writing and translation
A name for something impossible, an “equivalence” that can never really be.
Is there a problem? There is. It concerns the relationship of the measurer to the measured, the scientist (or her measuring tools) to whatever-is-being-measured. Philosophers tend to view it as the relationship of subject to object, noting...
Publishers don’t necessarily ask authors — or translators — before deciding what title to give any particular book. Lambert Wiesing and I assumed that the title of the German book Luxus, would be the English...
“How Not to Translate Heidegger” is the name of a discussion on academia.edu. One segment, focussed on Heidegger’s use of the word “Dasein,” seems to have ended today. We’ve all received a PDF summary. “Dasein” is often...
The German verb “einbilden” is ordinarily translated into English as “imagine.” But at one point in Into the Universe of Technical Images, Flusser calls attention to the difference between “einbilden” and the cognate “imaginieren”. Expressing his gratitude to Kant for...
Flusser translated the title of his essay “Geste und Gestimmtheit” as “Gesture and Sentimentality”. I didn’t. I found, and to some extent still find that particular word misleading at best. Its equivalence to “Gestimmtheit” is almost...
The German word “Entwerfen” — drafting or drawing — is closely related, a kind of reversal of the verb “werfen,” which is to throw, or hurl, or toss. Flusser uses the association to describe...
Lambert Wiesing’s new book Ich für Mich: eine Phänomenolgie des Selbstbewusstseins, sounds difficult. And it is. But I have it on very good authority — namely his — that I did actually grasp the main idea, which is that self-awareness is an aesthetic awareness. Brilliant! This time, we won’t, we can’t get “aesthetic” mixed up with art!