Publications

Publication details [#6823]

Assmann, Jan. 1996. Translating Gods: religion as a factor of cultural (un)translatability. In Budick, Sanford and Wolfgang Iser, eds. The translatability of cultures: figurations of the space between. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 25–36.
Publication type
Article in jnl/bk
Publication language
English

Abstract

Assmann borrows Erik Erikson’s term 'pseudo-speciation' and develops, beyond it, his own salient counteraccount of a historical, psychological, and religious ‘secondary pseudo-speciation'. He explains that be itself Erikson’s term pseudo-speciation describes “the formation of artificial subgroups within the same biological species.” In the human world, pseudo-speciation is the effect of cultural differentiation. The formation of cultural specificity and identity necessarily produces difference and otherness vis-à-vis other groups. This can result in the elaboration of absolute strangeness, isolation, avoidance, and even abomination.”
Source : Based on information from author(s)