DisOrientations: German-Turkish Cultural Contact in Translation, 1811-1946

271 Pages·2021·1.548 MB·English

by  Kristin Dickinson

DisOrientations
GERMAN-TURKISH CULTURAL CONTACT
IN TRANSLATION, 1811–1946
Kristin Dickinson
DisOrientations
The Max Kade Research Institute Series:
Germans Beyond Europe
Series Editor Founding Editor
Daniel Purdy A. Gregg Roeber
The Max Kade Research Institute Series is an outlet for
scholarship that examines the history and culture of
German-speaking communities in America and across the
globe from the early modern period to the present. Books
in this series examine the movements of the German-
speaking diaspora as influenced by forces such as migration,
colonization, war, research, religious missions, or trade. This
series explores the historical and cultural depictions of the
international networks that connect these communities,
as well as linguistic relations between German and other
languages within European global networks.
This series is a project of the Max Kade Research Institute
located on Penn State’s campus. It was founded in 1993
thanks to a grant from the Max Kade Foundation, New York.
DisOrientations
German-Turkish Cultural Contact
in Translation, 1811–1946
The Pennsylvania State University Press Kristin Dickinson
University Park, Pennsylvania
An earlier version of chapter six appeared as “Intervening in the
Humanist Legacy: Sabahattin Ali’s Kleist Translations,” Turkish-
German Studies Yearbook 8 (Spring 2017).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dickinson, Kristin, 1981– author.
Title: DisOrientations : German-Turkish cultural contact in
translation, 1811–1946 / Kristin Dickinson.
Other titles: Max Kade German-American Research Institute
series.
Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania
State University Press, [2021] | Series: Max Kade Research
Institute series: Germans beyond Europe | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Explores the German-Turkish literary-cultural
relationship from 1811 to 1946, focusing on literary translation
as a complex mode of cultural, political, and linguistic
orientation”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021010374 | ISBN 9780271089843 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Turkish literature—19th century—Translations
into German—History and criticism. | Turkish literature—
20th century—Translations into German—History and
criticism. | German literature—Translations into Turkish—
History and criticism. | Turkey—Relations—Germany. |
Germany—Relations—Turkey.
Classification: LCC PL209 .D53 2021 | DDC 894/.35—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010374
Copyright © 2021 Kristin Dickinson
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802–1003
The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the
Association of University Presses.
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to
use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the
minimum requirements of American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Material, ansi z39.48–1992.
For Tuncay

Contents
Acknowledgments (ix)
Introduction: Translational Orientations (1)
Part 1: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Exceptional”
Translations Across the Nineteenth Century
1. Orientalism and Weltliteratur: The Ottoman Disorient
in Goethe’s West-East Divan (37)
2. Translations with No Original: Reading Werther in
Ottoman Turkish (64)
Part 2: Friedrich Schrader:
Translating Toward the Future
3. Translating Beyond the Civilizing Mission: Ahmet
Hikmet Müftüoğlu and the Ottoman Dandy (87)
4. Political Orientations: On (Re)translating Halide Edip
Adıvar’s The New Turan (119)
Part 3: Sabahattin Ali: Theorizing World
Literature from Early Republican Turkey
5. A Prelude in Potsdam: World Literature as Translational
Multiplicity (147)
viii Contents
6. Silencing the Ansatzpunkt: World Literature as Radical
Interrelationality (166)
Epilogue (193)
Notes (201)
Bibliography (234)
Index (250)
Acknowledgments
This book has benefitted from the generous support of numerous insti-
tutions, colleagues, and dear friends. I conducted research for chapters
one, two, and five as a fellow with the Social Science Research Council. I
later researched and wrote chapters three and four as a fellow at the Inter-
national Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna, Austria.
The University of Michigan generously provided funding for a manuscript
workshop. I am especially grateful for the detailed feedback I received at
this workshop from Leslie Adelson and Azade Seyhan. Their thorough and
thoughtful comments have shaped and strengthened this book, just as their
scholarship has served as an important source of inspiration for my own. I
would also like to thank the many people I have worked with at Pennsylva-
nia State University Press to bring this book to fruition, including Daniel
Purdy, Kathryn Bourque Yahner, Laura Reed-Morrisson, Maddie Caso,
Alex Ramos, and Leyla Aksu.
Numerous colleagues at the University of Michigan have also read
and commented on different sections of this book over the past five years,
including Maya Barzilai, Gottfried Hagen, Julia Hell, Fred Amrine, Helmut
Puff, Kerstin Barndt, Silke-Maria Weineck, Peter McIsaac, Scott Spector,
Tyler Whitney, and Kira Thurman. Yopie Prins and Scotti Parrish provided
valuable feedback on my book proposal. Special thanks go to Andreas
Gailus for his detailed comments at different stages of the writing process.
And I am particularly grateful to Johannes von Moltke for his advice on
questions of structure and theoretical framing. Damani Partridge and Kira
Thurman also offered much-needed moral support and encouragement at
different stages of this project.
Thought-provoking conversations with graduate students at the
University of Michigan have contributed to the lines of thought I develop
in this book in more ways than one. It has been a pleasure working with
Duygu Ergun, Matthew Liberti, Ali Bolcakan, Elizabeth McNeill, Özlem