Translating Diversity : Concepts, Practices, and Politics

This volume invites the reader to participate in a discussion about how to conceptualize the mediation of difference in localities of diversity and transcultural spaces via the analytical lenses of ‘translation’ as a social practice. The contributions to the volume explore, discuss, and theorize ‘translation’ as a pre-institutionalized strategy of conflict resolution and conflict transformation as well as a driving force of cultural and social change and as a means of knowledge production. In addition to mistranslations and untranslatabilities, the authors analyze the politics of literary translation and translation as research-creation.
  
Contributors: Alex Demeulenaere (Trier), Stefan Dixius (Trier), Jean Friesen (Winnipeg), Ute Heidmann (Lausanne), Julia Charlotte Kersting (Saarbrücken), Judith Lamberty (Saarbrücken), Ursula Lehmkuhl (Trier), Laurence McFalls (Montréal), Geneviève Robichaud (Montréal), Robert Schwartzwald (Montréal), Madeleine Stratford (Gatineau).Â

Ursula Lehmkuhl is Professor of International History at the University of Trier and director of the International Research Training Group Diversity: Mediating Difference in Transcultural Spaces. Her research interests include migration history, colonial history, environmental history, and the history of international relations. She has published several books, among them Pax Anglo-Americana: Machtstrukturelle Grundlagen anglo-amerikanischer Asien- und Fernostpolitik in den 1950er Jahren (1999), From Enmity to Friendship: Anglo-American Relations in the 19th and 20th Century (2005) (co-edited with Gustav Schmidt), Historians and Nature: Comparative Approaches to Environmental History (co-edited with Hermann Wellenreuther) (2007), Regieren ohne Staat? Governance in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit (2007) (co-edited with Thomas Risse), and Provincializing the United States (2014) (coedited with Norbert Finzsch and Eva Bischoff). She is currently working on a book entitled Das Dilemma der Gleichheit: Die Konstruktion und Repräsentation von ‘Vielfalt’ und ‘Differenz’ im euro-atlantischen Raum des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts.

Alex Demeulenaere is lecturer (“Akademischer Oberrat”) in Romance languages and literatures at Trier University. He is an expert in the field of (post)colonial and (post)national literatures in francophone cultures (France, Belgium, Africa, Canada), translation studies, travel narrative and literary theory (Said, de Certeau). In his dissertation (Leuven 2007), he analyzed the narrative ethos and the construction of scientific credibility in French colonial travel narratives using the conceptual lenses of discourse analysis and enunciation studies. As a member of the IRTG “Diversity” his current research – a diachronic case study of national and postnational Quebec literature – is based on the same framework (i.e. posture). He has gained considerable teaching experience at the Universities of Leuven and Trier. In cooperation with Saarland University he has organized multidisciplinary seminars; he is in charge of a masters’ seminar on interculturality and literature at the University of Luxembourg.

Stefan Dixius has a master’s degree in History and Philosophy. His master thesis focuses on translation processes in the context of the Christian mission in 16th and 17th century Japan. From 2013 to 2017 he was a research assistant at the IRTG Diversity. Since 2017 he has been working on his PhD project in which he analyzes the perception of Japan in 19th century German missionary periodicals. He has contributed to the Länderbericht Kanada published by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung with a portrait of the Montreal born Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen.

Jean Friesen (B.A. McGill, PhD University of British Columbia) is a senior scholar and former Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba where she taught Indigenous history and Public history (1973–2013). She has written on the Tsimshian of northern British Columbia (William Duncan of Metlakatla: A Victorian Missionary in British Columbia, National Museums of Canada, 1974); and on the significance of Indigenous treaty diplomacy (“Magnificent Gifts: The Treaties of Canada with the Indians of the Northwest, 1869–76”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, series 5, vol. 1, 1986). She is the co-editor of 3 books: Essays in B.C. History, Carleton Library Series, edited with H.K. Ralston, 1975; Heritage Preservation in Western Canada, Prairie Forum special edition, edited with A.A. Artibise, 1990; Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Issues, edited with K. Abel, University of Manitoba Press, 1991. She is also the author of 3 biographies for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Bishop Modeste Demers (1969); Alexander Morris (1980) and Bishop George Hills (1988). From 2004 to 2013 she served as the academic director of the intern program of the Manitoba Legislature. Her public history practice has included interpretive exhibits at the National Museum of Canada (1967–1973); Heritage planning and interpretation of River Road and Kennedy House sites 1982–84 (Federal-Provincial Agreement on Recreation and Conservation). She was the founding editor of Manitoba History journal (1979–84); Chair of the Manitoba Heritage Council (1982–86), and Chair of the Manitoba Water Council (2010–2016). She has been a governor of the Manitoba Museum (1977–82) and served on the advisory boards of the National Archives of Canada (1989–91), the Hudson’s Bay Company History Foundation (2008–18) and the Governor General’s national award for excellence in Museums (2012–2016). She has worked with the Public Interest Law Centre of Manitoba to provide expert testimony in legal cases dealing with Treaty 1 and with the Grand Union of Treaty 3 to provide written testimony on resource issues. She is currently an active member of the Speakers’ Bureau of the Treaty Commission of Manitoba. Jean Friesen served in the Manitoba Legislature from 1990–2003 and was Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy Premier from 1999–2003.

Ute Heidmann holds the Chair of Comparative Literature at University of Lausanne and has been invited as visiting professor at the European Institute of Geneva, University and Institute of Advanced Studies (IUSS) of Pavia and Modena (Italy), at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brasil), at the EHESS and Sorbonne in Paris. She directs the International Research Group CLE (Comparer les Littératures en langues Européennes). Her research interests include Epistemology of Human Sciences, Interdisciplinary Approaches, Theory and Practice of Comparison, Comparative analysis of translations, Comparison of literary and non-literary genres, Intermedial Comparison, Autobiographical and Historical Narratives, Comparison of (re)configurations of Greek myths and canonical fairy tales, Travel literature and Literature for young readers. Numerous articles have been dedicated to these fields of interests. She has published books in different languages: Die eigene Art zu sehen. Zur Reisebeschreibung des späten achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (1993); Poétiques comparées des mythes. De l’Antiquité à la Modernité (2003); Sciences du texte et analyse de discours. Enjeux d’une interdisciplinarité (2005); Le texte littéraire. Pour une approche interdisciplinaire (2009); Textualité et intertextualité des contes. Perrault, Apulée, La Fontaine, Lhéritier (2010); O texto literário. Por uma abordagem interdisciplinar, São Paulo, (2011) (the last four titles are co-authored with the linguist J.-M. Adam); Análises textuais e discursivas – Metodologia e aplicações (2010) (co-authored with J.-M. Adam and D. Maingueneau), La Babele in cui viviamo. Traduzioni, riscritture, culture (2012), co-authored with the philosopher Silvana Borutti;Le dialogisme intertextuel des contes des Grimm (2012); Mythes (re)configurés. Création, dialogues, analyses (2013), (co-edited with Nadège Coutaz and Maria Vamvouri Ruffy); Diálogos intertextuais e interculturais. A comparação como método (2014). Forthcoming: Pour un comparatisme différentiel et dialogique.