Topics in Germanic Literatures: Waldeinsamkeit: Nature, Culture, Translation

Waldeinsamkeit, the particular feeling of loneliness to be found only deep in the woods, is often cited as the quintessentially untranslatable German word. But such “untranslatables” are the results of complex cultural processes. Accordingly, this course will take Waldeinsamkeit, a term for an emphatic and isolated experience in and with nature, as a case study for a history of cultural circulation. This in turn leads to a classical question: the troubled relationship between—and possible overlapping of—nature and culture.