An Imagined Interview with Rudolf G. Wagner: His Thoughts on the Lifeworld in the Anthropocene Age, the Trees/Forest Metaphor, and the Culture of Nature in Transcultural Studies

Abstract

In 2018, a year before Rudolf Wagner passed away, he gave a lecture at Heidelberg University entitled “Of Trees and the Wood, Cultures and CULTURE.” In this talk, he argued that culture and transcultural studies share the same prison cell of binarity. Just as culture defines itself by emphasizing difference from the other, transcultural studies examines culture’s interaction with the other. To break through this binarity, he suggested considering the nature of culture through the metaphor of the trees and the forest. The well-being of a local culture (the tree) depends on other cultures far and near (the surrounding trees); together they form an “ecological network system” that he identifies as culture (the forest). This network of interaction, although vibrant, is invisible. The dynamic interaction between local needs, competition, and collaboration helps spread new ideas and practices, in turn ensuring the life and vitality of culture.

Our article takes up some of the central ideas expressed by Rudolf Wagner in that 2018 lecture, as well as in some of his other writings and notes from that period. It is framed as a discussion with Wagner in which he positions transculturality as an intrinsic part of the Lifeworld in the Anthropocene age. The main topics focus on the concept of transculturality, the crisis of binarity in transcultural studies, the power dynamics that lead nation-states to define culture within national borders, and how the trees and forest metaphor for cultures and culture demonstrates this fallacy. Finally, we close with Rudolf Wagner’s idea that the study of human culture necessarily belongs to the study of the Lifeworld and its all-encompassing networks.