Course TRANSLATING THE ENVIRONMENT

Course description

The so-called “nature-culture divide” has remained a central problem in the environmental humanities. Although recent developments in ecological thinking have sought to undo the hyphenated boundary between the two discrete categories in favor of undivided, entangled, “naturecultural” assemblages, the fact of language lingers as a stubborn remainder of that divide. If language remains, at least conventionally, a distinctly human means of apprehending the more-than-human world, then nowhere is this asymmetry more apparent than in the act of naming. A name does not simply designate a thing that precedes it unchanged; it draws that thing into a particular linguistic field of distinctions, associations, and relations beyond the field of being, as Kant would say, a “thing-in-itself.” The environment that enters language is thus always already a named, and thereby linguistically mediated, environment. Translation compounds this problem: to translate the environment is also to rename it, to submit its things to another order of names and thus to another configuration of relations between language and world.

The German author and translator Esther Kinsky has explored this problem extensively in her work, conceiving translation not simply as the transfer of names between languages but as an act of Umbenennung, a renaming of the world that alters the linguistic contexts, associations, and relations through which its things appear. Although Kinsky’s own writing has received significant attention from ecocritical scholars, her work as a translator, not to mention the translations of her work, also have much to contribute to conversations about the intersection of language and environment. Such is the aim of this workshop, which will begin with a lecture on Esther Kinsky’s ecological thought by focusing both on how her literary writing undoes the nature-culture divide and on how her theory and practice of translation contributes to this endeavor. For the workshop portion, we will turn to original and translated excerpts from two of Kinsky’s books – the poetry collection Schiefern (2020) and the novel Rombo (2021) – focusing on and thinking multilingually with the location-specific contexts and naturecultural depictions that populate Kinsky’s writing. We will also examine and reflect on the strategies employed and the choices made by Kinsky’s Danish, English, and Norwegian translators.

Participants are also encouraged to attend an event with Esther Kinsky on 9 October at 17:30 in Store Sal, Kasernen, Langelandsgade 139. She will be reading from Schiefern/Slates and in conversation with Lilian Munk Rösing, Stefanie Heine, and Brad Harmon.

Aim/Learning outcomes

1. Receive a conceptual overview of the problem of language in ecocriticism and ecological thought, specifically as is relates to how language and naming complicate attempts to move beyond the nature–culture divide, particularly by considering how linguistic mediation shapes human apprehension of the more-than-human world.
2. Receive an introduction to translation understand as an act of naming and renaming, attending to how shifts between languages reconfigure the associations, relations, and environmental meanings attached to places, beings, and things.
3. Practice identifying and interpreting nature-cultural and location-specific elements in a specific authorship.
4. Compare multilingual translation strategies between original texts and translations in order to critically reflect on how translators negotiate environmentally and culturally specific language.

Requirements for participation

• None

Target group/Participants

• Any level of PhD study is welcome. No further qualifications needed.

Workload

• Course/ teaching hours: 3
• Preparation hours: 22

Language 

• English

Lecturers

• Brad Harmon, PhD scholar, Johns Hopkins University

Literature

• To be distributed after the application deadline.

Venue

• 6 October 2026. 13.00-16.00. Langelandsgade 141, 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1586, room 114

Course dates:

• 06 October 2026 13:00 - 16:00