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The Dictionary of Untranslatables is, first and foremost, a broad philosophical issue. Over the past 40 years, the project has gradually developed a diagnosis of translation in philosophy, building a new method that is particularly concerned with alterity and diversity. The dictionaries are not just linguistic lexicons, but they also have created a cartography of linguistic diaspora, migration and contested global checkpoints. I am interested to understand what philosophical, political, ethical and artistic outcomes this project has produced.
From this standpoint, we believe that the ability to contest universality has great value, and we are committed to developing skills in dealing with a changing world that understands and acts in multilingualism, multiculturalism and multipolar geopolitics. I propose to call that method “Dionysian Wisdom”. Dealing with untranslatables
can encourage different ways of thinking about contemporary issues, such as democracy, political rights, language translations, gender and species transfigurations, and other current issues.
SANTORO_The_Dictionary_of_Untranslatables_GIKS

Tijdens haar uitwisseling met onze afdeling in het voorjaar van 2024 zal doctoranda Micaela Brembilla van de Universiteit van Uppsala op 18 april een lezing geven voor de Ghent Centre of Late Antiquity (GCLA). Ze zal er spreken over de historische achtergrond en de manuscripttraditie van Mustio’s Laatlatijnse vertaling van een Grieks werk over vrouwengeneeskunde (Gynaecia). 

Abstract

We do not have much information about Mustio, besides that he is the author of a Latin text of gynaecology called Gynaecia, an adaptation of the Γυναικεῖα of Soranus of Ephesus. Even about the text itself we have many questions, since we are not certain about either its structure, its language, or its relationship with the Greek model. What we do know, however, is that the Gynaecia, particularly some chapters, was read and used for centuries after its production, as a channel for past gynaecological knowledge through the Middle Ages to the present day.

In this talk, I will introduce Mustio and the Gynaecia, and present what we think was their context of production, from an historical, geographical and theoretical point of view. We will then take a look at the fortunes of the text in the centuries that followed, trying to understand the reasons behind its popularity and transmission.

Tijdens haar uitwisseling met onze afdeling in het voorjaar van 2024 zal doctoranda Micaela Brembilla van de Universiteit van Uppsala op 25 april een lezing geven voor de DiaLing onderzoeksgroep. Ze zal er spreken over de talige kant van haar onderzoek naar Mustio’s Laatlatijnse vertaling van een Grieks werk over vrouwengeneeskunde (Gynaecia). 

Abstract

The Gynaecia of Mustio, a medical treatise dated to the 6^th century AD, counts only one critical edition to date; it has been published by Valentin Rose in 1882, the first scholar to have the possibility to read and study the three main witnesses of the manuscript tradition. This edition is clearly an essential starting point for the study of the text; however, the scholar edited a Latin that seems too classical for the time period and the genre of the Gynaecia, choosing, when needed, to follow the more recent and less vulgar of the manuscripts.

In this talk, I would like to explain the reasons behind the necessity of a new critical edition; we will then try to delineate a panoramic of the new language of the Gynaecia – a later and more vulgar Latin – focusing on its special lexicon and, finally, on the main problems and questions still in need of further research.