About
Fields of Interest
Translation Studies and World Literature
Turkish German Studies
Migration, Multiculturalism and Transnationalism
Orientalism and Occidentalism
Postcolonial Studies
Mono- and Multilingualism Studies
Book
Kristin Dickinon's book, DisOrientations: German Turkish Cultural Contact in Translation (1811-1946), appeared with Penn State University Press in May 2021. Focusing on the legacies of three main figures—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Friedrich Schrader (1865-1922), and Sabahattin Ali (1907-1948)—it shows how German and (Ottoman) Turkish histories of translation were inextricably linked across a nearly 150-year time frame. Through a model of translational orientation, Dickinson shows how these three figures—as authors, journalists, and literary translators—were both implicated in and transcended the intersecting histories of German scholarly Orientalism and (Ottoman) Turkish Westernizing reforms.
Public Humanities
Together with Yopie Prins, Kristin Dickinson manages the site Translating Michigan, which serves as a dynamic multilingual archive for stories of migration from across the state.
She is also the co-curator of the photograpahy exhibit Visualizing Translation: Homeland and Heimat in Detroit and Dortmund. Featuring photography by Theon Delgado Sr. and Peyman Azhari this exhibit prompts us to consider the many meanings of home and homeland from both a visual and a multilingual perspective.
Select Articles
“Not Like a Native Speaker: Multilingualism in Translation,” (forthcoming in PMLA volume on Options for Teaching German Literature and Culture of the 20th and 21st Century).
“Strange Stars in Constellation: Özdamar, Lasker-Schüler, and the Archive,” (forthcoming in Minorities and Minority Discourses in Germany since 1990: Intersections, Interventions, Interpolations with Berghahn Books).
“Zafer Senocak’s “Turkish Turn”: Acts of Crosslinguistic Remembrance in Kösk (The Pavilion).” New German Critique. No. 134. August 2018.
“Sabahattin Ali’s Translingual Transnationalism: A Critical Introduction.” Turkish-German Studies Yearbook. Vol 8. Spring 2017.
“Intervening in the Humanist Legacy: Sabahattin Ali’s Kleist Translations.” Turkish-German Studies Yearbook. Vol 8. Spring 2017.
“Who Said Heimat? I’m Only Renting. A Critical Introduction.” TRANSIT: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking world. Vol 11.1. Spring 2017.
“Where Language Is Ripped Apart: Absence and Illegibility in Bilge Karasu’s The Garden of Departed Cats.” Critical Multilingualism Studies. Vol 2.1. Spring 2014.
“Linguistic Rebellion in Feridun Zaimoğlu’s Koppstoff.” Co-authored with Robin Ellis and Priscilla Layne. Feridun Zaimoğlu (Contemporary German Culture Series). Ed. Tom Cheesman and Karin Yeşilada, University of Wales Press, 2012.
Select Translations
Zafer Şenocak, “The smell of fresh paint.” AGNI. Fall 2021.
Zafer Şenocak, Three poems from First Light. Another Chicago Magazine. July 2021.
Zafer Şenocak, “Church Bells in Istanbul” and “Empty Archives - Lost Letters.” TRANSIT: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking world. Spring 2021.
Ahmet Haşim, The Frankfurt Travelogue, excerpts. EuropeNow. April 2020.
Sabahattin Ali, “The Comprehensive Germanistan Travelogue.” Cotranslated with Zeynep Seviner. Turkish-German Studies Yearbook. Vol 8 Spring 2017.
Selim Özdoğan, “Vibration Background.” TRANSIT: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking world. Spring 2012.
Feridun Zaimoglu, "The Knowledge Holder Doesn't Choke on Cleverness," Words Without Borders. 2009.
Fellowships and Awards
ACLA Harry Levine Prize for best first book in Comparative Literature, 2022
Fellow, UM Insitute for the Humanities, Summer 2022
Fellow, International Research Center for Cutural Studies (IFK, Vienna), Summer Semester 2018
ACLA Bernheimer Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in Comparative Literature, 2017
Fellow, Social Science Research Council, 2013
Susan Sontag Prize for Translation, 2008
Fellow, American Research Institute in Turkey, 2006
Fellow, Robert Bosch Stiftung, 2003
