German as Contact Zone

This book suggests that linguistic translation is one minute province of an immense process of creative activity that constitutes the world as an ongoing dynamism of unceasing transformation. Building upon the speculative theory of quantum gravity, which provides a narrative of the push-pull dynamics of transformative translation from the very smallest scales of reality to the very greatest, this book argues that the so-called "translative turn" of the 1990s was correct in positing translation as a paradigmatic concept of transformation. In a provocative "provincialization" of linguistic translation, literary translation in particular is here intended to display a remarkable awareness of its own participation in a larger creative "contact zone"-and then proceeds to read the German language, literary translations in and out of German, and the German-language classroom as "quantum" contact zones.

Russell West-Pavlov is Professor of Anglophone Literatures at the University of Tübingen and Research Associate at the University of Pretoria.

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Rostov-Luanda-[Berlin] Berlin coming and goings German as contact zone Generalized translation Plan of the book PART 1: Translation in theory Chapter 1: Turning Translation From translation in culture to culture as translation Defending and infringing the translational border Translation and cultural catachresis The relationality of translation Chapter 2: Provincializing language I: The translator as Anthropologist Language beyond language Provincializing language ... or not Objection 1.1: Self-referentiality, systemicity, sovereignty Objection 1.2: Historical precursors: Enlightenment, the colonies, the Holocaust Objection 2: The entanglement of icon, index and symbol Chapter 3: Provincializing language II: The translator as shaman Translation at the heart of things themselves Interlude: Provincializing language means provincialization as process . Provincialization and porosity, translation and verbing Chapter 4: Translation as information Translation, information, life The semiosphere as translation worlds Chapter 5: Towards a quantum theory of translation Quantum (gravity) theory Quantum translation theory Chapter 6: Quantizing German Quantizing language Quantizing German Foreign languages in German PART 2: Theory in translation Chapter 7: Translating Sebald Translating Conrad Reconnection Translating Sebald Translating Conrad Marlow's grove of death Text as contact zone Chapter 8: Turning Translation Inside-Out: Vladislavic, Eich, Brückner Translation and Transition Translating Translation Eich as translator Chapter 9: Kinsella transposing Hamburger translating Hölderlin Walking History War Chapter 10: Jumping on Tram 83 The near-future Translating (or failing to translate) for the future What says the clock? PART 3: Translating Translation in Teaching Chapter 11: Translating Transformation: Teaching and Translating a Sonnet by Derek Walcott Walcott's 'The Morning Moon' The sonnet and creative constraint Postcolonial resistance? Landscape, teaching and translating Chapter 12: The German Classroom as a Contact Zone Ausländisch für Deutsche-Foreignish for Germans Foreign languages in the German-language school Translation in the classroom Resonance as translation Chapter 13: Blackboard as Fourth Wall: classrooms, race, translation and the contemporary crisis in Germany Racism as a global phenomenon Systemic connections Connections: Performatives, Affect and Agency The Classroom in the World Conclusion: Before I die Appendix: The Multicultural and multilingual classroom The fate of the Federal Republic in the twenty-first century Polylingual schools and a pluricultural society as the starting point for new approaches to EFL EFL as a model for diversity learning Ambivalent evidence from textbooks The 'real existing' classroom as opportunity: what now? Bibliography