Herta Muller's Barefoot February A Translation

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Cuomo, Glenn

Keywords

German Romanian Literature, Ceasescu, Reproductive Ploicy, Politics of Reproduction, Literature, Stalinism, Translation Theory

Area of Concentration

German Studies

Abstract

This thesis consists of three major components. The primary component is a translation of Herta M�ller's collection of short stories, Barf��iger Februar, published in 1987 upon her migration from Transylvania to Berlin. These stories� overarching narrative details the experience of migration, the writer's self-consciousness in two political environs, and the contradictions that arise out of the comparison of these environs. The historical content of the stories is drawn from the author's life, as well as from the history of Romania, and German-speaking Transylvania in particular, after the Second World War. The first chapter discusses the historical background of post-World War II Romania, including a detailed analysis of Nicolae Ceause?cu's repressive social policies, and his reproductive policies in particular. The second chapter is a theoretical introduction that provides a meditation on the connection between translation and philosophy, and the role translation plays in literary production. According to this introduction, the translation of M�ller's stories involves bringing the English language into a singular literary machine that translates, or transforms, the English language itself into the forms necessitated by that machine, rather than bringing the stories into the English language. The process of translation simultaneously reproduces the M�ller-machine and produces a new aspect of the M�ller-machine, revealing its complex historicity outside of the knowledge we have of it.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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