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Getting Creative: Translation and Etymology as Cultural Narratives of Sustainability and Resilience with Dr. Simon Richter
November 13, 2018 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Free
Simon Richter, Professor and Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lecture, November 13, 5:00-6:30 pm Dauer 219 (Ruth McQuown Room): “Getting Creative: Translation and Etymology as Cultural Narratives of Sustainability and Resilience.”
Livestream link available HERE.
In his lecture, Dr. Richter will present several case studies that show how the translation of two terms, sustainability and resilience, can reveal the distinctive cultural and intercultural stakes of communities as they respond to climate change. Since the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987, all countries (and many languages) have needed to translate these and related terms. How they translate them is revealing. He will show how creative etymology has the potential to become cultural narrative. His presentation begins in the German Enlightenment with the story of Nachhaltigkeit, but moves on to consider the cases of Indonesia, Israel, and Vietnam among others.