Belonging and Translation. Phenomenological Approaches to New Forms of Aesthetics

The research project Belonging and Translation (“Zugehörigkeit und Übersetzung”) is the continuation of a previous research focus of Eduard Prenga. What is it about?

The project is based on a question that forms its analytical starting point:

• What does the turn to post-anthropocentrism mean for the historical existence of man?
• What is the relationship between the reality of human existence and its world-reality (“Weltwirklichkeit”)?
• How do they relate to each other in a complementary way (translationally)?

The question of "translation" in this respect is neither purely metaphorical, nor to be examined exclusively in terms of linguistic analysis. Rather, it is about a new phenomenological approach to aesthetics: the perception of otherness as a process of placing oneself on the side of the other(s) (trans-lation (“Über-Setzung”) does not merely represent a confrontation of two or more others (“Fremdheiten”), but it points to the indispensability of the other(s) to be or to become self. This phenomenological-intersubjective understanding of otherness then emerges as inclusive between the human being and its world and therefore as mutual self-trans-lation (“Selbst-Über-Setzung”), finally as mutual belonging, and it leads to a critical engagement with the "post" of post-anthropocentrism when it is understood as excluding human beings and therefore as the opposite of intersubjectivity.

For questions regarding the project, please contact Eduard Prenga: eduard.prenga@univie.ac.at.