On Monday, January 25, 2021, the Faculty of Arts started the semester with the virtual International Arts Talk III, Time, shame, and tenderness: Making sense of our lives in languages and cultures by guest speaker, Adam Głaz, Department of Modern Languages, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS), Lublin, Poland. The talk emphasizes the fact that “to make sense of ourselves and the world around us we need to view language as a cultural phenomenon”.  Examples discussed illustrate that “cultural notions are inherently present” in simple concepts such as time, tenderness, land, compromise, and dragons.  Głaz believes that “[t]he worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached” (Sapir 1929: 209). To prove his point, Głaz presented the speech of the 2018 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Olga Tokarczuk. Tokarczuk “constructs (in her Nobel Lecture) the notions of the tender translator and tenderness (in the original Polish: czuły narrator and czułość, respectively). The Polish notions are more sensuous, concerned with touching and feeling; the English ones have more to do with care, attention, and being mentally alert. When Tokarczuk speaks in Polish, she appeals to Polish speakers in some way; when she is translated, she talks to others in a slightly different way – and so a dialogue can ensue. He concludes that “translation involves loss but also gain.  Through the use of languages we construct our natural habitats: symbolic and conceptual cultures. These different “conceptual and cultural worlds” allow for intercultural dialogue”.

The content that encompasses the areas of linguistics, literature, translation, and cultural studies attracted 40 participants from different countries.  International Arts Talk III is organized monthly to provide virtual international academic exposure on the topics related to the humanities to students, staff, and the public. All recordings can be accessed via https://www.facebook.com/arts.chulalongkorn/videos.