Transnational Literature
Translation Studies and Global Literature
Translation Studies and Global Literature
The 21st century presents a world that is ever more global and international. And this has had powerful consequences for the way we look at literature across national borders and on our planet as a whole. "Transnational Literature" is a research field that has been developed since the 1990s by the most outstanding international researchers. Here at Tsukuba University in the "Ph.D. Sub-Program of Literature", I am teaching "Transnational Literature" by focusing on Translation Studies, Multilingualism, and Global and Planetary Literature.
Global and Planetary Literature:
"Transnational Literature" focuses on literary publications in two broad perspectives: on the one hand it covers those texts which exceed national boundaries and deal with general questions of human life, surpassing countries and continents, and even tackle issues of planetary importance, on the other hand it looks at the processes that develop when texts from one language or culture are passed on to other languages or cultures, that is the large intertwined fields of intercultural and translation studies. On top of diverse concrete analyses of individual texts, authors and genres, "Transnational Literature" also has a theoretical side to it: the question of how our perception and understanding of literature and its functions have to be reviewed against the backdrop of the radically changing world we are living in today. Theoretical research is based on our most outstanding critical thinkers, such as Spivak, Derrida, Butler, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, de Man, Bakhtin, Kramsch, Bauman, Appiah, Agamben etc. and is genuinely developed in the new research field of "Relational Studies". In recent years I have investigated transnational literature in various perspectives, such as "Post-Fukushima Literature", "Refugee Literature", "Literature of Old Age", "Humor and Translation".
Multilingualism:
In today's global world multilingualism is becoming more and more the standard of intellectual and general education. Even "remote islands" like Japan (to quote an image from Yoko Tawada) are exposed to this development. Monolingual and pseudo-monolingual countries are in fact - and have always been - a minority among the many diverse cultures and nations our common history has produced. In Europe, Latin and Greek, later French and German, and today English have represented a lingua franca, elsewhere Chinese and Arabic developed a parallel realm of writing to the local vernaculars stretching over distant countries. The Spanish and Portuguese, the Russians spread their language throughout vast areas, while the Jews kept their Hebrew tradition alive in their world-wide diaspora. Multilingualism, Bilingual Authors, and Foreign-Language Learning are at the center of attention not only in the field of literature, but also in international communication and global co-operation. Raised as a "Central-European", I grew up with many languages in the vast and fascinating network of European Literature. In the past, I have published on English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Russian, Swedish, Dutch, and Japanese literature. At present, I am learning Arabic to enter yet another fascinating realm of literature.
Translation Studies:
In general, "Translation Studies" comprises two major fields: the practical process of translating from one language to the other, or transcribing from one code to the other, or transposing from one media to the other, and the theoretical field of the philosophy of language and aesthetics of expression, with its outstanding thinkers, such as Humboldt, Benjamin, Bakhtin, Heidegger, Derrida, de Man, and Spivak. The history of translating, translating techniques, and translation in various fields beyond literature complete these studies. Of specific interest in "Transnational Literature" are bilingual and multilingual authors who write in two or more languages such as Nabokov, Conrad, Beckett, Singer, Morgenstern, Tawada, Steinwachs, authors who translate in addition to their own literary oeuvre such as Benjamin, Celan, Bachmann, Carson, Tabucchi, and artists who mix diverse media such as Grass, Pastior, Glas, and Cotten, just to name a few. In the theoretical and philosophical perspective, various concepts of doubling, like palimpsest, and rhizom, polyphony, and heteroglossia reconnect the specific field of translation studies to the linguistic basics of literature in general: How does language generate meaning? How can dialogue come into existence? Furthermore, Translation Studies do not only deal with the concrete problems when translating (non-)fiction texts, they also investigate the conditions, obstacles, and solutions in intercultural transfer and discuss the relationships and interconnection of "source text" and "target text". Lately, I have been focusing in my research and teaching on the problem of how to convey extraordinary experience, such as the plight and suffering of refugees, to readers who completely lack such experience, looking at texts by Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, and Serbian authors. And I have been supervising doctorate candidates investigating the "self-translation" project of Yoko Tawada, and the problems of translating Franz Kafka.
* In the "Sub-Program of Literature" at Tsukuba University, "Translation Studies" is not only taught in "Transnational Literature" classes, but also in "Applied Humanities" classes focusing on survival strategies for the bibliophile.
List of Latest Publications in this Field:
Herrad Heselhaus (2019a): The Creative Use of Language in German Refugee Politics 2015/2016, in: Intersections of Language Studies and Social/Political Movements, Activism, and Participation, pp. 26, (in print). (On creating new words and new concepts in political discourse.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2017c): Transnationale Elemente im Flüchtlingsroman, in: Studies in Language and Literature, Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics, Tsukuba University, vol. 72, pp. (On refugee literature)
Herrad Heselhaus (2017a): Growing Old in Europe. Antonio Tabucchi’s "Bucharest Hasn’t Changed a Bit", in: Studies in Language and Literature, Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics, Tsukuba University, vol. 71, pp.107-132. (On diaspora literature.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2016b): From Thick to Quick Translation: The Translator as Reader in Times of Globalisation, in: Studies in Language and Literature (Literature Bulletin), Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics, Tsukuba University, vol. 70, pp.13-40. (On problems in translation: Italian to Japanese.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2016a): Literature after Fukushima. A Comparison of German and Japanese Approaches, in: Proceedings of ICLA Conference (Sorbonne, Paris, 2013), 11 pp. (Comparing German and Japanese Post-Fukushima Literature.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2015): Discursive Images of Gendered Agency and the 3/11 Disaster in Japan. Reading Elfriede Jelinek's "Epilogue?" in the Japanese Classroom, in: GALE Journal, vol. 8, pp.28-39. (On Gender and Violence.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2012d): Die Welt lesend. Fünfmal Christian Morgenstern, in: Gößling-Arnold/Marquardt /Wogenstein (ed.): Kulturen der Globalisierung. Festschrift für Jürgen Wertheimer, (Baden-Baden: Nomos), pp.31-36. (Comparing one poem in 5 languages.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2012c): Übersetzen zwischen Metapher und Metonymie. Walter Benjamins Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers mit Paul de Man, in: Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (ed.): Neue Beiträge zur Germanistik, vol. 11, Internationale Ausgabe von „Doitsu Bungaku“ vol. 145, (Frankfurt: iudicium), pp.71-85. (On Benjamin's and de Man's theories of translation.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2012b): Re-Reading Literacy and Illiteracy. Teaching Images of Japan in Foreign Literature, in: Reinelt, R. (ed.): Other Language Educators, (Matsuyama: Ehime University), pp.30-38. (On literacy in foreign-language reading.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2011): Orientalismus, Okzidentalismus und kein Ende, in: Grucza, F. (ed.): Interkulturelles Verstehen und kontrastives Vergleichen. Formen literarischer und intellektueller Zusammenarbeit, Akten des XII. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses Warschau 2010, vol. 13, (Frankfurt/Bern: Peter Lang Verlag), pp. 107-111. (On orientalism and occidentalism.)
Herrad Heselhaus (2010): Encountering Poems. Giuseppe Ungaretti – Paul Celan“, in: Studies in Language and Literature (Literature Bulletin), Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics, Tsukuba University, vol. 58, pp. 61-122. (On Celan's translation of Ungaretti.)