm described by Welsch must be re‑coded — creatively rewoven and re‑knotted — to shape a coexistent and sustainable future for humanity. By highlighting specific transcultural connections and nodal points, the congress will analyse transcultural networks from multiple perspectives, moving beyond the boundaries of cultural studies alone. It will also examine the constructive sociological potential of transcultural cosmopolitanism and the goals of global citizenship education within contemporary “post‑postmodern” transculturalism, which is grounded in the collective principle of giving and receiving — a principle reflected in the title of the conference.
The first day of the conference, 30 June, will take place at the Latvian Academy of Culture’s theatre house “Zirgu pasts” (Dzirnavu Street 46, Riga) from 15:00 to 19:00. The following two days — 1 and 2 July — will be held at the Radisson Blu Latvija Conference Hotel (Elizabetes Street 55, Riga) from 9:30 to 17:00. Admission is free with prior registration: https://forms.gle/R9kwoYefEgBNsDxX9 The working language of the conference in Riga is English. A publication is planned on the digital platform of the academic journal Transculturale. Full programme available at www.lka.edu.lv.
Programma
open
