Travelling theories

In an essay from 1982, the renowned cultural critic Edward Said explored the idea of travelling theory. ‘[I]deas and theories’, Said suggested, ‘travel – from person to person, from situation to situation, from one period to another’ though the ‘circulation of ideas’ takes different forms, including ‘acknowledged or unconscious influence, creative borrowing, or wholesale appropriation’.1 While they emerge from within particular traditions, and bear the traces of their historical and cultural conditions of production, theories are nevertheless mobile, exported to contexts diverse from their own. The ability of a particular theory or body of ideas to survive over time, or to gain influence in an historical epoch distinct from that in which it originated, might well be attributable to this capacity for travel.