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Papers by Akkad Alhussein

Milan Kundera’s critical views and his difficult relationship to translation and translators has ... more Milan Kundera’s critical views and his difficult relationship to translation and translators has been
frequently a subject of heated discussion and debate among translation scholars and experts. While
some show understanding and sympathy for Kundera’s radical attitude and his uncompromising
demand for fidelity, others see in him an author who desperately wants to assert his authority as sole
owner of the text, referring to his interventions in the translation process as expression of an
‘essentialist’ desire or need to control meaning translingually. While demanding utmost loyalty from
translators, Kundera himself takes full liberty when translating his own work, making significant
editions and creating different versions of the same text in different languages. The history of his novel
The Joke is symptomatic of the contradictions pertinent to Kundera’s bilingual practice. In this paper,
I will discuss the problem of translation and the relationship between original and translation in
Kundera’s work. Drawing on the themes of misunderstanding, remembrance and forgetting in The
Joke, it will be argued that Kundera deliberately uses misunderstanding as a special mode of
reading/writing. While apparently seeking to create a ‘definite’ version, Kundera’s rewriting practice
rather erases boundaries and raise serious questions regarding what can be considered a translation and
what is supposed to be an original.

This paper investigates the reception history of the Danish Poet and fairytale writer Hans Christ... more This paper investigates the reception history of the Danish Poet and fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen in 19th-century Germany and its influence on his (auto)biographical depiction. Like many Scandinavian poets, Andersen discovered Germany’s literary potential and took advantage of it to further his career. In most cases, he was pictured as a genius who suffered systematic underestimation in Denmark. This narrative which determined his reception plays a central role in his German autobiography Märchen meines Lebens (Fairy Tale of my Life). Analyzing Andersen’s autobiographical discourse, I will reconstruct the process of the construction of Andersen’s (auto)biographical myth, emphasizing translation’s role in shaping autobiographical narratives.

Gideon Toury pioneered Descriptive Translation Studies as a science based on observation, (re)def... more Gideon Toury pioneered Descriptive Translation Studies as a science based on observation, (re)defining translation as a target-cultural 'fact' and, thus, shifting the focus to the translation as a product which can and should be studied without any methodological presumptions. However, this proves illusive, as it falsely supposes neutrality in research. Arguing that there could be no strict separation between description and evaluation, I will argue that-if we are to fully understand its complex nature-translation cannot be properly viewed as an exclusively target-cultural phenomenon. An overview of some alternative concepts that allow a more balanced perspective will be given.

Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Translationsgeschichte der Arabischen Erzäh-lungen der ‚T... more Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Translationsgeschichte der Arabischen Erzäh-lungen der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht' aus einer performativen, ausgangskulturorientier-ten Perspektive. Die Zweistufigkeit des Translationsprozesses als interlingua-ler/zweisprachiger Kommunikation impliziert eine eindimensionale Linearität, die die Beziehung zwischen Ausgangs-und Zieltext bestimmt. Die Effekte der Translation auf Produktion/Rezeption des Ausgangstextes fallen jenseits der konzeptuellen Reichweite des Translationsbegriffes und können prinzipiell nicht in einem translationstheoreti-schen Rahmen behandelt werden, was in einer statisch-genetischen Konzeption vom Ausgangstext als "Quelle" resultiert. Ich werde anhand der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht' argumentieren, dass eine neue Auffassung der Translation als performative Be-wegung in Richtung Ausgangstext die Komplexität translatorischen Handelns besser zeigen und die interpretativen Möglichkeiten der Translation als Interaktion zwischen einem Ausgangstext und einem Zieltext erweitern kann. Dabei wird die Rolle Antoine Gallands und seiner Übersetzung der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht' (Les mille et une nuits) hervorgehoben. This article deals with the translation history of the Arabic narratives of the 'Thousand and One Nights' from a performative, source culture-oriented perspective. The two-stage nature of the translation process as interlingual/bilingual communication implies a one-dimensional linearity that determines the relationship between source and target text. The effects of translation on the production/reception of the source text fall beyond the conceptual scope of the concept of translation and cannot, in principle, be dealt with in a translation-theoretical framework, resulting in a static-genetic conception of the source text as a "source". I will use the 'Thousand and One Nights' to argue that a new concept of translation as a performative movement towards the source text can better demonstrate the complexity of translational action and expand the interpre-tative possibilities of translation as an interaction between a source text and a target text. The role of Antoine Galland and his translation of the 'Thousand and One Nights' (Les mille et une nuits) is highlighted. Akkad Alhussein: Von den Möglichkeiten translatorischen Handelns

Books by Akkad Alhussein

Translate beeinflussen den Ausgangstext. Die translationstheoretische und translationspraktische ... more Translate beeinflussen den Ausgangstext. Die translationstheoretische und translationspraktische Relevanz dieser augenscheinlich nicht repräsentativen
und systematisch marginalisierten Beobachtung wird jedoch oft bestritten. Akkad Alhussein untersucht die performative Unsichtbarkeit der Translation
in Bezug auf den Originaltext sowie die Konsequenzen dieser Unsichtbarkeit für das Verständnis von Translation und translatorischem Handeln. Mittels translationswissenschaftlicher und interdisziplinärer Forschungsansätze analysiert er die epistemologischen Grundlagen translationstheoretischen Wissens sowie die Diskurse und diskursiven Prozesse des Fachs. Im Ergebnis entwickelt er eine neue translationswissenschaftliche Perspektive. In produktiver Auseinandersetzung mit den herrschenden Diskursen zeigt er so, wie zum Beispiel retroflexe Effekte der Translation als translationswissenschaftlicher Untersuchungsgegenstand etabliert und Reziprozität als Befreiung verstanden werden können.

Conference Presentations by Akkad Alhussein

AHM Conference 2023: 'Diasporic Heritage and Identity', Jun 2023, Volume 2, p.161 - 172 , 2023

Migrants' geographic and temporal movements and border-crossings often involve the creative use o... more Migrants' geographic and temporal movements and border-crossings often involve the creative use of nostalgic attachments, embodied memories and everyday material objects as means of continuity and translation between past and present, the old home and the new home. This paper examines the transnational construction and negotiation of diasporic subjectivity from the perspective of nostalgic embodied memory and memory objects. Three novels by Anglophone Arab women writers Fadia Faqir, Leila Aboulela, and Layla AlAmmar will be considered as examples. The novels depict the migration experience of Arab Muslim women in Britain and represent the entanglements of cultural encounter, social trauma, domestic violence and gender through memory objects and experiences of food in diaspora. In this context, embodied and performative remembering through rituals, traditions, social customs, nostalgic experiences triggered by the senses and involving homely foods, and other emotionally relevant objects of everyday life and material culture function as vehicles to reconnect with lost realities and create bridges between cultural landscapes. Drawing on a cultural-materialist approach and emphasizing the positive value of nostalgia in the daily tasks of migrant homebuilding, I discuss nostalgia and memory objects as a narrative strategy and means of translation that resists geographic and cultural dislocation in affective ecologies of home and enables meaningful cultural exchanges, adaptations and transactions. This, I argue, is complicated by minority discourse and postcolonial identity and gender politics in a migratory context where cultural exchanges can be disrupted by trauma and hegemony.

Milan Kundera’s critical views and his difficult relationship to translation and translators has ... more Milan Kundera’s critical views and his difficult relationship to translation and translators has been
frequently a subject of heated discussion and debate among translation scholars and experts. While
some show understanding and sympathy for Kundera’s radical attitude and his uncompromising
demand for fidelity, others see in him an author who desperately wants to assert his authority as sole
owner of the text, referring to his interventions in the translation process as expression of an
‘essentialist’ desire or need to control meaning translingually. While demanding utmost loyalty from
translators, Kundera himself takes full liberty when translating his own work, making significant
editions and creating different versions of the same text in different languages. The history of his novel
The Joke is symptomatic of the contradictions pertinent to Kundera’s bilingual practice. In this paper,
I will discuss the problem of translation and the relationship between original and translation in
Kundera’s work. Drawing on the themes of misunderstanding, remembrance and forgetting in The
Joke, it will be argued that Kundera deliberately uses misunderstanding as a special mode of
reading/writing. While apparently seeking to create a ‘definite’ version, Kundera’s rewriting practice
rather erases boundaries and raise serious questions regarding what can be considered a translation and
what is supposed to be an original.

This paper investigates the reception history of the Danish Poet and fairytale writer Hans Christ... more This paper investigates the reception history of the Danish Poet and fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen in 19th-century Germany and its influence on his (auto)biographical depiction. Like many Scandinavian poets, Andersen discovered Germany’s literary potential and took advantage of it to further his career. In most cases, he was pictured as a genius who suffered systematic underestimation in Denmark. This narrative which determined his reception plays a central role in his German autobiography Märchen meines Lebens (Fairy Tale of my Life). Analyzing Andersen’s autobiographical discourse, I will reconstruct the process of the construction of Andersen’s (auto)biographical myth, emphasizing translation’s role in shaping autobiographical narratives.

Gideon Toury pioneered Descriptive Translation Studies as a science based on observation, (re)def... more Gideon Toury pioneered Descriptive Translation Studies as a science based on observation, (re)defining translation as a target-cultural 'fact' and, thus, shifting the focus to the translation as a product which can and should be studied without any methodological presumptions. However, this proves illusive, as it falsely supposes neutrality in research. Arguing that there could be no strict separation between description and evaluation, I will argue that-if we are to fully understand its complex nature-translation cannot be properly viewed as an exclusively target-cultural phenomenon. An overview of some alternative concepts that allow a more balanced perspective will be given.

Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Translationsgeschichte der Arabischen Erzäh-lungen der ‚T... more Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Translationsgeschichte der Arabischen Erzäh-lungen der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht' aus einer performativen, ausgangskulturorientier-ten Perspektive. Die Zweistufigkeit des Translationsprozesses als interlingua-ler/zweisprachiger Kommunikation impliziert eine eindimensionale Linearität, die die Beziehung zwischen Ausgangs-und Zieltext bestimmt. Die Effekte der Translation auf Produktion/Rezeption des Ausgangstextes fallen jenseits der konzeptuellen Reichweite des Translationsbegriffes und können prinzipiell nicht in einem translationstheoreti-schen Rahmen behandelt werden, was in einer statisch-genetischen Konzeption vom Ausgangstext als "Quelle" resultiert. Ich werde anhand der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht' argumentieren, dass eine neue Auffassung der Translation als performative Be-wegung in Richtung Ausgangstext die Komplexität translatorischen Handelns besser zeigen und die interpretativen Möglichkeiten der Translation als Interaktion zwischen einem Ausgangstext und einem Zieltext erweitern kann. Dabei wird die Rolle Antoine Gallands und seiner Übersetzung der ‚Tausend und eine Nacht' (Les mille et une nuits) hervorgehoben. This article deals with the translation history of the Arabic narratives of the 'Thousand and One Nights' from a performative, source culture-oriented perspective. The two-stage nature of the translation process as interlingual/bilingual communication implies a one-dimensional linearity that determines the relationship between source and target text. The effects of translation on the production/reception of the source text fall beyond the conceptual scope of the concept of translation and cannot, in principle, be dealt with in a translation-theoretical framework, resulting in a static-genetic conception of the source text as a "source". I will use the 'Thousand and One Nights' to argue that a new concept of translation as a performative movement towards the source text can better demonstrate the complexity of translational action and expand the interpre-tative possibilities of translation as an interaction between a source text and a target text. The role of Antoine Galland and his translation of the 'Thousand and One Nights' (Les mille et une nuits) is highlighted. Akkad Alhussein: Von den Möglichkeiten translatorischen Handelns

Translate beeinflussen den Ausgangstext. Die translationstheoretische und translationspraktische ... more Translate beeinflussen den Ausgangstext. Die translationstheoretische und translationspraktische Relevanz dieser augenscheinlich nicht repräsentativen
und systematisch marginalisierten Beobachtung wird jedoch oft bestritten. Akkad Alhussein untersucht die performative Unsichtbarkeit der Translation
in Bezug auf den Originaltext sowie die Konsequenzen dieser Unsichtbarkeit für das Verständnis von Translation und translatorischem Handeln. Mittels translationswissenschaftlicher und interdisziplinärer Forschungsansätze analysiert er die epistemologischen Grundlagen translationstheoretischen Wissens sowie die Diskurse und diskursiven Prozesse des Fachs. Im Ergebnis entwickelt er eine neue translationswissenschaftliche Perspektive. In produktiver Auseinandersetzung mit den herrschenden Diskursen zeigt er so, wie zum Beispiel retroflexe Effekte der Translation als translationswissenschaftlicher Untersuchungsgegenstand etabliert und Reziprozität als Befreiung verstanden werden können.

AHM Conference 2023: 'Diasporic Heritage and Identity', Jun 2023, Volume 2, p.161 - 172 , 2023

Migrants' geographic and temporal movements and border-crossings often involve the creative use o... more Migrants' geographic and temporal movements and border-crossings often involve the creative use of nostalgic attachments, embodied memories and everyday material objects as means of continuity and translation between past and present, the old home and the new home. This paper examines the transnational construction and negotiation of diasporic subjectivity from the perspective of nostalgic embodied memory and memory objects. Three novels by Anglophone Arab women writers Fadia Faqir, Leila Aboulela, and Layla AlAmmar will be considered as examples. The novels depict the migration experience of Arab Muslim women in Britain and represent the entanglements of cultural encounter, social trauma, domestic violence and gender through memory objects and experiences of food in diaspora. In this context, embodied and performative remembering through rituals, traditions, social customs, nostalgic experiences triggered by the senses and involving homely foods, and other emotionally relevant objects of everyday life and material culture function as vehicles to reconnect with lost realities and create bridges between cultural landscapes. Drawing on a cultural-materialist approach and emphasizing the positive value of nostalgia in the daily tasks of migrant homebuilding, I discuss nostalgia and memory objects as a narrative strategy and means of translation that resists geographic and cultural dislocation in affective ecologies of home and enables meaningful cultural exchanges, adaptations and transactions. This, I argue, is complicated by minority discourse and postcolonial identity and gender politics in a migratory context where cultural exchanges can be disrupted by trauma and hegemony.