Emotions are not as easy to explain as one may think. We all live different realities, come from different backgrounds, and have experienced different things. In other words, what I feel is not necessarily what you feel. That’s what makes emotions so unique, interesting, and, most importantly, essential for a cultural understanding.
Do you also struggle with your
“inner pig-dog” sometimes?
The importance of our cultural background regarding the definition of emotions is reflected in the way every language has words to describe particular feelings that are unique for their culture and can’t be translated into other languages. I’m going to make a wild guess and say: If you are not German you don’t have the faintest idea what it’s like to face your “inner pig dog”, right? But even if you are German, are you completely sure what “innerer Schweinehund” means?
Blog and Podcast
Psychobabble101 is a collaborative blog and podcast curated by Graciela Morcillo. A student of English literature and musician, Graciela is interested in different perspectives and opinions on the the feelings represented by untranslatable words that are unique to one language. The project will start with a series of German words, but we hope that we will be able to explore words from other languages in the future. For each word, we’re running a collaboration with several German and non-German artists who will try to manifest their take on those untranslatable emotions in their respective artistic mediums. The non-German artists have the challenge of working with the literal translation of the words in their native tongues without a cultural explanation of its original meaning. They are simply told that those words express a feeling, and then it’s up to them to interpret what kind of emotion stands behind the word. Their works will be all displayed, compared, and discussed in the blog.
There will be also a podcast hosted by Graciela Morcillo and Veronica Violet, a photographer from the UK, discussing the untranslatable words to provide a background on how they are interpreted and used by native speakers. In order to provide different perspectives, there will be several guests with different backgrounds invited into the podcast to discuss the diversity behind the emotion. What I feel is not necessarily what you feel. Different folks, different feelings.
So let’s start babbling!
Here is the Trailer to the Psychobabble101 podcast:
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PsychobabbleGraphics © 2021 by Carlos Aragon is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0
All Psychobabble Graphics were made by Carlos Aragon.
Psychobabble101 TrailerMusic© 2021 by Graciela Morcillo is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0
The Psychobabble101 Trailer Music was written and produced by Graciela Morcillo and the drums were played by Veronika Biller.
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