Presentations from previous meetings here (17 February, 16 March, 5 April, 2 May, 6 June, 22 September, 13 October, 1 December 2016, 9 March 2017).
The founding document for this research endeavour is Amund Bjørsnøs's inspired initial text, here.
We pursue different studies with different methodologies and different targets, but all of us are interested in emotions in language and how they changed or moved.
Everyone interested in this subject is very welcome to join. Contact us at travellingemotions@hf.uio.no!
In what follows we list the current subprojects.
Indian emotions
The Indian classification and analysis of emotions, as well as the development, translation and spread of these classifications, will be investigated through the study of two groups of texts: 1) the Nāṭyaśāstra (1st cent. A.D., Treatise on the performing arts) and surrounding texts; 2) Buddhist Abhidharma literature, originally written in Sanskrit, but translated into Chinese and Tibetan, as documented on the Bibliotheca Polyglotta. More...
Classical Chinese emotions
The emotions as described in the Chinese Classics will also be investigated in the project, indeed in its own right, but also with the object of comparing the pre-Buddhist Chinese terminologies of emotions with those of Chinese Buddhism.
Greek and Arabic Emotions
In several of his works, Aristotle discusses human (and animal) emotions. Beginning around the middle of the 8th century, Arabic translations of Classical Greek scientific literature had a significant role in the formation of Arabic and Islamic culture. To explore the hypothesis that linguistic expressions of emotions is a key source for understanding a culture and in analysing cultural differences, we will undertake a comparative study of Greek and Arabic emotions, based on the Arabic versions of the Rhetoric (8th cent. AD), the Nichomachean Ethics and the De Anima (different translations, early and late 9th cent. AD).
Renaissance Emotions
The main formative period of the intellectual history of Europe is arguably what we may call "the long Renaissance" (as opposed to the more narrowly defined Italian/Humanist Renaissance). Based at least in part on the rediscovery of Classical Antiquity and of Arabo-Islamic science, this intellectual development started in the early 12th century and continued through a gradual but profoundly transformative "long Renaissance", until the dawn of a new era with the Age of Discovery and the Enlightenment. A history of European concepts of emotions must take its starting point here. The investigation will focus on translations into Latin and into vernacular Romance and Germanic languages, of Greek and Arabic works of the relevant sciences (philosophy, psychology, etc.).
(Contemporary) Portuguese and Norwegian emotions
By observing the translations between these two modern languages we try to assess (the coding of) emotional cultures.
By using parallel corpora of several modern Portuguese translations and comparing it with the Norwegian ones we will also bridge our work with the previously mentioned activity.
Use of emotion terms by second language speakers of Norwegian
By carefully studying the way various groups of learners express emotions in Norwegian, both in oral and written language, one gets insight in the variety of ways of negotiating emotions in different cultures. As the emotional concepts may differ in different languages, the learners’ way of using emotional terms in Norwegian might also index crosslinguistic influences and as such contribute to our understanding of the development of concepts as the learners participate in the new society and interact with others learners and people with Norwegian as their first language.
Comparing Ibsen's emotions through translation
This will be done using an aligned corpus of Ibsen's works into many languages from Bibliotheca Polyglotta and PANTERA, this way also merging (or rather, co-articulating) two digital humanities projects dealing with translation at our faculty.
The first step towards this goal was Jens Braarvig's presentation at the Travelling texts seminar "Ibsen in the World" on 3 June, see pdf here.