GCSC KNL | After Hybridity: Grafting as a Model of Cultural Translation
- https://www.uni-giessen.de/en/faculties/ggkgcsc/events/semester-overview/previous/archive/sose22/keynote-lectures/KNL_Wirth
- GCSC KNL | After Hybridity: Grafting as a Model of Cultural Translation
- 2022-05-31T18:30:00+02:00
- 2022-05-31T20:00:00+02:00
May 31, 2022 from 06:30 to 08:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC200)
"All translation" states Walter Benjamin in his essay The Task of the Translator Walter Benjamin, "is only a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages". The notion of cultural translation as it was developed by postcolonial studies attempts to cope not only with the foreignness of language, but also with 'the other' as a foreigner. In order to come to terms for the various interferences that occur in the course of processes of cultural translation,' Homi Bhabha and other postcolonial theorists have conceptualized interactions between different cultures on the one hand as an "activity of displacement within the linguistic sign", on the other hand as processes of hybridization.
I would like to propose an alternative model for describing processes of cultural translation, namely the model of grafting that has been used not only by Jacques Derrida as a metaphor for textual cut and paste operations, but also by Johann Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Schleiermacher for the purpose of coming to terms with the foreignness of other languages as well as other cultures. Hence, one focus of my talk will be, in which sense grafting can also count as an activity of displacement in the interaction of different languages and cultures.
On-site event open to the public without prior registration. To join the lecture event online, please register here.