ACLA 2023 Seminar: South Asian Untranslatables
South Asian texts and cultures offer a panoply of terms that are difficult to translate. Consider bhāva — a keyword in premodern philosophy, dramaturgy, and poetics — which may refer to an emotion, a meaning, an essential characteristic, a physical object, a living being, or existence itself. In contemporary South Asia, numerous colloquial terms such as timepass, jugaad, and aunty evoke nuanced existential states, techniques, and relationships that call for careful (and playful) theorization.