Un/Translatables: New Maps for Germanic Literatures

The term
Untranslatables
is rooted in two explorations of translation written originally in German: Walter Benjamin’s now ubiquitous
The Task of the Translator
and Goethe’s extensive notes to his
tradaptation
of mystical Persian poetry. The essays collected in Un/Translatables unite two inescapable interventions in contemporary translation discourses: the concept of
Untranslatables
as points of productive resistance, and the Germanic tradition as the primary dialogue partner for translation studies. The essays collected in the volume pursue the critical itineraries that would result if
Untranslatables,
as discussed in Barbara Cassin’s Dictionary of Untranslatables, were returned, productively estranged, to their original German context. Thus, these essays explore Untranslatables across Germanic literatures-German, Yiddish, Dutch, and Afrikaans-and follow trajectories into Hebrew, Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, English, and Scots.