Translating Esotericism: Serbian

Correspondences, 2023

This paper explores the relevance of translation in the field of esotericism studies concerning Bengali language. It also opens an avenue for studying the history of esotericism in Bengali academic context in the future.

Correspondences 11:1, 2023

Another prominent example built on the same argumentative logic would be Mignolo, Darker Side of the Renaissance, esp. part I.

Aries - Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, 2023

In this paper I offer a concise analysis of contemporary scholarship on esotericism in the countries of former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. After a brief historical contextualization, I examine the development and principal features of this scholarship over the last three decades. My main argument is that, due to various historical reasons, there is a stark discrepancy between the abundant presence of esoteric ideas and practices in these countries and the extent of specialized scholarship dealing with them. I also suggest that there is an uneven development of esotericism studies across the region, but that these studies are gradually finding their place in South Slavic academia.

Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism, 2023

Special Issue: Translating Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Mriganka Mukhopadhyay Correspondences 11.1 (2023)

The article discusses esotericism of Foreign-Culture-Oriented English. Those who use Second-Language English in their intercultural discourse sometimes resort to their mother tongue words and phrases comprehensible only to those who know that language. The point is illustrated by contrastive analysis of two texts by American writers of Russian origin addressed to different target audiences.

Correspondences, 2023

The importance of the ancient Greek language and of ancient Greek ideas to Western culture (however construed) is fundamental. It is right to say that everything Western is influenced by Greek ideas and language; it is very wrong to imply, however, that this influence was ever simple. The fact that in English and the Romance languages we call Greek "Greek" alerts us to this fact immediately: Graeci was the Latin name for the ancient people who called themselves Hellenes, and the central area of lands they occupied, Hellas in their language, was termed by the Romans Graecia, whence the English "Greece." The influence of Greek culture on the Romans-whose eventual imperial spread encompassed the entire Mediterranean region-is the primary vector through which Greek culture, language, and ideas came to the supreme prominence they continue to enjoy in the Western imaginary, and so the story of Greek influence is very much a story of Graeco-Roman influence. This means that for Western Europe the history of Greek terms is often a history of Roman classicism and of Latin translation. Romans had conquered most of what we think of as "ancient Greece" by the first century BCE, at which point Latin writers had already been translating Greek terms and cultural forms, struggling with Greek scientific and philosophic ideas, and * Abbreviations of Greek authors and titles are from Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (1996).

Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism , 2023

Being a scholar who is trying to understand what could be called “magic” in the Portuguese modern period has often led me to problematic academic crossroads. Given the sparsity of locally conceived academic studies, it is often necessary to fall back on propositions found in the wider context of international scholarship written in English. Yet, the more research I have done in this domain, the more I have been forced to acknowledge the inadequacy of this approach. If Portugal and the wider Portuguese-speaking world are largely absent from “Western” academic discourse and the overall narrative of modernity (never mind the history of magic), then how much should we care about the opinions and notions put forward by non-Portuguese-speaking scholars? If they never read a Portuguese Inquisition document or an Iberian anti-magical treatise, what could they possibly have to say that is of any use for my local Portuguese problems? This multi-layered issue is perhaps best illustrated by a simple exercise: translating the English word sorcery into Portuguese and back again.

Aca’ib: Occasional papers on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural, 2021

Aca’ib: Occasional papers on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural 2 (2021). Available at https://doi.org/10.26225/pc9c-vv54

Correspondences 11:1, 2023

German and Dutch are traditionally seen as belonging to the West Germanic language family. Modern German, referred to as Neuhochdeutsch (New High German), began developing out of Frühneuhochdeutsch (Early New High German) after 1500 and came into its own around the end of the thirty-year war in 1648. Diets or Duits was used as a generic umbrella term for the West Germanic languages; but during the sixteenth century, as the Dutch won their independence from Spain during the eighty-year war ("Union of Utrecht" in 1579, leading to the "Republic of the Seven United Netherlands" established in 1581), they began referring to their own language as Nederlands to distinguish it from the High German known to them as Overlands (a term that is no longer used today). Confusingly for English speakers, the modern words German and Dutch are translated in German as Deutsch and Holländisch (or Niederländisch), and in Dutch as Duits and Nederlands. When we look at standard core vocabulary in the study of esotericism, we find that many German and Dutch terms are calques (e.g. "Esotericism" becomes Esoterik resp. Esoterie, "Occultism" becomes Okkultismus resp. Occultisme, or "Secret Knowledge" becomes Geheimwissen resp. geheime kennis). 1 Translation is