Raoul Findeisen

Raoul
Findeisen

University of Vienna

Department: Asian Studies

Course Information:

Seminar Course

SECONDARY TRANSLATION IN THE PROCESS OF WORLD LITERATURE

This seminar is addressed to advanced postgraduate students in all

philologies/literary studies programmes, not least in comparative literature,

translation studies, and literary theory. It intends to unfold the role of

intermediary languages in the translation history of various languages. The

following hypotheses shall guide the inquiries: 1) Secondary translation is

earlier than primary translation; 2) earlier translation displays a more lasting

influence in reception history; 3) the (foreign) literary canon in the target

language is distinctively different from the canon in the (original) source

language.

It is obvious that a number of sociological issues are at play, among them

foreign language education in the cultural environment of the target

language, and differing traditions of canon formation processes in the source

language, intermediary language and target language environments,

respectively. The ideal working procedure would result in working

complementarily in various fields defined by the specialized linguistic and

methological (sociological, historical) skills among the audience, thus

bringing together in-depth case studies to give a sharper profile to the

complexity of interliterary and intercultural prcesses, and finally leading to

verify or falsify the hypotheses pronounced above.

 

Public Lecture

AN ATTEMPT AT A SOCIOLOGY OF LITERARY HOLDINGS

IN THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY AND NATIONAL LIBRARIES

Probably as nowhere else—with the exception of the Library of Congress—,

holdings of the two big Jerusalem libraries in the intermediate languages

relevant not only for intermediate translation into Chinese are particularly

rich, due to migration since the early 20th century and ensuing donations. As

an ailing project, this lecture is intended to be an outcome of my sojourn,

giving not only an overview of the topic of mediated translation, but also

taking particular donations examples. To my knowledge, the field has not yet

been studied, even less under the perspective of global translation history