mrinaldi/TestiMole · Datasets at Hugging Face

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17522

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TRANSNATI ONALI TY IN TRANSLATI ON1 Naoki Sakai At the outset, let me note the increasing significance of the problematic of "bordering" in knowledge production today. 2 This problematic must be marked specifically as one not of "border" but of "bordering" because what is at issue is a great deal more than the old problem of boundary, discrimination, and classification. At the same time that it recognizes the presence of borders, discriminatory regimes, and the paradigms of classification, this problematic sheds light on the processes of drawing a border, of instituting the terms of distinction in discrimination, and of inscribing a continuous space of the social against which a divide is introduced. The analytic of bordering requires us to examine simultane ously both the presence of border and its drawing or inscription. Indeed, it is in order to elucidate the differentiation of transnation ality from nationality that I want to draw attention to the problematic of bordering. Most important, I want to reverse the order of apprehension in which transnationality is comprehended on the basis of nationality, on the presumption that nationality is primary and transnationality is somewhat secondary or derivative. The transnational is apprehended as something that one creates by adding the prefix trans- to national ity. Unfortunately the word transnational retains a morphology that the trans+national obtains only after national is modified, which implies that transnational is subsumptive to the national, thereby giving the misleading postulation that the national is more fundamental or foun dational than the transnational. Consequently, the transnational is assumed to some degree to be derivative of the national. This widely l . This article is built upon my previous articles and repeats some of their dis cussions; see Sakai 2009, 20 1 0, 2012. 2. I learned the term "bordering" from Mezzadra and Neilson 2008. 15 accepted pattern of reasoning derives from our mental habit according to which the adjectival transnational is attributed to an incident or situ ation uncontainable within one nationality. For example, when some individual or people moves across the outer limits of one national ter ritory into another, such a movement is called transnational. Likewise, a company incorporated in multiple national territories and managing projects mobilizing its employees of different nationalities living in dif ferent countries at the same time is called a transnational corporation. What I want to highlight, first of all, is the implicit presumption under lying the concept of nationality: that nationality cannot make sense unless it is postulated against the horizon of internationality. MODERNITY AND I NTERNAT I ONALITY We must keep in mind that nationality does not make sense unless it is viewed in conjunction with internationality, and transnationality must not be confused with internationality. In order to assert the priority of transnationality to nationality, therefore, our first move is to delineate the semantics of transnationality as distinct from that of internationality. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the modern world can be found in its internationality; the modernity of the modern world has manifested itself in the formation of the international world. Today transnationality is generally understood within the schema of the inter national world. By "schema;' I mean a certain image or figure against the background of which our sense of nationality is apprehended. However, it is important to note that, in some regions, such as East Asia, the inter national world did not prevail until the late nineteenth century. In this part of the globe the international world was entirely new, and it took more than a century before East Asian states gave up the old tribute system and yielded to the new inter-state diplomacy dictated by inter national law. In this regard, there the international world was a mark of colonial modernity. And it is in the very process of introducing the international world that the binary of the West and the Rest began to serve as the framework within which the colonial hierarchy of the globe was represented. 3 Of course, the international world is not exclusively a phenomenon of the twentieth century. Dividing the world into two contrasting areas, 3. The idiom "the West and the Rest" has been used by a number of historians of modern colonialism. Arguably the most important is Hall 1 996. 16 the West and the Rest, has been an institutional_ized practice widely accepted in academia for a few centuries. 4 This dichotomy may be traced as far back as the seventeenth century, when the system of international laws was inaugurated with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. 1his peace treaty, subsequent to the Thirty Years' War, established the division of the two geopolitical areas. The first of these two areas would subsequently be called "the international world;' in which four principles were to be observed: ( l ) the sovereignty of the national state and its self-determina tion; (2) the legal equality among national states; (3) the reign of interna tional laws among the states; and (4) the nonintervention of one state in the domestic affairs of another. The second of these areas was a geopoliti cal area excluded from the first, in which these four principles, including the reign of international laws, had no binding force. The first area would later be called the West, while the second area would be excluded from the international world and became literally "the rest of the world;' with its states and inhabitants subject to colonial violence. The beginning of modernization in Japan is usually depicted as her "opening to the West" when Commodore Matthew Perry command ing the United States naval fleet forced the Tokugawa shogun to sign the Convention of Kanagwa in 1 854. It marks Japan's entry into the international world. It goes withou·t saying that Japan's colonization of Korea half a century later, for instance, was accomplished following the protocols of the international world. Many parts of the globe were also colonized according to the schema of the international world. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the majority of the second area was transformed into colonies belonging to a few superpowers. However, this pseudo-geographic designation of the West-it is pseudo-geographic because, in the final analysis, the West is not a geographical determi nant-gained currency toward the end of the nineteenth century when the international world had to expand to cover the entire surface of the earth as a result of three developments: ( I ) colonial .competition among the imperialist states; (2) the emergence of Japan and the United States as modern imperial powers; and, most important, (3), the increasingly widespread anticolonial struggles for national self-determination. In this historical determination of the West, its distinction from the rest of the world derived from the legacy of colonialisms. In order for a colony to gain independence, the colonized had to establish their own national sovereignty and gain recognition from 4. See Solomon and Sakai 2006, 1 -38. 17 other sovereignties. In other words, the process of decolonization for a colonized nation meant entering the rank of the nation-states in the international world. As the number of nations being recongized in the international world increased, the presumptions of nationality and internationality were accepted as if these had been naturally given. As the schematic nature of the international world was somewhat forgot ten, both nationality and internationality were naturalized, as though the institutions marking the border of the national community-national territory, national language, national culture, and so forth-had been genetically inherited. It is at this juncture that the concept of transnationality must be invigorated. It must be rejuvenated in order to undermine the apparent naturalness of nationality and internationality and to disclose the very historicity of our presumptions about nationality, national community, national language, national culture, and ethnicity that are more often than not associated with "the feeling of nationality:' Here the classical notion of nationality in British Liberalism is of decisive importance in order to historicize the schema of the international world. According to John Stuart Mill, nationality means: a portion of mankind are united among themselves by common sym pathies which do not exist between them and any others-which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclu sively. This feeling of nationality may have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. Com munity of language, and community of religion greatly contribute to it. Geographical limits are one of its causes. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national h is tory, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past. (Mill 1 9 72, 39 1 ) In East Asia, it was arguably Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835- 1 90 1 ) who first introduced the British discussion on the nation and nationalism systematically and wholeheartedly. Today he is remembered as one of the leading enlightenment intellectuals who advocated for the creation of the modern nation in Japan and translated the English term national ity into kokutai (national body) in the 1870s, the early Meiji period. Later kokutai was used as a fetish to express the sovereignty of the Japanese emperor. The word nationality or national body had acquired almost a 18 sacrosanctity and proscriptiveness in the Japanese Empire in the early twentieth century. In his Outline of a Theory of Civilization ( 1973), how ever, Fukuzawa included Mill's explications of nationality and the feel ing of nationality (kokutai no j6) almost verbatim in his exposition of kokutai. For Fukuzawa, the project of creating the feeling of national ity among the inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago was an absolutely indispensable part of the construction of a nation-state. First of all, what had to be acknowledged in what used to be under the reign of the feudal government was the absence of the feeling of nationality among the masses inhabiting the islands of Japan; there was no nation of Japan, no Japanese as a nation. Therefore, the task of creating an unprecedented type of community called "nation" had to be found in the manufacture of the feeling of nationality. Without being recognized as a sovereign state in the international world, however, people living in the Japanese archipelago would never constitute themselves as a nation or enter the modern international world. For Fukuzawa, the modernization of Japan, therefore, meant the creation of the institutional conditions for the feeling of nationality, without which people would never form a national community; neither as individuals nor as a collectivity would the Japanese be able to become independent without the feeling of nationality. As soon as the term nationality was introduced in East Asia, it served to distinguish those who were capable of independence from those others who were doomed to colonization. Fukuzawa firmly believed that, unless the legacies of Confucianism were removed, soci ety could not be reorganized to transform itself into such a modern community-namely, a national community-so that the feeling of nationality would prevail. As we know this was not particular to Japan, this conviction toward modernization was repeated by other national ist intellectuals such as Lu Xun in China and Yi Kwansu in Korea. The urge to modernize and turn their countries into nation-states propelled many nationalist intellectuals in East Asia to engage in struggles against Confucianism and other feudalistic remnants in their own societies. In East Asia as elsewhere, the problem of nationality was closely affiliated with concerns about colonial modernity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nationalist intellectuals believed, almost without exception in East Asia and else where in the Rest, that the introduction of nationality was an abso lutely necessary condition without which peoples in the rest of the modern international world could not deal with colonial modernity. They understood that only by turning local masses into a people with 19 nationality could they incite them to refuse to accept their predicament of colonial subjugation and humiliation. It was, of course, imperative to institute the systems of industrial capitalism in their own countries and to educate the population so as to make it capable of scientific rationality. The fate of the nation could not be divorced from the proj ect of modernization. Modernization necessitated the introduction of industrial production facilities, national education, a system of national transportation, a national currency regulated by the national bank, a modern military built up with national conscription, and a spirit of scientific rationality guiding modern technology and produc tion into a society. Still, any of these institutions necessary for nation building would be empty and useless if not accompanied by the feeling of nationality that bound people together as a nation as a community of shared destiny. Nationalist intellectuals firmly believed that people under colonial domination would never be able to deal with the actu ality of colonial modernity unless they formed a political community called "nation;' a new political camaraderie shaped after the pattern of "fraternity" independent of the previous familial, kin, or tribal affilia tions. They were convinced that, unless the indigenous population first formed a nation, they would never be able to liberate themselves from the shackles of colonial subjugation. Of course, the problematic that guides my inquiry here is quite different from this nationalist concern. Rather, it is committed to the problem of how to emancipate our imagination from the international regime of the nation-state, not through negation of the nation-state itself but by problematizing the methodological nationalisms permeat ing knowledge production in the humanities, particularly in area stud ies, so as to project an alternative image of the transnational community. Suspending nationalist conviction, I refuse to view nationality as some thing given; instead, I reverse the order of priority while never reject ing our struggle with colonial modernity. Simply put, my starting point is that nationality is a restricted derivative of transnationality, and my guiding question is how the transnational, the foundational modality of sociality, is delimited, regulated, and restricted by the rules of the international world. It is in this context that I have to confront the issue of bordering. B ORDERING AND TRANSLAT I ON In order to problematize the priority of nationality and the interna tional world, we must first problematize the figure-image, trope, or 20 schema-of the border. It goes without saying that the border cannot exist naturally; physical markers such as a river, a mountain range'. a wall, or even a line on the ground become a border only when made to represent a certain pattern of social action. In this respect, a border is always constructed by humans and assumes human sociality. Only when people react to one another does a border come into being. Even if a border separates, discriminates, or distances one group from another, people must be in some social relation for a border to serve as a marker or representation of separation, discrimination, or distance. A border is a trope that serves to represent primordial sociality. There fore, a border is posterior to social relations, which may wel l include the act of exclusion, discrimination, or rejection. At the beginning, there is an act of "bordering." Only where people agree to "border" can we talk about a border as an institution. Thus, "bordering" always precedes the border. Prior to bordering, it is impossible to conceptualize the national border. Thus, the national territory is indeterminate prior to border ing. Similarly, it is impossible to determine a national language prior to bordering. So what corresponds to this "bordering" as far as language is con cerned? Of course, it is translation. What I want to put forth here is that, at the level of schematism, translation comes prior to the determina tion of language unities that translation is usually understood to bridge. Before the postulation of a national or ethnic language, there is transla tion, just as there is transnationality before nationality. At this stage I do not know whether a focus on bordering has gath ered momentum across different disciplines, but a bordering turn must be accompanied theoretically by a translational turn: bordering and translation are both problematics projected by the same theoretical per spective. Just as bordering is not solely about the demarcation of land, translation 'is not merely about language. In this article I pursue a preliminary investigation about the discus sion of translation beyond the conventional domain of the linguistic. Yet the first issue that must be tackled is how to comprehend language from the viewpoint of translation, or how to reverse the conventional comprehension of translation that depends on the trope of translation as bridging or transferring between two separate languages. However, please allow me to remind you that mine is a discursive analysis beyond the domain of the linguistic. Accordingly, it involves the questions of figuration, schematism, mapping, cartographic representation, and the institution of strategic positions. In the conventional understanding 21 of translation-elsewhere I characterized it as the schematism of co figuration (Sakai 1 997, 1 - 1 7, 4 1 - 7 1 )-the separation of two languages or the border between them is already presupposed. This view of trans lation always presumes the unity of one language and that of another because their separation is taken for granted or already as given; it is never understood to be something drawn or inscribed. In other words, the conventional view of translation does not-know bordering. In this order of reasoning regulated by the tropic of translation I find one of the delimitations imposed by the presumptions of national ity and the international world. Nationality must be postulated prior to the process of the transnational transaction precisely because it cannot be conceptualized otherwise, just as national language must be assumed to exist prior to the process of translation because translation is pre ordained to be represented as bridging the gap between two separate languages. For this reason, the international world cannot but be prede termined as the juxtaposition of distinct nationalities that are external to one another. The economy of the international world thus excludes the potentiality of "heterolingual address" from the outset (Sakai 1 997, 1 - 1 7) . Translation almost always involves a different language or at least a difference in or of language, but what difference or differentiation is at issue? How does it demand that we broaden our comprehension of translation? Froni the outset, we must guard against the static view of translation in which difference is substantialized; we should not yield to the reification of translation that denies it its potentiality to deter ritorialize. Therefore, it is important to introduce the difference in and of language so that we can comprehend translation not in terms of the communication model of equivalence and exchange but as a form of political labor to create continuity at the elusive point of discontinuity in the social. One may presume that it is possible to distinguish the type of translation according to the type of difference in or of the language to which translation is a response. To follow Roman Jakobson's ( 1 97 1 , 26 1 ) famous typology of translation, one may refer both to a project of over coming incommensurability as a type of translation (interlingual trans lation) from one natural language to another and to an act of retelling or interpreting from one style or genre to another in the same language (intralingual translation) as instances of translation. Furthermore, one may cite an act of mapping from one semiotic system to another as a distinctive type of translation (intersemiotic translation). In this typol ogy, however, the unity of a language must be unproblematically pre- 22 supposed. Were it not for this supposition, it would be hard to discuss a different language, different from the original language, in interlingual translation that takes place between languages external to one another. Neither would it be possible to designate the inside of a language or to refer to a language as the same in intralingual translation. Thus, we are forced to return to the question, What difference? At this point my inquiry moves from the question of what is dif ferent in or of language to another question: What is different from the language? This is to say, we must entertain the question of what lan guage is, how the linguistic differs from the extralinguistic, and how the domain of the linguistic is constituted. In the scope of difference in and oflanguage, however, we are still caught in the mode ofquestioning where the unity ofa language is assumed. By difference, then, do we still understand that one term in particularity is distinguished from another against the background of the same generality, just as a white horse is different from a black horse among horses in general? Do we have to understand difference necessarily as a specific difference? Can the sort of difference at stake in translation be appropriately discussed in terms of the species and genus of classical logic? The world accommodates one humanity but a plurality of lan guages. It is generally upheld that, precisely because of this plurality, we are never able to evade translation. Our conception of translation is almost always premised on a specific way to conceive of the plural ity of languages. Not surprisingly, we are often obliged to resort to the story of Babel when we try to think through the issues of the unity of humanity but the necessity of translation. But we must not forget that the ancient story of the tower of Babel is most often appropriated into the schema of the international world. Can we assume that this unity in plurality must be figured out only within the schema of the international world transhistorically? Can we conceive of discourses iri which the thought of language is not captured in the formula of "many in one international world"? Are we able to conceive of language in an alternative way? How do we recognize the identity of each language? That is, how do we justify presuming that languages can be categorized in terms of one and many? Is language a countable, like an apple or an orange and unlike water? Is it not possible to think of language, for example, in terms of those grammars in which the distinction of the singular and the plural is irrelevant? What I am calling into question is the unity of language, a certain positivity of discourse or historical a priori in terms of whh:h we understand what is at issue whenever a different language or difference 23 in language is at stake. How do we allow ourselves to tell one language from another, to represent language as a unity? My answer to this question posed some twenty years ago is that the unity of language is like Kant's regulative idea (Sakai 1992, 326). It orga nizes knowledge but is not empirically verifiable. The regulative idea does not concern itself with the possibility of experience; it is no more than a rule by which a search in the series of empirical data is prescribed. It guarantees not empirically verifiable truth but, on the contrary, "for bidding [the search for truth] to bring it to a close by treating anything at which it may arrive as absolutely unconditioned" (Kant 1929, 450). Therefore, the regulative idea gives only an object in idea; it only means "a schema for which no object, not even a hypothetical one, is directly given" ( 1929, 550, emphasis added). The unity of language cannot be given in experience because it is nothing but a regulative idea, enabling us to comprehend related data about languages "in an indirect manner, namely in their systematic unity, by means of their relation to this idea" ( 1929, 550). It is not possible to know whether a particular language as a unity exists or not, but by subscribing to the idea of the unity of language, we can organize knowledge about languages in a modern, sys tematic, and scientific manner. To the extent that the unity of national language ultimately serves as a schema for nationality and offers a sense of national integration, the idea of the unity of language opens up a discourse to discuss not only the naturalized origin of an ethnic community but also the entire imagi nary associated with national language and culture. A language may be pure, authentic, hybridized, polluted, or corrupt, yet regardless of a par ticular assessment of it, the very possibility of praising, authenticating, complaining about, or deploring it is offered by the unity of that lan guage as a regulative idea. However, the institution of the nation-state is, we all know, a relatively recent invention facilitated by the formation of modern international law. Thus we are led to suspect that the idea of the unity of language as the schema for ethnic and national communality must also be a recent invention. How should we understand the formula of many in one, the plu rality of languages in one humanity, when the unity of language has to be understood as a regulative idea or schema for an object in idea? For Kant, a regulative idea is explicated with regard to the production of scientific knowledge; it ensures that the empirical inquiry of some sci entific discipline will never reach any absolute truth and therefore is endless. Every scientific truth changes as more empirical data accumu late. Kant also qualifies the regulative idea as a schema, that is, an image, 24 design, outline, or figure not exclusively in the order of idea but also in the order of the sensory. From the postulate that the unity of national language is a regulative idea, it follows that this unity of national language enables us to organize various empirical data in a systematic manner so that we can continue to seek knowledge about the language. At the same time, it offers not an object in experience but rather an objective in praxis toward which we aspire to regulate our uses of language. The principle is not only epis temic but also strategic. Hence it works in double registers: on the one hand, it determines epistemologically what is included or excluded in the database of a language, what is linguistic or extralinguistic, and what is proper to a particular language or not ; on the other hand, it indicates and projects what we must seek as our proper language, what we must avoid as heterogeneous to our language and reject as improper for it. The unity of a national language as a schema guides us in what is just or wrong for our language, what is in accord or discord with the propriety of the language. Of course, translation is a term with much broader connotations than the operation of t ransferring meaning from one national or ethnic language into another, but in this context I am specifically concerned with the delimitation of t ranslation according to the regime of transla tion by which the idea of the national language is put into practice. I suggest that the representation of translation in terms of this regime of translation serves as a schema of co-figuration: only when t ranslation is represented by the schematism of co-figuration does the putative unity of a national language as a regulative idea ensue. This schema allows us to imagine or represent what goes on in translation, to give to ourselves an image or representation of translation. Once imagined, translation is no longer a movement in potentiality. Its image or representation always contains two figures, which are necessarily accompanied by a spatial division in terms of border. Insofar as not the act of representa tion but the representation or image of t ranslation is concerned, we are already implicated in the tropes and images of translation. As long as we represent t ranslation to ourselves, it is not possible to evade the tropics of translation. Primarily border is a matter of tropics as far as transla tion is concerned because the unity of a national or ethnic language as a schema is already accompanied by another schema for the unity of a different language; the unity of a language is possible only in the ele ment of many in one, and in order for there to be many, one unity must be distinguishable from another. In the representation of translation, therefore, one language must be clearly and visibly distinguished from 25 another. The unity of a language requires the postulation of border in the tropics of translation. DISCONTINUITY IN T H E SOCIAL Translation takes various processes and forms, insofar as it is a political labor to overcome points of incommensurability in the social. It need not be confined to the specific regime of translation; it may well lie out side the modern regime of translation. The modern is marked by the introduction of the schema of co figuration, without which it is difficult to imagine a nation or ethnicity as a homogeneous sphere. As Antoine Berman ( 1 984) taught us about the intellectual history of translation and Romanticism in Germany, the economy of the foreign, that is, how the foreign must be allocated in the production of the domestic language, has played the decisive role in the poietic-and poetic-identification of the national language. With out exception, the formation of a modern national language involves institutionalizations of translation according to the regime oftranslation. Most conspicuously manifest in eighteenth-century movements such as Romanticism in western Europe and Kokugaku (National Stud ies) in Japan, intellectual and literary maneuvers to invent a national language mythically and poetically were closely associated with a spiri tual construction of new identity, in terms of which national sovereignty was later naturalized. As Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, the nation makes "the relation of sovereignty into a thing (often by natural izing it) and thus weed[s] out every residue of social antagonism. The nation is a kind of ideological shortcut that attempts to free the concepts of sovereignty and modernity from the antagonism and crisis which define them" ( Hardt and Negri 2000, 95). This foundation for the legiti mation of national and popular sovereignty was proffered as a "natural" language specific to the people, which ordinary people supposedly spoke in everyday life. This historical development is generally referred to by literary historians as the emergence of the vernacular. The emphasis on ordinary and colloquial languages went with the reconception of trans lation and the schematism of co-figuration. Returning to the question of the relation between translation and discontinuity, I will explore how our commonsensical notion of translation is delimited by the schematism of the world ( i.e., our rep resentation of the world according to the schema of co-figuration) and conversely how the modern figure of the world as international ( i.e., the world consisting of the basic units of the nations) is prescribed by 26 our representation of translation as a communicative and international transfer of a message between a pair of ethnolinguistic unities. The measure by which we are able to assess a language as a unity again, I am not talking about phonetic systems, morphological units, or syntactic rules of a language but rather about the whole of a language as langue-is given to us only at the locale where the limit of a language is marked, at the border where we come across a nonsense that forces us to do something in order to make sense of it. This occasion of making sense from nonsense, of doing something socially-acting toward foreigners, soliciting their response, seeking their confirmation, and so forth-is generally called translation, provided that we suspend the conventional distinction between translation and interpretation. The unity of a lan guage is represented always in relation to another unity; it is never given in and of itself but in relation to an other. One can hardly evade dia logic duality when determining the unity of a language; language as a unity almost always conjures up the co-presence of another language, precisely because trans.Jation is not only a border crossing but also and preliminarily an act of drawing a border, of bordering. Hence I have to introduce the schematism of co-figuration in analyzing how translation is represented. If the foreign is unambiguously incomprehensible, unknow able, and unfamiliar, it is impossible to talk about translation, because translation simply cannot be done. If, on the other hand, the foreign is comprehensible, knowable, and familiar, it is unnecessary to call for trans_lation. Thus, the status of the foreign in translation must always be ambiguous. It is alien, but it is already in transition to something familiar. The foreign is simultaneously incomprehensible and compre hensible, unknowable and knowable, and unfamiliar and familiar. This foundational ambiguity of translation derives from the ambiguity of the positionality generally indexed by the peculiar presence of the transla tor; she is summoned only when two kinds of audiences are postulated with regard to the source text: one for whom the text is comprehensible, at least to some degree, and the other for whom it is incomprehensible. The translator's work lies in dealing with the difference between the two. It is only insofar as comprehensibility is clearly and unambiguously distinct from incomprehensibility that the translator can be discerned from the nontranslator without ambiguity in the conceptual economy of this determination of the foreign and the proper. It is important to note that the language in this instance is figura tive: it need not refer to any natural language of an ethnic or national community such as German or Tagalog, since it is equally possible to ------------- 2 7 have two kinds of audiences when the source text is a heavily technical document or an avant-garde literary piece. Language may refer to a set of vocabulary and expressions associated with a professional field or dis cipline, such as legal language; it may imply the style of graphic inscrip tion or an unusual perceptual setting in which an artwork is installed. One may argue that these are examples of intralingual and intersemiotic t ranslation, respectively, but they can be postulated only when they are in contradistinction to t ranslation proper. The propriety of t ranslation presupposes the unity of a language; it is impossible unless one unity of language is posited as external to another, as if, already, languages were considered as countable, like apples. These figurative uses of t ranslation illust rate how difficult it is to construe the locale of t ranslation as a link ing or bridging of two languages, two spatially marked domains. Here I want to stress again that t ranslation is not only a border crossing but also and preliminarily an act of drawing a border, of bordering. Considering the positionality of the t ranslator, we can now approach the problematic of subjectivity. The internal split in the t ranslator, which reflects the split between the translator and the addresser or between the t ranslator and the addressee, and furthermore the actualizing split in the addresser and the addressee, 5 demonstrates the way in which the subject constitutes itself. This internal split in the translator is homolo gous to the fractured I, the temporality of "I speak;' which necessarily introduces an irreparable distance between the speaking I and the I that is signified, between the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the enunciated. Yet in t ranslation the ambiguity in the personality of the translator marks the instability of the we as the subject rather than the I; this suggests a different attitude of address, which I have called "heterolingual address" ( Sakai 1 997, 1 - 1 7) and in which one addresses oneself as a foreigner to another foreigner. Heterolingual address is an 5. The split cannot be limited to the cases of translation, for, as Briankle Chang suggests, the putative unities of the addresser and the addressee can hardly be sus tained because the addresser himself is split and multiplies, as figuratively illus trated by the Plato-Socrates doublet in Derrida's "Envois" (Derrida 1 987, 1-256). As to communication in general, Chang argues, "Because both delivery and signing are haunted by the same structural threat of the message's nonarrival or adestina tion, the paradox of the signature also invades communication. Communication occurs only insofar as the delivery of the message may fail; that is, communication takes place only to the extent that there is a separation between the sender and receiver, and this separation, this distance, this spacing, creates the possibility for the message not to arrive" (Chang 1996, 2 1 6). 28 event, because translation never takes place in a smooth space; it is an address in discontinuity. Rejected in monolingual address is the social character of transla tion, of an act performed at the locale of social transformation where new power relations are produced. Thus the study of translation will provide us with insights into how cartography and the schematism of co-figuration contribute to our critical analysis of social relations, pre mised not only on nationality and ethnicity but also on the differential ist identification of race, or the colonial difference and discriminatory constitution of the West. Of course I cannot present an exhaustive account of how transna tionality is prior to nationality, but I hope I have suggested one directive among many of analysis in which to emancipate our imagination from the regime of the nation-state by problematizing the methodological nationalism that permeates knowledge production in the humanities, particularly in area studies, and thereby projecting an alternative image of the transnational community. By focusing on the tropics of trans lation, I refuse to view nationality as something given and to seek in nationality the sole exit from colonial subjugation. Instead, I choose to reverse the order of priority between the transnational and the national. Simply put, my starting point is that nationality is a restricted deriva tive of transnationality, and my guiding question is how the transna tional, the foundational modality of sociality, is delimited, regulated, and restricted by the rules of the international world. It is in this context that I want to situate the issue of bordering as one of translation. R E F E R ENCES Berman, Antoine. 1 984. Lepreuve de letranger: Culture et traduction dans l'Allemagne romantique. Paris: Gallimard. Chang, Briankle G. 1996. Deconstructing Communication: Representa tion, Subject, and Economies of Exchange. Minneapolis: University of Min nesota Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1 987. The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fukuzawa, Yukichi. 1973. An Outline of a Theory of Civilization. Trans lated by David Dilworth and G. Cameron Hurst. Tokyo: Sophia University Press. 29 Hall, Stuart. 1996. The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power. Pages 1 84-228 in Modernity: A n Introduction to Modern Societies. Edited by Stuart Hall, David Held, Don Hubert, and Kenneth Thompson. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Jakobson, Roman. 197 1. Vol. 2 of Selected Writings. The Hague: Mouton. Kant, Immanuel. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martin's. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2008. Border as Method; or, The Multiplication of Labor. Paper presented at the conference Italian as Second Language-Citizenship, Language, and Translation, Rimini, Italy, 4 February 2008. Mill, John Stuart. 1972. Utilitarianism; On Liberty; Considerations on Representative Government. London: Dent. Sak�i, Naoki. 1992. Voices of the Past: The Status of Language in Eigh teenth-Century Japanese Discourse. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. --. 1 997. Translation and Subjectivity: On 'Japan' and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. --. 2009. How Do We Count a Language? Translation and Disconti nuity. Translation Studies 2:7 1 -88. --. 20 1 0. Translation and the Figure of Border: Toward the Appre hension ofTranslation as a Social Action. Profession 20 10:25-34. --. 20 1 2. Heterolingual Address and Transnationality : Translation and Bordering. Pages 343-58 in Worldwide: A rchipels de la mondia lisation. Archipielagos de la globalizaci6n. Edited by Ottmar Ette and Gesine Mi.iller. Madrid: Iberoamerica; Frankfurt am Main: Vervuet. Solomon, Jon, and Naoki Sakai. 2006. Introduction: Addressing the Multitude of Foreigners, Echoing Foucault. Pages 1 -38 in Trans lation, Biopolitics, Colonial Difference. Edited by Jon Solomon and Naoki Sakai. Traces 4. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Naoki Sakai is Goldwin Smith Professor of Asian Studies and teaches Comparative Literature, Asian Studies, and History at Cor nell University. He has published in the fields of comparative litera ture, intellectual history, translation studies, the studies of racism and nationalism, and the histories of textuality. His publications include: Translation and Subjectivity; Voices of the Past; The Still birth of the Japanese as a Language and as an Ethnos; and Hope and 30 ------------- the Constitution. He has edited and co-edited a number of volumes, including Trans-Paci.fie Imagination (20 1 2); Translation, Biopolitics, Colonial Difference (2006); and Decon structing Nationality ( 1 996). He served as the founding editor for the project of Traces, a multilingual book series in five languages: Korean, Chinese, English, Spanish, and Japanese (German will be added in 201 3 ). Email: naoki.sakai@cor nell.edu. ------------- 3 1

Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17523

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JUST I CE I N TRA N SLAT I ON : FROM THE M ATERIAL TO THE CULTUR A L Loe Pham Translating is sometimes analogized to a bridge-building undertaking in which linguistic and cultural disparities among communities are, as it were, reconnected in the post- Babel dispersal of human tongues. Translation creates connectedness, undoubtedly, yet as Michael Cronin has pointed out, "connectedness has as a necessary prerequisite the identification and maintenance of separateness" (2006, 12 1). Diversity lies at the heart of Cronin's insight of the separateness that is fundamen- ,· ta! to translation, and he advocates the teaching of diverse languages. As diversity excites imagination, it also troubles communication. Much of the scholarship in translation studies has focused on the mediation of diversity and the trouble it has produced. The idea of bridging implies some sort of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic understanding. Maria Tymoczko notes that "the center of a translator's agency lies in the power to adjudicate difficulties caused by disparities and asymmetries in cultural understandings and cultural presuppositions" (2007, 23 1). In this light, she asserts that a cultural translator must assume the task of "inducing an audience to be willing to learn, to receive difference, to experience newness" (2007, 232). However, as Gayatri Spivak has sug gested in her seminal essay "Can the Subaltern Speak ?" ( 1988), in cases of cultural encounters marked by asymmetrical power relations, learn ing requires the anterior systematic unlearning of one's privilege and knowledge. Central to Spivak's notion of unlearning is the deconstruc tive questioning of the very discourse from within which one learns "to speak to (rather than listen to or speak for)" others ( 1988, 395). And although Spivak only deals here with the unlearning that is fundamen tal to the learning to speak to "the historically muted subject of the 33 subaltern woman" ( 1 988, 395), I contend that unlearning is central to any task of translation. Unlearning as I use it in this essay involves the necessary question ing of fundamental concepts in translation, including the definition of translation itself and the cultural assumptions surrounding the process of translation. Without this unlearning, as I will show, the bridge of translation could turn out to be a channel of cultural violence rather than cultural mediation. If cultural translation inevitably involves the task of cultivating the will to learn in the audience as Tymoczko has stip ulated, and if learning must be preceded by unlearning, then it becomes clear that translation is much more complex than the ideal of bridging seems to suggest. In this article I take up this line of thinking about translation as bridging and explicate the complexity of bridging itself by bringing in the notion of justice and the Spivakian task of unlearning as the foun dation of justice. I argue that, in a multicultural context, justice is a matter of translation, and as such translation should be understood as part and parcel of the doing of justice. A view of translation as a gate way to an enlarged cultural horizon proves inadequate if justice is the ultimate goal of translation. Also, the emphasis on the translator as an agent who induces an audience to a world of otherness may in some cases pose injustice to more " resistant" groups for whom an enlarged horizon invariably involves the abandonment of fundamental aspects of their culture. The fact of the matter is that bridging is not always the end of cultural encounters. Reaching out to another culture, in today's world of multiculturalism, often carries with it a certain social and polit ical agenda. A bridge is not constructed merely to provoke a roman tic sense of connection and mutual understanding but itself functions as a passageway that channels the flow of ideas and materials across communities. As soon as a bridge is constructed, communities at both ends invariably undergo transformations triggered by the flows that ensue. The view of translation as a bridge-building exercise, therefore, should not stop at extolling it as a symbol of connection, a universally accepted form of mediation, but as a real channel of cultural and mate rial exchanges that affect lives in significant ways. In this light, the translator does not emerge merely as a cultural mediator channeling cross-cultural understanding but as an active par ticipant in cultural and material justice. The unlearning that constitutes the necessary foundation of the translational bridge-building exercise is the questioning of the presence of the bridge itself, what it does to the communities that it connects, and from what cultural position it is built. 34 Translation should not be done simply because we want to understand and do justice to the other, yet without hindsight of the cultural conse quences that ensue from this effort at understanding and doing justice. What follows is an account of a case of failed translation in which the translator views herself merely as a bridging agent who has the ambition of understanding the other without the necessary unlearn ing of her knowledge. As is well known, translation does not take place in a vacuum but in a continuum (Bassnett and Trivedi 1 999, 3), and from this case of failed translation I also bring forth the social fabric that anticipates such a failure. In other words, I attempt to show that in many cases translation lies at the heart of justice, especially when justice is to be done across linguistic and cultural borders and when justice in the contemporary world takes heterogeneous forms that require some sort of translation among themselves. To do all this, I recount a story told by Bharati Mukherjee, "The . Management of Grief " ( 1 988). The story revolves around an effort by a social worker to connect with a group of Indian Canadian citizens whose loved ones were killed in a terrorist bombing of an aircraft. The white Canadian social worker wants to use Mrs. Bhave, whose husband and sons were among the victims, as a mediating agent to help her connect with this Indian Canadian community to provide them with access to the government relief effort. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that, despite the linguistic and cultural mediation provided by Mrs. Bhave, the social worker fails to understand what it really takes for the community to understand and accept the government's outreach ing effort and provision of material relief. The story ends with a sense of cultural disconnection whereby the social worker takes for granted the provision of material justice as something universally accepted. She fails to understand the cultural nuances underpinning the Indian Canadian resistance to her outreaching effort. She fails to unlearn the mainstream privileging of material provision over cultural recognition. The story, as I will show, demonstrates the failure of cultural translation as mere linguistic bridging whereby material justice is assumed to be universally valuable. FORMS OF JUST I CE The literature on justice has undergone significant transformation as poststructuralism and cultural politics spread across the humanities and social sciences. In her most recent book, Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World (2009), Nancy Fraser revises the 35 dual model of economic redistribution and cultural recognition that she developed some ten years earlier in Justice Interruptus ( 1 9976 ). Accord ingly, the new model not only includes economic and cultural aspects of j ustice but also recognizes representation as an important dimension of justice in a world where economic, cultural, and political processes no longer work in a Keynesian-Westphalian frame. In Fraser's view, both the substance and the framing of justice have been transformed radically. In terms of substance, there has been a radi cal heterogeneity of j ustice discourse in which claims of justice are no longer exclusively concerned with socioeconomic redistribution. There have arisen new demands for cultural recognition from marginalized ethnic groups and homosexuals as well as feminist claims for gender justice. Fraser solves the problematic of substance in the condition of diverse justice idioms by proposing a dual model that recognizes both socioeconomic and cultural claims as legitimate claims of justice. Although her tone in Justice Interruptus seems to lean toward reclaiming the prominence of redistribution, and with it the discipline of Marxist political economy itself, in the face of the rising cultural politics Fraser emphasizes times and again that these components of justice are irre ducible to one another (Fraser 1 997a; Fraser and Honneth 2003). In Scales ofJustice Fraser acknowledges that her dual model is inad equate in accounting for the increasingly deterritorialized operations of justice. Instances of injustice in the contemporary world of economic and ecological interdependence can hardly be handled within the bor ders of the nation-state, what Fraser refers to as the Westphalian frame. In this light, she suggests reframing the subjects of j ustice by introduc ing a third dimension: representation. While redistribution and recogni tion addresses the substance, the "what" of j ustice, representation deals with the subjects, the "who" of j ustice. According to Fraser, the notion of representation pertains to the political dimension of j ustice, apart from the economic and the cultural dimensions, and serves two purposes. First; it sheds further light on internal injustice, that is, injustice within bounded political communities such as the nation-state, in which subjects already counted as legitimate members are deprived of parity of participation as peers in social interaction. This impairment of partici pation is not caused by an economic structure that effects maldistribu tion or by a cultural order that casts certain subjects, such as gay and lesbians, as abjects, thus effecting misrecognition. Rather, it is rooted in the political constitution of society itself, and thus the two-dimensional model of redistribution and recognition fails to account for instances of this "ordinary-political injustice." 36 The second purpose of the notion of representation is to account for the "who" outside of the Westphalian frame of the territorial state. In the post-Cold War era, with the rise of transnational economic and cultural forces, the subjects of justice can no longer be assumed to be the national citizenry. Globalization has rendered the life of citizens vulnerable to social and economic processes beyond their own national borders. A decision in one territorial state can impact millions of lives outside of its immediate borders. For example, a recent approval by the Chinese government of the construction of a nuclear power plant some sixty kilometers from the northern border of Vietnam has sparked both diplomatic tension and public concern in Vietnam. According to some estimates, radiation could reach Hanoi within ten hours fol lowing a breakdown of the plant. A Vietnamese official contends that "China has to follow international safety regulations, not act on its own" (Duan, Long, and Lan 20 1 0). While the scenario of a nuclear leak is still a matter of probability, life in the reality of a globalized world is impinged upon on a daily basis by the operations of multinational corporations, supranational financial investors, international organiza tions, and so on. The language of justice, therefore, can no longer be couched in the once self-evident framework of the territorial state. Fraser calls the injustice pertaining to this question of the "who" beyond the boundar ies of political communities misframing. In light of these two functions of the notion of representation related to injustices of ordinary-political misrepresentation and misframing, Fraser has enlarged her theory of justice to include the political dimension, which she makes clear to be always inherent in claims of redistribution and recognition. In this three-dimensional model,' practices of maldistribution and misrecogni tion constitute the first-order injustices, while misframing belongs to a meta-level of injustices. The most interesting moment in Fraser's theory is when she tackles the politics of framing as a meta-level of justice, which she defines as comprising "efforts to establish and consolidate, to contest and revise, the authoritative divisions of the political space" as it pertains to the determination of the subjects of justice as well as the frame of that deter mination itself (2009, 22). On this account of the politics of framing, Fraser proposes two forms in which social movements seek to redress the injustice of misframing: the affi rmative claims and the transforma tive claims. "The affirmative politics of framing;' Fraser tells us, "con tests the boundaries of existing frames while accepting the Westpha lian grammar of frame-setting" (2009, 22). In other words, this politics 37 aims to redraw the boundaries of who count as subjects of justice with out overthrowing the nation-state as a basic category in which to pose and resolve problems of framing injustices. By contrast, transforma tive movements seek to destroy the state-territoriai principle itself on grounds that "forces that perpetrate injustice belong not to:• and here Fraser borrows Manuel Castells's terminology, " 'the space of places; but to the 'space of flows' " (2009, 2 3 ). In this way, transformative politics directly questions the process of frame-setting itself and thus renders it more di�logical and democratic. With the opening of frame-setting to contention and negotiation through transformative movements, Fraser surmises that "what could once be called the 'theory of social justice' now appears as the 'theory of democratic justice' " (2009, 28). In what follows I would like to connect Fraser's theory of justice to the problematic of translation, which I see as constitutive of both levels of justice: the first-order justice of redistribution and recognition and the meta-level of the politics of framing. The role of translation in the first-order justice can be seen in Bharati Mukherjee's short story "The Management of Grief' I highlight the translation of the material into the cultural as an indispensable component of justice, especially when the operation of justice has to tread on the borders between cultures. In a sense, the story also poses the problem of ordinary-political injus tices where the parity of participation in the social life of the legitimate subjects of justice within the same political community is impaired through nontranslation. In the case of "The Management of Grief;' the Indian Canadian relatives of the victims, under the coverage of the so called multiculturalism, are construed as legitimate subjects of justice within the borders of Canada. Yet far from being homogenous, the mul-. tilingual and multicultural territorial state is invariably split between mainstream and ethnic cultures, and translation thus plays a key role in providing the condition for the flow of justice across ethnic differ ences. Translation constitutes the very means whereby ethnic subjects of justice speak and are spoken to. In this way, the political dimension of justice, which is representation in Fraser's model, intertwines with the problematic of translation. FROM THE MATERIAL TO T H E CULTURAL: TRANSLATION AND THE FAI LU RE OF JUSTICE The intersection between cultural and material realms in which transla tion figures as a mediator is best reflected in Bharati Mukherjee's "The Management of Grief;' printed in her collection The Middleman and 38 Other Stories ( 1988). The story is based on the 1 985 terrorist bomb ing of an Air India jet carrying over three hundred passengers, most of whom were Canadian citizens of Indian birth. The aircraft, en route from Toronto to Bombay, exploded in midair while crossing Ireland and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the worst mass kill ing in modern Canadian history. " The Management of Grief" revolves around the aftermath of the incident as experienced by the narrator, an Indian Canadian woman, Mrs. Bhave, whose husband and two sons were among the victims of the tragic flight. The opening of the story takes place in her home, now crowded with men and women from the Indo-Canada Society, many of whom she does not even know. They are busying themselves with minor chores around the house, including lis tening to the news for more information about the _incident. They all try not to disturb the bereaved mother and wife with their presence, and their effort to reach out to her is always taken with care and prudence. The first few sentences of the story are brief, yet they do more than set up the mood and context of the story. Within the space of a few lines, Mukherjee subtly uncovers the condition of liminality and uncertainty endured by Indian immigrants, especially during the vulnerable times of grief and the _rationally prescribed management of it. A woman I don't know is boiling tea the Indian way in my kitchen. There are a lot of women I don't know in my kitchen, whispering, and moving tactfully. They open doors, rummage through the pantry, and try not to ask me where things are kept. ( 1 988, 1 79) A sense of ethnic bonding is here mixed, paradoxically, with alienation. " Boiling tea the Indian way" invokes identity, while the uncertainty over the subject doing the boiling in the intimate place of the kitchen splits the identitarian bonding at the personal level. The kitchen, the familiar and intimate place of Indian women, is now occupied by busy "_women I don't know;' and the repetition of "my kitchen" within the space of two short sentences echoes almost as a cry reclaiming what is most personal and intimate of the grieving subject. The strangers come on grounds of ethnic identity to soothe the woman's grieving, and although grieving is cultural or even "furnishes a sense of political community of a complex order" (Butler 2004, 22), it is reflected here rather as a private space tres passed and impinged upon in the name of ethnic identity. Butler's vision of a political community enlightened to a sense of fundamental dependency through our socially constituted and exposed1 bodies is enunciated from the perspective of the mourning subject who 39 has the power to wage war and inflict violence upon others, namely, the United States after 9/ 1 1. In her criticism of the aggressive poli cies of the U.S. post-9/ 1 1, Butler calls for a deeper understanding of the task of mourning, and in so doing she has uprooted grief from the private realm and implanted it in the political. Grief in Butler's view is understood as containing "the possibility of apprehending a mode of dispossession that is fundamental to who I am" (Butler 2004, 28), and therefore, being mindful of it enlightens us to a necessary recognition of our bodies as fundamentally exposed and vulnerable to the touch of others. "Mindfulness of this vulnerability can become the basis of claims for non-military political solutions, just as denial of this vulnerability through a fantasy of mastery (an institutionalized fantasy of mastery) can fuel the instruments of war" (2004, 29). The subject of grief in But ler's criticism is one who has the power to act in retaliation, and in that light Butler summons grief and mourning back into self-recognition as a means to prevent violence. However, for an immigrant subject, the grieving Indian Canadian mother and wife, mourning is deeply privatizing, and even a prudent touch of ethnic bonding could be damaging. The bereaved ethnic woman seems to be torn between the cultural appropriation of the per sonal and an inner demand to fully experience the emotional dimension of grief. The first passage of the story has introduced the first level of the tension in one's experience in times of vulnerability and mourning, the tension between the cultural and the personal. As the story unfolds, Mrs. Bhave's experience of loss is caught at another level, the tension between the cultural and the material, which is laid bare within the very next passage of the story: Dr. Sharma, the treasurer of the Indo-Canada Society, pulls me into the hallway. He wants to know if I am worried about money. His wife, who has just come up from the basement with a tray of empty cups and glasses, scolds him. "Don't bother Mrs. Bhave with mundane details." (Mukherjee 1988, 1 79) As a treasurer, Dr. Sharma's concern about Mrs. Bhave's financial condi tion is quite reasonable, while as a woman who cares (or is supposed to care?) about the emotional trauma that Mrs. Bhave is suffering, Mrs. Sharma condemns that question of money as mundane and irrelevant in times of grief. Not to mention the gender divide along the line of material and emotional concerns, there seems to be an irreconcilable tension between material needs, or rather, the mentioning of needs, and 40 emotional life. Later on in the story we learn that this emotional dimen sion is impinged upon in many ways and transformed into a site of social and cultural determinations, especially when the Canadian gov ernment comes into play in an outreaching effort to heal, materially, the wounds suffered by the hundreds in the Indian community. First of all, medical attention is given to tame a possible outburst of emotion, and in this regard Or. Sharma once again appears to be on duty: The phone rings and rings. Dr. Shanna's taken charge. "We're with her:' he keeps saying. "Yes, yes, the doctor has given calming pills. Yes, yes, pills are having necessary effect." I wonder if pills alone explain this calm. Not peace, just a deadening quiet. I was always controlled, but never repressed. Sound can reach me, but my body is tensed, ready to scream. I hear their voices all around me. I hear my boys and Vikram cry, "Mommy, Shaila!" and the screams insulate me, like headphones. ( 1 988, 1 80) Medical care seems to be given at the most superficial level. The personal emotion, the private struggle over the tragic loss, is occluded from the d iscursive network of grief management. Care is extended to her home, yet i t hurts just as much as it heals. Dr. Sharma reports Mrs. Bhave's condition on the phone to someone unknown to her, and she does not even seem to care, for it would make no difference now that her physi cal condition and her private grief have been subsumed in the social and cultural network of care. Mrs. Bhave's "deadening quiet" is trans lated into a kind of "peace:' the expected material effect of the calming pills. Controlled emotion is materialized into a bodily sign of calmness, which serves as a necessary condition for Mrs. Bhave to be picked out from among the bereaved to serve as mediator between the government and the affected community. Judith Templeton, the appointee of the provincial government, comes to Mrs. Bhave's house in a "multicultural" initiative to provide assistance to the afflicted families. Her self- introduction is plaintively sincere, and her statement of the purpose of her visit is full of confusion and anxiety, yet in a sense precise and direct : "I have no experience," she admits. "That is, I have an MSW and I've worked in liaison with accident victims, but I mean I have no experi ence with a tragedy of this scale - " "Who could?" I ask. " - and with the complications of culture, language, and customs. Someone mentioned that Mrs. Bhave is the pillar-because you've taken it more calmly." 41 At this, perhaps, I frown, for she reaches forward, almost to take my hand. "I hope you understand my meaning, Mrs. Bhave. There are hundreds of people in Metro directly affected, like you, and some of them speak no English. There are some widows who've never handled money or gone on a bus, and there are old parents who still haven't eaten or gone outside their bedrooms. Some houses and apartments have been looted. Some wives are still hysterical. Some husbands are in shock and profound depression. We want to help, but our hands are tied in so many ways. We have to distribute money to some people, and there are legal documents-these things can be done. We have interpreters, but we don't always have the human touch, or maybe the right human touch. We don't want to make m istakes, Mrs. Bhave, and that's why we'd like to ask you to help us:' ( 1988, 1 83) The social worker makes it quite clear that the confusion of language, culture, and customs poses a hindrance to distributive services, and Mrs. Bhave can help clear the issue because of her calmness and acquain tance with the locals. Money comes with legal documents that need to be signed by the beneficiaries, which Judith Templeton is well aware could not be done with interpreting alone but requires "the right human touch:' W hat is here conceived of as the right human touch is precisely translation in its fullest linguistic, cultural, and psychological sense and not merely interpreting. Interpreting may help clear linguistic problems of the legal documents, but it alone cannot create a cultural channel for distributive services to be intelligible within the culture and customs of the receiving community. Distributive justice here figures as an origi nal text unfamiliar and unintelligible to the target language and culture, which thus requires a process of target-oriented translation whereby it is rendered comprehensible within the local framework. Templeton, how ever, seems to conceive of the task the other way round: to get people "who've never handled money or gone on a bus" to sign some legal documents, that is, to bring the locals out of their cultural realm into the material realm she is bringing in. Government money, the material justice itself, is taken for granted as a value readily comprehensible and acceptable within the local cultural norms. In the end, Templeton fails in her effort to reach out despite Mrs. Bhave's liaison. An old couple refuses to sign the document because "it's a parent's duty to hope" for the return of the beloved whose death has never been confirmed in any way. Signing the documents of justice means giving up this parental hope and therefore is against their moral and customs. W hat is even more troubling is the fact that the couple is Sikh, who Mrs. Bhave knows would not listen to a Hindu like her. The ------------- 4 2 choice of a mediator by way of the material sign of calmness once again shows a complete insensitivity to cultural nuances and contentions. Judith Templeton is vexed by the locals' resistance to her services, and she complains somewhat angrily to Mrs. Bhave: "You see what I'm up against? . . . their stubbornness and ignorance are driving me crazy. They think signing a paper is signing their sons' death warrants, don't they?" ( 1988, 195). Templeton's initial awareness of the complex cultural issue and the need for "the right human touch" vanishes as she approaches the community, leaving in her mind only the material problematic, a failure of translation, of the fundamental unlearning task. The problematic at hand is, I argue, the translation of distributive justice into local language and culture, a translation of the material into the cultural, if the material is to be accepted as justice. 1 "The Management of Grief " is in many ways a story about the inter face between the material and the cultural and a certain kind of untrans latability between the two realms. We have seen how Mrs. Bhave's per sonal grief is translated into a material sign of calmness, presenting her as a "pillar" among the bereaved. That translation hurts because her inner voice and feelings can never be heard and felt once unilaterally translated into the visible field of the material. In her role as a media tor, Mrs. Bhave witnesses a form of violent translation from the cultural into the material, which leaves her getting out of Templeton's car in the I . In some cases the lack of this sort of cultural translation of justice constitutes a deprivation of justice itself, rather than merely a refusal to accept justice, as in the case of the old couple in "The Management of Grief' In The Sorrow and the Terror: T11e Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy ( I 987), Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee records accounts of several parties involved in the tragedy, including the bereaved themselves. Mr. Swaminathan, a bereaved husband and father, sends his grievance to a law firm, co'ntending that the legal differentiation of the death of an adult and the death of a child in determining compensation is against "the Indian way of life:• According to him, a parent can be a dependent just as a child is. Bringing up a child means investing in the child's future and also the parent's future, a kind of contract implicated in Indian cultural and moral values and uniformly carried out in Indian society. Loss of a child, therefore, would impinge on the par ent's future. More important, as Mr. Swaminathan points out, this "unique system of insurance;• though unwritten, is honored in Indian courts. The Western category of "dependent;• if untranslated, thus denies Indian parents of pecuniary compen sation that they would otherwise be entitled to in their home country ( Blaise and Mukherjee 1 987, 1 0 1 -3). This is a point I wholeheartedly identify with, because just as in India the Vietnamese elderly are not taken care of by the social network of nursing homes and social security benefits but live within the embracement and care of their children. 43 middle of their way home. The encounter between the two realms as represented in the story poses an agonistic relationship that cannot be mediated, it seems, once and for all. From the medical management of grief and the identification of dead bodies to (distributive services, all material determinations at one point or another impinge upon the deli cate cultural fabric of the ethnic community. Bharati Mukherjee seems to hint at a missing process of translation whereby the material is rema terialized in a cross-cultural context. Judith Butler has made clear that for materiality to be conceived as such, it must go through a process of materialization that "takes place (or fails to take place) through certain highly regulatory prac tices" (1993, l ). Distributive justice as posed in "The Management of Grief " has been solidly materialized, yet its materialization is governed by norms and institutions that are culturally and politically bound and thus fail beyond their boundaries. The task of translation here involves more than the linguistic interpreting of legal documents or the use of local mediators as an extra force, but the necessary transforming of those documents and the money itself into the culture of the benefi ciaries. Using calmness, the material effect of calming pills, as the first premise for her outreaching effort, Judith Templeton shows throughout her approach to the Indian Canadian community another faulty prem ise that takes untranslated material justice as the foundation of multi culturalism. Her commitment that "we don't want to make mistakes" becomes ironic, and Mrs. Bhave's response, "more mistakes, you mean;' implicates more than a bitter reference to the faulty police procedures that led to the catastrophic bombing. Interpreters and local mediators are provided, yet the Indian com munity is denied the very work of translation in the operation of jus tice. This nontranslation is probably implicated in the larger political context of this "houseless" tragedy, as Mukherjee calls it. It is houseless because neither the Indian nor the Canadian governments, despite their grief, named the bombing as its own tragedy. Instead, the two govern ments cross-referred to it as "their" rather than "our" tragedy ( Blaise and Mukherjee 1987, 174). The interface between the cultural and material realms appears to be a troubling one, especially if no adequate translation is done. It is hard, however, to determine once and for all the definite configurations of what constitutes adequate translation, with a fixed set of strategies and techniques that apply in every context. But at a more macro level, we can at least talk of justice here as a balanced flow of translation between the two realms. Bharati Mukherjee's "The Management of Grief " has 44 ------------- shown us that the hegemonic translation of the cultural into the mate rial and the lack of rematerialization may constitute a form of injus tice in the very process of justice. Materiality is not a universal and a priori category that transcends cultural specificities. They are invariably imbricated within frames that vary in size and shape across cultures. Rematerialization, or the translation of the material into the cultural, points at the necessary reworking of the material so it can be accepted beyond its original context of materialization. Positing a translation of the material into cultural, however, does not presuppose a distinction between the material and the cultural as ontologically separate spheres of life. In her essay "Merely Cultural" ( 1 99 7), Judith Butler has convinc ingly shown that material life is inextricably linked to cultural life, and the separation of the two reflects a certain amnesia of the works of Marx himself. It is precisely because of its grounding in cultural relations that the material can be rematerialized or translated into another fabric of cultural relations. There is no lack of translation in "The Management of Grief;' since "we have interpreters;' as Judith Templeton confirms. W hat is needed is "the right human touch;' and it is unfortunate that, instead of an ethi cal recognition of the limited self and an ethical response to the other, the human touch is only configured as the use of mediation (through Mrs. Bhave) to pave the way for the assertion of the self. Nontransla tion as injustice here can only be perceived at the level of the cultural frameworks in which justice is done, since it is covered up at the lin guistic l evel with the provision of translators and at the material level with mediation. Although "the right human touch" is not fully realized in "The Management of Grief;' it does complicate the problematic of translation beyond the sheer provision of translators/interpreters and local mediation. W hen material justice is taken at face value and even universalized as readily accepted in all cultures, the cultural tra nslation of the material itself is often ignored and repressed. I ndeed, there is a tendency to posit materiality as a precultural foundation, and material relations become the rationale behind anything cultural. The category of sex in the B eau voirean sense, for example, reflects one such recourse to the materiality of the body as the precultural foundation of gender, and Judith Butler ( 1 993) has reminded that materiality is invariably bounded with the cul tural in such a way that the distinction between sex and gender is but a grammatical fiction. In social life, the distribution of material resources seems to underpin cultural activities. Michael Cronin points out t hat "awareness of the primacy of communicative competence as a means 45 of economic integration and social survival is the rationale behind the organization of language classes for immigrants and the stress on the acquisition of the dominant language as the key to successful integra tion;' leading to the condition of what he calls translational assimilation (2006, 52). The material is often taken for granted as transcendent of cultural particularities and does not require translation. "Translational accommodation;' to use Cronin's terminology again, from the vantage point of the dominant culture, is yet to be accomplished, as seen in "The Management of Grief." FROM T H E CULTURAL TO T H E M ATERIAL: CASES OF INJUSTICES I N TRANSLATION What emerges from my discussion of justice above is a perceptible rela tion of translation between the different components of justice within the same territorial state. Outside of the territorial state, translation fig ures even more prominently as an underpinning force that relates the cultural and the material spheres of justice. Eric Cheyfitz has brilliantly shown how the translation of Native American land into the European concepts such as property, possession, ownership, and title serves as the "prime mode of expropriation that the colonists used in their 'legal' dealings with the Indians" ( 1 997, 48 ) . With the conviction that "from its beginnings the imperialist mission is, in short, one of translation: the translation of the 'other' into the terms of empire" ( 1 997, 1 1 2), Chey fitz exposes the process of dispossession whereby "Native American land was translated (the term is used in English common law to refer to transfers of real estate) into the European identity of property" ( 1 997, 43, emphasis original). Here Cheyfitz explores social and cultural dispari ties between the European and Native American conceptions of land and place and the colonizer's manipulation of the material through cul tural translation, or, to be more exact, the programmed occlusion of a balanced cultural translation in which the terms of the "other" are hon ored. The violent hegemonic translation of the Native American land into the European terms of property corresponds here to the injustice of misrecognition. This misrecognition consists of the colonizer's refusal to recognize the Native American terms and conceptions of their land, which paves the way for the translation of those terms into European ones, invigorating the imperialist material appropriation. Thus, just as in the case of the Indian Canadians in "The Management of Grief;' the native cultural terms are completely translated into the material. There is, of course, a difference in the two cases: the Indian Canadians are ------------- 46 meant to be receiving material j ustice, whereas the Native Americans are dispossessed of their land. The exploitative translation of indigenous cultural values into the material realm of the colonizer is abundant in the history of colonialism and imperialism. History has shown that imperialist translation does not j ust take place in the colonizer's "legal" dealings with the natives. It pervades all aspects of native life and irremediably transforms the native environment and traditions. The destruction of the bison in North America in the late nineteenth century is an example of the imperial ist translation from the cultural to the material. Although it is true that the bison population provided a vital source of food for Native Ameri cans, in the native consciousness and cultures the roaming bison herds did not just represent a material resource for human exploitation. The human-bison relationship in the native memory extended back to cre ation itself (Zontek 2007), and the hunting of this animal was not merely an act of killing and consuming, since the people perceived the animal not as inhabiting an objectified material world but as cohabiting with themselves within the same realm. Writings in different genres such as John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks ( 1 979), James Welch's Fools Crow ( 1 986), and Mary Brave Bird's Lakota Woman ( 1 99 1 ) have all revealed to us what American imperialists of the nineteenth century either refused to see or reluctantly saw with a desire to totally destroy the other: the native hunting of the bison was a deep-rooted tradition of Native Amer ican cultures that not only reflected a native means of subsistence but also embodied a whole way of life with deep cultural nuances. In Black Elk Speaks, for example, we see how hunting was performed as an initiation into manhood for Black Elk and Standing Bear and also as an activity embedded in the network of interpersonal relationships organic in the structure of native societies. In the mind of the Euro American hunters, however, bison were merely objectifiable animals that provided them with basic material for consumption. The American government itself advocated slaughtering the bison population through legal and military means. Directives such as "Kill every buffalo you can. Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone" (cited in Zontek 2007, 25) would not invoke any feelings of abhorrence among the majority of Euro Americans; instead, it was received as the natural progress of history. Cultural misrecognition, configured as the wholesale translation of the cultural into the material as I have elaborated thus far, underpins the material destruction of the indigenous livable worlds and the disintegra tion of their cultures. To probe into the problematic of justice in relation to translation, therefore, necessarily means to instigate the reverse flow 47 of cultural translation that has been historically repressed. The problem has been provoked powerfully by Cheyfitz in The Poetics of Imperialism, and his question continues to invite inquiry: "Can one translate the idea of place as property into an idea of place the terms of which the West has never granted legitimacy ?" (Cheyfitz 1997, 58, emphasis original). 2 In my discussion of the relationship between the two dimensions of justice above, I have treated the material as encompassing economic relations. A close reading of Fraser's redistribution/recognition frame work, however, reveals that the economic and the material do not inhabit the same sphere, and Fraser herself has made clear the necessary distinction between the economic and the material in her debate with Judith Butler (Fraser 1997a; see also Butler 1997). Nevertheless, the way Fraser situates her theory within what she refers to as the postsocialist scenario gives the impression that the notion of economic redistribu tion, in contrast to the increasingly prominent politics of cultural rec ognition, is synonymous with the material. Both Axel Honneth (Fraser and Honneth 2003) and Butler ( 1997) tend to understand the economic in Fraser's theory in this way. Fraser herself would not object to the fact that injustices of misrecognition could be just as material as injustices of maldistribution. What I have discussed thus far illuminates precisely this overflow between the material and the cultural without touching upon the economic. In regard to economic relations, a significant body of research in translation studies has been focused on the role of trans lation in the (re)organization of economic structures and the negotia tion of economic power and interests. As the structuring of economies changes from a local scale to regional and international scales, the man ners in which translation is done and perceived and the way it functions in society also fundamentally alter. In this respect, Michael Cronin's Translation and Globalization (2003) offers an exciting account of how the transformed economic factors, including the use of riew information technologies, new networks of communication, and the global organi zation and management of capital, labor, raw materials, information, markets, and so on, have had a fundamental impact on the practice and theorization of translation. Although many of Cronin's claims about the 2. Another profound example of this imperialist translation can be found in Clayton W. Dumont Jr:s The Promise of Poststructuralist Sociology: Marginalized Peoples and the Problem of Knowledge (2008). In a chapter on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1 990, Dumont offers a deeply engaged account of the struggle against the holding of the remains of deceased Native Amer icans by museums and universities for "scientific data" ( Dumont 2008, I 08-48). 48 changed nature of translation in the age of globalization are too gen eral and tend to apply in any case of cultural production , thus failing to account for the specific impacts of globalization on translation, they provoke more thinking and unsettle any stubborn clinging to traditional ways of thinking about translation. But translation is not just a passive act ivity perpetually influenced by globalization. Translation appears as an active force underpinning economic operations. In this sense, translation has been proven by scholars as an agent in the establishment of economic relations and transactions, or even in the mediation of economic orders. Translating Slavery: Gender and Race in French Womens Writing, 1 783- 1 823 ( 1 994), a volume edited by Doris Y. Kadish and Frarn;:oise Massardier-Kenney, explores translation as an ideologically driven process with norms and strategies that are fluid enough to articulate political agendas that either efface or reinforce the abolitionist cause embedded i n some French women's writing. The book, however, is a little disappoi nting in the sense that the authors, while dealing with writings that speak to the eco nomic and political order of their times, often draw conclusions that are limited to emphasizing translation as a process of ideology. It seems that the volume refrains from making claims about the effects of transla tion on the economic and political order of slavery that the writers and translators under discussion engage so vehemently in their works. By abandoni ng the themes of slavery and returning to translation studies i n its conclusions, the volume has in a way failed its own title, which appears to promise so much. The reluctance to delve into issues beyond translation studies itself that we see in Translating Slavery could be attributed to the nascent phase of the cultural turn in the field in t he early 1990s, when the book was published. At the time, ideological aspects of translat ion were not yet a prominent object of study, and research was still con fined i n the methods of contrastive linguistic studies, hence the authors' emphasis on the ideological underpinni ngs of translation. As the cultural turn has taken deep roots in translation studies and has swept across the humanities in general, there emerges a body of research that makes resolute claims about the role of translation in constructi ng economic, cultural, and political order. Sabine Fenton and Paul Moon, in thei r essay "The Translation of the Treaty of Waitangi: A Case of D isempow erment," have forthrightly stated t hat, "alt hough the treaty had seem i ngly brought together two distinct cultural groups in an act of enl ight ened respect for and trust of each other, ironically, the translation to a large extent has managed to destroy both and has become the cause of 49 much confusion and bitterness" (2002, 25). For these authors, transla tion plays a primary role in the "imposition and reproduction of power structures" that obliterate the sovereignty of a nation and annex it to the British Crown. Interestingly enough, Fenton and Moon show how translation functions in the case of the Waitangi Treaty as a secret code to override English humanitarianism, which was at its height in British politics in the nineteenth century. The abolition of slave trade and the establishment of numerous political and religious groups, such as the Church Missionary Society, the Aborigines Protection Society, and the Society for the Civilisation of Africa, were in part the direct result of humanitarian aspirations. Fenton and Moon also point out that "the new humanitarian imperative found its highest expression in the estab lishment of the 183 7 House of Commons Select Committee on Aborigi nes to consider the best ways of improving the conditions of the natives in the colonies of the British Empire" (2002, 28). In a sense, humani tarianism inspired a revision of the frame of justice, and natives became legitimate subjects to enjoy Empire's distributive justices. Within this new framework of heightened humanitarian senti ments, Captain William Hobson, assigned by the British government to negotiate with the Maori the transfer of their sovereignty to the Brit ish Crown, found himself in the middle of a contradiction. On the one hand, he was to achieve the transfer of sovereignty; on the other hand, all transactions were to be, as instructed by the Colonial Secretary Lord Normanby, "conducted on the principles of sincerity, justice, and good faith" (cited in Fenton and Moon 2002, 29). As if magic, the translation of the treaty from English to Maori language, done by Anglican mis sionary Henry Williams, helped achieve the double task, of course, not without hindsight. Fenton and Moon observe that "the convoluted and technical English text is recast in simple Maori, with glaring omissions. Certain crucial terms were not translated into the closest natural Maori equivalents" (2002, 33). They conclude that " Williams was a product of his time, his religion, and the prevailing ideology. His translation reflected all three" (2002, 4 1 ). I read the translation and signing of the Treaty of Waitangi as a complication of the injustice of misframing in Fraser's new model. New humanitarian sentiments permeated politics and unsettled the framing of justice within colonial rule, effecting a discursive inclusion of colo nized subjects as legitimate subjects of justice. Yet the reframing here was not obtained in actuality due to a certain way of translation. Empire expands its border to account for new subjects of justice, and simulta neously it surreptitiously withholds justice through translation. Just as 50 in the case of redistribution and recognition, where translation must be called upon to mediate between the material and cultural spheres, I suggest that in the framing dimension of justice, with its necessary extension beyond the border of the nation-state, translation also plays a primary role and that without insight into the insidious working of translation, justice could hardly be achieved. REFERENCES Bassnett, Susan, and Harish Trivedi. 1999. Introduction: Of Colonies, Cannibals and Vernaculars. Pages 1-18 in Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice. Edited by Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi. London: Routledge. Blaise, Clark, and Bharati Mukherjee. 1987. The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy. Markham, Ont.: Viking. Brave Bird, Mary. 1 991. Lakota Woman. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge. -- . 1997. Merely Cultural. Social Text 52/53:265-77. --. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso. Cheyfitz, Eric. 1997. The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colo nialism from The Tempest to Tarzan. Exp. ed. Philadelphia: Univer sity of Pennsylvania Press. Cronin, Michael. 2003. Translation and Globalization. London: Rout ledge. --. 2006. Translation and Identity. London: Routledge. Duan, Quang, Kap Long, and Moc Lan. 2010. Vietnam Braces for Chi nese Nuclear Plant. Thanh Nien News.corn, 23 July 201 0. Online: http://www.thanhniennews. com/201O/Pages/2010072_3 145515 I .aspx. Dumont, Clayton W., Jr. 2008. The Promise of Poststructuralist Sociology: Marginalized Peoples and the Problem of Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press. Fenton, Sabine, and Paul Moon. 2002. The Translation of the Treaty of Waitangi: A Case of Disempowerment. Pages 25-44 in Transla tion and Power. Edited by Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Fraser, Nancy. 1997a. Heterosexism, Misrecognition, and Capitalism: A Response to Judith Butler. Social Text 52/53:279-89. ------------- 51 --. 1997b. Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the "Postsocial ist'' Condition. New York: Routledge. --. 2009. Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Global izing World. New York: Columbia University Press. Fraser, Nancy, and Axel Honneth. 2003. Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange. London : Verso. Kadish, Doris Y., and Frarn;:oise Massardier- Kenney. 1994. Translating Slavery: Gender and Race in French Womens Writing, 1 783-1 823. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. Mukherjee, Bharati. 1988. The Management of Grief. Pages 177-97 in idem, The Middleman and Other Stories. New York: Grove. Neihardt, John G. 1979. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. Can the Subaltern Speak? Pages 280-3 1 1 in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Tymoczko, Maria. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester, U.K.: St. Jerome. Welch, James. 1986. Fools Crow. New York: Viking. Zontek, Ken. 2007. Buffalo Nation: American Indian Efforts to Restore the Bison. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Loe Quoc Pham currently serves as Dean of the Faculty of Lan guages and Cultural Studies at Hoa Sen University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Dr. Pham earned his PhD in Comparative Literature at the Uni versity of Massachusetts Amherst in 20 1 1. His research interests include translation studies, gender, postcolonial studies, and issues in the Vietnamese representation of wars. He has taught Comparative Litera ture courses both in the United States and in Vietnam. His most recent article, "West ern Others (and 'Other' Westerns): Translat ing 'Brokeback Mountain' into Vietnamese Culture;' appeared in a 20 1 1 volume entitled Re-engendering Translation: Transcultural Practice, Gender/Sexual ity and the Politics of Alterity, edited by Christopher Larkosh and published by St. Jerome. Email: [email protected]. 52

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TRANSL ATION IND USTRY IN T H E LIG H T OF COMPLEX IT Y S C I ENC E : A C A S E O F IRANIA N CONTE X T Reza Pishghadam a n d Nasrin Ashrafi l . I NT R O D U C T I O N In line with the fact that multidiscipiinary studies as a whole have gained momentum these days, it seems that translation studies as a rela tively young discipline has recently tried to embrace new findings from other disciplines to enrich and deepen itself. For instance, researchers in translation studies have successfully applied ideas from sociology, field theory (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1 992), actor-network theory (Latour 2005), applied mathematics, and game theory (von Neumann and Mor genstern 1 944; Myerson 1 997) to translation studies. One of the new theories in physics that might help us to broaden and advance our understanding in sociological aspects of translation studies is chaos/complexity theory. Complexity theory is not a single coherent body of thought but embraces a range of different traditions and approaches. Complexity science or complex system theory origi nated from math semantics, economics, and biology (Schroeder 199 1 ). This new theory, inspired by Prigogine and Stengers (1984) and Poin care's (1854- 1 9 1 2) ideas, has refuted the main tenets of Newtonian mechanics, which is based on absolutism, linearity, and predictability, and focused instead on relativity, nonlinearity, unpredictability, feed back sensitivity, and co-evolution. It encompasses many different dis ciplines, models, and perspectives, including complexity theory, catas trophe theory, dissipative structure, chaos theory, fractal theory, and self-organized criticality. Therefore, Lissack and Letiche (2002) pointed out that the research of complex systems is not a science but a collection 53 of concepts, interpretations, and analytical tools. Morel and Ramanujam (1999) also believed that complex system theory does not yet fulfill the many requirements of a "theory" per se. Rather than a unified theory, it is more of a perspective of research. Therefore, it might be more suitable to call it the "complexity science perspective" (Tsai and Lai 2010) . This new theory has been successfully applied to different fields of study, such as philosophy (Cilliers 2005), psychology (Spivey 2007), lin guistics (Meara 2004), cultural studies (Appadurai 1990), first-language acquisition, and second-language learning theories ( Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008) . Due to the nature of translation, which acts like a system, it seems that the application of this nonreductionist and post positivist approach in translation studies may open new horizons for research, shedding more light on the process o'r translation. Therefore, this study seeks to apply the major principles of chaos/ complexity theory to translation studies. The complexity science per spective has been widely applied in the field of social sciences. There fore, the present research will attempt to find the common core concepts of various theories by evaluating complexity science and deducing the strategic implications of conceptualizing translation production net work as a dynamic complex system. Our study is divided into three main parts. The first part explores the key properties of chaotic complex systems. The second makes a theo retical and metaphorical analogy in the conceptualization of translation studies in the light of complexity framework. The last part of this study is devoted to concluding remarks and general discussion. We hope this article brings fresh insights to the sociology of translation, becoming the starting point for future studies. 2 . C HAOS/COMPLEXITY THEORY There has been a radical shift from static and deterministic theories to more dynamic ones in various fields, from mathematics, physics, and economics to humanistic subjects. Modern physics, employing chaos/ complexity theory, aims to show how simple interactions result in the emergence of a complex system and how such a system interacts with its environment. This theory reveals that not all phenomena are orderly, reducible, predictable, and determined. It examines the fre quently occurring unpredictable behavior displayed by nonlinear sys tems (Prigogine and Stengers 1984). According to Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) , this theory is characterized by six key features: open ness and dynamism, complexity, adaptability and feedback sensitivity, 54 ------------- self-organization and emergence, nonlinearity and unpredictability, and strange attractors, all of which are briefly discussed below. 2. 1 . OPENNESS AND DYNAMISM In contrast to closed systems, in which there is no interaction between the environment and the system, in open systems there exists energy interaction between the system and the surrounding environment. This interaction induces ongoing change, making the system dynamic. In open systems, the major features of closed systems, which are static, fixed, and "being;' are replaced with dynamic, flexible, and becoming features. A concrete example of the open dynamic system is language: English, for example, is open to all sorts of influences; it changes con stantly yet somehow maintains an identity as the same language (Larsen Freeman and Cameron 2008). 2.2. COMPLEXITY Complexity comes from the diversity and heterogeneity of multiple interconnected elements shaping a complex system in which its evolu tion is very sensitive to initial conditions or to small perturbations, one in which there is large number of independent interacting components, or one in which there are multiple pathways by which the system can evolve (Whitesides and Ismagilov 1 999). Complex systems are con stantly in the process of evolving and unfolding (Arthur, Durlauf, and Lane 1 997). Taking an ecosystem of a forest as a complex system, the component agents in this system are animals, birds, insects, and people, while component elements would include trees, winds, rainfall, sun shine, soil, river, and air. The complexity of this complex system arises from heterogeneous components being interdependent and in constant interaction with each other. One important feature of complex systems is that the whole tran scends the sum of its parts. One good example can be water: water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Adding hydrogen and oxygen sepa rately to fire can sustain and build fire; mixing them, however, to create water and then adding that water to fire extinguishes the fire. 2.3. ADAPTA BILITY AND FEEDBACK SENSITIVITY Feedback is defined as a circular process of influence where action and actor affect each other. A complex system is feedback sensitive, mean- SS ing that, during the mutual interactions between the agents, feedback whether negative or positive, internal or external-can play a pivotal role in the agents' subsequent actions and ultimately in the whole system. Considering the received feedback, the system adapts itselfaccordingly to the new situation to ensure its survival. In other words, a complex adap tive system is flexible enough to maintain its stability through continuous adaptation. For example, in first-language acquisition, feedback can cause change in U-shaped learning: children while acquiring a first language go through different stages oflearning the verb go. After learning the word go and the usual rule for the past tense form of the verbs (add -ed), they fre quently form the false past-tense form "goed:' At this stage, positive and negative feedback plays a significant role. Negative feedback in the form ofcorrection by parents and positive feedback for producing "went" cause change, leading children to use the proper past-tense form of the verb. 2.4. SELF-ORGANI ZATION AND EMERGENCE Actors within a complex system self-organize themselves; that is, they form new structures and connections, networks, and systems to meet their needs. Self-organization can happen because the system can adapt in response to changes. Sometimes self-organization leads to new phe nomena on a different scale in a process called "emergence:' More gener ally it refers to how behavior at a larger scale of the system arises from the detailed structure, behavior, and relationships at a finer scale (Larsen Freeman and Cameron 2008). " The full, or ultimate, positive exploitation of emergence is self-organization; a system aligns itself to a problem and is self-sustaining, even when the environment changes" (Miiller-Schloer and Sick 2008, 86). Thus, the term self-organization refers to a specific form of emergence. One of the concrete examples of emergence through self-organization in a complex system can be a social structure emerging from and influencing individual agency and action. The relation between "habitus" and "practice" in Bourdieu's works would be a good example. Habitus, as people's "mental structures through which they apprehend the social world ... [are] essentially the product of the internalization of the structures of that social world" (Bourdieu 1989, 18), but those social structures are also emergent from action in the social world. 2.5. NONLINEARITY AND UNPREDICTA B ILITY While predictability and linearity are the main properties of Newtonian determinism, chaos/complexity theory rooted in relativism challenges 56 this deterministic approach by highlight ing nonlinear and unpredict able phenomena. Dynamic complex systems are unpredictable. Sensi tivity to initial conditions is the main reason for the unpredictability of complex systems. One of the well-known instances exemplifying unpredictability and nonlinearity is Lorenz's "butterfly e ffect" ( Gleick 1 987). Lorenz postulated that weather systems are highly sensitive to tiny changes: even the flapping of a butterfly's wings may delay or change the direction of a tornado in one area of the world. This large effect a rising from a tiny change ( butterfly's flying) in initial condi tion of a complex system ( e.g., a weather system) is referred to as the "butterfly effect." As Lorenz postulated, unless one can account for all the small changes that have an impact on a system, the prediction of the behavior of any chaotic complex system is impossible. In addition to pointing out the lack of proportionality between cause and effect, nonlinearity suggests that there is no exact cause for a particular phe nomenon. 2.6. STR A NG E ATT RACTORS Attractors act as "magnetic" forces that draw complex adaptive systems toward given trajectories ( Pascale, Millemann, and Gioja 2000; Wheat l ey 1 994, cited in G ilstrap 2005), which can be considered as a focus of energies in the system. The attractors are called "strange" to distinguish them from stable attractors, states to which the system reliably returns if disturbed. A strange attractor requires high energy and informa tion consumption, serving as a seemingly magnetic force ( Stacey 200 3 ; W heatley 1 994) that provides structure and coherence. Attractors can produce order in a dynamic system, making it coher ent by constraining the system into a small region of its state. In other words, systems tend to move toward attractors. For instance, in a "stable real-world system, long-term behaviors can be seen as attractors in the state space of that system" ( Norton 1 995, 56). A chaotic or strange attrac tor is a state of a system in which the system's behavior becomes quite wild and unstable, as even minute changes in conditions can cause it to move from one state to another, as in the previously described example of "butterfly effect." Generally speaking, chaos/ complexity theory is the study of systems that include large numbers of components constantly interacting. In a chaotic complex system, a very small change can have a large impact (nonlinearity and unpredictability) on the system's t raj ectory (attrac tors), and during this changing condition all the components influence 57 (feedback) each other (self-organization), leading ultimately to the rise of emergent behavior. 3. C H AOS/COMPLEXITY IN TRA NSLAT I O N Looking at translation through the lens of chaos/complexity theory, we may observe some interesting shared grounds at the micro and macro levels. At the micro level, the process of translation involving the trans lator's own sociocognitive system, including the translator's culture and system of values, beliefs, and so on (Hatim and Munday 2004), might be regarded as a complex system. At the macro level, the translation industry involving various elements either human (publisher, transla tor, reader) or nonhuman (electronic tools, dictionaries, sociocultural features of literary system) can be conceptualized as a complex dynamic system. In what follows we try to apply chaos/complexity theory to the sociology of translation by discussing each of the features of the theory (as discussed above) in relation to different aspects of translation pro duction in Iran. 3. 1 . OPENNESS, DYNAMISM, A N D COMPLEXITY Translation is not a closed, static system unaffected by its environment; it is the product of different factors, including editorial board mem bers, publishers, sponsoring organizations, translators, readers, and even nonhuman participants, such as translational technological tools and other phenomena related to sociocultural or even political dis course termed ideologems: "the smallest intelligible units of the essen tially antagonistic collective discourses of social classes" (Jameson 198 1 , 76). Translation is not done in isolation; these elements affect the whole translation production process: the text selection, the seek ing for suitable translators, and the translation strategies employed by translators. In fact, the process of translation as a "dialogic event" (Bakhtin 1 994) is an open process in which author, translator, text, and even sociocultural factors in both languages have an open-ended dialogue in the process and, ultimately, the product of translation. In fact, translation is a complex message in which several voices and per spectives intermingle. At a sociological level, the process of translation production is a complex network of inter- and intrarelations (system) in which we can claim the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. That is, translators, read ers, publishers, and technological tools work synergistically to produce 58 a translation product. Latour's Actor-Network Theory ( 1 987), which has been applied to translation studies (Abdallah 2005; Buzelin 2005) provides a theoretical framework to examine how a network of rela tionships links different factors, producing a project. Various agents (e.g., translators, publishers, and patronage), along with different social powers, interact with each other to develop _the network. As Jones points out, " [w]ho holds more or less power within the network is less impor tant than whether the network forms and performs efficiently and effec tively" (2009, 320). Complexity theory (Cilliers 1 998; Byrne 2005) is sometimes also referred to as dynamic systems theory (Haggis 2008; Valsiner 1 998). Besides the systematicity of translation production, another important feature of translational network is its dynamic complexity, which arises in situations where cause and effect are subtle and where the effects over time of interventions are not obvious or when the same action has dif ferent effects in the short and long run; in all these instances there is dynamic complexity (Senge 1 990). The dynamic complexity of a transla tion system lies in two distinct levels of analysis: the dynamic complex ity resulting from a multitude of interactions between various elements (human or nonhuman) and the dynamic complexity of the emergent behavior of the system that is a translation product. 3.2. FEEDBACK SENSITIVITY, SELF-ORG ANI ZATION, AND ADAPTATION The ontology of complexity thinking insists on a dynamic system's feed back sensitivity. As Stacey puts it, "positive feedback loops are funda mental properties of organizational life" ( 1 992, 480). In a translational network, a translator can receive feedback, whether positive or negative, from different sources. Translation, as Wolf states (2002), is the result of cultural, political, and other habits of the social agents who participate in translation and of the various forms of capital involved. As already mentioned, through feedback mechanisms involving positive or corrective (negative) reactions, new differentiated forms of behavior and systems emerge from the existing forms. Thus Hermans (2007) considers translation as a social system that may produce emer gent phenomena. Regarding feedback sensitivity, we can allude to the cognitive notion of collaborative decision making (Robinson 1 997). In the same vein, Weick ( 1 979) proposed a cognitive cycle for translation process, which is act-response-adjustment, in which the feedback from people on whom one's action as a translator has an impact causes a shift (adjust- 59 ment) in one's action (the translation product). In fact, at the sociologi cal level, this cognitive cycle may change to a sociological one as event feedback-repercussions. Self-organization as one of the key features of dynamic complex systems is the one that Luhmann ( 1995) called autopoiesis for social sys tems. Due to their openness, chaotic complex systems are in constant contact with their environment; however, this contact is regulated by the self-organizing system. It is the system that determines when, what, and through what channels matter is exchanged with the environment. Obviously, one cannot deny the role of external forces, but the point is that, despite these influences, it is the system that determines what should emerge. 3.3. NON L I N E A R I T Y A N D UNPREDICTA B I LI T Y Another aspect of complexity discourse worth examining in greater detail is the argument that the translational network as a complex phe nomenon is intrinsically nonlinear and unpredictable in nature. Com plexity science articulates a notion of causality that is multifactorial. It is impossible to talk about isolating key factors, because all of the fac tors work together, with no one factor being more important than any other. The causality implied by complexity theory is decentered, in the sense that in a dynamic system we cannot attribute a certain effect to a particular cause. Causation is too multidimensional, too fast, and in one sense too unpredictable to be a viable focus of attention (Haggis 2008). In the field of translation, Chesterman (2007) postulated the causal models that aim to show cause-and-effect relations. He also maintains that translations are seen as caused or influenced by various conditions, such as quality judgments by clients or readers. Chesterman (2007) maintains three types of effects produced by translation. These effects ultimately impact the whole system of transla tion production. The first type of effect is labeled reaction, which is cog nitive. When the effect moves beyond the cognitive sphere and becomes observable in different works such as criticisms and book reviews, it acts as feedback, affecting the public image of profession; Chesterman calls this second type response. The third type of effect is the one that shows the nonlinearity and unpredictability of the chain of effects in a translation network. Chesterman describes it as translation repercus sions. The canonization of literary work, changes in the evolution of target language, and changes in norms and practices are examples of translation repercussions. ------------- 60 As mentioned in the butterfly effect metaphor, one of the impor tant features of chaotic systems closely related to unpredictability is the disproportionality between causes and effects, such that "causation can indeed flow from contingent minor events to hugely powerful general processes" ( Urry 2003, 7). In so far as this is a coherent notion, it sug gests that small, apparently accidental or insignificant causes can have a major influence on the development of a system ( Kemp 2009). From the pragmatic point of view, translating is a decision process ( Levy 1967 /2000). Generally, the process of decision making is not a new concept in translation studies. Levy, inspired by and based on game theory ( von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944; Myerson 1 997), con siders the process of translation as a "decision making process" ( Levy 1 967/2000). In a translational field, dynamic interactions and networks between publishers, translators, authors, critiques, and readers are influ ential in the decision-making process ( Levy 1967/2000) and thus also in the final product. According to this view, at the micro level, transla tional "choices" are not linear and sequential but context-bound. Conse quently, they are complex and unpredictable because they are motivated by dynamic factors, among which are aesthetics, cognition, knowledge, commission, and textual pragmatics. These factors are mainly subjec tive, depending on the translator's idiosyncrasies. Taking Peirce's prag matic view ( 1 903 ), during the problem-solving process the translator applies rules and theories (deduction), uses different lexical and gram matical sources (induction), and, finally, chooses the solution intuitively (abduction; Robinson 1 997). Wi_t h the application of Peirce's viewpoint in translation, when the translator reaches the solution it is not predict able even for himself. This solution comes abductively; it is "a mixture of conviction and doubt" ( Robinson 1 997, 260). 3.4. STRA N G E ATTRACTORS Strange attractors act as magnetic forces with a kind of unifying role that draw complex adaptive systems toward given trajectories ( Wheat ley 1994; Pascale, Millemann, and Gioja 2000, cited in Gilstrap 2005). At the micro level, in the translation process strange attractors can be metaphorically manifested in the domestication strategy employed by the translator. Although domestication is rejected by a number of trans lation scholars (Venuti 1995; Berman 1 985/2000; Benjamin 1 969/2000), it still has proponents who believe in the supremacy of meaning trans ference ( Nida and Taber 1969; Jakobson 2000). When a translator tries to transfer the source message to the target reader, due to linguistic and 61 metalinguistic differences between the source language and the target language, on the one hand, and the source culture and target culture, on the other hand, the translator inevitably adapts himself or herself to the target language and its literary system, but simultaneously the translator is affected by his or her own schema. At the macro level, Murphy ( 1 996, 97) and Stroh ( 1 998, 25) sug gest that organizational ethics, culture, values, and communication are strange attractors that form the deep structure of any chaotic system and set the boundaries for the system's activities and transformations ( Leon ard 2005). Within the field of translation, strange attractors are at work in shared vision or, as Chesterman and Arrojo (2000) call it, "shared ground" among translators, translation scholars, publishers, and readers. Shared vision as a strange attractor metaphor is something that emerges from involving agents within the system; it cannot be determined by leaders and their exercise of power (Fullan 200 1 , cited in Gilstrap 2005; Pascale, Millemann, and Gioja 2000; Stacey 1 992; Morgan 1 99 7 ). 4. COMPLEXITY SCIENCE A N D A SYSTE M I C APPROACH The plurality of agents and elements found in a translation network necessitates a systerpic-based approach as a basis to take a more holistic look at the process of translation manufacture. Despite the major draw backs associated with the deterministic aspects of systemic models in translation studies mentioned by different scholars (see Lefevere 1 992; Pym 1 998, 200 1 ), the growing significance of translation in interna tional communication systems and its critical value in shaping national identities calls for "a proper sociological analysis which embraces the whole set of social relations within which translations are produced and circulated" ( Heilbron and Sapiro 2007, 94). Despite the wide applica tion of social systems theory to the translational field, it is time to go beyond mere words and concepts. There is a general consensus among translation scholars that translation either as an action (product) or as an event (the sociological aspect of producing a translation product) is a complex phenomenon (Chesterman 2008; Hermans 200 7 ). We need an analytical tool not only to describe the complex interrelations but also to propose a research framework that focuses on the dynamism of inter and intrarelations, a tool that presents preferred ways of thinking about the organization of the world and at the same time fosters reflection and thoughtfulness ( Kuhn 2008). It is not our aim here to present a thorough analysis of systemic changes in the process of translation production at the global level. 62 The structure of the translation industry and translational networks is not the same all over the world; therefore, in order to develop a more precise look at the process of translation production, we should avoid generalizations. Agorni's (2007) proposed solution for avoiding such a generalization is "localism;' that is, focusing on the local contingent conditions of each particular case. Localism had been introduced to translation studies through Tymoczko's work (1999) in the postcolonial context of translation. She believed that inoving beyond gross general izations toward sufficient specificity was necessary for future advance ment in translation studies. It is at the local level that cultural, politi cal, and social discrepancies between different translational systems all over the world are articulated, negotiated, contested, and defended (Tymoczko 1999). Agorni explains that the aim of localism is to reduce the distance between the descriptive and explanatory approaches. Furthermore, "taking account of the complexity of dynamics of translation that pres ent themselves in specific contexts" (2007, 126) is of prime importance in the sociological analysis of the translation industry. In this article we look at Iran's translational network through the lens of chaos/complexity science. It is worth mentioning that complex ity thinking is a qualitative research methodology that focuses on the interactions within an open dynamic system. Rather than looking from the outside, the researcher looks from the inside at what is conceptual ized as a dynamically interacting system of multiple elements (Haggis 2008) . The translational network needs to be treated as a dynamic entity. By focusing on interactions rather than static categories, com plexity theory also makes it possible to consider different aspects of the translation process. Therefore, in the following section we attempt to look at the translational system as a chaotic complex system from a localized view. To this end, Iran's translational network is analyzed from this new perspective. 4. 1 . IRAN'S TRANSLATION INDUSTRY AS A CHAOTIC COM PLEX SYSTEM Iran's publication rules are different from those of Western countries, since all of the publishing houses are under the supervision of the Min istry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The process of getting a pub lication license is quite complicated. The Iranian translation network is not an autopoiesis (self-organizing) system; it is governed and con trolled by external forces. As discussed earlier, a self-organizing system is not governed by top-down rules, so in Iran the translation network ------------- 63 is not a self-organized system. Authors (or translators) and publishers must negotiate the preview process of the Book Council of the Ministry. The choice of foreign works for translation in Iran is greatly affected by the dominant narrative (usually the political tendency). No book, whether it is original or a translation, is allowed to be published without first obtaining the approval of this governmental authority. The study of translated literature in Iran reveals that there are determining forces at play serving to remove traces of foreign, postcolonial, ideological, or cultural issues _from the dominant narrative of the day. In fact, censorship for localization is one of the Ministry of Cul ture and Islamic Guidance's most important responsibilities. It appears on the surface that translators in Iran are free to choose any topic for translation and submit it to the authorities for publication approval. There is no clear agenda for the selection of the materials for transla tion; however, there are hidden and unwritten rules for translators to follow. In fact, the authorities control and curb translators by censoring some parts of their work or rejecting their work altogether if they do not meet the prescribed criteria. As Haddadian Moghaddam (20 1 2) has shown, some Iranian translators must censor some parts of their work to receive permission for publication. He claims that, in order to get their works published, Iranian translators employ multiple strategies, such as meticulous selection of titles and being more adaptive to the situation. As a result, this act of censorship may make translators either self-censor themselves or quit translation and become deactivated for some time. Taking a local look at the macro structure of the different roles and players in the process of Iranian translation production, espe cially literary translation, it seems that translation studies is concerned with the politics and the politicization of translation. The Ministry is responsible for setting rules and regulations (attractors) that work as "magnetic powers" that dictate publication moves. These rules and regulations are in accordance with the cultural preferences of the dom inant policy. However, in Iran's literary system, governmental publish ers act as centripetal forces in the sense that their publications move toward the centers and dominant narratives; the private publishers that are more effective than their governmental counterparts sometimes act as center-fleeing, or centrifugal, forces. The dynamism of opposi tion between these forces creates a competitive ground in the national literary domain. If we analyze the system in terms of dynamic processes and emer gent phenomena, whether it is the translation of texts or the impact of 64 Dominant Ideology (political power) ..c u ('<) ....c.. 0 C Publishers ) Emergent Behavior Translation Product C � 0 iiiiii Q ' c.. � Translators Readers Figure l . Iran's hierarchical translational network. 65 the translations, formal organizational hierarchy provides a starting point for identifying levels within the core translational system: publish ers, editors, translators, readers, patronage, critics, and so on. As figure 1 exhibits, Iran's translational network is not an autono mous and independent system; it suffers from instability in the general trend of the national literary system. This instability comes from dra matic change of the dominant ideology, that is, political orientations. Tyulenev's third paradigm, the "(y) paradigm;' viewed translation as an "autopoietic closure" (Tyulenev 2009, 1 55). According to his sociocriti cal (y) approach, one of the critical aspects of the sociology of transla tion is the role of power relations in the process of translation from the very first step: the selection of works. The choice of the foreign works for translation, the changes, displacements, and censorship that the origi nal texts undergo in the process of translation may form the emergent product of the system. In this system publishers have some constraints in terms of text selection. Inevitably they impose these constraints on their translators. In Iran's translational network, the power relations are intertwined with political orientations. The governmental macro policy affects the ide ological subsystem and ultimately the entire national literary system. Considering the hierarchical nature of Iran's translational network depicted i n figure 1 , all the i nvolved actants (Latuor's term) are at the service of the dominant ideology, which is not necessarily the same as common sociocultural norms but is more associated with social and political orientations. As already stated, the translation process is an open process in which the translator's own voice and idiosyncrasies intermingle with that of the publisher and reader. In a one-directional view, the Ministry of Cul ture dictates its preferences to publishers, publishers do the same with translators, and translators impose the final product on readers. This hierarchy follows a top-down approach (all the directions come from the top) in which authority bodies make decisions, providing guide lines for the whole system. Top-down network design is a traditional management style in which power is centralized in the hands of state policy makers. Complexity thinking prefers a participative bottom-up approach to an authoritative top-down approach. This preference lies in the fact that collaboration becomes much more efficient because team members within this approach work together more productively. In accord with chaos/complexity theory, order emerges from the self organizing, bottom-up activity of a decentralized mixture of organisms (Bundy 2007). As Morrison maintains, 66 complexity theory can be, and has been, used prospectively, to pre scribe actions and situations that promote change and development, e.g. one can promote the climate or conditions for emergence through-self-organization by fostering creativity, openness, diversity, networking, relationships, order without control, co-evolution, feed back, bottom-up developments and distributed power. ( Morrison 2006 , 7) Complex systems are in disequilibrium and have the potential to evolve. A translational network (or system) must be far from stability and equilibrium in order to break away from the restrictions of exist ing structures and to settle a new ordered structure. From a dissipative structure perspective, an open dynamic system must be far from equi librium in order to receive negative entropy from its surrounding and achieve self-organization and evaluation (Prigogine and Stengers 1 984). This disequilibrium can cause chaos and disorder among involved agents and lead to a higher degree of freedom. The challenge of pro government publishers (as centripetal forces) and independent publish ers (as centrifugal forces) is very beneficial to Iran's translation industry. It is a good challenge, provided that the external control and imposing power are diminished. Iran's publishing field in general and translation system in particular are under the direct control of the political power. The government is supportive of writers who support their ideology and provides monetary grants and better distribution facilities for them. Under these circumstances, the system leads to equilibrium because external control supports only pro-government publishers so that they can compete with independent publishers, which are mqre influential in Iran's literary field than their pro-governmental counterparts. Taking up Even-Zohar's ( 1 990) terminology, the institution as an extra-literary power affects the repertoire, and the market provides the consumer with an institutionally regulated repertoire (it can be a spe cific idea) in this top-down approach. Given the dynamic complexity of the process of translation production, this one-dimensional scheme seems na'ive. In the Iranian translational network, the selection of novels for translation has in general been made by translators themselves, so the determining role of internal agents is undeniable. Moreover, the Iranian readership is very intelligent. It has been shown that, when the famous independent publishers are under pres sure and face harsh restrictions, readers do not welcome or appreci ate the products imposed on them. In fact, publishers and institutions cannot make decisions without taking consumer tastes into consider- 67 ation. In the same vein, readers provide the translators with constructive and encouraging feedback (feedback sensitivity): publish more similar works or perish. Interestingly, some Iranian translators in the introduc tion section of the new editions of their works have alluded to the feed back the readers have provided them to improve the quality of their works in the upcoming editions/versions. For instance, the translator of Pride and Prejudice in his fourth edition of the translation added a short note to his introduction: "Now that the book has been reprinted due to readership's wide warm reception, it is necessary to thank all those who have enhanced the [quality ] of the translation with their reminders, expressing opinions, encouragement, and denials directly or indirectly" (cited in Haddadian Moghaddam 20 12, 171). According to chaos/complexity theory, the essence of chaotic complex systems lies in viewing them not in a hierarchical order but in a more horizontal, "chaotic way;' where the individuals driven by simple rules are the bas.is of these chaotic complex systems. Complexity theory's frame of thought rejects the hierarchical organizations; instead, this system prefers the co-evolutionary framework of system dynamics. Relying on the basics of chaos/complexity theory, the scheme (see fig. I ) should change into the model shown in figure 2. In this newly proposed model, the complex adaptive system of the translation industry encompasses various elements, such as publishers, translators, readers, critics, ethics, and values, as well as other related actants, such as economic, cultural, and political elements. The double arrnws in the figure indicate the interaction between involving ele ments and the role of feedback regulation. Chaos theory explores how small disturbances multiply over time because of nonlinear relation ships and feedback effects. As depicted in figure 2, low reception from readers affects the whole system. When the translator and publisher receive this negative feedback from readers, they try to avoid the loss of a considerable amount of time and money by adapting themselves to readers' tastes. The ultimate product of this mutual feedback is the emergent behavior of the whole system. Translations are not just the consequences of the causal discourse of translation; they also act as causes that produce effects. Complexity therefore suggests a shift from the habitual preoccupation with causes to a focus on effects ( Byrne 2005). The translational behavior in figure 2 is not merely the trans lated literature but all the effects of translations on the literary system and ultimately on society. 68 'Tl OQ. Changing Changing r:: Environment Environment - ..... (1) !'0 � Complex Adaptive Behavior ..... ::s $),) v,' ...,. ..... ::s . z $),) V"l "O 0 (1) §:" ....<. (1Q V"l ;:;: 5· -::s $),) ::s < (1) (1) $),) 'Tl 'Tl (1) (1) (1) (1) ?0 (1) 0.. u 0.. u °' $),) ..... (") $),) (") :,:;-- :;,," :,:;-- \0 u $),) V"l (1) 0... Emergent 0 Behavior ::s (") :, :,, --- 0 V"l (") Changing I Changing 0 Environment Environment 3 "2.. �- (1) '< ...,. :, (1) 0 I Translational Behavior ..... ':< 4.2. TH E TRA NSLATOR'S MINDSET I N IRAN'S CULTURE According to Vygotsky ( 1 978), society can shape people's cognition and mindset. People in different cultures act according to the norms of their own culture (attractor) such that after some time their behav ior is shaped by the habitus they have already formed (Bourdieu 1 989). Undoubtedly, chaotic systems emerge in places where the necessary infrastructure is well-prepared. This means that culture, as an overarch ing system, can let systems become open or closed. For instance, in a culture in which people have zero or. low tolerance for uncertainty, sys tems become monologic, static, and closed. As already indicated, ambiguities and uncertainties are indispens able elements of chaotic systems, implying that any system that is chaotic must have the mechanism to deal with these elements. Considering the Iranian culture in which people cannot stand complexity and ambiguity (Hofstede 1 980), it is fair to say that Iranian translators unconsciously transfer these features to their translation, striving hard to find the exact and absolute translation. As Haddadian Moghaddam (2012) has noted, Iranian literary translators generally favor literal translation to avoid any likely misunderstanding, hoping to produce perfect and exact transla tions. Since translators in this culture seek the exact meaning of a text, they may easily become bored and demotivated when any obstacle in deciphering meaning arises. In the same vein, this type of culture leads to linear thinking, which affects the way Iranian translators deal with the craft of translation at the text level. It seems that generally Iranian translators work through the text in a linear manner from the beginning to the end. This type of trans lation may impede the full interpretation of a text, distorting the mes sage that is to be conveyed. It implies that Iranian translators may avoid the nonlinear strategies (e.g., sporadic translation of a text) of translation that are sometimes more effective, creative, and illuminating. Moreover, since the publication process in Iran is so lengthy and burdensome, involving a great deal of prescriptions and proscriptions, translators who want to be paid must translate in a way that is more accessible and adaptive to meet the required standards; hence at the tex tual level their agency is constrained (Haddadian Moghaddam 20 1 2). In the end, it should be emphasized that open systems cannot be dynamic and effective under all circumstances. For instance, in a country such as Iran with a collective culture and an educational system still in the modern era, open and interactive systems might not work effectively. In this type of context, centralization, transmission, and behaviorism are 70 ------------- prevalent from the primary years of education through the tertiary level, with students accustomed to didactic teaching and learning. The modern educational system of Iran seeks uniformity to find the best ideas and ideals (Pishghadam and Mirzaee 2008). The prevalent dominance of absolutism in Iranian culture impedes interaction and dialogue between various agents and elements. In such a closed, centripetal, and collective context, translators do not see themselves as individual entities; they feel themselves to be members of a larger group who should be faithful to the upper-level power. It seems that, since the required infrastructure is not ready, even if the system becomes open for translators, they may not be able to adapt themselves easily with the interactive, dynamic, and autonomous nature of the system. Thus in this kind of system culture should change toward being more individual and interactive to get full use of chaos/complex ity principles. 5 . CONCLUSION There is a general consensus among scholars that translation either as an action (product) or an event (the sociological aspect of produc ing a translation product) is a complex phenomenon (Hermans 2007; Chesterman 2008). We need an analytical tool not only to describe the complex interrelations but also to propose a research framework that focuses on the dynamism of inter- and intrarelations (Kuhn 2008). Utilizing chaos/complexity theory as an analytical tool, this study takes a new look at the process of translation. Despite the limitations of a systemic approach, the plurality of involving elements, on the one hand, and the growing significance of translation phenomena, on the other, may call for a more holistic analytical framework. We seek to begin to define possible agendas for further research toward such a framework. In this study Iran's translational network is conceptualized as a cha otic complex system in which the authorities in charge play the policy making role. Regarding the large amount of literary translation pub lication (nearly 60 percent of all publication), literary translation is of paramount importance for Iran's publishing field. The translation indus try as a complex system includes a large number of components that need an attractor to play a pattern-making role for subsequent actions. A competitive top-down approach in the translational system is no longer at work; it should be substituted by a participative bottom-up approach. In the past, political policy makers dictated some rules and regula tions on publishers and translators, but nowadays readers' preferences 71 influence higher agents such as publishers. In fact, if we look at transla tion through a lens of chaos/complexity theory, the role of the translator is more emphasized than in the previous systemic-like theories such as translatorial action (Holz-Manttari 1 984). This study provides us with some implications. First, according to chaos/complexity theory, researchers and theorizers in translation stud ies should avoid either/or notions, focusing more on complementa rities. This means that we cannot find the "best" type of translation; in fact, translation is something relative that is context-bound, changing from time to time and place to place. Therefore, translators are expected to be bias-free, allowing more room for criticism of their own works. Second, it should be emphasized that translation is not just the prod uct of a translator; it is a teamwork in which many people cooperate to achieve the final result. Third, according to chaos/complexity theory, translation is a dynamic system in which the translator self-organizes h imself or herself. Translation should not be considered a static entity that cannot be changed to a better one. Fourth, based on the findings of chaos/complexity theory, we can claim that the process of translation moves from disorder to order, meaning that, while translating a work, order is not something to be imposed; it emerges in the course of time. The translational system is not only a subsystem but also what Hermans (2007) called a self-referential (self-organizing) system. The powers at the top of the hierarchy of a literary system should respect the self-orga nizing dynamic system of translation and not restrict the scope of this communicative event with some counterstrategies, such as censorship. 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Lissack, Michael R., and Hugo Letiche. 2002. Complexity, Emergence, Resilience, and Coherence: Gaining Perspective on Organizations and Their Study. Emergence 4.3:72-94. Luhmann, Niklas. 1995. Social Systems. Translated by John Bednarz Jr., with Dirk Baecker. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Meara, Paul. 2004. Modeling Vocabulary Loss. Applied Linguistics 2.2: 137-55. Morel, Benoit, and Rangaraj Ramanujam. 1999. Through the Looking Glass of Complexity: The Dynamics of Organizations as Adaptive and Evolving Systems. Organization Science 10:278-93. Morgan, Gareth. 1997. Images of Organization. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Morrison, Keith. 2006. Complexity Theory and Education. Paper pre sented at the APERA Conference, 28-30 November 2006, Hong Kong. Miiller-Schloer, Christian, and Bernhard Sick. 2008. Controlled Emer gence and Self-Organization. Pages 8 1 - 103 in Organic Computing. Edited by Rolf Wurtz. Berlin: Springer. 75 ------------- Murphy, Priscilla. 1996. Chaos Theory as a Model for Managing Issues and Crises. Public Relations Review 22.2:95- 1 13. Myerson, Roger B. 1997. Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Neumann, John von, and Oskar Morgenstern. 1944. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nida, Eugene A., and Charles R. Taber. 1969. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Helps for Translators 8. Leiden: Brill. Norton, Alec. 1995. Dynamics: An Introduction. Pages 45-68 in Mind as Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition. Edited by Robert F. Port and Timothy Van Gelder. Cambridge: MIT Press. Pascale, Richard T., Mark Millemann, and Linda Gioja. 2000. Surfing the Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business. New York: Crown Business. Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1903. Pragmatism-The Logic of Abduction. Paragraphs 195-205 in vol. 5 of The Collected Papers. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. 8 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960- 1966. Pishghadam, Reza, and Azizullah Mirzaee. 2008. English Language Teaching il'l Postmodern Era. Journal of Teaching English Language and Literature 2:89-109. Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. 1 984. Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. New York: Bantam. Pym, Anthony. 1998. Method in Translation History. Manchester, U.K.: St. Jerome. --, ed. 2001. The Return to Ethics. The Translator 7.2. Manchester, U.K.: St. Jerome. Robinson, Douglas. 1997. Becoming a Translator: An Accelerated Course. London: Routledge. Schroeder, Manfred R. 199 1. Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an In.finite Paradise. New York: Freeman. Senge, Peter M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday. Spivey, Michael. 2007. The Continuity of Mind. Oxford: Oxford Univer sity Press. Stacey, Ralph D. 1992. Managing the Unknowable: Strategic Boundaries between Order and Chaos in Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. - - . 2003. Complexity and Group Processes: A Radically Social Under standing of Individuals. New York: Brunner-Routledge. 76 ------------- Stroh, Ursula. l 998. Communication Management in a Millenn ium of Chaos and Change. Communicare l 7.2: 1 6-4 1 . Tsai, Wen-Chun, and Yu-Chi ng, Lai. 20 I 0. Strategic I mplications from Complexity Science Perspective. The Journal of Global Business Management 6.2. Tymoczko, Maria. l 999. Translation in a Poslcolonial Context: Early Irish Literature in English -Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome. Tyulenev, Sergey. 2009. Why (Not) Luhmann? On the Applicability of Social Systems Theory to Translation Studies. Translation Studies 2.2:147-62. Urry, John. 2003. Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity. Valsiner, Jaan. 1 998. The Guided Mind: A Sociogenetic Approach to Per sonality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995 The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Transla tion. London: Routledge. -- , ed. 2000. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge. Vygotsky, L. S. l 978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psycho logical Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weick, Karl E. 1 979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, Mass.: Addison - Wesley. Wheatley, Margaret J. 1 99 4. Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco: Ber rett-Koehler. Whitesides, George M., and Rustem F. lsmagilov. 1 999. Complexity in Chemistry. Science 284:89-92. Wolf, Michaela. 2002. Translation Activity between Culture, Society and the Individual: Towards a Sociology of Translation. CTIS Occasional Papers 2:33-43. Reza Pishghadam has a PhD in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). He is currently on the English faculty of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, I ran. He is now associate professor of TEFL and teaches socio-psychological aspects of language education. Over the last five years, he has published more than 1 20 articles and books in different domains of English-language education and has participated in more than twenty national 77 and international conferences. In 2007 he was selected to become a member of the National Association of Elites of Iran. In 20 1 0, he was classified as the distinguished researcher in humanities in Iran. Email: [email protected]. 1 Nasrin Ashrafi is an MA graduate in Trans lation Studies from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. She has written ,a variety of articles on different domains of translation studies. Her research interests are sociology of translation, psychology of translation, and academic translation training. Email: N_ [email protected]. 78

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THE B IBLE IN THE BUSH: THE FIRST " LITERATE" BATSWANA B IBLE READERS 1 Musa W Dube2 You should know that when we read our Bible we change the letters with our mouths. - Sebotseng Loatile, 1 890 letter to the editor of Mahoko a Becuana INTRODUCTION: A STORYTELLER MEETS STORYTELLERS! In this article I begin with Laura Bohannan's 1966 celebrated essay "Shakespeare in the Bush;' which is where I derive the title "The Bible in the Bush." I then discuss some of the first written responses of Batswana to Robert Moffat's translation of the Setswana Bible of 1857. The third and final part of the article looks at some implications for biblical t rans lations in the context of globalization and localization. First Bohannan's tale of 1966-a story about telling a story to and with other storytellers. "Not yesterday, not yesterday, but long ago, a thing occurred!" began Bohannan as she told the story of Hamlet among an African ethnic group of the Tiv in Nigeria, appropriating their way of telling a story. In the telling of it, European kings soon became chiefs, swords became machetes, ghosts became omens, and devils became witches. I. In this article "Botswana" refers to the country; "Batswana" refers to the people of Botswana; and "Setswana" refers to the language and culture of Botswana. "Motswana" is the singular of "Batswana:' The colonial spellings were different: "Bechuana" for "Botswana" and "Sechuana" for "Setswana:' 2. This article is written to celebrate Eugene Nida, for his lifelong commitment to exploring theories of biblical translation. 79 But Bohannan was not prepared for the plot and motivation also to change as the Tiv actively grafted the story into their cultural world view and made it a good story for themselves, for she initially thought that, "although some details of custom might have to be explained and difficulties of translations might produce changes ... , Hamlet had only one possible interpretation, and that one is universally obvious" ( 1966, 28-29). So she thought, until she met the T iv in Nigeria. Hamlet, a Shakespearian tragedy, is about Prince Hamlet, whose father had died. The king's young brother, King Claudius, ascended to the throne and married his w idow, Gertrude, w ithin a month of the king's death. Hamlet, suspecting that his father had not died a natu ral death and unhappy that his mother married a possible murderer of his father so soon, went about investigating the death of his father. Hamlet also fell in love w ith Ophelia, a woman he could not marry because she was from a lower class. Hamlet, possibly stressed out, started behaving strangely, like a mad person. Having satisfied him self that King Claudius was the culprit, Hamlet made a plan to kill him. Unfortunately, he killed someone else, Polonius, the father of the woman he loved, Ophelia. King Claudius s�ized this moment to send Hamlet to a faraway land with two escorts and letters instructing the hosting king to murder Hamlet. But Hamlet changed the contents of the letter, and the two escorts were killed instead, while he headed back home. Meanwhile Ophelia, who heard about her father's death at the hands of a man she loved, went mad and drowned herself. On the day of her burial, her elder brother Laertes, who had being living in Paris, jumped into the grave to see her just once more; Hamlet, who had also returned, likewise jumped into the grave, and the two men began to fight. King Claudius, who w ished Hamlet dead so he could maintain his throne, set up a duel, but he also prepared a glass of poison beer, just in case Hamlet 'won the duel. Hamlet and Laertes' fight is a deadly sequel, for both are critically injured. Seeing her son dying, the queen mistakenly drank the glass of poisoned beer. This moved Hamlet to leap out and kill King Claudius, even as he himself was dying. All four died at this moment. It is this story that Laura Bohannan, an American anthropologist from Oxford who was on her second field trip to the T iv to observe some of their rare ceremonies, decided to tell. She had mistakenly chosen an inappropriate time for fieldwork. She arrived when the swamps were rising, which hindered communication and interaction between differ ent homesteads. Until the swamps dropped so that plowing could begin, the T iv, hosting Bohannan, amused themselves with drinking beer, 80 telling stories, singing, and dancing. No ceremonies were performed because the swamps cut communication between various homesteads. So it was that Bohannan found herself with plenty of time on her hands and very little to do save to read a copy of Hamlet that had been given to her following an argument with a friend, who held that Ameri cans tend to misunderstand Shakespeare, "a very English poet;' for they "easily misinterpret the universal by misunderstanding the par ticular" (1966, 28). Bohannan protested this perspective, holding that "human nature is pretty much the same the whole world over, at least the general plot and motivation of the greater tragedies would always be clear-everywhere-although some details of custom might have to be explained and difficulties of translation might produce other slight changes." To end an argument they could not conclude, the friend gave Bohannan a copy of Hamlet "to study in the African bush," hoping that it would lift her mind "above its primitive surroundings" and that with prolonged meditation she might "achieve the grace of correct interpre tation;' namely, the English one (28). The more Bohannan read Hamlet, the more she became convinced that " Hamlet had only one possible interpretation, and that one is universally obvious" (29). It happened that one morning the Tiv invited Bohannan to tell them a story. She was quite reluctant to do so, for, as she said, she was not a storyteller; besides, " [ s] torytelling is a skilled art among them, their standards are high, and the audiences critical-and vocal .in their criti cism" ( 29). But thinking to herself that "here was my chance to prove Hamlet universally intelligible" (29), Bohannan allowed herself to be persuaded. So she began in their own style of telling a story, "Not yester day, not yesterday, but long ago, a thing occurred. One night three men were keeping watch outside the homestead of the great chief, when sud denly they saw the former chief approach them" (29). Disruption. They ask. "Why was he no longer their chief? " (29). Altogether, I counted up to nineteen questions they posed to Bohannan, besides commentary, suggestions, and co-telling. "He was dead;' Bohannan explained (29). Dead ? Dead people do not walk, according to the Tiv beliefs. So one of the elders made a point of correction: "Of course, it wasn't the dead chief. It was an omen sent by a witch. Go on" (29). Quite shaken by the eider's self-assured explanation, Bohannan continued, "One of these three was a man who knew things" (29). This was the closest translation that she could find for "scholar;' but it also meant "witch" among the Tiv. When she explained that the scholar associated the appearance of the dead chief with Hamlet, his son, the elders disapproved: such omens were issues to be handled by 81 chiefs and elders, not youngsters. They were of the opinion that at the most Hamlet should have consulted a specialized diviner to clarify for him about the death of his father and then approached elders thereafter for them to handle the case for him. They began to debate among them selves and to provide reasons why Hamlet did not follow this path. They concluded that the diviner would have been afraid to divulge informa tion about the most powerful man in the land, King Claudius. This became the trend of their listening. They questioned, objected, com mented, and provided explanations for the events that motivated the plot, quite freely placing the story within their cultural worldviews and then urging Bohannan to continue with the story. So it was when Bohannan explained that the widow of the late king had married the young brother of the king soon thereafter, a month after the death of her husband, they approvingly said, "He did well;' pointing out that it is consistent with their culture, thereby knocking off a key issue in the plot of the story Hamlet (29). The major question they had was whether the late king and the current one were sons of the same mother, a question that Bohannan could not answer but one that they held to be pivotal to the plot of the story. Given their positive perspective about the levirate marriage, Bohannan found herself skipping Hamlet's soliloquy of disgust at his mother's marriage. This would apply to several issues: they disapproved the kings' monogamy and taxes, insisting that a king must marry many wives and have many children so he is able to grow food and to entertain his guests without relaying on taxes; they dismissed the cultural norms that debarred Prince Hamlet from marry ing Ophelia, pointing out that as a mistress to the king, her father would be lauded with many gifts more than a normal husband could pay bride price; they said Hamlet's madness and Ophelia's drowning was the work of witches or being exposed to creatures of the forest. Yet for them, one could only be bewitched by a male relative. King Claudius thus became the first suspect for causing Hamlet's madness. Similarly, Laertes, the only male relative of Ophelia, became the suspect in his sister's madness and death. Commenting from the perspective of hunters, they said that Polonius's accidental death was a result of an inexperienced fool: Why did the man not shout "It is me!" to identify himself (32)? Bohannan's explanation that Hamlet, who was scolding his mother, already had an intention to kill King Claudius sent shocking shudders to the Tiv. This was ethically unacceptable, for "a man should never scold his mother;' and "for a man to raise his hand against his father's brother and one who has become his father" was unacceptable by all standards to the Tiv (3 1 - 32). There was deadlock about Hamlet's unacceptable behavior toward ------------- 82 his parents, but one elder unruffled the quandary by pointing out: "if his father's brother had indeed been wicked enough to bewitch and make him mad . . . it would be his fault that Hamlet, being mad, no longer had any sense and thus was ready to kill his father's brother" (32). Bohannan notes that at this explanation, " There was a murmur ofapplause. Hamlet was again a good story to them, but it no longer seemed quite the same story to me" (32, emphasis added). In the process of this major retelling of Hamlet, Bohannan became quiet upset by the Tiv for taking the story from her and telling it in their own way. The point of whether the ghost was an omen or not, whether a ghost or omen can talk, walk, or cast a shadow, was an intense moment of debate between the Tiv and Bohannan. One old man pulled a Kola nut from his pocket, bit it, and gave it to her, thus making peace with Bohannan and asserting that it was not a fight but rather the art of storytelling. The listeners in most African cultures are not passive listeners. They participate, urging the storyteller to go on and provid ing commentary; indeed, in some African cultures the listeners are so active that they can take the story from the storyteller and tell it to another direction. The storytelling space, therefore, becomes a writerly moment, a moment of public production of new stories through old stories and with various other storytellers. The storyteller does not have the last word, nor does one story exist to the exclusion of others. Rather, a storytelling moment is a space of production of new stories within the existing field of other stories (Donaldson 1992, 139). It becomes a moment of networking of stories. Accordingly, the Tiv conclusion was an invitation for more foreign stories to be told: "You must tell us some more stories of your country. We, who are elders, will instruct you in their true meaning, so that when you return to your land your elders will see that you have not been sit ting in the bush, but among those who know things and who have taught you wisdom" (Bohannan 1966, 33). Two ironies are noted concerning their concluding statement. First, we note that, like Bohannan, they were convinced that theirs was the "true meaning;' just as Bohannan's friend held that the true meaning was in Shakespeare's English culture. Second, Bohannan's report of this event was published as "Shakespeare in the Bush;' although the Tiv said that she was "not sitting in the bush" but rather among those who knew things and had taught her wisdom (33). Their knowledge and wisdom, informed by their worldview and value system, led them to conclude that Bohannan concurred with them, but it was through a different plot and assumptions. Her assumption that there would be one meaning of Shakespeare, one evident to all human beings, ------------- 8 3 was thus disapproved by her fieldwork data. The Tiv, however, were care ful to point out that they were not just hearing and asserting their own culture but equally conscious that Bohannan presented them with a dif ferent story. Thus one old man reassured her, "You tell the story well, and we are listening. . . . we believe you when you say your marriage customs are different, or your clothes and weapons. But people are the same every where; therefore, there are always witches and it is we, the elders, who know how witches work. We told you it was the great chief who wished to kill Hamlet, and now your own words have proved us right" (32). MY RESPONSE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLAT I ONS There is much more that can be said about Bohannan's narrative from various perspectives than I have been able to summarize. Like Bohan nan, who had crossed many boundaries to reach the Tiv and found herself hedged by the swampy season, "the number of borders being crossed in one translation are always multiple" (Gentzler 200 1 , 203), as "Shakespeare in the Bush" amply demonstrates. Maria Tymoczko holds that [t]he case of Hamlet in West Africa . . . illustrates resistance to transla tion and transfer of concepts ("ghost") , values ("chastity of Ophelia"), customs (the European period of mourning), motivations (Hamlet's madness), material culture (swords for machetes) and plot sequence, as well as rhetorical and linguistic structures. The awareness of such resistance to the uptake and translation of oral material, as well as better understanding of the actual working dynamic between passive and active bearers of traditional cultures, has led to re-evaluations of the process of survival, transmission and translation of oral literature. (1990, 49) Tymoczko further underlines that research in translation in the past two decades indicates that "translation is a form of literary refraction: translated texts are processed texts, texts that are manipulated between literary interfacings, illuminating the sociological, ideological and liter ary constants at work behind the manipulations involved in translation" ( 1 990, 46). Nonetheless, Tymoczko admits that, "despite the historical documentation and theoretical build up for more than a decade now, th� idea that translation involves manipulation-ideological and poetic pro cessing-remains shocking to traditionalists, students and teachers alike, who persist in the belief in a value-free translation process" ( 1 990, 46). 84 When I fi rst read "Shakespeare in the Bush;' I was highly impressed by the Tiv community. They were an empowered audience who lis tened critically, questioning, commenting, making suggestions, thereby rewriting the story within their own cultural worldview. While initially Bohannan thought her task was merely to find some "equivalent" words, such as using "great chief " for "king" or "machete" for "swords," the task involved much more. As t ranslation studies have underlined, the trans lation of any work is not just a matter of formal, dynamic, or functional equivalents of words, phrases, sentences, meaning, or effect. Rather, t ranslation work or processes involve "the translation of cultures;' fully informed by the agendas of the patrons, publishers, and purposes they serve. As amply demonstrated by "Shakespeare in the Bush;' t ransla tion studies "no longer defines translation as an activity that takes place between two languages, but views it as an interaction between cultures" (Gentzler 2001, 190). The Tiv had asked for Bohan nan's story and threat ened not to tell her any of their stories un less she told them stories from her culture. For them, it was an exchange of stories within their space, within their stories, and within their own culture. 1l1e Tiv acknowl edged Bohannan's language limitation, saying, "you must explain what we do not understand, as we do when we tell you our stories" (Bohan nan 1966, 29). As an anthropologist, Bohan nan was a story collector. She had not forgotten that as an anthropologist she came to collect pri marily the African stories for a European audience. 1l1us the moment the Tiv explained that madness is caused by witchcraft and creatures in the forest, Bohannan said, "I stopped being a storyteller and took out my notebook and demanded to be told more about these two causes of madness. Even while they spoke;' she says, "l jotted down notes, I t ried to calculate the effect of this new factor on the plot" (1966, 3 I ). It was quite intriguing to me as an African that Bohannan reached a point where, while her audience was enjoying the story, to her it was no longer the same story. At this point I said, "Laura Bohannan, welcome to the world!" For us Africans who come from largely oral communi ties yet in a historical context where the fi rst written stories-whether they are cultures, history, religion, language-were written by Western ers, especially during colonial times, it has been excruciatingly painful to read the anthropological record, the travelers story, the missionary record: for the most part, one cannot recognize herself. It is a different story, precisely because it is an African story that is grafted into and interpreted within a Western culture. Unfortunately, the colonial con text, which entailed the collection of the stories of the Other, who is dif ferent, was a time when the Other was already despised. Consequently, 85 the refraction of our stories was informed not only by Western cultures but by racism and Eurocentrism. Similarly, when I first read "Shakespeare in the Bush" I also won dered what kind of Bible translations we would have if our transla tors and communities were culturally empowered citizens involved in intra- and intercultural activity where there is more interactive inter course between the source and the target text, not in the missionary style, where the target culture is supposedly always submissively under, receiving male sperm from the source text-the biblical/Westernized cultures-but rather in a more interesting love-making where wrestling turns everyone up, down, sideways, and all angles. What kind of Bible translations would we have? Further, do we desire this type of translation, or do we build a hedge of theories, intuitions, policies, practices, ideologies, agendas, experts, publications, and cultures that often mute the targeted com munities as subjugated "recipient cultures"? "Shakespeare in the Bush" posits a model of translation as a public hearing. It posits a model that calls us to regard targeted communities and their cultures just as sacred as the stories we bring from other cultures. It posits a model where recipient/targeted communities are not the subjugated Other. Reading this story, I became quiet interested in those historical moments when culturally empowered communities first heard the Bible and the trans lations they embarked upon to bring the story home and how such translational spaces were negotiated-if, in fact, we can exegete them from missionary narratives. This, of course, leads me to the second part of my paper: the response of the first "literate" Batswana readers to the Setswana Bible translation. I place the word "literate" in quotes to mark the fact that there is literacy in all cultures outside the West ernized school system. THE F IRST BATSWANA B IBLE READERS In this section I seek to tell the story of the translated Setswana Bible and how the Batswana received the biblical story from the earliest translation presented to them. The translation was in stages, stretch ing from 1 830, when the translation of the Gospel of Luke was com pleted, to 1 840, when the New Testament translation was completed, to 1 857, when the complete Bible was first printed in Kuruman, located in present-day South Africa. Since translation studies urges us to study the translators and their time, context, agenda, i deology, and patrons, a brief background of our Bible translator is in order. 86 The Scottish missionary Robert Moffat, who started his work in southern Africa in 1 8 1 7, is credited with translating the first Setswana Bible. Moffat's academic records indicate that he was a gardener who later trained as a farmer. He joined the London Missionary Society in 1 8 1 6 and arrived in South Africa in 1 8 1 7 to start his job (Doke 1 958, 85). Obviously, Moffat's training was close ,to nothing-a year or less. As Clement Doke points out, "Moffat had never trained as a linguist" (nor as a biblical scholar, I must add), and "he came up against intrica cies of Tswana" ( 1 958, 85). In addition, Moffat carried out his work and translation during the height of modern colonialisn:i,, fully immersed in its thinking and attitudes toward the colonized. How did the Batswana respond to the translation? To explore the latter, I will largely read the letters Batswana wrote to the editor of Mahoko a Becwana, a newspaper that was published by the London Missionary Society ( LMS) from Kuruman, between 1 883 and 1 896. A number of "literate" Batswana wrote letters on various subjects, which gives us a window into how they responded to Setswana Bible transla tion. These letters were recently collected and made available in Words ofBatswana: Letters to Mahoko a Becwana 1 883-1 896 (Mgadla and Volz 2006). I will focus on those letters dealing with correct ways of writ ing Setswana, since the first written Setswana was associated with Bible translation. Perhaps the reader is wondering how and why Hamlet is comparable to the Setswana Bible. Just as Hamlet was a work of "a very English poet;' the Setswana Bible was the work of a Scottish man who was grafted in his worldview, which at that time was that of the British Empire. Would the Batswana readers demonstrate efforts to reclaim the Setswana culture as the Tiv of Nigeria did? The analysis of their letters will greatly assist us in answering this question. In reading these letters, I seek to identify ways employed by the earliest Batswana Bible readers to resist colonizing translations. I must admit that comparing the Tiv with Batswana literate writ ers may be unfair on several levels. First, the Tiv had an opportunity to comment and rewrite the story of Hamlet prior to its written trans lation. The Batswana writers were only commenting on a completed translation, and we have no substantive knowledge of their engagement with the biblical story during the process of translation, since Robert Moffat does not provide a detailed description of if. Second, unlike the Tiv, whom Bohannan characterizes as "pagans . . . who had no belief in individual afterlife" (32), most of the Batswana writers were converted Christians who had already undergone training in mission schools. Third, while the Tiv were apparently oral, these Batswana were literate, 87 since they could write letters. Fourth, their letters, written between 1883 and 1 896, were drafted almost four decades after Moffat's New Testa ment appeared in 1840. However, since the LMS newspaper's publica tion of these letters was the first of its kind among Batswana speakers, we could say that this was the first written response to the translated version that was addressed to the missionaries and the writers' fellow Batswana. Remarkably, forty years after the publication of the New Tes tament, the debate was still hot! We may well say that these Batswana writers had been waiting to exhale! Although I have not had access to Batswana's first oral hearing and response to the biblical story, I have read Moffat's 642-page volume on Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, a volume he pub lished in 1842 in London, two years after he published the Setswana New Testament translation. The volume amply indicates that in the first decades Batswana resisted the biblical story, displaying significant indifference that was frustrating to missionaries. Moffat thus observed that, "although they received much instruction, they appeared never for a moment to have reflected upon it, nor to retain traces of it in their memories, which are generally very tenacious" ( 1842, 244). To illustrate the point, he cites two examples: one from a friend and one from an adversary. Moffat describes his friend Munameets as a very supportive and intelligent Motswana man who always traveled with Moffat. Just before his death, however, Motswana rhetorically pleaded an incapacity to understand Moffat's teaching due to age, deferring such a task to the future generations. Munameets said, "Perhaps you may be able to make children remember your mekhua (customs)" ( 1 842, 246). The second case involved the speech of a rainmaker that received great applause, leading Moffat to remark that "the poor missionary's arguments, drawn from the source of Divine truth, were thrown into the shade" (247). Moffat narrates that, "when we attempted to convince them of their state as sinners, they would boldly affirm with full belief in their innate rectitude that there was not a sinner in the tribe" (254). 3 So Moffat laments that, "O, when shall the day-star arise on their hearts? We preach, we converse, we catechise, we pray, but without the least appar ent success" (285). 4 3. See Carroll 1 996, where he discusses a case of one missionary's attempt to deal with lack of guilt among his targeted audience in Latin America by making a translation that said that the particular group "killed Jesus:' 4. See Comarotf and Comaroff 1 99 1 , where they show that in fact Batswana 88 These are largely reported accounts in Moffat's book, but I have not yet encountered intense engagement concerning a particular biblical story, including dialogue, comparable to Bohannan's Tiv. 5 TI1e letters to the editors, which began to appear in 1 883, the year that Moffat died, discussed his Bible translation, focusing on the orthography, the various dialects of Setswana, the correct way of writing Setswana, and various Christian teachings that clashed with Setswana culture. They thus serve as my source for now. SETSWA N A B I BLE TRA NSLAT I O N : "WH OSE INTE RESTS ARE SERV E D ?" Given Moffat's accounts of Batswana's disinterest and indifference toward biblical teaching, it is obvious that they hardly asked for the translation. W hat was the purpose of this translation, when the commu nity was quite indifferent? Who commissioned it, and who was served by it? We can hardly place it in the hands and agenda of Batswana. As Part Mgadla and Stephen Volz point out: Most African-language publications in the nineteenth century were produced by European missionaries as part of a larger project to m ake the Bible and other Christian teachings more widely available to potential converts. This process began in southern Africa in the 1 820s and 1 830s with the publication of biblical excerpts, catechisms and other materials in Setswana, Sesotho, and lsxhosa. The first com plete vernacular bible was in Setswana, published in 1 857 by the LMS. (2006, xix) The agenda behind the Bible translation lay outside Batswana's inter est. It follows that it did not necessarily serve their interest or agenda. Obviously, Robert Moffat's Setswana was not perfect when he under took the translation, and I have yet to discover literature that describes the indigenous people who helped him with the task. In his voluminous Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, which I as a native of that region can only describe as a "text of terror:' Moffat speaks very disparagingly and bitterly of his ·i nterpreter for his poor translations, to a point where Moffat holds that: were very resistant to Christian conversion until a time when they realized that they had lost autonomy to the ever-encroaching forces of colonialism. 5. Some Bantus' response to the biblical text was to regard it as "an instrument of divination" (Comaroff and Comaroff I 99 1 , 228). 89 A missionary who commences giving direct instruction to the natives, though far from being competent in the language, is proceeding on a safer ground than if he were employing an interpreter, who is not pro ficient in both languages, and who has not a tolerable understanding of the doctrines of the Gospel. Trusting to an ignorant and unquali fied interpreter, is attended with consequences, not only ludicrous, but dangerous to the very objects which lie nearest the missionary's heart. . . . The i nterpreter, who cannot himself read, and who understands very partially what he is translating, if he is not a very humble one, will as I have often heard, introduce a cart-wheel, or an ox-tail into some passage of simple sublimity of Holy Writ, j ust because some word in the sentence had a similar sound. Thus the passage, "The salvation of the souls is a great and important subject;''. The salvation of the soul is a very great sack, must sound strange indeed. ( 1 842, 294) But by criticizing the translator for translating "great and important subject" as "kgetsi e kgolo;' or a "great sack;' Moffat demonstrates that he was quite unqualified to criticize his interpreter, for the latter was correct. An important issue, a court case or task, is referred to as kgetsi among Batswana to denote its importance and gravity. The interpreter was spot on to refer to the salvation of the soul as "a very great sack:' Of his own ignorance, as one who also could not speak both languages fluently and who was equally vulnerable to translation blunders, Moffat is apparently self-forgiving and tolerant, arguing that a gross mistransla tion is forgiven on the basis of good character! He writes, "The natives will smile, and make allowances for the blundering speeches of the mis sionary; and though some may convey the very opposite meaning to that which he intends, they know from his general character what it should be, and ascribe the blunder to his ignorance of the language" (1842, 294). It is not only Moffat's translator who falls under the mercy of Moffat's eye; the whole of Batswana/southern Africa are held to be ignorant and godless. There is, however, hope under the able hand of a gardner-farmer to cultivate their arid souls into the fertile fields of salvation. "Satan;' Moffat says, is obviously the author of polytheism of other nations, he has employed his agency with fatal success in erasing every vestige of religious impression from the mind of Bechuanas, Hottentots, and Bushmen; leaving them without a single ray to guide them from the dark and dreary futurity, or a single l ink to unite them with the skies. Thus the m issionary could make no appeals to legends, or to altars, or to an unknown God, or to ideas kindred to those he wished- to impart. . . . 90 Their religious system, like those streams in the wilderness which lose themselves in the sand, had entirely disappeared; and it devolved on the missionaries to prepare for the gracious distribution of the waters of salvation in that desert soil, sowing the seed of the word, breathing many a prayer, and shedding many a tear, till the Spirit of God should cause it to vegetate, and yield the fruits of righteousness. ( 1 942, 244) In service to this major agricultural project of cultivating arid desert soils into life, Moffat had produced a Setswana Bible translation before he grasped the language. First he had to do the orthography. Five to six decades later, different mission centers used his Bible to develop better Setswana, even within the LMS; hymns and other books appeared with an improved Setswana orthography. Thus by 1 883 there were varieties of written Setswana, Robert Moffat's Bible translation being the crudest of all. The rising numbers of educated Batswana became dissatisfied with Moffat's translation, as _attested by their letters to the editor of Mahoko a Becwana. The debate became heated as soon as the newspaper was launched with regard to the correct way of writing and pronouncing Setswana. Many Batswana writers insisted that Robert Moffat's earliest translation clearly indicated that he did not understand the language. They preferred the latest forms of writing and pronouncing Setswana (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 7-42). Since better ways of writing Setswana had been developed over the years, most Batswana readers also insisted that the latter should be adopted as the standard for the newspaper. At the center of the debate were the letter d, which was translated with l or r; the consonant w, which was written as oe; and the letter t, which in some words needed to appear with l (tl), in some words with h (th), and in others with lh ( tlh) together. Leaving /, h, or lh out of the letter t when they need to be included creates different meanings than the intended. A good case in point is the verb "created" in Genesis 1 : 1 . When h was left out of tl, the verb was written as tlola (jump?) instead of tlhola ( create). The Moffat Bible thus read "in the beginning God jumped the heavens and the earth;' instead of "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 29). Another debate centered around the vowels o and e, whether they should be written plainly or with an accent and a macron, respectively (i.e., e and 6). In each case, using or not using the letter d, w, or the accented/marked e and o changed the pronunciation of the Setswana word; in some cases, meaning was changed as well, as elaborated above. 91 In his letter to the editor, Gomotsegang Magonaring ( December 1889) underlined that, even though there are a number of Setswana dialects, "the letters d, o, e and w are the ones with which the language of Setswana is spoken, throughout the entire language of Setswana" (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 31 ). Another letter dated December 1889, written by Sekaelo Piti, captures and illustrates the general concern: we have complained much about our language in the books, because they have not been representing true Setswana but rather Setswana and English-an English Setswana-that is read as only a reminder of the real thing. 6 For example, "go diha" [to make] has been writ ten as "go riha''. "didimala" [be quiet] as "ririmala" or "lilimala", also "Modimo" [God] as "Morimo;' and "/egodimo" [heaven] as " legorimo''. But when we saw hymn books in the year 1 883, we were very happy because a missionary had arrived who speaks the language of our mothers and who speaks proper Setswana. He says, " Yesu kwana ea Modimo" [Jesus lamb of God] and not " Yesu koana" or "kuana". This missionary also printed a spelling book in the year 1 885. He is the one who knows the true language of Setswana. (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 3 1 ) These concerns were quite legitimate, for in some cases the changing or leaving out of one letter dramatically changed the meaning ofverses. For example, changing the w in kwana to a u created verses that, instead of reading "Jesus, the lamb [kwana] of God" or "behold the lamb of God;' actually read "Jesus, the hat [ kuana] of God" or "behold the hat of God:' If go diha is used for the verb "to make;' it would easily be heard and understood as "to drop something down" instead of making or creating. Going back to Genesis 1:1, suppose the translation chose the missionary word for "to make" (that is, used go diha) for "to create"; the Setswana translation could read, "In the beginning, when God dropped [diha] the earth and the heavens;' instead of make (dira). In other cases the trans lation created meaningless new words, such as ririmala for didimala (be 6. This writer was spot on, for indeed when Moffat discussed how he designed the written Setswana it is clear that he based it on Western languages and sounds. Giving guidance of how to pronounce Setswana, he says, "Ch [is) represented in Bechuana books by the Italian c, is sounded like eh in chance . . . tl, like the Welsh ll, preceded by a t; ng, which is represented in the written language by the Spanish fl: has the ringing sound ofng in sing. This outline will enable anyone to read the Sech uana language with tolerable correctness" (Moffat 1 842, 226). He goes on to dis cuss how the word Botswana was spelled differently among the Dutch or English, depending on whether they found an equivalent sound or not in their languages. 92 quiet). The new word, ririmala, could possibly be read as referring to a hairy stomach, if it signifies anything at all. In the same letter to the editor mentioned above, Gomotsegang Magonaring ( December 1889) provides a number of examples to illus trate how replacing the consonant d with r creates new unintended meanings. For example, exchanging an r for the d in the word for "thundering" or "sounding" (duma) produces the word ruma, which means "to devour." W ith the d replaced with r in the verb due/a ( to pay), one reads rue/a, which means "to keep, domesticate, or possess something for someone" ( Mgadla and Volz 2009, 3 1 ). One can imagine that, if a verse said that Jesus paid (due/a) for our sins, it would now be read to mean that he kept (rue/a) our sins. Similarly, the word dumela, which is used in Setswana for "greeting;' meaning "let us agree" or "peace among us;' written with an r instead of d would read rumela, which means "send"! Second, Batswana were unhappy because, through translation and the written books ( hymns, spelling books, dictionaries, Bible), their language was now infused with English and was now an Eng lish version of Setswana. Piti called it "an English Setswana . . . that is read only as a reminder of the real thing" ( Mgadla and Volz 2006, 36). As Banani Diphafe would state in his letter of January 1 890, "I see us becoming confused, only parallel to the language and speaking it like a white person who is just learning Setswana. He says 'Modimo' [God] as 'Morimo', and 'di/o' [things] as 'li/o'. Speaking with a 'd ' sounds right but '/ ' is ridiculous" (2006, 35). In Setswana only little children still learn ing to speak are expected to be unable to pronounce words and say things such as "/i/o" instead of "di/o. " The Moffat translation thus intro duced changes that made readers sound like stuttering and stammering little babies still learning how to talk. The translation had infantilized them. Hence each time they had to read the Bible they had to put on the persona of infants. Age among Batswana is traditionally an important social marker, far above gender, in fact. Failing to recognize an elderly person and treating him or her as a child is regarded as great disrespect and an insult. Naturally, then, Batswana readers were upset by their Bible-reading experience. In a letter dated June 6, 1 883, the missionary editor ( Alfred Gould), though patronizing, acknowledged that, indeed, the issue of the cor rect way of writing and pronouncing Setswana needed to be attended ( Mgadla and Volz 2006, 15- 1 6). He then promised to include the issue for consideration by the general missionary council. 'TI1is he did, although not until three years later. On his return, he reported that the 93 missionary council had voted to return to the most "original" written Setswana, one that was consistent with the earliest Bible translation of Robert Moffat, and to suppress the newer ways of writing, which were more appreciated by Batswana. This meant the retention of the most corrupted written Setswana. The report on the response of missionaries, dated September 2, 1 889, is worth quoting at length: In March this year, missionaries of the LMS who teach in the language of Setswana gathered at Kuruman. As they met, they took up the issue of the letters that are used for printing and writing. Many missionar ies of other missions oppose some of the letters with which they have been writing. They reject them because they have never liked them. They reject _the letter d and they reject the letter w. These missionar ies like the old way of printing, the one that is still used today for the Bible and the Testament. They also argue that the old printing is known by many more people. So, these things were discussed, and it was agreed that those letters should not be changed, and that writ ing and printing should be done only with the old letters. Now w has been dropped so that it will be written "banoe'' [others] not "banwe''. and it will be written "rumela" [greet] not as "dumela''. and "Morimo" [God] not "Modimo''. and "lilo tse di thata" [difficult things] not ''dilo tse di thata". It was agreed that e and 6 should be changed and instead put as plain e and plain o. Some letters will for the time being still be published as they are. The letter "h" will be used to differentiate "tlala" [hunger] from "tlhala" [divorce] . (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 27) The report indicates that one little but significant victory was won: the inclusion of h in the syllable tl. At last Genesis 1:1 could be read as, "In the beginning God created [ tlhola] the heavens and the earth;' instead of as, "In the beginning God jumped [ tlola] the heavens and the earth:' Indeed, Alfred Wookey's 1 908 revised version of the Setswana Bible did just that. The report from the missionary council meeting, however, had more bad news than good. The overall concerns with other central consonants and vowels such as d, I, w, o, and e were rejected. The reasons given are quite telling and patronizing, to say the least. The views and feelings of the missionaries were all that mattered. It was what they liked that would stand. The prevailing or current and better ways of writing, appreciated by Batswana speakers, were to be reversed. The protests of Batswana about their distorted, meaningless language, which was now reduced to "an English Setswana . . . that is read only as a reminder of the real thing" (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 29), did not matter, "for these missionaries like 94 the old way of printing" (2006, 27). The report goes on to say, "So, these things were discussed, and it was agreed that those letters should not be changed, and that writing and printing should be done only with the old letters;' that is, the Robert Moffat Setswana Bible translation. The mis sionaries preferred the English Setswana and insisted that it should be the standard way of writing. Their response enables us to answer better the question about the agenda of the translation. DECOLO N I Z I NG T H E ENGLISH -SETSWANA: SUBVERSIVE WAYS OF READING Following this report, the letters to the editor revealed that many Batswana objected to this decision, and some pleaded for the decision to be reconsidered, to no avail. They were, in fact, protesting something that had already been concluded, a nonnegotiable issue-until such time that it pleased the missionaries to reverse it. Shot down, forced to write and read Setswana according to the stuttering tongue of a child, forced to read and write in English-Setswana, the Batswana were nonetheless not helpless. In fact, they had already developed reading strategies that circumvented the imposed discourse of the "English Setswana." They had hoped it could be corrected, but now they had been informed that what would be maintained as the standard way of writing the Setswana language was what the missionaries liked. Consequently, the Batswana readers fell back to their strategies of reading as resisting readers. Dikokwane Gaboutlwelwe, who wrote in response to the report using the example of Genesis 1, illustrates the point: "I see the old writ ten Setswana in the Bible, as we read in Genesis, chapter one. There we find it written like this: 'Morimo o lo ua tlola magorimo le lehatsi ma tsimologong.' . . . but when we read it aloud we say, 'Modimo o lo wa tlhola magodimo le lehatshe ma tshimologong' " (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 29). Gaboutlwelwe says that their reading strategy overlooked the colo nial missionaries' constructed English-Setswana language. Instead, they read the Moffat Bible from their oral base, putting back all the excluded consonants d, h, w and ignoring the new creations of r, l, ua-which infantilize readers, create confusion or meaningless words, and induce wrong meanings. So, in fact, even if the verse said "In the beginning God jumped [ tlola] the heavens and the earth;' they read it as "In the beginning God created [tlhola] the heavens and the earth." ( I have to say there was more that was problematic in the translation than the create/ jump debate. While I do not know how to name it, I think it is best noted that what we have here was "setswana-english//English-Setswana.) 95 This reading strategy is further confirmed by Sebotseng Loatile's response to the missionary report: I am very happy to receive the newspaper and to hear the words that I have been hearing. I hear news about other nations and the word of God. But about the letters that have been taken out, I am very concerned. I assumed that our Bible was printed as it is because the missionaries had not quite grasped our language. But now they under stand our language and they speak it very well. So I am surprised they are removing core letters [d, w, o, and e] . Here everyone who reads books is not happy about the removal of the letters that have been removed. You should know that when we read our Bible we change the letters with our mouths. (Mgadla and Volz 2006, 33, emphasis added) This strategy of reading from the base of the oral tradition is quite significant. What is in the oral base is the whole culture, another canon embodied by the community. The refusal to change what was overtly wrong helped Batswana readers to openly assert their oral tradition and understanding as the main reference point than to take the English Setswana Bible as the final authority about their culture. This was cru cial because the English-Setswana translation of the Bible involved more than just the replacement of key consonants and vowels with newly cre ated (Ii ri) ones. It also included changing the Batswana spiritual world from sacred to evil in order to supplant it with Christianity. An excel lent example was the translation of badimo as "demons" (Dube 1 999). I renarrate my encounter with this translation in order to illustrate how the Batswana ways of reading from the Setswana oral tradition base sub verted the colonial discourse of darkness and heathens. RECLA I MI N G BADIMO AS SACRED FIG URES: BATSWANA READING STRATEGIES In 1 995 I carried out fieldwork research, seeking to read Matthew 1 5:21 -28 with Batswana women. In the process, I discovered something else: "demons" had been translated as "ancestors" in the Alfred Wookey revised Setswana Bible of 1 908. I did not have access to Robert Mof fatt's original Bible of 1 857 to verify where this use of "ancestors" for "demons" originated. Where in Matthew 1 5:21 the woman says, "My daughter is severely possessed by demons:' in the Setswana transla tion she says, "My daughter is severely possessed by badimo/ancestors." Where Jesus cast out demons in the original, he cast out badimo/ances tors in the translation. I was so shocked by this translation that I pored 96 over all the other New Testament passages where Jesus cast out demons to verify my stunning discovery. Yes, I discovered a very sad story: the word "demons" had been translated "ancestors" in the Setswana Bible. It was unbelievable. Almost desperately, I turned to Mark 5 , where Jesus cast out the Legion demon that possessed and maddened a man. I found out that in the 1 908 Setswana Bible Jesus cast out the legion of badimo!ancestors, who ran into the lake and were buried beneath its waves. It was a textual burial of badimo/ancestors. I was trembling, shocked that Batswana who first read the so-called word of God were made to discover that what they venerated as sacred figures were, in fact, just demons. Ancestors-the extended memory of the families with their departed members-could not be reduced to demons without reducing everyone to the same. What a perfect way of proving that Batswana were helpless heathens lost in the darkness. For more than 1 5 0 years Batswana Bible readers consumed this colonial bomb, planted to explode their cultures away, and they could not read Greek for themselves to find out if this was representative or the closest "equivalent" term. I was deeply shaken. But that was before I discovered that the first Batswana readers had long known to read the Bible from their oral cultural base rather than from the missionaries' perspective of heathens in the darkness. As expressed by Gaboutlwelwe and Loatile: "You should know that when we read our Bible we change the letters with our mouths." But how would they reinstate the demon ized badimo/ancestors? Again, this was a separate but pleasant surprise and discover y. In the process of reading the Bible with nonacademic women who were church leaders in African Independent Churches, I found out that they read/use the Bible as a divination set. Now, divination among Batswana involves consulting badimo about all situations of concern for the living and finding useable solutions. It involves recognizing badimo!ances tors as mediators between the living, the dead, and God. So, far from badimo functioning as demons in the service of negative power, in the Batswana ways of reading badimo together with Jesus were divine forces of positive power. I could not have imagined this U-turn. This strategy of resistance depends on reading the Bible with and through Batswana oral cultures. It depends on using the authority of African traditions rather than giving the English-Setswana Bible the final word. It is a strategy of the Tiv, taking a story that conflicted with their values and retelling it such that to them it was "a good story again;' although to Bohannan "it no longer seemed quite the same story:' In these pro cesses we are in touch with the forces of globalization and localization 97 (the Tiv and Batswana readers) appropriating the new texts according to their cultures, texts that were being globalized by agents of globaliza tion (Bohannan and Moffat). TH E B I B LE I N T H E BUSH : GLOBALIZATION, LOCAL I Z ATION, AND B IBLiCAL TRA NSLATION I must conclude by touching briefly on translation in globalization and localization contexts. In fact, when we speak of globalization, we hark back to modern colonialism, which has given us the current form of globalization. Both Moffat and Bohannan are important cultural trans lators during this spinning of time, cultures, and spaces into Western images. In her article "Globalisation and Translation: Theoretical Approach;' Esperanc;:a Bielsa argues that, although the digital lan guage is purported to be the universal language of globalization, there can in fact be no globalization without translation, for "the activity of localisation, through which a product is tailored to meet the needs of a specific local market;' involves translation (2005, 1 42). She thus proposes that translation is a "key infrastructure for global communi cation and can also be conceived as an analytic borderland where the global and the local are articulated" (2005, 139). The current form of globalization is often defined in terms of the compression of time and space and the speed with which goods, ideas, and services move across the globe (Krishna 2009, 2). The major instrument of the current glo balization is information technology: the computer and the Internet. Hence today's Bible translators celebrate that they no longer need to carry bulky manuscripts across real distance and that one can have access to various translation resources from a particular office, lead ing to faster and cheaper production. Nonetheless, it is important not to eschew the inherent inequalities or the history of globalization. As Cheryl Kirk-Duggan points out, "Globalization emerged with voyages of discovery, land theft via manifest destiny, imperial hubris,_freeboot ing conquest, and colonialism" (20 10, 476). The question we must ask is whether globalization implies the disappearance of differences or equality. Studies indicate that with globalization there is more local ization: communities are more likely to hold on to their cultures for fear of being washed off by the dominant cultures and languages of the globalizing structures. Thus if we agree that much of translation is not just " interlinguistic process but more . . . an intracultural activity" ( Gentzler 200 1, 1 94), then we are more challenged "to study cultural interactions" in the context of globalization. As Edwin Gentzler holds, 98 "the most obvious, comprehensive data for studying cultural interac tions are the translated documents themselves" (200 1, 194). In the biblical area, we have a mighty archive of "translated docu ments:' for, as Philip Noss writes, "No other book has been translated over such a long period of time, portions of no other literary work have b een rendered into many languages, and no other document is today the object of such intense translation activity as the Bible" (2007, 1). By studying the first literate Batswana readers' response to the Moffat trans lation, we observed cultural interaction between the globalizing agents and resistance on the localization sites. To digress a little, as a biblical scholar I think we have underutilized this major archive, since most of the time translation is not part of our biblical and religion departments, save for the exercises of those learning Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, French, German, and Spanish. It is good that there are independent schools of translation, but how did Bible translation as an area of study become so marginal from the academic studies of the Bible, given the record that Noss highlights? How did the theories of translation in the past six decades become propounded largely among linguists, with a marginal participation of biblical scholars? Although we may be touching here on the power, patronage, agenda, and ideology of translation houses and their structures (Yorke 20 12, 159-7 1), I still cannot explain why aca demic departments of the Bible and religion do not have full-fledged programs on translation. In the light of what Noss tells us, it is a major academic gap in most academic departments and schools of religion. In a recent article I have argued for a curriculum shift in biblical studies in favor of studying the language of the first translated Bible in one's par ticular region (Dube 20 12, 1 1- 15). That is, instead of Two Thirds World biblical students being required to learn two more European languages on top of Greek and Hebrew, as is the standard requirement, they should rather learn and pass a language that was used to translate the first Bible translation in their region. Acknowledging that biblical translation is a cross-cultural exchange within the context of globalization brings with it responsibility. It obli gates us to ask how biblical translation has been part of the globalization process and what its undesirable aspects have been. Irina Shchukina argues that "globalization is the appropriate culmination of the pro cesses that began two thousand years ago with the spread of Christian ity" (20 10, 139). According to Bassnett and Trivedi, " Translations are always embedded in cultural and political systems and in history" ( 1999, 4). They underline that "translations are never produced . . . untainted by power, time, or even the vagaries of culture. Rather, translations are ------------- 99 made to respond to the demands of a culture and of various groups within that culture. . . . A culture, then, assigns different functions to translations of different texts;' and that "function of translation has very little to do with the transfer of information which is so often claimed to be its one and only raison d'etre" (Bassnett and Lefevere 1 990, 7-8). By evoking globalization and localization in the translations of the Bible, the 2012 Nida School of Translation Studies has accepted the respon sibility of tracing the biblical translation function within "cultural and political systems and in history:' If we go with Bassnett and Trivedi's proposition, then we need to ask: How are biblical translations embed ded in the cultural and political systems and history that lead us to the current form of globalization? How are biblical translations tainted by power relations, time, and the vagaries of culture that have brought us to the current globalization? How did the culture that brings us to the cur rent form of globalization inform the functions of biblical translation in history and until now? Further, if we consider that the current form of globalization is the culmination of the modern colonial history and modernization of the past two centuries, then it is quite significant that the last two hundred years were also two hundred years of the most intense and Western dominated Bible translations. Gille Gravelle holds that this "200-year period of largely Western and cross-cultural Bible translation . . . is quickly coming to an end" (20 i 0, 13). Given this historical background, Gravelle underlines that it is necessary to review these translations and that we should review in terms of "1) what the goal of Western mis sion was, 2) how that goal influenced translation practice, and 3) how translation practice may have been influenced by advances in linguistic theory" (2010, 13). Bassnett and Trevidi place translation theory within this colonial history and ideology-as a metaphor for colonization. They hold that "Europe was regarded as the great Original, the starting point, and the colonies were therefore copies, or 'translation' of Europe, which they were supposed to duplicate. Moreover, being copies, transla tions were evaluated as less than originals" ( 1999, 4). It follows that Bible translation should review its theories and practice in terms of the his tory that brought us to the current form of globalization, paying atten tion that inequalities and cultural wars will intensify rather than get diminished. It also means training translators, translation consultants, and communities to become self-conscious of their identity and jour neys in history. and how it informs their current translation practices. Bohannan's story highlights that all readers will translate narra tives according to their worldviews. I believe this is perhaps the reason - ------------ 1 00 --------- - - -- why biblical translation currently emphasizes the importance of involv ing mother-tongue translators-one can only hope that such mother tongue translators are not already-muted subjects who are unable to assert their own cultural dignity. One can only hope and pray for Tiv type communities who make their cultures central to the translation of the text, particularly in light of modern colonial influence in worldwide biblical translation. I want to believe that Bible translation has been on the road for so long. Like Bohannan, the traveling anthropologist, Bible translation and translators have long crossed many boundaries, and they are already perched among elders who seek to hear more sto ries told according to their own terms, even if the story may no longer seem quite the same story to its bearers. Such decolonizing community rewritings are long overdue. REFERENCES Bassnett, Susan, and Andre Lefevere, eds. 1 990. Translation, History and Culture. London: Cassell. Bassnett, Susan, and Harish Trivedi, eds. 1 999. Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Bielsa, Esperarn;:a. 2005. Globalisation and Translation: A Theoretical Approach. Language and Intercultural Communication 5: 1 31-44. Bohannan, Laura. 1966. Shakespeare in the Bush: An American Anthro pologist Set Out to Study the Tiv of West Africa and Was Taught the True Meaning of Hamlet. Natural History 7 5. 7 :28-33. Brenner, Athalya, and Jan Willem van Henten, eds. 2002. Bible Transla tion on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Recep tion, Culture, and Religion. Journal for the Study of the Old Testa ment Supplement Series 353; The Bible in the Twenty- First Century 1. London: Sheffield Academic P ress. Carroll, Robert P. 1996. Cultural Encroachment and Bible Translation: Observations on Elements of Violence, Race, and Class in the Pro ductio;1 of Bibles in Translatio1i. Semeia 76:39-54. Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Doke, Clement. 1958. Scripture Translation into Bantu Languages. Afri can Studies 1 7:84-99. Donaldson, Laura E. 1992. Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender, and Empire Building. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. --- - - - -- - --- 1 01 ---- - - - ----- Dube, Musa W. 1999. Consuming a Colonial Cultural Bomb: Translat ing Badimo into " Demons" in the Setswana Bible. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 73:33-59. --. 20 12. "The Scramble for Africa as the Biblical Scramble for Africa: Postcolonial Perspectives." Pages 1-28 in Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations. Edited by Musa W. Dube, Andrew M. Mbuvi, and Dora R. Mbuwayesango. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Gentzler, Edwin. 2001. Contemporary Translation Theories. 2nd ed. Topics in Translation 2 1. Clevedon, Eng.: Multilingual Matters. Gravelle, Gilles. 20 10. Bible Translation in Historical Context: The Changing Role of Cross-Cultural Workers. International Journal of Frontier Missiology 27:1-20. Kirk-Duggan, Cheryl. 20 10. Globalization and Narrative. Pages 474-93 in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology. Edited by Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Sheila Briggs. Oxford: Oxford Univer sity Press. Krishna, Sankaran. 2009. Globalization and Postcolonialism: Hegemony and Resistance in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. Mgadla, Part Themba, and Stephen C. Volz, trans. and eds. 2006. Words ofBatswana: Letters to Mahoko a Becwana 1 883- 1 896. Cape Town: Van Riesbeck Society. Moffat, Robert. 1842. Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa. London: Snow. Noss, Phillip A., ed. 2007: A History of Bible Translation. History of Bible Translation 1. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura. Shchukina, Irina. 20 10. The National Image of the World in an Objec tive Process of Globalization. Interdisciplinary Description of Com plex Systems 8: 138-47. Smith, Abraham. 1 996. The Productive Role of English Bible Transla tors. Semeia 76:69-80. Tymoczko, Maria. 1990. Translation in Oral Tradition as a Touchstone for Translation Theory and Practice. Pages 46-55 in Bassnett and Lefevere 1 990. Yorke, Gosnell L. 0. R. 20 12. Bible Translation in Africa: An Afrocen tric Interrogation of the Task." Pages 157-70 in Postcolonial Perspec tives in African Biblical Interpretations. Edited by Musa W. Dube, Andrew M. Mbuvi, and Dora R. Mbuwayesango. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. ------------- 102 ------------- Musa W. Dube, a Humboldtian awardee, is a biblical scholar based at the University of Botswana. Her research interests include gender, postcolonialism, translation, and HIV/ AIDS ------- studies. She is the author of Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (2000) and The HIV&AIDS Bible: Selected Essays (2008). She is also an editor of several vol umes, including Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations (20 12), Grant Me Justice: HIV/AIDS and Gender Readings of the Bible (2004), Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible (200 1), and The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (2000). She was the Nida Profes sor of the Nida School of Translation in 20 12. Email: dubemw@ mopipi.ub.bw. ------------- 103 -------------

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[ { "Alternative": "Smuggled Words: Textual Migration and Subversive Assimilation in the Translations of Isaac Bashevis Singer", "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": "A well-known rumor, never confirmed nor dispelled, surrounds the translation of Shakespeare into Yiddish. There is said to have existed a Yiddish translation of King Lear that proclaimed on its title page \"fartaytsht un farbesert\" (\"translated and improved\"). Regardless of the rumor's dubious grounding in fact, it stands as both a testament to the stubborn pride with which Yiddish readers and writers viewed their literature (insofar as it could easily not only accommodate but improve upon the great Western classics) and a jibe at the stereotypical insular, unworldly Jew who might believe such a claim (indeed, the assertion that one could \"improve\" Shakespeare would have been dismissed as a quixotic delusion in most literary traditions).", "Format": "application/pdf", "ISSN": "2240-0451", "Identifier": "17526", "Issue": "spring", "Language": "en", "NBN": null, "PersonalName": "Christine Gutman", "Rights": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "Source": "translation. a transdisciplinary journal", "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": "Smuggled Words: Textual Migration and Subversive Assimilation in the Translations of Isaac Bashevis Singer", "Type": "Text.Serial.Journal", "URI": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation", "Volume": "2", "abbrev": null, "abstract": null, "articleType": "Articles", "author": null, "authors": null, "available": null, "created": "2022-03-17", "date": null, "dateSubmitted": "2022-03-17", "doi": null, "firstpage": null, "institution": null, "issn": null, "issue": null, "issued": "2022-03-16", "keywords": null, "language": null, "lastpage": null, "modified": "2022-03-17", "nbn": null, "pageNumber": "105-131", "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": null, "url": null, "volume": null }, { "Alternative": null, "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": null, "Format": null, "ISSN": null, "Identifier": null, "Issue": null, "Language": null, "NBN": null, "PersonalName": null, "Rights": null, "Source": null, "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": null, "Type": null, "URI": null, "Volume": null, "abbrev": "ttj", "abstract": null, "articleType": null, "author": "Christine Gutman", "authors": null, "available": null, "created": null, "date": "2013", "dateSubmitted": null, "doi": null, "firstpage": "105", "institution": null, "issn": "2240-0451", "issue": "spring", "issued": null, "keywords": null, "language": "en", "lastpage": "131", "modified": null, "nbn": null, "pageNumber": null, "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": "Smuggled Words: Textual Migration and Subversive Assimilation in the Translations of Isaac Bashevis Singer", "url": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/download/17526/15417", "volume": "2" } ]

SMUGGLED WORDS: TEXTUAL M I G RAT I ON AND SUBVERSIVE ASSI MI LAT I ON I N T H E TRANSLATIONS OF ISAAC BAS H E V I S SINGER Christine Gutman The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning. - Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stockholm, 1 978 1 . INTRODUCTION '• A well-known r umor, never confirmed nor dispelled, surrounds the translation of Shakespeare into Yiddish. There is said to have existed a Yiddish translation of King Lear that proclaimed on its title page "far taytsht un farbesert" ("translated and improved"). Regardless of the rumor's dubious grounding in fact, it stands as both a testament to the stubborn pride with which Yiddish readers and writers viewed their lit erature (insofar as it could easily not only accommodate but improve upon t he great Western classics) and a jibe at the stereotypical insular, unworldly Jew who might believe such a claim (indeed, the assertion that one could "improve" Shakespeare would have been dismissed as a quixotic delusion in most literary traditions). Nevertheless, starting in the late nineteenth century the Yiddish publishing industry began appropriating large quantities of foreign lit erature. Major publishing houses were established in Warsaw, Vilna, and New York, and by 19 17 there were eleven Yiddish-language dailies in the United States alone, which introduced their readers to serialized works of Zola and Maupassant alongside those of Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch, and Avrom Reisen (Michels 2000, 5 1 ). But given the ------------- 1 05 ------------ - amount of literature being produced in Yiddish within the United States and the propensity of the Yiddish press for translating classic works into Yiddish, it is striking that, as of 2004, less than 1 percent of Yiddish literature had been translated into other languages (Lansky 2004, 298). Of these translated writers, no one has gained more international attention than Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Polish immigrant to Manhat tan's Upper West Side whose short stories and novels, once translated into English, earned him enormous popularity and, in 1978, a Nobel Prize in Literature. Alongside fellow Nobelist and bilingual writer Samuel Beckett, Singer enjoys a somewhat unprecedented double role in world literature: his works occupy a place in both the Yiddish and American canons; 1 his writing has arguably been more influential to English-language Jewish-American writers than to Yiddish writers. In fact, he was generally viewed by the latter as inferior to his older brother, Israel Joseph Singer, whose 1936 epic novel Di brider ashkenazi ( The Brothers Ashkenazi) established him as a promising master of Yiddish prose, even drawing comparisons to Tolstoy (Newberger Goldstein 20 10, vii-xi). But the elder Singer died in 1944, and within a year his brother published the work that would make of him an international celebrity : the short story "Gimp! tarn. " . This article will explore Isaac Bashevis Singer's /Yitskhok Bashevis's subversive use of translation as a means of navigating, on the one hand, his hybrid identity (the Polish-Jewish intellectual and son of a Hasidic rabbi who became a Nobel Prize-winning American writer) and, on the other, the complexities of translating out of a hybrid language. Using Singer as a case study, I will highlight the need for a broader reevalua tion of the relationship between Yiddish and translation: one that moves toward a perception of translation rooted in decentering, empower ment, and enlargement (what Antoine Berman has called "eccentric" translation) rather than grim fatalism ( 1992, 180). The mechanisms behind Yiddish hybridity-in particular its so-called " /ehavdl loshn;' or "differentiating language"-mirror the process of translation and therefore should be regarded not as a hindrance but as a useful means l . For proof that the American canon has claimed Singer, see the anthology Collected Stories: Gimpel the Fool to the Letter Writer (Singer 2004). Its publisher, The Library of America, boasts on its website (www.loa.org) of "publishing, and keeping in print, authoritative editions of America's best and most significant writ ing:• The New York Times Book Review has dubbed it "the 'quasi-official national canon' of American literature:• ------------- 10 6 ------------- of conceptualizing the translation of Yiddish as a generative, dialogical process as opposed to a destructive, dialectical process. In order to ( 1 ) evaluate the ethics of Singer's translation methodol ogy (and, indeed, Saul Bellow's, whose translation of "Gimp! tarn" pro pelled Singer into mainstream American recognition) and (2) delineate a more ethical, decentering approach to translating out of Yiddish in general, I suggest that we look beyond critiques of Singer's supposed assimilationism and recognize Singer as the hybrid writer he was one whose texts were inevitably inflected as much by his experience of immigration and exile in America as by his formative years in Poland. 2. SITUATI N G S I NGER The literary prestige associated with the Singer family name, combined with the attention of key Jewish-American intellectuals, propelled Singer further toward transcanonical success than those fellow immigrant Yiddish writers (modernist poets Mani Leib and Yankev Glatshteyn, for example) whose works, although highly influential within Yiddish literary circles, were perhaps perceived as too esoteric or avant-garde for translation and mainstream publication in English. Conversely, one must wonder if popular Yiddish writers such as Moyshe Nadir,2 whose writings, unlike Singer's early works, liberated Yiddish from· an East ern European context to articulate instead the immigrant experience in America, posed a threat to a nebulous-indeed, mythical-"all-Ameri can" target readership precisely because the very alterity of such narra tives brought about an unsettling defamiliarization of domestic terri tory. (Singer himself, as I will later discuss, worried along similar lines that writing about America in Yiddish constituted an impossible deter ritorialization of the language. Perhaps this viewpoint explains the writ erly aphasia Singer experienced during his first five years in the United States [Epstein 1 99 1 ] .) Regardless of the reasons for his peers' inability to attain his level of success in translation, American-Yiddish writers viewed Singer with skepticism, 3 an undeniable degree of jealousy (vividly captured 2. Moyshe Nadir ( 1 885- 1 943) went largely untranslated until 2006, according to the Index Translationum (http://www.unesco.org/xtrans/bsform.aspx). 3. Glatshteyn criticizes the "Jewish fai;:ade" and "distasteful blend of super stition and shoddy mysticism" that define Singer's work, which, he claims, "reads better in English than in the original Yiddish" ( 1 986, 1 45). Invoking an essentialistic "humaneness" common to Yiddish literary works, Glatshteyn denounces the lust ------------- 1 07 ------------- in Cynthia Ozick's short story "Envy ; or, Yiddish in America" [ 1983 ]), and perhaps even, like Ozick's poet protagonist, the underlying fear that Singer would "save" himself through translation while consign ing the rest of the Yiddish language and its literature to oblivion. For Singer, translation was indeed a quest for survival: his own as a writer as well as that of his work. Whether or not concerns over the uncer tain future of the Yiddish language also played into Singer's decision to selectively self-translate, the fear that within a generation Yiddish might only survive through translation undeniably loomed over both his work and the criticism he received from fellow Yiddish writers. Over a period spanning five decades, Singer's novels, short stories, reviews, articles, and literary criticism were published in the New York based Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts under various names: Bashevis (the possessive of his mother's name and the name by which he was known to his Yiddish fiction readers), I. B. Singer (the name that appeared on his translations and English-language publications), Varshavski, and D. Segal (two pseudonyms he claimed to use only when writing for a deadline and that he abandoned once he had "cleaned . . . up" the piece in question; Saltzman 2002, xi-xii; Singer in Miller 1985, 4 1). Singer's arsenal of pseudonyms allowed him to cultivate multiple identities according to the language in which he was writing and, per haps more importantly, the quality of his work. This latter distinction is inextricably connected to his linguistic identity, since for Singer "clean ing up" was often carried out not by editing but by translating, a form of "collaborative" self-translation. Translation offered him an opportunity to improve his Yiddish texts, which were often written in haste for a Forverts deadline. So for Singer, fartaytsht and farbesert were one and the same. Eventually this process of editing through translation led to the apparent displacement, indeed replacement, of the original by the trans lation. The difficulty of even proving the existence of Singer's original texts is startling. Even though the translated works of I. B. Singer have appeared in multiple hefty English and French anthologies, to this day only four small volumes (all long out of print) containing original works by Yitskhok Bashevis have been published in book form; the rest are stored on unindexed microfilm in the New York Public Library, making them almost impossible to retrieve (Saltzman 2002, xi). According to and violence in Singer's writing, which "places his so-called heroes on the same level with the heroes in non-Jewish literature" ( 1 986, 1 45). ------------- 108 ------------- Singer bibliographer Roberta Saltzman, between 1 960 and 1 99 1 Singer, the most famous name in contemporary Yiddish literature, produced "fifty-five short stories, eleven novellas, and eleven novels that have yet to be translated into English" and that exist only on microfilm and as manuscripts (2002, x.i). Yet at least one of Singer's works that appeared in English has left the existence of its Yiddish original shrouded in mystery. "Moon and Madness;' a short story that appeared in the New Yorker in 1 980 and was subsequently published in an anthology of Singer's stories without a translation credit, raises questions about the extent to which Singer's practice of self- translation into English eventually became one of writ ing in English. Anita Norich has invoked the dialectical tension inherent to trans lating out of Yiddish: it promises at once survival and obliteration, since, in the case of what Jeffrey Shandler has referred to as a "postvernacu lar" language, the translational afterlife threatens to supplant both the tex_t that it extends and the language itself (Norich 1 995, forthcoming; Shandler 2006). I n short, translation has been perceived as something of a pharmakon to t he Yiddish language; it is a selective lifeline that deter mines, for better or worse, the shape of Yiddish postvernacularity, dic tates how Ashkenazi Jewish culture will be remembered-two decidedly pessimistic implications that posit Yiddish as a moribund or at the very least decidedly rare l anguage-even as it also, and most crucially, prom ises a potential renewal of the language. Norich, embracing the latter possibility, proposes that the relationship between Yiddish and trans lation need not be antagonistic; the obliteration/generation paradox, which she frames in terms of collabora tion (translation as obliteration) and resistance (translation as survival, furthering), suggests that the very translation of Yiddish texts is in effect "an act of resistance to histor y " insofar as any kind of engagement with Yiddish after the Holocaust nec essarily represents "a defiant gesture aimed at preserving the traces of a culture t hat has undergone startling and dreadful transformations in the past century " (forthcoming, 209). 4 While Singer's critics slamm ed his translations-and increasingly his work in general-as overly assimilative ( and thus obliterative), Singer's translations in fact subversively complicated the relationship between original and translation and in that respect resisted the very 4. I am grateful to Anita Norich for sharing with me a chapter from her forth coming book, Writing in Tongues: Yiddish Translation in the Twentieth Century. ------------- 1 09 --- - -------- notion of translation as salvation. It is too simplistic to think of Singer's translation process as one of improvement: often the texts have been extensively reworked, resulting in an entirely distinct plot that in some way contradicts, indeed negates, the original, for example, by rendering irony earnest and heymish (Yiddish for cozy and familiar)-or at least cloaking irony in the folksy tropes of the Jewish shtetl tale so that an American audience, nostalgic for a mythical past, cannot recognize it. Many of the omissions and alterations in translations of Singer's work arise from the sheer complexity of the Yiddish language-elements that make translation particularly challenging, including its rootedness in pre-World War II Eastern European Jewish culture, its unique differ entiative tendencies (most often distinguishing between what is Jewish and what is not), and its dizzying semantic range (a result of the Ash kenazi Jews' contact with several languages and cultures over the past thousand years). Therein lies the rub: fatalist Yiddish writers and critics (Singer himself, ironically, among them) brand Yiddish an inherently untranslatable language, failing to see that the elements of its complexity are precisely what make it ripe for translation (Singer 1989, 7). 3 . TH E STAKES OF TRANSLATION Yiddish, I call on you to . choose! Yiddish! Choose death or death. Which is to say, death through forgetting or death through transla tion. Who will redeem you? What act of salvation will restore you? All you can hope for, you tattered, you withered, is translation in America! - the fictional untranslated Yiddish poet Hershel Edelshtein, in Cy�thia Ozick's "Envy; or, Yiddish in America" ( 1 983, 74) The wariness with which contemporary Yiddish writers have regarded translation is the product of several factors. The Holocaust, to speak euphemistically, suddenly and drastically reduced the world's Yiddish speaking population; indeed, since Yiddish was the first or second lan guage of a majority of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, it was indelibly bound to memories of atrocities against Jews. The establish ment of the State of Israel just a few years later definitively squelched what remained of Yiddish in Erets Yisroel: the institution of Hebrew as the official language of Israel only served to underscore the percep tion of Yiddish as a stateless, diasporic language, one considered at best the "vulgar" Jewish tongue and at worst a corruption of German (Norich 1995, 209). Persecution at the hands of hostile pre-State Hebra ists was later channeled into government policies that for over four ------------- 110 ------------- decades essentially refused to recognize the presence of Yiddish within its borders (Shandler 2 006 , 9- 1 0). In the Soviet Union, which, under Stalin, had initially supported measures to foster Yiddish publishing, Yiddish was subject to increasing hostility as the Second World War approached, culminating in the murder of fifteen Yiddish-speaking Soviet-Jewish intellectuals on August 1 2 , 1 95 2 . Finally, the use of Yid dish was in decline in America well before the war, largely as a result of the desire among Eastern European Jewish immigrants to assimilate. Sons and daughters of immigrants were encouraged to speak only in English-even to parents who themselves barely spoke it-or else were made to view Yiddish as a shameful language only to be spoken in the privacy of the home. In an environment where Yiddish was the object of both violent and passive suppression, translation became vital to the survival of its literature. Singer was keenly aware of this urgency, and it likely played into his decision to "self-translate" -more specifically, the fear that if he did not do it, there would soon be no one left to translate for him. Yet paradoxically, for Singer translation was not an attempt to meticulously reproduce his work for posterity in another language; it was, rather, the creation of a new but complementary work. It kept the secrets of the original encoded in the Yiddish but offered a narrative that (generally, but not always) owed its existence to the Yiddish. Here I quote Norich at length on the relationship between Singer's translations and originals: Neither a view of Singer's English stories as secondary and derivative versions of Bashevis's Yiddish, nor a view of them as edited improve ments on novels that are often exceedingly repetitive and meandering seems apt. Rather, the Yiddish and English texts comment on one another, the latter reworking and sometimes completing the ideational and imaginative work of the former. The English clarifies the Yiddish but for a growing audience it also replaces the Yiddish as the definitive text. This is typical of the history of Yiddish literature in America, but Singer is remarkable among Yiddish writers in the extent to which he contributes to and validates this usurpation of Yiddish by English even as he suggests a different model. ( 1 995, 2 14) Singer's goal in translation was not transparency; indeed, even though his translations arguably made his work more accessible to the English speaking American reader (and the often-censorious methods by which he facilitated this accessibility will be discussed later on), they simulta neously shielded the content of the original from view. Singer harbored a lifelong fascination with Kabbalah and in a way treated his original ------------- I l l ------------- Yiddish stories as kabbalistic, sacred texts. In altering them in trans lation, it might be argued t hat he was in fact "respecting the intimate secrets" of Yiddish culture they carried ( Noiville 2006, 1 0 1 ). Indeed, if the Yiddish was, as Irving Saposnik suggests, the Torah, the English was "almost a Talmud to the primary text" (2001, 6). Still, Singer's translations may have produced a very different effect. Norich's quote raises some questions. First of all, are non-Yid dish-speaking readers aware of Singer's subversive use of translation as a means of simultaneously opening up and closing off Yiddishkeit to external scrutiny? Was Singer successful in preserving Yiddish if his English-language readers believed they were reading "the definitive text"? Moreover, was Singer conscious of the "usurpation of Yiddish by English" that his translations allegedly brought about? While we cannot speculate about Singer's intentions ( which he kept as tightly concealed as his original texts), one important effect of his t ranslations must be considered: somewhere between writing and translating Singer upset the t raditional binary roles of original and derivative, yielding instead a fluid relation based on interdependency. The usual linear temporal relation between original (first) and t ranslation (second) is brought into question when Singer's original becomes, in a way, a product of its t rans lation (and most apparently when the original is the t ranslation). How can we hear, to quote Benjamin, "the echo of the original" i- n a text that precedes the original, alters it beyond recognition, or threatens to con ceal its very existence (1969, 76)? Here a consideration of Singer's fellow self-translator and linguistic exile Samuel Beckett might prove enlightening. In delineating the com plex relationship between Beckett's original texts and t heir often vastly divergent self- translations, Brian T. Fitch suggests that, in the case of a self-t ranslator/rewriter, each text merges with its t ranslation to form a single work, informed by the cross-fertilization of the "two different fictive worlds" merged within it, thanks to additions, subtractions, and alterations in t ranslation. The gaps produced by asymmetries between the complementary texts constitute what Fitch refers to as a "recalcitrant remainder": the residue formed by the totality of divergences, gains, and losses i n translation (1987, 32). Far from being debris left in the wake of a violently distortive translation, however, this remainder should be viewed as a crucial translational gain: it enables the refiguration of both t ranslation and original as contir1gent, incomplete texts until the moment they are placed in dialogical contact. If t ranslation does indeed intend "language as a whole" (that is, look beyond the context of a single literary work in order to encompass the totality of a language), the inter- ---- - ------- 112 ---------- --� text of original and translation ( Yiddish and English , respectively) places Yiddish in a position of power vis-a-vis English : the act of translation is one of mutual influence and growth, but particularly as it enables Yid dish to enrich English-an idea that, in Benjamin's words, evokes the procreative potential of translation ("birth pangs") realized in the target language, thus figuring the source language as a virile source of interlin guistic regeneration ( Benjamin 1 969, 76 and 7 3). Seidman draws an insightful comparison between Singer's decep tively opaque translations and the English translations of yet another Nobelist, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, which yields the conclu sion that viewing Yiddish literature and translation through the lens of postcolonial theory might be instructive (2006, 253). Beyond the dis tinctions t hat Seidman draws between the two writers (the most cru cial being that Tagore's Bengali readership was not, like Singer's Yiddish readership, in imminent danger of extinction) , the comparison yields fascinating parallels. Tagore's translations were not entirely reflective of his body of work: he selectively adapted his most mystical poetry to fit into an Edwardian style. W hether he found such stylistic assimilation appealingly Western or whether, as Kishore has suggested, he viewed Edwardian stylistic mimicry as necessary to achieving success in the literature of the colonizer, Tagore constructed an image of himself as a visionary Eastern mystic who speaks in the familiar words of Keats. Much like Tagore's, Singer's initial translations were of those texts we might consider his most "Orientalizing": narratives that exoticized and often eroticized shtetl life, even as characters were generally endearing. His English-language American readers were charmed by such friendly defamiliarization, and Singer happily gave the illusion of indulging their curiosities, when in fact the inherent mysticism of his texts was toned down significantly in translation: obscure talmudic references were sup pressed as more universal Jewish cliches were played up. Singer's brand of Orientalism was in large part a result of his belief upon arriving in the United States that "Yiddish literature is a product of the ghetto . . . and it can never leave the ghetto" ( Singer 1 989, I O). In other words, since Yiddish as a language had such strong cultural and geographic ties to Eastern Europe (in spite of its status as the language of the Jewish diaspora), it did not have the capacity to express West ern modernity. 5 On top of that, Singer implied that even his Yiddish- 5. Th i s is a rather perplexing statement, and Singer would later moderate h i s opinion. Norich has rightly suggested that Yiddish has long been a n international cosmopolitan language ( I 995, 209). Indeed, enclaves of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi --------- - - - -- 1 1 3 ------------ - language readers approached his texts with the expectation that they would be transported "back" to the shtetl: "The reader of Yiddish, inso far as he still exists, turns to Yiddish books mainly for their Jewish con tent, not for their ill-conceived and pathetically rendered 'worldliness' " (Singer 1 989, 11) . With those words Singer peremptorily, if temporarily, relegated his writing to a historical Eastern European context. W here Singer suppressed, Tagore expanded; his use of Edwardian verse reconfigured language as a vehicle for transmitting the hetero geneity of his own culture and thus enabled him to expand in English his already hybrid subject position to include the colonial dimension. Although Tagore's translations have, like Singer's, been harshly criticized for their assimilative tactics (Sengupta 1990), their syncretic fusion of elements of Hinduism, (Sufi) Islam, and British colonialism car ries an important affirmation of hybridity (Kishore 201 3). (Although, again, when it came to choosing which texts to translate, Tagore, like Singer, privileged his most mystical texts to the neglect of his "rational, humourous, patriotic [or] satirical" texts, which neither conformed to the visionary mysticism the British reader expected of an Eastern poet nor did much to endear him to the colonizer [Sen 201 3 ] .) For Singer, however, it was not so much a question of stylistic adaptation as it was ideological change: as I will discuss, the domestication carried out by Singer entails a simplification of Ashkenazic cultural hybridity (per petual contact between Jews and Christians, Y iddish and Polish, sacred and profane-all of which inflect Singer's Yiddish texts). Accordingly, if Tagore used an altered and distinctly British register as a means of maintaining-even further complicating-cultural complexity, Singer omitted and simplified alterities in translation. W hereas Tagore's poetry soon fell prey to stylistic archaism, Singer was keenly aware of his aging readership and adapted accordingly. As much as Singer was moved to translate by the plight of his language and the possibility of "improvement" that translation afforded him, he was also-an astute businessman, and his overarching motivation, some have contended, was opportunism (Saposnik 2001, 4). Saposnik cynically attributes Singer's sudden success among intellectuals to his calculating entrepreneurial mind: "Much like his most famous character Gimpel, he was shrewder than he pretended to be, far more the wily peasant than the impish old man. . . . Bashevis often read his American audience better Jews have thrived in cities as diverse as Berlin, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, and Johannesburg. ------------- 1 14 ------------- than they read him, and proceeded to give them what they wanted, all the time concealing both his literary and literal Y iddish originals" (2001, 4). However, Saposnik overlooks the fact that Singer's strategy of con cealment and the eventual relocation of his stories from the shtetl to modern America were symptoms of a larger dilemma: what Singer has termed the "inherently untranslatable" nature of Y iddish (Singer 1 989, 7). On the one hand, modern English lacked the extensive and layered semantic range necessary to adequately convey Eastern European Jewish culture, which initially caused Singer to criticize Yiddish as a language stuck in time and place. Ironically, though, Singer eventually remedied the problem by forcing Y iddish into the very context he claimed did not support it: starting around 1 960, he began writing stories set in New York in Y iddish (Rosk.ies 1995, 304). Perhaps that way he was assured that what was expressed in Yiddish could easily be replicated in English; indeed, in the case of many of his later works, accusations of blatant rewriting and suppression no longer hold. 6 This makes one question the extent to which Singer had taken to writing the original with the English translation already in mind. While complicating the ontological status of original and translation, was Singer's practice of "preemptive" transla tion a form of self-censorship? Regardless of his motivations, the fact remains that Singer shifted his writing toward a new target audience: the New York intelligentsia who were first introduced to him through the appearance of Saul Bel low's translation of "Gimp! tarn" ("Gimpel the Fool"),7 which appeared in the prestigious Partisan Review in 1952. Singer's newer plotlines tore Y iddish away from its roots in Eastern Europe and replanted it in the streets of New York: the adventures of the shtetl schlemiel were replaced by the semi-autobiographical adventures of the successful Y iddish writer living in the big city, and the publications in which they appeared followed suit; many of them migrated from Forverts to The New Yorker, Esquire, and Playboy in translation. If Singer's later stories were indeed written with a view to English translation, their content ( or more precisely their lack) offers fascinat- 6. David Roskies suggests rather dramatically that these texts "lose little in translation because there is nothing much to lose": neither on a stylistic level nor, more importantly, on an ideological level insofar as the complexities of Yiddish as a hybrid, stateless, and Jewish language-all of which are so integral to the Eastern European context of Singer's earlier work-are conspicuously absent (I 995, 304). 7. Bellow's translation remains the only published English translation of the story. ------------- 115 ------------- ing insight into what Singer viewed as untranslatable. The absence of the once-ubiquitous talmudic and anti-Christian references that were such an integral part of shtetl banter in his older works points to the fact that Singer had begun suppressing the distinctly Jewish component of Yiddish in favor of a more secular, even ecumenical, language. These changes could be attributed in part to Singer's failure to find an equiva lent in English for the complex system of differentiation that is so inte gral to Yiddish. 4. SEPA RATION AND D I F FERENTIATION: LEHAVDL LOSHN In her discussion of Singer's early story "Zeydlus der ershter;' the tale of a Jew who converts to Christianity after being told by the devil ( der yeytser-hore) that he could one day become pope, Seidman speaks of Singer's "comedy of hybridity, an allegory for the mutual implication of language and identity" (2006, 27 1). The very irony of the story is t hat Yiddish is so inextricably linked to Judaism that any Christian who spoke it would be effectively expressing his or her Christianity in Jewish terms-so the conversion remains incomplete until Yiddish is relin quished. Singer's implicit conflation of language and religion-and, by association, identity-is a powerful comment on the role of Yiddish in the lives of its native speakers. It w as long l abeled "the Jewish vernacu lar" (affectionately, mame-loshn, or mother tongue)-the language that expressed the things of everyday life in a way the holy tongue, Hebrew, could not and should not. Such a view is reductive, however, since Yid dish is by its very name a Jewish language. 8 Since the Ashkenazim were a diasporic people, their language is a product of contact with a number of cultures and languages across Europe. Yiddish combines elements of Middle High German (whence its syntax and a majority of its vocabulary), Hebrew and Aramaic (the loshn koydesh, or "holy tongue;' component, although loshn koydesh borrow ings are not limited to religious terminology), Slavic languages (a result of the Jews' movement from the Rhineland into Eastern Europe starting in the thirteenth century), and, finally, a small number of words derived from French, Italian, and Latin (a reflection of the Ashkenazi Jewish community's origins in France and Italy). 9 As a result of the intermix- 8. Native speakers of Yiddish will often produce the English sentence "I speak Jewish;' carrying over into English Yiddish's lack of differentiation between lan guage and religion. 9. For a more detailed explanation of the makeup of Yiddish, see Harshav 1 990. - ------------ 1 16 ------------- ing of languages and, more importantly, of the language of the secular and the divine, Yiddish has developed what the linguist Max Weinreich refers to as an internal lehavdl loshn, a "differentiating language." 1 0 It is not a question of register per se, because even an uneducated Jew could be well-versed in the Torah, 1 1 and again, the loshn koydesh component of Yiddish includes many words expressing everyday secular concepts; if anything, the lehavdl loshn creates a possibility for nuance that is not possible in English. For example, for the English word "question;' Yid dish has frage (a straightforward question), shayle (a question demand ing interpretation, often reserved for talmudic dilemmas), and kashe (a question provoking discussion), the first term coming from German, the second from Hebrew, the third from Aramaic. The bifurcation of the sacred and the profane, and the domestication of Christian terms (per haps most transgressively, the use of the diminutive yoyzl-a term I will , revisit shortly-to refer to Jesus) function as a means of identity affirma tion that can be traced back to Eastern Europe, where for centuries Jews lived in close proximity to non-Jews. Roskies suggests that lehavdl loshn, " [m] ore than a motley of ethnic slurs [terms such as 'gay' and 'shikse: which convey varying shades of contempt or mockery when used in English], of the kind that Philip Roth and other American satirists came to exploit . . . is a linguistic structure that serves to insulate the Jews even as they live and work among the Christians" ( 1 995, 286). Lehavdl loshn played a central role in Singer's early writing, and per haps that is why translating Singer's earliest works required so much alteration. "Zeydlus der ershter" provides a prime example of how the nature of a language can function as an important plot device. The prob lem is, what happens when that plot device is t ranslated out of the text? This was the dilemma Saul Bellow faced when he agreed to translate "Gimp! tarn." I 0. Since the word lehavdl is notoriously difficult to define in English, I cite Seidman's t horough explanation: " [ Lehavdl loshn is] the 'di fferentiating language' that distinguishes between what is Jewish and what is not. This semantic field is u ntranslatable in part because English lacks the capacity to mark these distinc tions-the interjection '/ehavdl,' a verbal marker used to distinguish between a Jewish and non -Jewish phenomenon mentioned in uncomfortably or misleadingly close proximity, should serve as a sufficient example" (2006, 253-54). 1 1 . Sholem Aleichem's Tevye stands as one example of a shtetl Jew in Tsarist Russia who is well-versed in the Jewish scriptures, even as he constantly misquotes them for comic effect. ----- - - ------ 1 I 7 ---------- ---- 1 5. WHAT S I N A NAME? TH E G I M PEL CONTROVERSY In 1952 Bellow, at the time an up-and-coming novelist, was approached by Eliezer Greenberg and Irving Howe to translate Singer's short story "Gimpl tarn:• the tale of a seemingly gullible baker who repeatedly allows himself be taken in by his fellow townspeople, for the forthcom ing anthology A Treasury of Yiddish Stories. Bellow agreed on the con dition that Greenberg dictate the text to him, which would enable him to translate simultaneously. Appearing first in the Partisan Review that same year, "Gimpel the Fool" was an immediate success: suddenly the name Isaac Bashevis Singer was on the lips of critics, publishers, and non-Yiddish-speaking readers. This was not, incidentally, the first time Singer had been translated into English. Two years prior, A. H. Gross's English translation of the novel Di fa'milye mushkat was published to little fanfare. But the publication of Bellow's "Gimpel" in Greenberg's anthology coincided with the publication of Bellow's defining work, The Adventures of Augie March, and gained him as much (if not more) atten tion as Singer. In his translation Bellow carefully retains the idiomatic character of the original "Gimpl;' reproducing common Yiddish turns of phrase that ring exotic but charming to the American reader (Singer's "Az ikh hob derlangt a patsh hot men gezen kroke" [ l ] reads in Bellow's translation: "If I slapped someone he'd see all the way to Cracow" [3]; "Nu-nu, hot men mir gemakht a katsn-muzik mit a pekl" [2] yields the disconcerting "Well, what a cat music went up!" [ 1953, 41). The effect ofsuch idiomatic calquing is humorous (and in some cases not where Singer would have intended) but also distancing; the reader constantly hears vestiges of the Yiddish in the translation. However, if Bellow aimed for a foreignizing translation, he failed in one crucial way : he suppressed all of what are ostensibly anti-Christian references in the text-and there are a few. 1 2 Much ofthe supposed anti-Christian rhetoric in the text is in fact an example of the lehavdl loshn, quite literally in the sense that it is used to assert Jewish identity by contrasting it with Christianity. It is not meant to be malicious but is, rather, a reflection of the way Eastern European Jews actually spoke-especially given that shtetls were, contrary to the 1 2 . But the responsibility must not be pinned on Bellow alone; Bellow claimed that Greenberg had omitted one particularly inflammatory line from his recitation, though subsequently "neither Singer nor Bellow had it reinstated in subsequent printings of the English text" (Wirth -Nesher 2008, 1 05). ------------- 1 1 8 ------------- myth propagated by literature and more recently film, 13 often home to intermingling Jewish and Christian communities. If Jews were known both among themselves and among Christians as skeptics-defined by what they did not believe in-then it makes sense that this kind of vaguely mocking rhetoric would figure prominently in their conversa tions. But for Greenberg and Bellow, to have included such talk would have undermined the kind of heymish Orientalism they felt would please readers. That said, the omissions were likely motivated by more than a simple appeal to reader satisfaction. One cannot overlook the fact that in 1952 the Holocaust was still fresh in Jews' minds: the omissions may have been motivated, more than anything else, by the underlying fear that depicting Jews as "Gentile-haters" would fuel anti-Semitism. Paradoxically, by opening up Singer's text to a non-Jewish reader ship, Bellow was simultaneously barring access. The primary problem with Bellow's translation is that some of his most blatant omissions actu ally mislead the reader. For example, when in the Yiddish text Gimp! first lays eyes on his future wife, Elke, he remarks that "zi hot gehat tsvey tsepelekh, vi, lehavdl, a shikse, fardreyt in beyde zaytn in krentslekh," a common hairstyle for Eastern European Christians of the time ( 1953, 3); Bellow gives: "She had her hair put up in braids and pinned across her head" (5). The purpose of the passage is to establish that Elke is abnormal, revolting, and possibly not to be trusted-all of which is succinctly conveyed in the original by the words "vi lehavdl, a shikse" ["like, forgive the comparison, a non-Jewish girl"]. Since Bellow omits the comparison, he adds that Gimpel, upon seeing Elka, is stifled by "the reek of it all'' (5) to establish that what Gimpel is seeing displeases him, but the translation provides no explanation as to why. Similar references to goyim or skepticism about Jesus' resurrection 14 are either omitted entirely or altered to lose their anti-Christian overtones. 1 3 . See, for example, how the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof reconfigures the shtetl of Sholem Aleichem's stories to segregate Christians and Jews, thus heighten ing bilateral antagonism. The film also stands as a paradigm of what I will refer to as the heymish Orientalism of Yiddish texts in translation. 1 4. The phrase "nisht-geshtoygn, nisht-gefloygn" appears twice in the origi nal. Literally it means something akin to "didn't rise, didn't fly;' expressing skepti cism about the resurrection. At the beginning of the story the townspeople try to fool Gimpel into believing that his parents have risen from the grave, to which he responds: "[K] hob gants gut gevust, az s'iz nisht-geshtoygn, nisht-gefloygn" (2). Bellow gives: "I knew very well that nothing of the sort had happened" ( 1 953, 4). Here he accurately conveys the idea that Gimpel is not fooled, but the weight of Jewish skepticism toward Christianity is lost. �------------ 1 19 ------------- One final and crucial omission in Bellow's t ranslation bears noting. W hen Elke tries to convince Gimp! that the child she gave birth to seventeen weeks after their wedding is indeed his, Gimp!, after initial skepticism, says, "Un tsurikgeshmuest, ver veyst? Ot zogt men dokh az s'yoyzl hot in gantsn keyn tatn nisht gehat" (1953, 6). Bellow translates the fi rst sentence " But then, who really knows how such things are?" (7) but omits the second (literally: " People say that little Jesus didn't have a father"), which is perhaps one of the most important-and most inflam matory-sentences in the story, for in it Gimp! essentially produces a line of Christian doctrine in Yiddish. W hat is more surprising is that he does not refute it; rather, he seems passively to accept it. The sentence is the last of the paragraph-his last pronouncement on the question of his paternity-and as such it brings his vacillation between skepticism and acceptance of his wife's story to an abrupt, unexpected conclusion. Since Gimp! comes to trust his deceitful wife only once he has seen in his situation an analogy of the Immaculate Conception, his gullibility is explicitly equated with Christian belief. In fact, scholars have long fought over the significance of Gimpl's "Christian" innocence: Is Singer using Gimp! as a vehicle to mock Christianity, or is he in fact mocking the stereotype of the skeptical Jew by allowing a marginalized Jew with vaguely Christian beliefs to t riumph in the end through his realization that, although the world is made oflies, even lies hold a degree oftruth? 1 5 Regardless o f how one chooses t o interpret the sentence, one o f its bilateral transgressions lies not in the Christian doctrine to which it alludes but rather in Singer's use of the word yoyzl, a diminutive form of yeshu (Jesus). Use of the diminutive form is common in Yiddish and can convey affection or disdain. Norich suggests that the t raditional use of the diminutive in Yiddish when referring to Jesus, preceded by the definite article "dos" (which functions deictically to establish distance: "that little Jesus"), provides "a way of containing the danger posed by the figure of Jesus" (201 3). In Singer's text it functions to highlight the subversion of both Yiddish and Christianity inherent in the term: he has used a Jewish language to appropriate a Christian term-indeed, the divine symbol of Christianity-and refashioned that term within the constraints of the language to become Jewish (even specifically Yiddish). Bellow's translation, however, will later erase Singer's domestication of the Christian referent by suppressing it, reframing the story for a non- 1 5. Seidman explores these and various other interpretations of the story in her chapter on Bellow's translation (2006, 255-63). --------- ---- 12 0 ------------- Jewish target reader. But the translation does more than just omit pos sibly offensive terms; it goes so far as to neutralize and in some cases actively "Christianize" Jewish references, resulting in a text that sounds more generically ecumenical than Jewish. The shames (the assistant to the rabbi) thus becomes first the "sexton" ( 1 953, 6) and later the "beadle" (8), and the tare shtibl (the ablution chamber) loses its religious conno tation as the almost humorous "little corpse- washing hut" (5). But for scholars of Yiddish, the most controversial part of Bellow's translation has nothing to do with his censorship of perceived anti Christian rhetoric; it is the very title of the story itself, "Gimpel the Fool:' As many before me have pointed out,Joo/ is an inaccurate translation of the Hebrew-derived tarn. The term has roots both in the Passover Hag gadah and in Jewish folklore (two sources with which Singer's Yiddish readers would undoubtedly be familiar): the third son in the Passover story is referred to as tarn, simple but laudably pious. 1 6 The term later appears in Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav's eighteenth-century parable "The W iseman and the Simpleton" about two men who are summoned by the king. The simpleton goes unquestioningly and is rewarded, while the wise man stops to ponder why the king would call upon a common man such as himself. This leads him to deny the very existence of the king, so he never collects his reward. Tam here has a positive connotation: it is associated with unyielding piety and innocence (ironically the same quality that links Gimp! to Christianity), even perfection. Whether we understand Singer's use of the term as his earnest praise of simplicity or as an ironic jab at bygone unenlightened shtetl Jews, both are impossible readings in Bellow's translation : the nuances and rich historico-religious resonances of the term are lost in the word foo/. 1 7 1 6. The term also appears i n the Bible: Job declares to God that h e i s tarn (inno cent, blameless) and undeserving of punishment ( Habel 1 985, 1 93). 1 7. The most obvious indication that Singer d id not equate tarn with "fool" comes in the open i ng li nes of the original Yiddish: "Jkh bin gimp! tam. lkh halt mikh nisht far keyn nar" ( I ). G imp! introduces hi mself as "Gimp! tarn" (essentially "Simple Gimpel") but adds that he does not consider himself to be a "fool" ( the German-derived nar). In using the two di fferent terms, Gimp! is acknowledging that he is simple (pious, perfect, blameless)-he will ingly lets hi mself be taken in by others-but not that he is foolish, for a fool would not willi11gly, knowingly be deceived. Bellow gives: "J am Gimpel the Fool. I don't think myself a fool" ( 1 953, 3). Without the distinction between lam and nar, Bellow's Gimpel becomes at best a decidedly less-complex character, a hackneyed sketch of what Paul Kresh calls the "quintessential Jew" and at worst a character whose self-perception is at odds with h is actions (quoted in Seidman 2006, 260). -------------- 1 2 1 -------------- Bellow's failure to distinguish between two concepts that are in Singer's original designated by two vastly different terms ( one derived from loshn koydesh and the other from German, it bears noting) reveals the obstacles to translation posed by Y iddish's lehavdl loshn. A term with positive-and uniquely Jewish-religious associations harkening back to the Bible and Jewish folklore is expressed in English by a word that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, refers to " [o]ne deficient in judgement or sense, one who acts or behaves stupidly, a silly person, a simpleton:' So far a term that conveys nothing of the innocent piety of tarn. Most telling, however, is the parenthesis following the definition: "(In Biblical use applied to vicious or impious persons.):' The term fool, carrying its own set of biblical associations, is thus the exact opposite of the term it is used to translate. Here the lehavdl loshn does more than reveal linguistic asymmetries; it underscores the unique conceptual plane on which Yiddish operates and the consequent limits to transla tion that it entails. Was Bellow, who spoke fluent Yiddish and was raised in a devout Jewish household, aware of the multiple positive connota tions of the word tarn? Most likely. Was his choice of "fool" then a purely aesthetic one-a means of avoiding, as Norich suggests, the tempting but facile rhyme of "Simple Gimpel"-or was it the result of a decision that, since tarn cannot be conveyed in all its complexity in English, it must not be conveyed at all ( I 995, 2 I 3)? In many ways Bellow's translation of "Gimp! tarn" reveals that the practice of protectively burying the Yiddish text under its translation had begun even before Singer forcibly intervened as "collaborator" in all of his translations. If Bellow's distortive translation made of the translator an author by imbuing him with the power to censor or alter problematic passages, Singer was determined to regain control over his texts through similarly distortive means. As co-translator of his works, he would assure that no one could challenge his claim to authorship by rewriting his own texts in translation. The result was an apparent bifurcation in Singer's identity: his simultaneous presence, thanks to his translations, in both the American and the Yiddish canons. As I have discussed, Singer was certainly not the first writer to use translation as a means of straddling literary traditions: Beckett's dual canonical status (a product of his decision to write and self-translate between French and English), like Singer's, presented a challenge to library classification systems, which generally "base their divisions on the principle of linguistic nationalism" (Chamberlain 1 987, 17). The Library of Congress divides Beckett's works among the English and French sections-a classification that dissociates him completely from ------------- 1 22 ------------- his Irish national identity ( 1987, 17). The inevitably awkward attempts to circumvent ontological problems posed by the multilingual author result in the fragmentation of both the works and the writer: divvied up between national literatures, contingent texts sit in exile from one another on the shelves, enlarging the gap between original and transla tion that Fitch argues should be bridged in order to allow for the dialogi cal unity of both texts. This separation, an echo of the Yiddish utterance lehavdl, had particularly significant implications for Singer, whose posi tion as a writer o( Yiddish.:_a diasporic and postvernacular language meant that, while his translations opened the way for his acceptance as a Jewish-American writer (and those translations were categorized accordingly on the shelves), there was no place for his Yiddish originals. His texts seemed destined for exile and eventual oblivion. 6. SINGER AS SELF-TRA NSLATOR After the publication of the translation "Gimpel the Fool;' Singer abruptly cut off all contact with Bellow. He even went so far as explicitly to prohibit Bellow from translating any of his other works. When the two met years later, Bellow asked Singer why he had reacted so violently to his translation. Singer's cryptic response was, " They'll say it's you, not me" (Noiville 2006, 93). Singer harbored fears that Bellow's fame and talent would overshadow his own, that the translator would displace the author in much the same way that Y iddish texts-including his own, ironically at his behest-once devoid of a readership, could potentially be replaced by "definitive" English translations. Before Bellow came along Singer had worked directly with A. H. Gross on the English translation of Di Jami/ye mushkat and made sig nificant changes in English, removing entire chapters while adding a chapter to the end of the novel. 1 8 For Singer it was not enough to awk wardly reproduce the idiomatic character of his stories in English, as Bellow had done to great success. To do so was to perpetuate the per- 1 8. In response to the suggestion that 50 percent of the original text is lost in translation (an arbitrary number to be sure), Singer told an interviewer, "That's why I try to write one hundred and fifty percent" (quoted in Landis I 989, 2). This is not far from the truth. During the translation process, according to Henri Levi, Singer "pared h is texts to the bone, keeping only the indispensable elements of the set ting and the details essential to the story line. The rest-the Hebrew, the Aramaic, the inbred allusions, the anti-Christian quips-all these were written off as losses" (Noiville 2006, 95). ------------- 1 23 ------------- ception of Yiddish literature as "folksy;' to relegate it to the shtetl (some thing Singer himself had championed during the early part of his career and something he realized was becoming less and less relevant-not to mention increasingly difficult the further removed both geographi cally and temporally he found himself from life in Poland). By the time Bellow's "Gimpel" appeared, Singer had been in America for close to twenty years and was more at home at the Garden Cafeteria convers ing with members of the Jewish intelligentsia than reminiscing with aging immigrants about his adolescence in the Polish shtetl of Bilgoraj. Having come to terms with the fact that he was an American writing for Americans (Yiddish speakers and otherwise) in America, he devel oped the following outlook: "It happens often with me, working on the translation and working on the book itself go together, because when it's being translated I see some of the defects and I work on them-so in a way the English translation is sometimes almost a second original" (quoted in Saposnik 200 1 , 1 1 ). Source and target texts then stand in a symbiotic relationship: the original is altered through the very process that engenders the translation, so that consequently original and trans lation are mutually derivative. By the time he set out to translate several of his works following Bel low's "Gimpel;' Singer was already a seasoned translator, having trans lated works by Thomas Mann, including Der Zauberberg, into Yiddish and collaborated on the translation of Di Jami/ye mushkat ( Garrin 1 986, 50). His post-Bellow translation process consisted in hiring a group of mostly women, often recruited from the ranks of his admirers, to serve essentially as his transcribers insofar as Singer himself would dictate to them in English (Noiville 2006, 1 05). In fact, many of his credited "translators" did not even speak Yiddish; they were merely polishers, editing his dictation to flow more naturally in English (Noiville 2006, 1 06). In this way Singer exerted complete control over the translation process, and the attribution of his later translations reflect this: fifteen of forty-two credited translations appearing in the 1 982 Singer anthology bear the note, "Translated by the author and _ _ _." 1 9 One effect of this approach to translation, whether intended or not, was Singer's com plete freedom to alter the original text by suppressing or modifying per ceived anti-Christian or obscure Jewish references without protest from 1 9 Not including Bellow's "Gimpel the Fool;' of the remaining translations, seventeen are attributed to various collaborators; eight are attributed to Singer's nephew, Joseph Singer; one to Singer's wife, Alma Singer, and a collaborator; and five lack attribution entirely. ------------- 1 24 ------------- his translators. In many ways, Singer had assumed the role of Greenberg to his transcribers' Bellow-a role that led him to suppress just as many, if not more, potentially problematic passages than his predecessor. Around this time Singer mandated that all future non-English translations of his work be done from the English text (Noiville 2006, 99). English really did then displace the Yiddish to become the "defini tive text"; indeed, English was the source text for his French, Italian, German, Spanish, even Korean and Japanese readers. 20 This resulted in the existence of two supposedly "identical" but actually ideologi cally opposed texts. Henri Levi attributes this split to the disconnect produced by the Christianization of Singer's translations-this time by Singer himself: David Roskies has shown that a shnur patsherkes, m eaning literally (and not without mockery) "Pater cord;' becomes "rosary"; the word galekh, a rude term for a Christian priest ("the closely cropped one"), is changed to "sacristan"; "house of i mpurity" expresses an external, hostile point of view; "rosary" and "sacristan" are Christian words that Polish Jewish readers may not h ave understood. (quoted in Noiville 2006, 95) As unhappy as he was with Bellow's translation of "Gimp I tarn, " Singer practiced the same censorship and ecumenicalization as Bellow. But ironically, by neutralizing, if not outright Christianizing, Jewish or anti Christian references Singer had shifted his work onto an entirely differ ent semantic plane, one that was incompatible with the original Yid dish, resulting in t ranslations that were in some ways impenetrable to his original readers, not necessarily linguistically (most Yiddish speak ers in America at the time were proficient in English) but ideologically. The decision to circumvent instead of confronting the challenge of translating lehavdl loshn is fraught with implications. By Christianizing their English translations Bellow (and G reenberg) and Singer appear to implicitly accept the terms of Singer's "Zeydlus": Yiddish is so inextri cably linked to Judaism that the relinquishment (translation) of Yiddish necessarily constitutes a conversion-yet one that can never be com plete so long as traces of Yiddish cultural sensibility remain. 20. As a result, we have "Gimpel l'idiota" in Italian, "Gimpel, el tonto" in Span ish, "Gimpel der Narr" in German, "Gimpel !'i mbecile" in French (updated to the more appropriate "Gimpel le naff" i n a 1 993 retranslat ion ) . In fact, nearly all trans lations of Singer's works are l isted in UNESCO's Index Translationum as being translated from English with a note indicating that the original was i n Yiddish. -------------- 1 25 - - - ---------- Further complicating the status of Yiddish in translation is Singer's designation of his English translations as the source texts for transla tions into other languages, perhaps because the English translations, which he himself oversaw, served as a safely ecumenicalized mediation of the Yiddish, thereby promising that no translations into any other language would have to grapple with the complications of lehavdl loshn. 2 1 More than the vehicular language through which Singer's works entered the world stage, English was the intermediary that simultaneously hid the Yiddish and enabled it to be more easily transmitted into languages lacking its system of differentiation. Perhaps it was by rendering the two texts partially opaque outside of their intended readership that he was able to keep his two authorial identities (Yitskhok Bashevis and I. B. Singer) separate. Both the dual identity that Singer had constructed for himself and the complex rela tionship between his originals and translations provide, then, an instan tiation of the process of differentiation inherent in the word lehavdl. The question is, does this form of identity differentiation contribute to the obliteration of source text/language/culture? Singer's incorporation of the differentiating tendencies of Yiddish in his translation method ology enacts a compelling conflation of self and text: that the insular, oppositionally defining elements of Eastern European Jewish discourse are manifested in Singer's approach to translation as a means of main taining those very aspects of his identity amidst the intercultural fluxes of immigration (against, of course, the broader backdrop of the Jewish diaspora) and generational change indicates a poignant resistance to the very assimilation of which Singer has been accused. Singer's influence on American writers ( Jewish and non-Jewish) signals a fluidity between texts and between self and text that points to contiguity, not separation: Singer's creative approach to translation, though ostensibly assimilative, enriched twentieth-century American literature with innovative magi cal realism and fantasy, which would soon be appropriated by English language Jewish-American writers such as Cynthia Ozick and Bernard Malamud. Unlike Singer, however, the next generation of Jewish-Amer ican writers chose to embrace, instead of suppress, the Jewishness of 2 1 . Here I do not place Hebrew alongside Yiddish because, although several of Singer's works were translated into Hebrew from the original Yiddish, the majority were translated from English. Perhaps this offers evidence that even Hebrew, the sacred Jewish tongue from which a substantial amount of Yiddish is derived, does not possess Yiddish's lehavdl loshn capabilities and thus is more easily translated from English. ------------- 126 ------------- their texts in all its complexity, entering into dialogue with Singer's work by writing the contemporary Jewish-American experience in English: echoing the pioneering Jewish-American writer Henry Roth, phrases in the works of Ozick, Malamud, and Roth are dotted with Yiddish words (including the same mildly derisive terms referring to non-Jews that Singer, and Bellow and Greenberg before him, carefully omitted in translation) and Jewish references left untranslated and unexplained; English is altered to reflect Yiddish syntax and idiom, while the con tei1t reflects the struggles of American-born Jews navigating life amidst the fresh collective memory of the Holocaust with a familiar mixture of pathos and humor common to Singer's works. If Singer's translational practices coupled with the disappearance of a Yiddish readership threatened the destruction of a literature, those writers who followed him promised its redemption-even as they rede fined it, allowing for American readers to discover Singer anew through the clarifying mediation of a newly solidified, self-reflexive corpus of Jewish-American literature. The barrier between original and transla tion, deceptively reified in the term lehavdl, has thus proven porous, artificial. Not only has the unique fictive world of Singer's translations laid the groundwork for Ozick's and Malamud's magical realism ( even as it has also stood as a stylistic paradigm in opposition to which Jewish writers initially preoccupied with existential realism-Philip Roth and, ironically, Bellow among them-have defined themselves); the intertext that exists between Singer's Yiddish writings and the innovative works of subsequent Jewish-American writers offers a fruitful dialogue-as well as the possibility of reconsidering Singer's work within the canon to which it has been definitively, if problematically, assigned. 7. CONCLUSI O N The aim of this article has been to explore ( 1) the implications of Isaac Bashevis Singer's construction of a dual authorial identity through translation (a process initiated by Saul Bellow in his translation of "Gimp! tarn" and later reclaimed by Singer himself), and (2) to provide a framework for reconceptualizing Yiddish translation more broadly. The split between (the works of) Yitskhok Bashevis and (the works of) I. B. Singer poses the question: How does one translate oneself out of Yiddish and into a language lacking its complex system of differentia tion? For Singer, the answer was to assimilate subversively. Indeed, as Singer's career progressed he appeared to write increasingly with a view to translation, but that is only half the story. As Saltzman has pointed ------------- 1 27 ------------- out, Singer continued to write prolifically in Yiddish from 1960 on, though only a small portion of that writing has been translated into English (2002, xi). The rest, confined to manuscripts and an uncata logued mass of microfilm, stands as a reminder that, even though Singer had cultivated a somewhat domesticated image of himself for his English-language American readers, he never abandoned his Y id dish readership nor his identity as a Y iddish writer. As strongly as he believed that Yiddish would soon die out, he continued to write in Yid dish stories he never intended to translate. It is the task of future trans lators first to locate these texts and then to translate them in a way that neither censors the cultural and religious beliefs that inform them nor leaves them intact and unexplained so that they remain impenetrable to the non-Yiddish reader-in short, to break through the unique bar riers to translation posed by a hybridized source language (one that is, moreover, charged with the spatio-temporally distant reference points of pre-World War I I Eastern European Jewish life). Berman calls on translators to confront the epreuve (trial, experi ence) of translation with a commitment to decentering, to a shunning of opaque ethnocentric translational practices: " [ W ] e must struggle relent lessly against our fundamental reductionism, but also remain open to that which, in all translation, remains mysterious and unmasterable, properly speaking in-visible" ( 1992, 180). It is precisely the "mysteri ous and unmasterable" content, the kabbalistic "secrets" permeating Singer's Yiddish writing and Yiddish literature more broadly, that must be embraced, not suppressed, in translation. With these complexities in mind, I would suggest that any attempt to articulate a comprehensive and ethical theory of Yiddish translation might do well to consider the centrality of the term lehavdl within Yiddish discourse as an analogy for translation out of Y iddish: as a linguistic device, the term unites and separates at once, establishes both proximity and difference, trans lates between the sacred and the profane; in its contradictory function, lehavdl differentiation reifies the process of translation, which similarly creates difference-based contingency between two texts. Finally, it is time to work toward an understanding ofthe relationship between Singer's Yiddish texts and their translations as dialogical-not dialectical. Indeed, perhaps resituating Singer's Yiddish works amidst the works of his many as-yet-untranslated peers will allow us to better appreciate his unique hybrid status as a writer, his role in the forma tion and bridging of two canons. Acknowledging those Y iddish writers whose works shape and respond to Singer's own (including those peers who, like Glatshteyn, problematically branded him as unrepresentative ------------- 128 ------------- of Yiddish literature) can lead us toward a methodology of translation that enables a more complete representation of Yiddish literature, while respecting its internal diversity and cultural particularities. Engagement with Yiddish writers on (and in) their own terms is becoming increas ingly possible thanks to the growing presence of Yiddish at universi ties worldwide 22 and the outreach of youth-oriented Yiddish organiza tions such as Yugntruf (Shandler 2006, 2). As the twenty-first century witnesses a resurgence of interest in Yiddish language and culture that extends well beyond the bounds of the kitschy, commercialized postver nacularity to which Yiddish long seemed destined, it is quite possible that we will yet encounter Yitskhok Bashevis and his peers in the lan guage of Shakespeare. REFERENCES Benjamin, Walter. 1969. "The Task of the Translator:' Pages 69-82 in Illuminations. Edited by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books. Berman, Antoine. 1992. The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Translated by S. Heyvaert. New York: State University of New York Press. Chamberlain, Lori. 1987. "The Same Old Stories": Beckett's Poetics of Translation. Pages 17-24 in Beckett Translating/Translating Beck ett. Edited by Alan Warren Friedman, Charles Rossman, and Dina Sherzer. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Epstein, Joseph. 1991. Our Debt to I. B. Singer. Commentary 92.5:3 1-37. Fitch, Brian T. 1987. The Relationship between Compagnie and Com pany: One Work, Two Texts, Two Fictive Universes. Pages 25-35 in Beckett Translating/Translating Beckett. Edited by Alan Warren Friedman, Charles Rossman, and Dina Sherzer. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Garrin, Stephen H. I 986. Isaac Bashevis Singer as Translator: "Appren ticing in the Kitchen of Literature." Pages 50-58 in Recovering the Canon: Essays on Isaac Bashevis Singer. Edited by David Neal Miller. Studies in Judaism in Modern Times 8. Leiden: Brill. 22. Jeffrey Shandler estimates that , as of 2006, some two hundred doctoral dis sertations and master's theses involving Yiddish were written in North American universities alone-about half of them since 1 990 (and only two prior to World War I I ) (2006, 2). ------------- 129 ------------- Glatshteyn, Yankev. 1 986. Singer's Literary Reputation. Pages 145-48 in Recovering the Canon: Essays on Isaac Bashevis Singer. Edited by David Neal Miller. Studies in Judaism in Modern Times 8. Leiden: Brill. Habel, Norman C. 1 985. The Book ofJob: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster. Harshav, Benjamin. 1 990. The Meaning of Yiddish. Stanford, Calif.: Stan ford University Press. Kishore, Usha. 2013. The Auto-translations of Rabindranath. Muse India 47. Online: http://www.museindia.com/focuscontent.asp?issid=33 &id=2143. Landis, Joseph C. 1989. A Fein Romance and the Travails of Yiddish Translation. Yiddish-Modern Jewish Studies 16.3-4:1-8. Lansky, Aaron. 2004. Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Michels, Tony. 2000. "Speaking to Moyshe": The Early Socialist Yiddish Press and Its Readers. Jewish History 14:51-82. Miller, David Neal. 1985. Fear or Fidion: Narrative Strategies in the Works of Isaac"Bashevis Singer. Albany: State University of New York Press. Newberger Goldstein, Rebecca. 2 0 1 0 . Pages vii-xix in Israel Joshua Singer, The Brothers Ashkenazi. New York: Other Press. Noiville, Florence. 2006. Isaac B. Singer: A Life. Translated by Catherine Temerson. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Norich, Anita. 1995. Isaac Bashevis Singer in America: The Translation Problem. Judaism 44:208- 1 8. --. Forthcoming. Remembering Jews: Translating Yiddish after the Holocaust. In idem, Writing in Tongues: Translating Yiddish in the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Ozick, Cynthia. 1983. Envy; or, Yiddish in America. Pages 39-100 in idem, The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories. New York: Dutton. Roskies, David. 1995. A Bridge oflonging: The lost Art of Yiddish Story telling. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Saltzman, Roberta. 2002. Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Bibliography of His Works in Yiddish and English, 1 960- 1 991. Scarecrow Author Bibli ographies. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow. Saposnik, Irving. 200 1 . A Canticle for Isaac: A Kaddish for Bashevis. Pages 3-12 in The Hidden Isaac Bashevis Singer. Edited by Seth L. Wolitz. Austin: University of Texas Pre�s. ------------- 13 0 ------------- Seidman, Naomi. 2006. Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sen, Anindya. 20 13. Tagore's Self-Translations:' Muse India 47. Online: http://www.museindia.com/focuscontent.asp ?issid=33&id=2 l 40. Sengupta, Mahasweta. 1990. Translation, Colonialism and Poetics: Rabindranath Tagore in Two Worlds. Pages 56-63 in Translation, History and Culture. Edited by Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere. London: Pinter. Shandler, Jeffrey. 2006. Adventures in Yiddish/and: Postvernacular Lan guage and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Singer, Isaac Bashevis. 1982. Gimpel the Fool: And Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. --. 1978. Nobel Lecture. Online: http:/ /www.nobelprize.org/nobel_ prizes/literature/laureates/ 1978/singer-lecture.html. --. 1989. The Problems of Yiddish Prose in America. Translated by Robert H. Wolf. Prooftexts 9:5- 12. --. 2004. Collected Stories: Gimpel the Fool to the Letter Writer. Edited by Ilan Stavans. New York: Library Classics of the United States. -- . Gimp! tarn. 1945. Mendele. Accessed on April 28, 20 13. Online: https:/ /docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVm Y XV sdGRvb W FpbnxtZW5kZW xlZGVydmF5bGlrfGd4OjZkNGRjMT RlY T FiNjg5ODg. Wirth-Nesher, Hana. 2008. Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Christine G�tman is a fourth-year doctoral student and teaching associate in the Comparative Literature program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Christine's inter ests in translation studies center on the func tion of metaphor in European discourse on translation since the early-modern period, as well as inquiry into the historical implica tions of interfaith translation. She has also presented papers and developed and taught syllabi on the topic of urban space and sub jectivity in literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Email: christine [email protected]. ------------- 13 1 -------------

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A METONYMIC TRANSLATION: BERTOLT BRECHT's THE CAUCASIA N CHA LK CIR CLE Liu Xiaoqing The Caucasian Chalk Circle is one of the most important works of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht ( 1 898-1956). It is also one of the most widely performed modern plays in the West. However, this critically acclaimed play is not purely Brecht's "originality" but is indebted to an ancient Chinese play, Li Xingdao's Hui Lan Ji 8( li hti ( The Story of the Circle of Chalk). ' Brecht acknowledged his adaptation in the prologue of The Caucasian Chalk Circle in the voice of the singer: "It is called 'The Chalk Circle' and comes from the Chinese. But we'll do it, of course, in a changed version" ( Brecht 1983, 1 26). The "changed version" Brecht made was for the Broadway. stage during his exile in . America. Inevita bly, he also took i nfluences from American culture and society. Thus, in the creation of the play Brecht had two systems, Chinese and American, as his source and target systems to respond to. In addition, Brecht was not a native speaker in either of the systems; rather, he approached both primarily in German. Therefore, in both the actual and metaphorical senses, Brecht acted as a t ranslator in h is writing of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Writing was his way of translating. I . To Westerners, the story of two mothers claiming one child is a well-known biblical story that showcases King Solomon's wisdom; therefore, critics generally think Brecht takes influence from both the biblical story and the Chinese source for his creation of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. However, Brecht only acknowledged the Chinese source; in addition, there is no clear evidence showing that Li Xingdao had known or was influenced by the biblical story for the writing of his play. Hence, in this article I focus on the relat ionship between Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Li Xingdao's Hui Lan Ji. ------ - ----- 1 33 ------------ - - -- I propose that, in his writing as translation, Brecht adopted a met onymic translation strategy. Following Roman Jakobson's two devices, metaphor and metonym, in the study of .t he arrangement of language, Maria Tymoczko propounds that the two modes correspond to the two approaches in translation. Metaphorical translation, which treats "trans lation as a process of substitution and selection;' has been favored by t ranslation theorists, whereas "the metonymic processes of combina tion, connection, and contexture in t ranslation are not able to be cap tured with theoretical language restricted to the structuralist binaries" (Tymoczko 1999, 284). However, what has been neglected is actually an important facet of translation, as Tymoczko explicates: Such metonymies are to be found in the way that translation is always a partial process, whereby some but not all of the source texts is transposed, and in the way that translations represent source texts by highlighting specific segments or parts, or by allowing specific attri butes of the source texts to dominate and, hence, to represent the entirety of the work. Metonymy operates also . . . in the way that trans lations, as elements of the receiving literature system, metonymically encode features of the receiving cultures. ( 1999, 282) Tymoczko thinks that this feature of metonymy is present in all rewrit ings and retellings (1999, 42). Tymoczko's theory of metonymic translation is a useful device for reading Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle because Brecht adopted ele ments from both the source ( Chinese) and target (American) systems and rpade them into his own. Brecht's creativity was not diminished by his borrowing. Rather, he made his careful and thoughtful selection, in which he highlighted certain elements and rejected others, to serve his purpose of creating a work of his own. In this way, we can see how Brecht turned re-creation into creation. RELAT I ON S H I P WITH T H E S OURCE Brecht rewrote Li Xingdao's story. The connection between Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Li Xingdao's Hui Lan Ji is distinct. Brecht keeps Li's core story: in the case of a lawsuit involving two women claiming one boy as their son, the j udge uses a chalk circle as the device to determine the t rue mother and rules that the boy goes to the mother who truly loves him. In addition, Brecht preserves specific details of Li's writing and distinctive features of Yuan drama (y uan zaju), the genre to ------------- 1 34 ------------- which Li's play belongs. At the same time, Brecht deliberately departs from Li's play with his characteristic changes, promfoently reflected in his new interpretation of the relationships between mother and mother hood and between law and justice. REWRITING OF REWRITINGS In keeping with Tymoczko's proposal that the rewriting of a story evokes metonymically all the previous rewritings of the tale, Brecht's rewrit ing also bears a relationship with all rewritings of Li Xingdao's story. The "original;' Li Xingdao's Hui Lan Ji, was produced in Chinese during China's Yuan dynasty in the fourteenth century. The heroine, Haitang, a gentle and beautiful girl from a good family, is sold into a house of prostitution after her father dies. A businessman, Lord Ma, sees her and marries her as his second wife. Haitang bears Lord Ma a son, the only child in the family. Meanwhile, his first wife has a secret lover and has long schemed to obtain Lord Ma's wealth. After she poisons Lord Ma to death, the first wife accuses Haitang of the murder and then snatches away Haitang's child. Haitang is arrested and found guilty by a corrupt judge and the first wife's lover, who works as a clerk at the court. Fortu nately, a well-known and impartial judge named Bao Zheng looks into the case and conducts a second trial. He orders a lime circle drawn on the floor and the child placed in the middle of the circle. The two alleged mothers are asked to stand on each side of the child to pull in opposite directions, with the one who pulls the child out of the circle to her to be declared the real mother. The first wife pulls as hard as she can, whereas Haitang remains motionless. When the judge asks them to try a second time, Haitang again does not move. W hen the judge asks why she does not pull, Haitang states that she cannot bear to hurt her own child. She then relates the whole story. The wise judge finds Haitang innocent and also the true mother to the child. Absolved of the crimes, Haitang returns home to live with her brother and her child. The Chinese play first became known to the Western world in a French translation by Stanislas Julien, published in London in 1832. Julien substituted "chalk" for the original "lime" and abridged several passages related to the first wife and her lover. Wollheim da Fonseca translated Julien's version into German in 1 876 (Tatlow 1 977, 293). A German poet and translator, Alfred Henshke, under the pseudonym Klabund, adapted the play into German based on Julien's translation (Williams 1954, 5- 1 0). One of the liberties Klabund took with the play is that he inserted a love theme whereby Haitang and a prince named ------------- 1 35 ------------- Pao are in love before she marries Lord Ma. In fact, the boy is Prince Pao's rather than Lord Ma's. When Prince Pao becomes emperor, he himself conducts a trial in which he finds Haitang innocent and marries her with their son. Reinhardt staged Klabund's play in 1 925, and it was a popular success. In addition, a few other playwrights also made German adaptations, of which some assume Brecht might have seen one or two (Tatlow 1 977, 293-94). Brecht had seen Klabund's play while living in Germany, and he also read the original Chinese play in translation while exiled at the end of the 1 930s ( cited in Berg-Pan 1 975, 2 1 9). In 1 940 Brecht wrote a short story titled Der Augsburger kreidekreis (The Augsburg Chalk Circle). In this version of the story, the cause of the conflict between the true and false mothers is the religious division between Protestants and Catho lics. Brecht omits the imperial intervention and makes the first wife the biological mother who has abandoned the child. The heroine is a ser vant girl who rescues the child and becomes the "real" mother. In 1 944 Brecht worked the story into a play, Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis ( The Caucasian Chalk Circle), moving the events to medieval Georgia and adding a prologue set in Soviet Georgia. It is this version that is widely performed today. In the prologue to The Caucasian Chalk Circle, two peasant groups, the goat-raisers and the fruit-growers, dispute the own ership of a valley in Soviet Georgia. The land initially belongs to the goat-raising people. After some arguments, it is decided that the land should go to the fruit growing party because it will benefit the greatest number of people. As the farmers celebrate their agreement, a singer introduces the main play with a song. This inner play begins with an insurrection during which the tyrannical governor and his wife quickly flee and desert their baby son. A young maid, Grusha, not only saves but goes to great trouble in taking care of the child. Later, when the governor and his wife come back, the wife demands that the child be returned to her for the pur pose of inheriting the governor's property. The two women, both claim ing the child, confront each other in court. The judge, Azdak, uses the chalk circle in the same way as in Li's Chinese play to determine the true mot?er. 2 With the child placed in the middle of the chalk circle, the two 2. Chinese scholars Zhu Bingsun, Tao Wei, Qiu Delai, and Zeng Xin and Sri Lankan scholar E. F. C. Ludowy all have discussed the theme of the two mothers claiming one child in Li Xingdao's and Brecht's plays. They connect the story to three major religions, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Furthermore, Tong Jin ghua traces Li Xingdao's play to two Tibetan stories. A Japanese scholar, Nakata ------------- 1 3 6 ------------- women are asked to pull the child in their direction. Twice the gover nor's wife pulls hard while Grusha does not move for fear of hurting the child. The judge then rules that the child goes to Grusha. The resulting happy ending mirrors the ending of Li's story. ADOPTION Apart from the obvious similarities between the core stories, there are other notable similarities shared by Li's and Brecht's plays. Antony Tat low is one of the scholars who has made in-depth comparisons between the two works. According to Tatlow, "the structure of the plot of Der Kauka sische Kreidekreis stands in a precise relationship to the Chinese model" (1977, 29 1 ). He also thinks that the realistic style is distinctive in the two playwrights' t reatment of the well-known story, commenting that " [b ] oth Brecht and Li assume that human behavior is largely determined by economic conditions and influenced by social position . . . . both the Chinese and the German dramatists observe the practical realities of life" ( 1977, 298). The realism shared by Li and Brecht differentiates them both from Klabund's romanticism and the biblical King Solomon's uni versal wisdom. Thus, contrary to the "idealizations, fairy-tale creations" in Klabund's character depiction, both Li and Brecht portray Haitang and Grusha realistically ( Tatlow 1 97 7 , 298). Tatlow also sees that the two judges of Li's play-good and bad-converge in Azdak. Further more, Tatlow lipes up Azdak with the bandit-hero of Chinese outlaw literature and plays in general and with j udge Bao in particular. Accord ing to Tatlow, although Azdak does not take after Bao in Li's play, he follows Bao's other judgments in other Yuan court plays in which Bao defies high officialdom or even the emperor to give justice to common people. Thus Tatlow connects Brecht's concept of justice to the genre of Yuan drama, one of whose themes is to critique social injustice and other social problems in many of its plays. Tatlow also observes specific details shared by the two plays: both stories are set in the past; in both of them the son is five years old at the time of the trial (he is only three months old in Kabund's version); the relationship between Grusha and her brother resembles the one between Haitang and her brother; and the child goes to the disadvantaged in the end. Further, both Li and Brecht distinctively used vulgar languages in Wakaba, thinks that Li Xingdao's work influenced a similar play in Japan. See Ceng 2007; Qu 2002; and Nakata 200 1 . ------------- 137 ------------- the dialogues of their characters. These and other similarities show that Brecht transposed aspects of Li's play into his writing. Tatlow and other scholars also reveal Brecht's indebtedness to the Chinese poetics of Yuan drama. The narrative style of The Caucasian Chalk Circle follows closely the pattern of Chinese Yuan drama. Gener ally speaking, Yuan drama is composed of four episodic acts, with the exception that a few plays are made up of five acts and that the acts of a few plays develop with the plot (Shih 1 976, 43). Although Brecht's play is made up of five rather than four acts, its structure is much closer to that of the Chinese drama than his other plays. Also, the five acts of his play are episodic rather than sequential. Thus, John Fuegi comments that Brecht's narrative style comprises "non-naturalistic or 'presenta tional' devices of traditional Chinese dramaturgy, which is both con densed and explicit" ( 1972, 146). Wenwei Du thinks that the singer, who functions as a narrator _in the play, solely accomplishes "all the narrative devices of the traditional Chinese theatre-such as the characters' self introduction in stylized recitation or chanting, their narration of the plot's development, and their expression of feelings or thoughts in lyric singing" ( 1 995, 316). Furthermore, Du also ascribes the origin of the prologue, which causes contention among Western critics for its unusu alness and incongruity with the main play, to Chinese xiezi (wedge), which appeared not only in Li's original play but also was frequently used in Yuan drama, functioning to introduce the whole play (1995, 317). Thus, the "exoticism" of the narrative style of The Caucasian Chalk Circle can be traced to the Chinese poetics of Yuan drama. On stage, Brecht conscientiously adopted the performative devices of Yuan drama. It is said that pantomime, "a trademark of the Chi nese acting style;' fascinated Brecht in that it expresses the idea of the Chinese performer's "awareness of being watched" (Du 1995, 317; see also Willett 1964, 91-92). In the scenes when Gnisha and the singer appear together on the stage, Brecht has his heroine adopt pantomime to act out what the singer sings in lyrics. Later, when he staged the play in 1 954 in Berlin, he had one actor play two roles, the singer and the judge Azdak, with the use of pantomime. The practice not only fol lows the performing traditions in the Chinese Yuan and Ming periods but also illustrates Brecht's deft use of pantomime (Du 1 995, 317). In a rehearsal in 1955 in Leipzig, Brecht again used pantomime to help solve the problem of not having enough actors to play all the characters. If the characters were masked, he gave them Chinese faces; moreover, he insisted that the masks follow the Chinese method of being painted on the actors' faces rather than being worn (Berg-Pan 1 975, 225). Attracted ------------- 138 ------------- by the music played by the Chinese musical instrument, gong, in Chi nese operas, Brecht commissioned his composer to create "Gongspiel" to imitate the sound (Berg-Pan 1 975, 225). Brecht's stage design espe cially pays homage to the Chinese origin. According to Karl von Appen, stage designer for many of Brecht's performances staged by the Berlin Ensemble, Brecht was very particular about his stage setting. He ensured that the stage backdrop for The Caucasian Chalk Circle was done in the particular Chinese manner, which is on a silk screen painted with a Chi nese aesthetic style. Brecht even went to the point that he "insisted on helping his stage designer to buy the appropriate type of silk" (Berg-Pan 1 975, 226). In this way Brecht made his play thoughtfully respond to his source, Li's play and Yuan drama. ADAPTATION However, just as he purposefully chose to retain some aspects of the source, Brecht also deliberately left others out or substantially changed them. For instance, he moved the setting from Li's Yuan dynasty of China to medieval Georgia (and Soviet Union in the prologue). He especially gave prominence to the social background, which was rarely touched upon in Li's play and had little impact on the story, by cast ing the scene in a warring time that hinted of his own time. Essentially, by rewriting Li's story Brecht redefined the meaning of law and justice. Brecht first complicated Li's easy logic that a biological mother is nec essarily a good and true mother whereas a woman who claims a child who is not hers is dishonest in the first place and eventually proves to be a morally vicious person. Instead, Brecht showed that the biological mother does not necessarily manifest true motherhood and vice versa. In similar fashion, Brecht confounded the unification of law and justice. By depicting a judge who is both good and bad in a certain sense and who rules against the law but does justice to the people, Brecht ques tions Li's clear-cut demarcation that a bad judge corrupts law and justice and a good judge upholds it. MOTHER/MOTH ERHOOD Brecht kept the pattern of two mothers, one good and the other bad, struggling for one boy but made substantial changes. Following Li's striking contrast between the two "mothers;• good and bad and virtuous and evil in their own characters, Brecht also opposed the two women characters in their morality. Like the first wife in Li's play, the governor's ------------- 1 39 ------------- wife in Brecht's piay is an evil character. Also similar to the situation with Lord Ma's first wife, inheritance is the key issue for the governor's wife to fight for the child (Tatlow 1977, 295). However, Brecht reversed the bad character's relationship with the child: in Li's play the bad woman is also the false mother, whereas in Brecht's play the bad woman is the real mother. More important, Brecht portrayed his heroine in a different way from what Li did in his play. _Brecht provided no background informa tion about Grusha, except her identification as a i:naid of the governor's wife. He rarely touched on Grusha's physical features, focusing instead on her character after she adopts the governor's son. In order to raise the child, she is forced to overcome all kinds of difficulties, including jeop ardizing her safety and happiness. In a word, Grusha sacrifices herself entirely for the sake of the child. In this way Brecht disrupts Li's clear-cut relationship between mother and motherhood. In Li's case, Haitang is the biological mother who manifests true motherhood, whereas the first wife is the false mother without any maternal virtues. In Brecht's rewriting, the good and virtuous woman, Grusha, is not the biological mother of the child, in contrast to the governor's wife, who is bad and vicious but is the bio logical mother. However, the "false" mother, Grusha, manifests true motherhood, while the "true" mother, the governor's wife, shows no maternal love at all to her son, instead using him in her interest. The disparity between Haitang and Grusha highlights Brecht's differentia tion and complication between mother and motherhood. Also, while both Haitang and Grusha manifest true motherhood, it is worth noting their differentiation. Motherliness comes to Haitang naturally, whereas it comes to Grusha socially-which is more admi rable as a result of circumstances. Furthermore, the condition of raising the child is much more difficult and dangerous for Grusha than it is in Haitang's safe and comfortable environment. In Haitang's case, except for the time when she fights to win her child back, she enjoys the wealth and love that Lord Ma provides to bring up her child easily. However, what Grusha does is unusual because she jeopardizes her safety, love, happiness, and even life for the child with whom she has no genetic relationship and of whom she voluntarily takes care. This is the point Brecht makes in his rewriting of Haitang into Grusha. By separating motherliness from its integration with biological motherhood in Hai tang and making it independent in Grusha, he gives prominence to fostering, nurturing motherliness as the essential quality of a mother. This change points directly to Brecht's central concern in The Caucasian Chalk Circle: law and justice. ------------- 1 40 ------------- LAW AND JUSTICE Law and justice are unified in Li's play. When the law is followed, jus tice prevails; when the law is neglected or breached, injustice dominates. The first judge in Li's play does not abide by the law. In fact, he knows nothing about law but seeks money all the time. Consequently, injustice runs rampant during his rule. By contrast, the second judge, the famous Bao Zheng, follows the law strictly. Also in contrast to the first judge, Bao Zheng is a man of integrity. He never accepts bribes but dedicates himself to the service of the state and the public. The combination of the two-strict adherence to law and noble character-makes him an ideal judge. In fact, this character in the play follows its prototype, Bao Zheng (999-1062), a historical figure in Chinese history who is well known as the symbol of justice both in reality and in Chinese plays. It is easy to see that Li links morality with the positive relationship of law and justice. In his thinking, "good" and "bad" refer not only to judges' competency but also to their moral character. In fact, Li makes it obvious that honesty and impartiality are prerequisites for a just result. Overriding this idea of justice is the thought that, alongside good judges, the state can absorb some bad judges because in the end the just judges will redress any wrongs. It is interesting to note that there is little involvement of natural law in Li's play. It is more a competition between a good person (or judge) and a bad person (or judge). Fairness and jus tice come with the person, not by natural right. Brecht deliberately subverts Li's clear-cut images of judges as well as his positive connection among law, justice, and morality. His judge, Azdak, is a mixture of Li's first and second judges. Azdak is both good and bad. Morally, he is a disputable figure. Like Robin Hood, he takes from the rich to give to the poor. At the same time, he is also "a thief, a timeserver, and a coward" (Gray 1 962, 1 53 ) . He steals rabbits and is chased by the police. He hates the grand duke but is also protected by him. Upon hearing the news that the former governor is coming back, Azdak displays great fear. Also like Li's first judge, who openly acknowl edges his love for money, Azdak seeks bribes publicly. Nevertheless, in contrast to Li's first judge's blatant ignorance of law and the second judge's devotion to law, Azdak takes an eclectic attitude. He knows the law well; however, he does not want to be bound by it. In fact, he shows contempt for the form of law; his only use of the law book is to sit on it. The judgments Azdak makes are unconventional and even odd. Generally speaking, he does not follow the law but breaks it. However, Azdak does this not out of his ignorance of law or merely for his personal ------------ - 1 4 1 ------------- gain or enjoyment (although he does receive some money from it), but to grant fundamental justice to the poor. In the play Brecht lets an out sider, the singer, praise Azdak for what he does: And he broke the rules to save them. Broken law like bread he gave them, Brought them to shore upon his crooked back. At long last the poor and lowly Had someone who was not too holy To be bribed by empty hands: Azdak. For two years it was his pleasure To give the beasts of prey short measure: He became a wolf to fight the pack. From All Hallows to All Hallows On his chair beside the gallows Dispensing justice in his fashion sat Azdak. (Brecht 1983, 2 1 1- 12) By endorsing Azdak's practice, Brecht a ctually questions whether legality brings about justice. His two stories, happening in modern and ancient Georgia, respectively, explain his t hought well. In each ·o f them-one is about land and the other is about a child-the unlawful party wins over the lawful one. Rather than injustice, they both pro duce justice. In the former, justice benefits the majority of the people; in the latter, it lets the child go to t he mother who has true mother liness. Nevertheless, Brecht does not mean that law and justice have to be contradictory and that justice always goes against law. Rather, through t he play he makes his point, " [t]hat what there is shall go to those who are good for it, / Children to the motherly, that they pros per, / Carts to good drivers, that they be driven well, / The valley to the waterers, that it yield fruit" ( Brecht 1983, 233). This, to a great extent, represents Brecht's social ideal. He rewrites Haitang into Grusha and Li's two judges into Azdak to illustrate how this social justice can be achieved in an unusual way. In other words, Brecht is not content with bringing justice to a single case: a boy returning to his mother; rather, what he cares about is to bring the whole of society to its most reason able and productive order, which benefits t he majority of its people. W ith this new storyline and new moral, Brecht re-creates Li's story into his own. ----�-------- 142 ------------- RELATI ONS H I P WITH THE TARGET SYSTEM In his rewriting theory, Andre Lefevere ( 1 992) holds that writers and rewriters either conform to or fight with their target systems, owing to the tension between the poetics and the ideology of writers and rewrit ers and those of their target systems. However, I propose that the rela tionship between writers and rewriters and their target systems is not a clear-cut either/or but an interaction between the two. That is, in writing and rewriting, writers and rewriters can both assimilate to and challenge their target systems, with one outweighing the other. This is the case with Brecht's creation of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Brecht wrote explicitly in one diary entry that the structure of The Cau casian Chalk Circle was "conditioned in part by a revulsion against the commercialized dramaturgy of Broadway. At the same time it incor porates certain elements of the old American theatre which excelled in burlesque and shows" ( cited in Lyon 1 999, 239). The diary reveals Brecht's accommodation to and.resistance against the American system. Brecht's interest in American performing arts and his eagerness to be recognized by it can be attested by his goal of "conquering Broadway" between 1 943 and 1 944. To this end, he willingly absorbed its theatrical influences and made concessions to its political and financial pressures. While this adaptation represents one side of his relationship with the American system, the other side, his resistance, prevails over the adapta tion and plays a dominating role. ASSI MILATION Brecht's assimilation to American culture and society, American movies and theater in particular, is a mixture of choice and pressure. On the one hand, he was attracted to American movies and theater and was will ing to adopt them in his plays; on the other hand, because Brecht was an exile in America, the social milieu, the patron, and the audience all exerted pressure and forced him to make concessions. Brecht was fascinated by American movies. Hanns Eisler recalls that during Brecht's first trip to America in the 1 930s he and Brecht went to watch gangster movies regularly and jokingly called their excursion "social studies" (Weber 1 997, 344). In addition, Brecht also collected books and newspaper clippings on American movies. During his seven years of exile in America, Brecht was said to go to Hollywood movies once or twice a week, in addition to seeing plays and shows. As a result, American performing arts not only affected Brecht's concept ------------- 143 ------------- of theater but also were directly adopted into his creation of The Cau casian Chalk Circle. Carl Weber, Brecht's former assistant, studies the impact of Ameri can theatrical performance on Brecht. He thinks vaudeville and its off spring, musical comedy, are the "elements of the older American theatre that excelled in burlesque and show;' which Brecht acknowledged in the production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle in Berlin in 1954 (cited by Weber 1990, 59). Weber also cites Kenneth Tynan, who proposes that Brecht "used the zany exaggeration of facial staging and acting devices to demonstrate socially relevant behavior" (Weber 1990, 59). Tynan especially believes that the wedding scene in act 3 of The Caucasian Chalk Circle showcases Brecht's appropriation of the American vaude ville tradition. Weber also recalls that Brecht referred to the Marx Broth ers' stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera as the model for the staging of the wedding scene. In the Ludovica scene in act 4, Weber thinks the actress who played the seductive innkeeper's daughter walked in a way imitating Mae West, and the actor who played the soldier Blockhead was instructed to display an expression resembling Buster Keaton. In addition, Weber remarks that Brecht employed musical theater pro cessions, pantomimes, and visual ideas that "showed the influence of Broadway techniques" (Weber 1990, 63). All this evidence shows that American performance tradition had a direct impact on The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Based on his teaching and research, James Lyon provides a detailed study of American movie components in The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Lyon believes that the underdog image of Azdak, who is believed to be the only Robin Hood figure in Brecht's plays, fits very well with the American movies of the time. He explains that "his [Azdak's] antics, both before and after being made judge, not to say his manner of speech, are much like those of Groucho Marx, whose films Brecht also knew" (Lyon 1999, 24 1). Similarly, unlike the heroines in Brecht's other plays, Grusha goes through development in her character. Lyon's American students find that this characteristic of Grusha is common with Ameri can conventional dramas. According to one of Lyon's students, the scene where Grusha's husband sits in the bathtub also recalls the similar scenes of Holl ywood westerns. Acknowledged by Brecht himself, the suspenseful plots in this play and others are influenced by Chaplin. The neat and happy ending of The Caucasian Chalk Circle is exceptional for Brecht, since all his other plays have open or ambiguous endings. Lyon attributes this to B�echt's knowledge that an American audience would · like upbeat entertainment right after World War II. According to Lyon ------------- 144 -------- ----- and his American students, other features, such as flashback, action scenarios, and the love scenes between Grusha and Simon, are unusual in Brecht's oeuvre of plays but are close to Hollywood prototypes. The detailed analysis of Weber and Lyon tells convincingly that Brecht con scientiously adopted American artistic elements into his writing of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. While actively adopting American performing poetics, Brecht also complied himself to American society for political and financial rea sons. As an exile fleeing from Nazi Germany, Brecht found in America a temporarily stable place to live and write after his changing "countries more often than his shoes" (cited in Fuegi 1 987, 86). However, Brecht's relationship with America turned out to be not as an "exile in para dise;' as he had expected (Clurman l 958, 228). First, America's long- held isolationism aggravated its fear of immigrants and emigres, who • were already vulnerable to social oppression. Second, the antipathy to communism, which started to gather momentum in the late l 930s, set the foreign-born artists based in Hollywood as targets of suspicion. As an "enemy alien;' Brecht, along with other German immigrants, was subject to "close surveillance by the FBI, a ten o'c lock curfew during the early years of the war . . . and spot check" in his early years of exile (Cook l 982, 72). Brecht's belief in Marxism and his association with the Soviet Union made his situation even worse. The climax came when he was called before the House Committee on Un- American Activities in 1947, where he was interrogated for his affiliation with the Commu- nist Party, his relationship with Hollywood, the political ideology of his works, and so on. Although Brecht was never charged with any crimes in America, his insecure situation made him sensitive and even alert to his social surroundings. Brecht's change of the prologue of The Caucasian Chalk Circle can be seen as an instance of his response to the political situation at the time. The Soviet Union and America were allies when the play was written, so the background of the prologue, the Soviet Union and land settle ment resolved with the "idealistic Marxist principles;' did not provoke unpleasant feelings (Lyon 1 999, 240). However, with the outbreak of the Cold War, the allies turned into enemies. Brecht then "instructed Eric Bentley to omit the entire scene from the 1 948 printed version, as well as from the world premiere production at Carleton College that same year" (Lyon 1 990, 240). Clearly, the ideological situation affected Bre cht's dramatic decision. Most of all, financial restrictions made survival the issue of para mount importance in Brecht's life. The poem "Hollywood," written --------- -- - 1 45 ------------- during this time period, best illustrates his situation: "Every day, to earn my daily bread / I go to the market where lies are bought / Hopefully / I take up my place among the sellers" (Brecht 1976, 382). Although the poem refers particularly to Brecht's experience in film-making, it can be applied to his life in general during his exile in America, includ ing his writing of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. In fact, there is no deny ing that financial reasons account for part of the motivation for Brecht to write The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Contracted with Broadway before the play was written, Brecht received $800 in advance royalty payments (Hayman 1984, 8 1; Lyon 1980, 124). The payment and contract made Brecht obliged to his patron as well as to the American audience. All these constraints were clearly felt in the creation of The Cauca sian Chalk Circle. In a diary entry written during this time, Brecht com plained about the tension between "art" and "contract" (Lyon 1999, 239). Lyon interprets Brecht's uncommon use of the word "art" as his "desire to follow his own instinct as a playwright" and the "contract" as his wish to win over the Broadway audience ( 1999, 239). While taking American theatrical elements willingly and the hostile treatment as a German exile reluctantly, Brecht did not resign himself to his target system in his cre ation. Rather, he resisted it with his own poetics and ideology. RESISTANCE Brecht's resistance against the American system came from two direc tions: the revolt against American politics and ideology, particularly those in the show industry, and the assertion of his own ideology and poetics. These two forces converged in Brecht's writing and rewriting; together they brought out the epic theater and Marxism, Brecht's hall mark, against the Broadway poetics and anti-Communism prevalent in America at the time. F irst of all, Brecht distanced himself from American life, except for his professional involvement with Broadway and Hollywood. Martin Esslin makes a perceptive observation in this regard: "while he [ Brecht] admired the productive achievements of the United States, he had no contact with his cultural climate; distrusted its politics, wrongly believing that after the war the U.S.A. would inevitably relapse into isolationism; and disliked its cooking" (Esslin 1984, 65). As a result, after Brecht came to the United States, "the American scene, which had dominated his early works, disappeared from his writing" ( 1984, 65). In fact, Brecht's indifference to American culture is reflected in his shunning not only American scenes and subject matters in his plays ------------- 146 ------------- but also American poetics as a man of letters. Frederic Ewen regards this as a limitation of Brecht and impugns him for it: That he [ Brecht ] did not in the course of his six years' stay deepen his knowledge of the profounder currents of American thought, and of the maj or literary figures of the past and the present century, and that he remained almost wholly indifferent to the literary upsurge of the twenties and the thirties, many of whose representatives were even then in Hollywood or nearby, reflects the limitation of his mind. That mind, otherwise so alert and so given to ready assimilation, would undoubtedly itself have been deepened by a more positive contact with such movements. He never really discovered Hemingway, Dos Passos, Dreiser, Farrell, Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman; nor for that matter any of the poets of that era. (Ewen 1 96 7, 384 ) However, I find that what Ewen considers a fault is actually Brecht's fight. It shows both his character and his attitude toward the target system. Being "at bottom essentially a dissident" and considering himself the "Einstein of the new stage form:' Brecht always tried hard to create in his own way rather than being influenced ( cited in Lyon 1 980, 8, 32). His relationship with his patrons is illustrative in this regard. Although The Caucasian Chalk Circle was the only play that Brecht contracted with Broadway, Brecht broke up with both of his patrons, Broadway and Luise Rainer, the Australian-born Hollywood actress who initiated the project and secured the contract for him. To Rainer, his immediate patron, for whom Brecht intended to write the play, Brecht did not particularly accommodate himself. Shortly after the writ ing started, the two of them began to clash. On the one hand, Rainer simply found Brecht hard to get along with; on the other, once Brecht started writing, he no longer kept his verbal promise to write the hero ine for Rainer but followed his own pursuit. By the time he finished the first draft of the play in June 1 944, their relationship had become so strained that Rainer withdrew from the play. The end of the cooperation thus completely released Brecht from the obligation to write for Rainer. Brecht took an equally uncompromising attitude with his profes sional patrons in Hollywood and on Broadway, from whom Brecht earned his bread, as Lyon depicts: Nor did Brecht have a reputation for doing things on anyone's terms but his own. If he had asked Reyber about the conventions of Holly wood film writing, chances are he would have ignored them anyway. Convinced of his own superiority as a writer, he wanted to change public taste, not pander to it. ( Lyon 1 980, 50-51 ) ------------- 1 47 ------------- The same was true of his attitude toward Broadway. Although Brecht's own response to the detraction that he had not compromised enough was that he felt exactly the opposite, John Fuegi shares Lyon's opinion on Brecht's insubordination (Fuegi 1 987, 90-9 1 ). In fact, Lyon believes that "from 1 936 till the end of his American exile [ Brecht] appeared to be uncompromising in his view;' and that that was the reason that caused his failure on the American stage ( Lyon 1 980, 1 3). I believe that Brecht did compromise, yet not only was his compro mise insubstantial, but he also gradually backed away from his initial compromise and returned to his principles. The transformation of the character Grusha is a case in point. Katja, the early version of Grusha, was originally modeled on Luise Rainer. However, ten days after Brecht sent Rainer the first draft, he began to envision his heroine differently: "She should be artless, look like Brueghel's Dulle Griet, a beast of burden. She should be stubborn instead of rebellious, placid instead of good, dogged instead of incor ruptible, etc., etc." (cited in Hayman 1 984, 8 1 ). Following his own liking, Brecht started to modify the character until he finally recast her into a new figure by the time Rainer relinquished the role. According to Lyon, the original Katja was much nicer and better suited to the American audience, while Grusha was "less saccharine and more obtuse, a charac ter that bore the stamp of the retarded development of her class" ( Lyon 1 980, 1 27}. In fact, Brecht made his character so unappealing to the audience that he even used the word "sucker" to describe her. Brecht thus defied the stereotype of the heroines on the Broadway stage and portrayed a character as what he intended her to be. The contract for The Caucasian Chalk Circle did not bind Brecht. Although it restricted him in the beginning, he managed to break away from it and wrote on his own terms. BRECHT's POETICS AND I DEOLOGY Generally speaking, epic theater and Marxism, as Brecht's trademark in poetics and ideology, pervade his creation. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Brecht writes with distinctive features of them not only to resist the target system but also to rewrite Li's play to transform it into his own. In terms of rewriting and translation, Brecht asserted his subjectiv ity and creativity by flaunting his poetics and ideology. In dramaturgy, the epic theater and the V-effect are generally acknowledged as the most representative features of Brecht. In contrast to the Aristotelian dramatic tradition, epic theater is characterized by ------------- 1 48 ------------- its dynamic depiction, its resort to the reason rather than the feelings of the audience, and the goal of education over entertainment. Brecht employed these features in almost all his plays. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the epic theater can best be seen in its difference from Li's play. In Li's play, Li restores justice and peace to the world by letting the wrong be redressed. In other words, with the injustice removed, the world remains as it is. However, Brecht creates justice by disrupting the old order. As illustrated by his two cases, the world changes for the better by turning the old standard upside down. This difference between Li's "static" and Brecht's "dynamic" depiction of the world parallels Bre cht's contrast between Aristotelian drama and epic theater. The principle of appealing to the reason rather than the feelings of the audience can be best seen by Brecht's "awarding" the child to the adoptive mother rather than the biological mother. It is one of the big gest alterations Brecht makes with Li's play. Within this revision Brecht radically changes the class and character of the heroines. From Li's beau tiful and weak middle-class woman who is at the mercy of fate, Brecht changes his heroine into a maid who is strong and takes control of her own fate. Li portrays Haitang as a sympathetic character. Her beauty and kindness make her likeable. She does not do anything particular to demonstrate her qualities but performs her duties devotedly. Moreover, she is victimized: in the beginning she is sold into prostitution because of her family situation, and later her child is taken from her by the evil first wife. In both situations she has no power over what happens to her. Haitang appeals to the emotion of the audience. The more she suffers, the more people feel sympathy for her. By contrast, Brecht depicts his heroine as a strong woman who elicits admiration rather than sympathy. He deliberately omits the physical features of Grusha to diminish any chance for the audience to be attracted to her because of her beauty. Fur thermore, he complicates the relationship between mother and moth erhood, posing for the audience a choice between blood relationship and moral character. In this way he achieves his purpose of asking the audience to use their powers of thought rather than their emotions to watch his play. The third characteristic of epic theater, that the play is to educate more than entertain the audience, is closely related to the second princi ple: reason over emotion. By letting the child go to the adoptive mother, Brecht reverses both the Chinese original play and social conventions to drive his point home that a true mother is determined by her motherly characteristics rather than the blood relationship. Moreover, because the gist of his rewriting is not the triumph of the true mother but the ------------- 1 4 9 - ------------ justice of society, he especially challenges his audience with the contro versial character and ruling of the judge and exposes the audience to a new perspective on law and justice. A morally blemished judge does not necessarily make a bad judge. Similarly, following the law does not always bring justice, and breaching the law does not necessarily cause injustice. With the example of the two circumstances, the modern-day Soviet Union and medieval Georgia, Brecht confronts the conventional view of law and justice and puts forward his point that justice lies wher ever it best serves the needs of the people. Brecht's theoretical technique of Verfremdungseffekt, generally con sidered the core of Brecht's epic theater, is also prominent in the play. 3 As critics generally agree, the singer in The Caucasian Chalk Circle is one of the most noticeable symbols of the V-effect. Although the idea is believed to be inspired by the Chinese performing arts, Brecht's singer does not have a counterpart in Li's play. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, �the singer does not belong to any group on the stage, nor does he have an actual role in the plot. Rather, standing between the audience and the actors, he provides what cannot be performed by the actors or to make comments on the story throughout the play. This includes intro ducing the background and the progress of the story and giving voice to and externalizing the inner thoughts of the characters. In keeping with Brecht's own theory, this role breaks the illusion that what is on the stage is reality. The appearance of the singer constantly reminds the audience that they are watching a play. For instance, before Simon and Grusha enter the stage, the singer introduces them with the five-line song, "The city is still. I Pigeons strut in the church square. I A soldier of the Palace Guard / Is joking with a kitchen maid / As she comes up from the river with a bundle" ( Brecht 1 983, 1 3 1 ) . In traditional theater 3. The term is shortened by Fredric Jameson as V-effect and translated as defa miliarization effect, alienation effect, estrangement effect, or distancing effect. Its roots can be traced to Russian formalism, to Viktor Shklovsky's "priem ostranen niya" (the device of making strange), but it takes its inspiration from Chinese drama performance. According to Brecht, the Chinese play has the distinct V-effect in that "the artist never acts as if there were a fourth wall besides the three surrounding him. He expresses his awareness of being watched . . . . The audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator at an event which is really taking place" (Willett 1 964, 9 1 -92). However, the effect does not limit the actors and audi ence. Brecht thinks that it is achieved "also by the music (choruses, songs) and the setting (placards, film, etc.). It was principally designed to historicize the incidents portrayed" (Willett 1 964, 92). Precisely because it tends to distance itself from the audience, the V-effect is regarded as controversial by some critic�. -------------- 1 50 -------------- these lines, serving as stage instructions, are unseen by the audience. However, Brecht has the singer sing the lines to the audience to make them aware of the stage and to direct them to the play. At other places the singer supplies what cannot be performed, for instance, the inner thinking of a character, even the baby, who cannot speak. The singer also makes comments on behalf of the author or the audience. Thus, in the whole play the singer plays the role of the "trouble-maker:' He breaks the integrity of the play and constantly brings the audience back to their reality from the "reality" created by the play. In this way Brecht forces his audience to take a detached view of the play. Ideologically, against the currents of Broadway as well as American society, Brecht made his long-held belief in Marxism and antifascism evident in his writing. Although Lyon suggests that the background of the Soviet Union in the prologue can be a sign that Brecht appealed to his American audience because the Soviet Union entered World War I I a s America's ally a t the time of his writing, I argue that i t derives more from its association with Stalin than from the U.S.-Soviet friendship. Despite the fact that Brecht was not officially a Communist Party member and had conflicts with the orthodox Marxism doctrines, he was, or at least he considered himself, a veteran Marxist. From the mid l 920s, when he was exposed to and became interested in Marxism, until his death in 1956, Brecht's most important political thought was Marx- · ism. As a strong opponent of bourgeois society, Brecht believed that Marxism provided "a new [and] critical science of bourgeois society" and at the same time "a practical theory" for the proletarian revolution to overthrow it (Kellner 1997, 284). Antifascism does not stand separate from Marxism in Brecht's political thought. Rather, he saw the two com bined in that the Nazi group, representing the interests of industrialists and the bourgeoisie, stood opposed to the working class and exploited the people. Therefore, in his writing during his exile, the two political thoughts are usually fused. Although The Caucasian Chalk Circle is not a noted antifascist or Marxist work, it necessarily bears marks of Marxism and anti-Nazism. On the one hand, the war-torn setting in medieyal Georgia and the two authoritarian rulers easily remind readers of Germany under Hit ler's control, the land from which Brecht fled for his exile; on the other hand, the class division and struggle in the play is the biggest signifier of Marxist thought. The two major characters-Grusha and Azdak-both come from the proletarian class, and their opposites-the governor's wife, the grand duke, doctors, and landlords-all belong to the bour geoisie. The two classes form a distinct contrast. W hile the bourgeoisie ------------- 1 51 ------------- are lazy, hypocritical, greedy, and lifeless, the working class, represented by Grusha and Azdak, are full of life and love. The latter group may not be perfectly "good;' but they are much better people than their bour geois counterparts. Grusha is kind, loving, and altruistic, in contrast to the cold, cruel, and _selfish governor's wife. Azdak is happy-go-lucky and above-board compared to his cunning and hypocritical bourgeois customers. The class division forms the basic contradiction of The Cau casian Chalk Circle and reaches its climax in the dispute over the child in court. Motivated by this ideological message, Brecht changes the core plot-two women claiming one child-into a class struggle. Darko Suvin expresses similar thinking when he states, " The tug-of-war between the biological upper-class mother and the plebeian 'social mother' over the Noble Child is an exemplum, standing for a decision which social orien tation shall prevail as the parent of posterity, future ages" (Suvin 1989, 165). In this view, the center of the struggle, the child, represents not only a child but also the future of society. To the governor's wife and her group, the child is closely related to the property they want to repos sess and is thus a tool to reproduce their bourgeois life. The immediate benefit of having the child back is to inherit the wealth of the governor. In the long run, it confirms their social status and interests and conse quently continues their bourgeois rule. By contrast, Grusha wants to have the child not out of material consideration but out of love. Yet, with the symbolic meaning of the child, her claim for him is not only for the good of the child but also a claim for her class. By taking the child from the governor's wife, she annuls the latter's chance of inheriting the wealth and the continuation of the bourgeois life of their group. In this sense, Grusha's act is revolutionary. Her victory represents the victory of the working class for her time and the future. CONCLUSI ON The perspective of translation and rewriting, especially Tymoczko's met onymic translation approach, allows us to take a better look at the inter relationship between creative writing and translation in Brecht's case. Brecht was both a writer and a translator. The two roles are interrelated. Writing and rewriting were his way of translating, and vic.e versa. In this writing/translation, he challenged traditional translation concepts of "equivalence" and "faithfulness" by forming a dynamic relationship with the source and target systems. He transposed and transformed, portions of both systems to construct his own. In other words, by performing ------------- 15 2 ------------- metonymic translation strategy, Brecht creatively turned t ranslation into his creation. The Caucasian Chalk Circle is not the only work among Brecht's oeuvre that manifests features of translation. Good Woman of Szech uan, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, and others all attest to his talent as a rewriter and a translator. Brecht's unique way of writing provokes much controversy among critics: while some accuse him of being a "plagiarist ;' others validate it as his characteristic. Brecht's major critic and t ranslator, Eric Bentley, thinks that " [ c]ritics . . . fail to note how Brecht made his borrowings his own" (Bentley 2008, 358). In a similar vein, Fredric Jameson takes plagiarism as Brecht's "mode of produc tion:' He explicates: Yet in the sense in which it has been affirmed that every thing in Brecht is plagiarism in one way or another-whether from past or present, from other people or the classics-the Grundgestus also suggests the uniqueness of some Brechtian "mode of production" in which there is always a preexisting raw material that requires a reworking based on an interpretation. (Jameson 1 998, I 05) While regarding Brecht's characteristic way of writing as a way of trans lating in general, I think the distinction of The Caucasian Chalk Circle is its close relationship with both the source and target systems. From Walter Benjamin's point of view, we can see that Brecht's work gives Li Xingdao's Chinese s�urce an "afterlife". By partially t ranslating Li's play and the Chinese classical drama, Brecht made the famous story of two mothers claiming one child as well as Chinese poetics l ive on in modern Western society. Yet more prominently, as translated literature, under stood from the perspective of descriptive translation studies, Brecht's work became part of the target system-American culture and society and impacted the l;tter. 4 Although it took decades for Brecht to achieve belated success with The Caucasian Chalk Circle in America, in the long run it fulfills Bre cht's aim to "conquer" its target system. The play script, which Brecht wrote initially for Broadway, was not staged as it was expected. When it was finally performed by Carleton College ( Northfield, Minnesota) in 4. Gideon Toury in his Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond writes explicitly that "translations are facts of target cultures; on occasion facts of a special status, sometimes even constituting identifiable (sub)system of their own, but of the target culture in any event" (20 1 2, 29). -------------- 1 53 -------------- 1 948, it attracted only a small audience on account of being "too left wing, too risque, too avant-garde, and in some instances, simply to·o boring" (Connelly 1 997, 97). Unsurprisingly, the "epic theater" suffered immediate rejection due to its failure to compromise itself for the target audience. However, today The Caucasian Chalk Circle is one of Brecht's most staged plays in the United States. The epic theater has become one of his important legacies and is widely discussed and cited in American art. Brecht produced deep and far-reaching influence on the American theater, as Carl Weber comments: Even during the slump of the 1 980s, however, Brecht maintained his position as one of the four most frequently produced playwrights in translation, in company with Moliere, Ibsen, and Chekhov. He also is the only German dramatist who has gained a permanent position in the American professional repertoire. Neither the German classics Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Buchner, nor any of their successors have achieved a comparable status. (Weber 1 997, 349) The playwrights Brecht influenced include Tony Kushner, Robert Schenkkan, George C. Wolfe, Anna Deavere Smith, and others (Weber 1 997, 353). Visual artists such as Andy Warhol, Dan Graam, Hans Haache, and Martha Rosier have referred to Brecht or his epic theater in their writings. Famous writers and critics such as Roland Barthes, Michael Fried, Clement Greenberg, Herbert Marcuse, and others paid much attention to his poetry and theater as well (Glahn 2006, 29). Eva Goldbeck analyzed Lehrstiick in detail, and Mordecai Gorelik dis cussed the "epic theater" at length in his influential 1 940 book New Theatres for Old (Glahn 2006, 30). Among others, Rainer Fassbinder is a notable filmmaker whose direction followed Brecht's device of the "alienation effect:' All these examples show the impact of Brecht on American culture. Brecht's Marxist beliefs did not present an obstacle to his American audience either; audiences not only accepted it but took it as his hall mark. It turned out that it benefited him rather than damaged him. In his book Brecht in Exile, Bruce Cook notes: In America, especially during the sixties and early seventies, when Brecht was fi r mly established here, an enthusiasm for his work became a kind of badge of radicalism, a sign that you favored free speech, opposed the war in Vietnam and the Nixon administration. He was at least part of the package-and at the most, to some, a touchstone of radical authenticity. (Cook 1 982, 2 1 7) ------------- 1 54 ------------- Thus, instead of being converted or ignored, Brecht was recognized and remembered by the American people for his distinctive difference. Also, with his play Brecht throws in a new perspective in the rela tionship between law and justice. Adapting Li Xingdao's play provides Brecht a per fect device to illustrate his views on law and justice. Fol lowing the same device of the chalk circle, Brecht exemplifies with his play that diversion/digression from the law rather t han adherence to it produces justice. But to Brecht the reason that diversion is made is the key. W hen corrupt judges ruin the law and justice, one mus·t hope, as in the Chinese play, that fair-minded judges like Bao Zheng will overrule them. However, we see Brecht's view emerge in his adaptation of the play that Bao Zheng is not necessarily ideal. With the compli cated relationship between law and justice, Brecht deliberately designs the "evil" character, Azdak, to achieve justice by distorting law in an unjust society. There is no doubt that Brecht's idea on law and justice is uncon ventional. It does not fit the American circumstance during his time of exile. As Michael Freeman points out, Brecht was in some ways ahead of his time. There is no way that in the United States (or for that matter in Britain or Germany) a court would h ave cemented a fostering relationship over one based on a blood tie. There is still a reluctance to do so. Even today, we attach such an i mportance to the genetic that we see as "real" relationships where the links are tenuous, and as a result, put parentage over parenting. (Free man 1 999, 208-9) Nevertheless, in The Caucasian Chalk Circle the split between law and justice does not suffer any changes in performance on the American stage; instead, these changes become its feature and are welcomed. In fact, the fictional legal case established by Brecht-the child goes to his adoptive mother rather than his biological mother-becomes a source for study by Professor Martha in her course on family law at Harvard Law School (Lyon 1999, 245). As literature extends reality, Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle adds a new dimension to our understanding of law and justice and other social and political issues. More important, it achieves Brecht's goal in his life and career: to change the world by changing people. Today, with its wide performance and popularity in America and other countries, The Caucasian Chalk Circle makes a dif ference to the world. ------------- 155 ------------- REFERENCES Benjamin, Walter. 1 992. The Task of the Translator. Pages 7 1 -82 in The ories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. Edited by Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bentley, Eric. 2008. Bentley on Brecht. 3rd ed. Evanston, Ill.: Northwest ern University Press. Berg-Pan, Renata. 1 975. Mixing Old and New Wisdom: The "Chinese" Source of Brecht's Kaukasischer Kreidekreis and Other Works. The German Quarterly 48:204-28. Brecht, Bertolt. 1 976. Poems 1 91 3-1 956. Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. New York: Methuen. --. 1 983. Two Plays by Bertolt Brecht. Translated by Eric Bentley. New York: New American Library. 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Freeman, Michael. 1 999. Truth and Justice in Bertolt Brecht. Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 1 1: 1 97-2 1 4. Fuegi, John. 1 972. The Essential Brecht. Los Angeles: Hennessy & Ingalls. --. 1 987. Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, according to Plan. Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press. ------------- 1 5 6 ------------- Gary, Ronald. 1962. On Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Pages 15 1-56 in Brecht: A Collection of Critical Essays. Edited by Peter Demetz. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Glahn, Philip. 2006. The "Brecht Effect": Politics and American Postwar Art. Afterimage 34.3:29-32. Hayman, Ronald. 1984. Bertolt Brecht: The Plays. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble. Jameson, Fredric. 1998. Brecht and Method. London: Verso. Kellner, Douglas. 1997. Brecht's Marxist Aesthetic. Pages 28 1-95 in A Bertolt Brecht Reference Companion. Edited by Siegfried Mews. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood. Lefevere, Andre. 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Frame. London: Routledge. Li, Xingdao. 1954. The Story of the Circle of Chalk: A Drama from the Old Chinese. Translated by Frances Hume. London: Rodale. Lyon, James K. 1980. Bertolt Brecht in America. Princeton : Princeton University Press. --. 1999. Elements of American Theatre and Film in Brecht's Cauca sian Chalk Circle. Modern Drama 42:238-46. Nakata, Wakaba. i:p 0J gij; 11t. 2001. 8 * " A 1:xJ i1& $ " (( 'iµ foJ ".:t-l±J: � m · 1# :L $ )) � J"L ilB (( � li h c » ( A Japanese Dagang Story, Trying the Biological Mother and the Step Mother and the Yuan Play Hui Lan Ji). '.9� ffil ;£ � iW·�Q Foreign Literature Review 2: 136-43. Qu, Delai. all 1/5 %. 2002. * r JL; tj�Jiillj (( � lih c )) (:!{] ;;,K 1)JJ! f0J M!& (On the Issue of the Origin of the Yuan Play Hui Lan Ji). tt ii � :E:ll f!ff7E H:,. -=j::5 Journal of A ncient Books Collation and Studies 3: 16- 19. Shih, Chung-Wen. 1976. The Golden Age of Chinese Drama: Yuan Tsa Chu. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Suvin, Darko. 1989. Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle and Marxist Figur alism: Open Dramaturgy as Open History. Pages 162 -75 in Critical Essays on Bertolt Brecht. Edited by Siegfried Mews. Boston: G. K. Hall. Tatlow, Antony. 1977. The Mask of Evil: Brecht's Response to the Poetry, Theatre and Thought of China and Japan. Las Vegas: Peter Lang. Toury, Gideon. 20 1 2. Descriptive Translation Studies-and Beyond. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in a Postcolonial Context: Early Irish Literature in English Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome. Weber, Carl. 1990. Vaudeville's Children and Brecht: The Impact of }\merican Performance Traditions on Brecht's Theory and Practice. Pages 55-71 in Essays on Brecht. Edited by Marc Silberman. The ------------- 157 ------------- Brecht Yearbook 1 5. College Park: Maryland: University of Mary land at College Park. --. 1997. Brecht and the American Theatre. Pages 339-55 in A Ber tolt Brecht Reference Companion. Edited by Siegfried Mews. West port, Ct.: Greenwood. Willett, John, ed. and trans. 1964. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. New York: Hill & Wang. Williams, G wyn. 19 5 4. Preface. Pages 5-10 In Li Xingdao, The Story of the Circle of Chalk: A Drama from the Old Chinese. Translated by Frances Hume. London: Rodale. Xiaoqing Liu is an assistant professor of Chinese at Butler Univer sity, Indiana, U.S. She earned her MA in translation studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and PhD in comparative lit- erature at the University of South Carolina. Her areas of interests are comparative litera ture, modern Chinese literature, translation studies, and gender studies. Her most recent publications include " From Larva to Butter fly: Sophia in Ding Ling's Miss Sophia's Diary and Coco in Wei Hui's Shanghai Baby;' in Asian Journal of Women's Studies (20 1 1 ), and "On the Dimension of Narrative: Zhang Ail ing's Self-Translation of Her Novel, Spring Sprout Song:' in Translation Quarterly (forth coming). Email: [email protected]. ------------- 1 5 8 -------------

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INTERVI EW translation speaks to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak translation editor Siri Nergaard and editorial board member Edwin Gentzler met with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak for an informal conversa tion during the 201 1 Research Symposium organized by the Nida School of Translation Studies in New York City (September 1 4). As one of the symposium's two principal lecturers, Spivak gave the speech "Gender and Translation in the Global Utopia," a transcribed version of which was pub lished in issue 1 of translation under the title "Scattered Speculations on Translation Studies." During the conversation that follows, Spivak explains how she under stands translation: she calls herself a "literalist" and explains that her for mula is "very careful literalism." She discusses the connections between creolization and translation as a question of class mobility. On a more personal note, Spivak talks about how she lives her life under two different teaching situations, one in the United States and the other in India, sug gesting that both the children of the superpower as well as the subaltern who accept wretchedness as normality "need to have their desires rear ranged" and understand the importance of the right to intellectual Labor, in two different ways. We also hear the stories behind Spivak's own work as translator ofJacques Derrida, Mahasweta Devi, and, more recently, A ime Cesaire's Season in the Congo. Finally, and very interestingly, Spivak explains how "translation is the most intimate act of reading": "something that one should not really call an 'I' is writing," and "taking the responsibil ity for the writing of the text," a sustained prayer to be haunted. NERGAARD: We are excited about your presentation today at the Nida Research Symposium. In your opinion, where is translation taking place, and what is translation today? ------------- 159 ------------- In addition to this, I would like you to tell why you started to ask yourself questions about translation. I guess your experiences both as a translator of several texts and your living in a continuous process of translation must be parts of the explanation. SPIVAK: I think when one uses the word translation, then one is looking in English-because you know in the major North Indian lan guages, you have the Sanskrit-origin word, which is anuvaada, which is "following-speech;' or you have tarjama, which is from the Arabic Parsi meaning "translation;' but also suggesting "biography" and "memoir;' a big source of loans for us-so to an extent before I even start talk ing about translation, I would want to undertake the impossible project of translating the word "translation" in all the languages of the world, going beyond its "latinitY:' We all know translation is transference, and we all know the Italian proverb about the translator as a traitor. But these are all "latinate" words, right? Do we know what happens to the concept when it begins to inhabit other words, other lingual memories? Therefore, when I talk about translation, I'm talking about an English word as a teacher of English because I love English. English is a supple language, and I'm talking about what is done at universities or what is done in tertiary systems of education; I think that translation should be done very well. I'm a literalist. I follow Aristotle in a very vulgar way, and Aristotle is teaching his creative writing class, Poetics, where he's talking not theory, but he's talking to people who are going to write trag edies to win competitions. W hat does he say? He says, "Be very careful, very good with mimesis and if poiesis happens it will come by tyche, "by chance." That is my formula here: very careful literalism. Because I'm a human being, I can't be perfectly literal, but also on the positive side if l really hit it, tyche will bring something beyond literalism. So that's where I am with translation. I believe you wanted me and I'm sorry my answer is so long because I didn't want to answer the implicit question-you wanted me to talk about creolization. That is not just something happening today because of diasporics; that is some thing that has happened forever. That is a phenomenon that has noth ing to do with translation studies as a discipline, nothing. Forever the servant has learned the master's tongue, not well, but well enough so that the master can understand and communicate. This oddly occurs in exogamy in which the wife learns the in-laws' tongue. In Vienna, I gave a talk where I talked about the wife in exogamy as the original dia sporic. It's not theorized. The Victorians brought in love. The artificiality of courtly love has nothing to do with this. It let us conveniently forget ------------- 1 60 ------------- female exogamy as the originary diaspora. Broaden this, and creoliza tion can be seen as the source of all the grammatized languages of the world. It's happening all the time, and you should think of that very much more as a model in practice. For example, I live in Washington Heights. I go into a grocery store, and I creolize Spanish because other wise the grocer can't talk to me. You know I have more power than he, but in that situation I'm a buyer, a customer; he's the server. If I don't realize the only language he speaks, I don't get served. That's something that's been happening all the time; that's not something that's happening just today. I just offered it because people seem completely blind to it as they talk about translation. NERGAARD: And this reveals maybe the connection between the relation that has always existed between creolization and translation. SPIVAK: It can be: class mobility. At the beginning of this process, when Dante chooses the curial creole, he chooses the aristocrats speak ing in court out of all the creoles. That's like access to translation; it was written in Latin in De vulgari eloquentia. But it's confined to class, and to an extent the women become honorary males, as it were. My sister is married to a Hindi speaker; our language is Bengali. My sister has a chemistry doctorate; she's just been nominated by the government of India in the spreading of science as the head of the advisory commit tee on gender and communication, and she's an extremely successful person. But she had to learn t h e language of her husband like a native. I love my brother-in-law, but his Bengali is not that good. This is an imperfect example, because Hindi is also the national language. It's a question of class mobility, and what connection is there? The same con nection as Dante told us in the thirteenth century: one is between gram matized languages, and the other is a survival technique. That's how I connect them. GENTZLER: In your talk earlier today you mentioned that you were a New Yorker, and we're here in New York today. New York is won derfully diverse, multilingual, multicultural, and multireligious, very dynamic. We're here on the tenth anniversary of 9/ l l . It strikes me as if the whole world is watching how New Yorkers move on, commemorate, and regenerate. You're also from Kolkata, which is also a wonderfully diverse multilingual, international city, with great filmmakers, dynamic political parties, and great diversity. How does the multilingual transla- -------- ----- 1 6 1 ------------- tion environment of these cities contribute to or underscore or impact your scholarly thinking about translation? SPIVA K: What happens is that my experience in the village schools teaches me how not to generalize when I'm at a place like this because my cultural difference from the landless illiterate "schedule" castes and tribes in my home state is greater than my cultural difference from you. They are Indians, so I have an affect that that's what informs me. This symposium started not because I wanted to do anything but because I was asked. I always wait for someone else to ask me. In the subaltern teacher-training endeavor also I was asked by a local activist, in 1986. I'm self-subsidized; I'm not corporately funded. In the beginning I told my students in Pittsburgh and Columbia, "I love you, you're my stu dents, but I need a dollar salary in order to carry out this big challenge: supplementing vanguardism, my greatest intellectual challenge. My mind is not on teaching you. And, because I'm the child of plain-living, high-thinking bourgeois parents, precisely because I don't want to work for you any more I feel that I have to work very well for you so that you will get your money's worth and pay good attention to what I'm saying." But then as the years passed I realized that at two ends of the spectrum I was doing pretty much the same thing because the children of the super power need to have their desires rearranged:-understand the right to intellectual labor-just as much as subalterns who accept wretchedness as normality also need to have their desires rearranged-and learn to practice intellectual labor after millennia of prohibition. I'm not doing good to anyone, I mean these people are not in any problematic situa tion; I'm teaching at both ends. Therefore, I think that's what makes me tick, and I don' t really see it as translating. I am with the language here, I don't just mean English, but the language of detrivializing the humani ties here, and I'm with the poetry of the decimal system there because there's no science stream in the local high schools so the rural students can't get into the mainstream. So they're two different idioms-bottom and top-that I have tried to internalize in my own way and not really succeeded. I've not succeeded at this end-I've been kicked upstairs, and I've not succeeded at that end because it's very hard to know what a subject is like after a millennium of cognitive damage. It's not a real answer to your question. You had wanted a more ethnocultural answer, but for that you' ll have to wait for my friend, Homi Bhabha. NERGAARD: Even ifwe say that the grounding problem of how words get their meaning suggests the necessary impossibility of translation, is ------------- 1 62 ------------- it still important to translate as a political act, as you have translated Mahasweta Devi? You introduce, you explain, and you accompany the translations with explanations. Is that a politically important act to do? SPIVAK: I think it's losing its importance as the translators are talk ing more and more about how important they are. Herbert Marcuse and Robert Paul Wolff's idea of repressive tolerance, Raymond Williams's idea of the oppositional being turned into alternative (as an adjective) that's what's happening with the powerful languages translating a lot of stuff I think translation is inevitable, and I think as far as what I did, no, I would not say these are political gestures. The only thing that was somewhat teacherly, not really political, was that I wanted not just to supply quick ways of learning culture, because culture can't be learned. And since very often writers are obliquely related to their so-called cul ture of origin, I gave a few notes. But in India this editor or reviewer for .Jndia Today, the Indian Time Magazine, right, says, "The translation is excellent except for Gayatri Spivak's sermonizing." See, so you think it's a political act, but the Indian upper-class thinks, the nonresident Indian "should keep quiet." So therefore, no, it wasn't a political act; it was just that I wanted these texts to be treated as texts for study rather than a quick way of learning culture without reading the history books. You· know what I mean? So, no, I don't think they were political in any broad sense. They were narcissistic. When I first read Derrida, I didn't know who Derrida was. I ordered his books in 1 967; I was twenty-five years old. I ordered De la grammatologie out of a catalog; I read it. I thought, "My God, this is a fantastic book:' And I thought: this guy is an unknown guy, I am a very young assistant professor at the University of Iowa, and I'll destroy myself if I write a book on this guy. I'd heard the University of Massachusetts Press was doing translation, so let me trans late. I thought I was being so practical. Also, my chair said, "What are you doing? You wrote a nice dissertation on Yeats. Why are you going off in the direction of this peculiar book?" He also didn't know. So I wrote a query letter that was so innocent that the University of Massachusetts Press said yes. So that is hardly a political act, number one. I said I won't translate unless I can write a monograph-sized introduction. When this scandal became known, J. Hillis Miller sold the contract to the Johns Hopkins Press without my knowledge. GENTZLER: The introduction is brilliant. -------------, 16 3 ------------- SPIVAK: It's now being translated into French as a separate docu- ment and twice into Chinese, once straight and once as Cliff's Notes. GENTZLER: Brilliant, brilliant. SPIVAK: I think that's so funny. GENTZLER: I learned more about Freud from your introduction to Of Grammatology than in any of my German courses. SPIVAK: How wonderful-you know what Paul de Man said. He had been my dissertation adviser. So I wrote the introduction, and I sent it to him, and he said to me, "Gayatri, this is three books. Why are you putting it into an introduction?" And I said, "Well, because it is my introduction:' But then with Mahasweta Devi, I started translating her because, in 1 98 1 Yale French Studies and Critical Inquiry had both asked me to contribute pieces: Yale French Studies on French feminism and Critical Inquiry on deconstruction. And I was an idiot; you know this is completely narcissistic stuff. I was thirty-nine or something, and like a fool, instead of stepping into the European enclosure, I said, "How can this be?" So for the sake of my "identitY:' I started translating Mahasweta Devi. Do you call this politics? Then the years passed by, and I began to discover her feudality. So with Chotti Munda and His Arrow, I put an end to it. This is just part of my life story. It's not seriously political; I think politics is more complicated. In the political you influence the policy makers, the decision makers. You think anybody cares? GENTZLER: May I ask a follow-up? You just finished translating Aime Cesaire's Season in the Congo, and there you have no introduc tion. Have your thoughts about the presentation of a translation as a book changed after the Devi experience, or is this a different publisher, a different editorial policy, or a different audience for your book? SPIVAK: You didn't hit the one word that I wanted-a different author, a different author: Aime Cesaire. I don't have to go forward to introduce him. GENTZLER: This is true. SPIVAK: I mean he himself was so tremendously active within and beyond Negritude, then his own political work in the Antilles, and ------------- 1 64 ------------- then all the wonderful writing on him. I didn't feel that I had to edu cate anyone in anything. I do have a short paragraph called "Words from the Translator." For me, that part had to be said because it was the dream of United Africa after Pan-Africanism, just after decolonization and Nkrumah's dream and Lumumba's dream-these were taken up by the others from within French-language imperialism because Aime Cesaire, you see this nation-state business-postimperialism rather than postcolonialism-was not focused on his own nation-state. Aime Cesaire tried to imagine the Congo in a way that Patrice Lumumba would see, and he also made it clear that it wasn't just the CIA or the U N withdrawing that killed Lumumba, but those Katangans within the Congo, with their minerals, etc., who wanted to go with general capital ism. Lumumba himself said he was against "tribalism." Capital has no country. I do have a sentence there where I talk about how one should look at that dream within which Nehru placed his India. But the dream failed. W hen I said this I forgot the double bind. I who always thinks about double binds forgot it because it was my own problem. I was born before Independence, and the disappointment of decolonization didn't . leave my generation because we had hoped with the enthusiasm of ado lescence. My colleague Bachir Diagne reminded me of the double bind and the perennial mode of "to come." I gave the task of the introducer to Bachir Diagne. So there is an introduction, but it is written by Bachir Diagne, who's from Senegal. GENTZLER: Lumumba is a great hero of mine, but I am also from that generation. I was shocked to learn-I teach a course on the Viet nam War, and I mention Lumumba as part of one of my talks on the United States' paranoia against liberation movements around the world, and none of my students knew who Lumumba was. I was just shocked. We have to reteach a new generation the international politics of the period. So your new translation is very well timed. It may extend the parameters of my teaching and maybe others as well. SPIVAK: Please include the "Words from the Translator" because there I really write as a person of that generation. GENTZLER : It's very political [ laughter]. SPIVAK: That is political. I sense you have another question. GENTZLE R: I am thinking about a love in translation question. ------------- 1 65 - - - - --------- SPIVA K: I want to see how you pose it. GENTZLER : How I pose it? SPIVA K: Pose was a very big question, a big word when I was at the University of Iowa, and we used to laugh because one of our co-teachers was always posing questions. So I want to see how you pose it. GENTZLER: I guess, hmmm, how do I phrase it . . . You say that trans lation is the most intimate act of reading. I think I agree. Sometimes my students say that they learn more about a text in my translation class than they did reading it in any Spanish or French literature class. You suggest that the translator has to surrender to the text, making choices more erotic than ethical. This strikes me as-I see this sort of Schleiermache rian ethics-the domesticating versus foreignizing binary so prevalent in translation circles; I see that as limiting a translator to fairly rational choices. I see your intimate act of translation as more of an individual choice, more of a visual choice, or more of a personal choice. Could you talk a little bit about this third avenue, this third way of translation? SPIVA K: I see. You are right, and I agree with you, that it would be an irrational decision. What I am doing is I am describing. I -am not giving a method. I am saying that translation is the most intimate act of reading, whatever you choose to do. Even as a bad translator, that is about as intimate that you can get. Haven' t you met people who cannot really get close to you, which is their misfortune. For me it would also be correct to say that reading is also the most intimate act of translation. It wouldn' t be a chiasmus. There would always be a difference. Yet they are a pair of dissimilar similars. And for some people, the intending subject always slips in, their misfortune; they can't give it up to the text. The interesting difference between this whole translation business, how good it is, etc. and the dismissal of reading-oh, get your Kindle, etc. is a global cultural lesson. We read when we were young, since there was no Xerox machine, no nothing, and it was always borrowing and going to lending libraries, national libraries. Karl Marx, in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1 844, copied pages and pages and pages. That way of reading is gone. That's okay. I am not saying bring it back. W hen the desire to translate grabs you, it is an unexpected thing that you wel come. You begin to feel, and the trouble is, this is so without guarantees, so without the ability to test, that people will claim it. It's too bad. People will always claim that they are doing this. You cannot do anything about ------------- 1 66 ------------- it. But you begin to feel that you are writing the text. This happened to me with Melanie Klein. I really began to feel as if-not that it was me but it was that the text was being written in the reading. It is not at all an identity-Melanie K lein/Gayatri Spivak-that kind of thing. I invite my students to think when I am teaching Marx, which I do, a thousand pages of Marx with the translation-it's not Marxism-I invite them at least to imagine, to take it out of history, as it were, and to imagine that there was a day when this stuff was not there. It's actually a contingent piece of writing. I mean, of course, being what I am, the historical must be considered, but there again, I very much, I have this sense, and with Aime Cesaire, in that one scene where Lumumba is dying and there is the blood coming up and in that foam he sees outside of himself into dawning Africa, right, the rosiness. That particular scene, which is of course incorrect because that is not how he died, but it is a play. I must have, but it is not living that scene, because that would be this kind of narcissism that one works against, but I felt again and again that I, that something that one should not really call an "I;' is writing. That's the intimacy that I am talking about. Taking the responsibility for the writ ing of the text. This can't be given as a method, nor as a choice. Even if you teach it, you should not give it as a prescription that I am giving. I just wrote a little piece on loss for Seagull Books, who brought out the Aime Cesaire t ranslation, for their catalogue, and the biggest thing about humanities teaching when it really is humanities teaching is that you are teaching people to play something, to philosophize if philoso phy, and to read if literature. You do history of this and history of that and other things, but they are only other models. The main thing that you are teaching is to play something: one's self as an instrument. And there are some who surprise you as being the ones who can be taught to play to lose. Because that is how one teaches. Playing to lose. Because qui gagne perd. This is like an abyss. Because if who wins loses, then is winning losing, losing winning, losing one's desire to win and all of that stuff, is playing to lose winning? This doesn't end. It is something that you kind of give in to, right? Rather than think about incessantly. So for them, the philosophers of the future, we who are j ust servants of our students, earning a living teaching, we live in that hope and this intimate act of reading, which is really a prayer to be haunted by the spirit of the writing, not the person. How can I describe it? I am a complete atheist; I am a complete nonbeliever in the soul, but this is about as close to this effect of grace that one can get to. It is the intuition of the t ranscenden tal, which, unless you have it, you cannot mourn and you cannot judge, ------------- 1 6 7 ------------- and that is what is caught by this definition of intimacy. It's not a defini tion; it is a description. NERGAARD AND GENTZLER: Thank you very much. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor at Columbia, has recently been awarded the Kyoto Prize for Thought and Ethics (20 1 2) . Her most recent publication is An Aesthetic Education in an Era of Globaliza tion ( Harvard University Press, 201 2). She is a translator of the works of Derrida and Mahasweta Devi and is the author of Death of a Discipline (2003), Other Asias (2008), and A Critique of Postcolonial Reason ( 1 999). She founded The Pares Chandra and Sivani Chakravorty Memorial Project for Rural Education in 1 997, to train teachers among the landless illiterate and to return to modern indigenous agriculture, in a rural district of West Bengal, India, continuing work that she had started doing in 1 986. She is at work on a book on W E. B Du Bois. Email: gcspiv@ gm ail.corn. ------------- 168 -------------

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translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17530

[ { "Alternative": "Call for Papers", "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": "The issue will explore the different processes of translation that occur in the continuous negotiation of and in spaces and places.The initial idea is that all translation takes place in spaces and is both conditioned by space and able to promote or provoke changes inthe perception and the use of spaces.", "Format": "application/pdf", "ISSN": "2240-0451", "Identifier": "17530", "Issue": "spring", "Language": "en", "NBN": null, "PersonalName": "Federico Montanari", "Rights": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "Source": "translation. a transdisciplinary journal", "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": "Call for Papers", "Type": "Text.Serial.Journal", "URI": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation", "Volume": "2", "abbrev": null, "abstract": null, "articleType": "Articles", "author": null, "authors": null, "available": null, "created": "2022-03-17", "date": null, "dateSubmitted": "2022-03-17", "doi": null, "firstpage": null, "institution": null, "issn": null, "issue": null, "issued": "2022-03-16", "keywords": null, "language": null, "lastpage": null, "modified": "2022-03-17", "nbn": null, "pageNumber": "169-172", "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": null, "url": null, "volume": null }, { "Alternative": null, "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": null, "Format": null, "ISSN": null, "Identifier": null, "Issue": null, "Language": null, "NBN": null, "PersonalName": null, "Rights": null, "Source": null, "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": null, "Type": null, "URI": null, "Volume": null, "abbrev": "ttj", "abstract": null, "articleType": null, "author": "Federico Montanari", "authors": null, "available": null, "created": null, "date": "2013", "dateSubmitted": null, "doi": null, "firstpage": "169", "institution": null, "issn": "2240-0451", "issue": "spring", "issued": null, "keywords": null, "language": "en", "lastpage": "172", "modified": null, "nbn": null, "pageNumber": null, "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": "Call for Papers", "url": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/download/17530/15421", "volume": "2" } ]

CALL F O R PA PERS SPEC I AL ISSUE: SPACES AND PLACES O F TRANSLATION Guest editors: Sherry Simon (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) and Federico Montanari (University of Bologna, Italy) Publication: 20 I 5 The issue will explore the different processes of translation that occur in the continuous negotiation of and in spaces and places. The initial idea is that all translation takes place in spaces and is both conditioned by space and able to promote or provoke changes in the perception and the use of spaces. The main attention will focus on places in space, mainly physical, architectonic places such as squares, official buildings, places devoted to religious cult, museums, schools, and the like, but also specific translation zones defined by a relentless to and-fro of language, by an acute consciousness of translational relation ships, and by the kinds of informal translation practices characteristic of multilingual urban areas, banlieues and slums, infra- and inter-urban boundaries, scenarios of social conflict and change. It is also impossible to ignore virtual spaces, as they today increasingly define the reality of all living spaces as transactional and plural. A particularly intense locus of translation are borders, refugee camps, sites where refugees and immigrants arrive, as well as passage ways, crossing points, and mediation places in postconflict situations (see, e.g., examples from postconflict countries of the former Yugoslavia such as Bosnia and Kosovo), and sites of conviviality that are staked out in hostile cities, sites such as railway stations where migrants gather. In the recent past we have seen different examples on how spaces and places are vulnerable to natural disasters (tsunami, Katrina, Sandy, ------------- 1 6 9 ------------- earthquakes in Italy). These improvised catastrophes causes traumas arid force people to reinterpret their lives and their spaces. We will consider the following main areas of investigation: 1. Physical spaces and their traversing Emblematic city spaces with historical resonance as sites of translation, rewriting, negotiation of shared meanings and memories. Practices of mapping that account for translation zones and language flows. What kind of maps can reveal successive overlays, expungings, and interactions of languages, and how can maps take account of virtual spaces? 2. Places of worship - The transformation of cities where places of different worship cohabit. 3. Spaces and places of migration 4. Spaces and places of conflict · Postwar places (e.g., Kosovo). Social conflicts in urban areas (banlieues, slums). Natural catastrophes (Katrina, Sandy, earthquake). DuE DATES _ Abstracts (ea. 300 words) or drafts can be sent to: • Sherry Simon: [email protected] • Federico Montanari (federico.mont@gmail .corn). When submitting, please consider the possibility of including videos and photos; in general we encourage submissions that consider other forms of expression than the written language. • Deadline for submitting abstracts is September 30, 201 3. • Deadline for submitting completed articles is December 3 1 , 20 14. For additional information, email Cristina Demaria at cristina.demaria2 @unibo.it. ------------- 1 70 ------------- THE JOURNA L translation is a new international peer-reviewed journal published twice a year. The journal, a collaborative initiative of the Nida School ofTrans .lation Studies and leading translation studies scholars from around the world, takes as its main mission the collection and representation of the ways translation is a fundamental elemt:nt of cultures' transformation in the contemporary world. Our ambition is to create a new forum for the discussion of translation by offering an open space for debate and reflec tion on post-translation studies. translation moves beyond disciplinary boundaries toward transdisciplinary discourses on the translational nature of societies, which are increasingly hybrid, diasporic, border crossing, intercultural, multilingual, and global. Translation studies is enjoying unprecedented success: translation has become a fecund and frequent metaphor for our contemporary intercultural world, and scholars from many disciplines-including linguistics, comparative literature, cultural studies, anthropology, psy chology, communication and social behavior, and global studies-have begun investigating translational phenomena. The journal starts from the assumptions that translational processes are fundamental to the creation of individual and social histories and to the formation of subjective and collective identities-that is, to the dynamic transmission and preservation of culture(s). From here the journal invites reflection and exchange on translation's role in memory making through the representing, performing, and recounting of per sonal and collective experiences of linguistic and cultural, psychic and physical displacement, transfer, and loss. ------------- 1 7 1 ------------- www.translation.fusp.it translation is published both as print and electronically, with the two versions conceived together, in constant dialogue, stimulating reflection, discussion, and debate in an open intersemiotic space where all forms and channels of communication are welcome. The journal's online version is not simply a copy of the paper ver sion but much more. There you find reviews, video interviews, shorter articles, debates, and news. Whereas the paper version is English only, we desire to open up opportunities for articles beyond English with the online version. With this translingual aspiration, we wish to create a space for continuous translations, language encounters, and hybridity. SUBMISSIONS We accept article proposals for both the journal's paper version and website. We welcome articles of various length and format in both media (paper and web). Texts that consider other forms of expression than the written language-multimodal texts-are also welcome. To submit articles, go to http://translation.fusp.it/article-proposals. SUBSCRI PTIONS Subscriptions can be purchased for two issues in one calendar year. Once the subscription has been confirmed, the most recent issue in the current calendar year will be shipped to your address; the next issue, when published, will be sent to you when ready. The subscription access will be granted to both online PDF downloadable versions and extra contents such as the right to post comments on the biog. To subscribe either as an individual or an institution, go to http:// translation.fusp.it/subscriptions. ------------- 1 72 --- ---------- Musa Dube For us Africans who come from largely oral communities yet in a historical context where the first written stories-whether they are cul tures, history, religion, language-were written by Westerners, espe cially during colonial times, it has been excruciatingly painful to read the anthropological record, the travelers story, the missionary record: for the most part, one cannot recognize herself. It is a different story, precisely because it is an African story that is grafted into and inter preted within a Western culture. Unfortunately, the colonial context, which entailed the collection of the stories of the Other, who is differ ent, was a time when the Other was already despised. Consequently the refraction of our stories was informed not only by Western cultures but by racism and Eurocentricism. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak I am saying that translation is the most intimate act of reading, whatever you choose to do. Even as a bad translator, that is about as intimate that you can get. . . . When the desire to translate grabs you, it is an unexpected thing that you welcome. You begin to feel, and the trouble is, this is so without guarantees, so without the ability to test, that people will claim it. It's too bad. People will always claim that they are doing this. You cannot do anything about it. But you begin to feel that you are writing the text. Loe Pham Yet far from being homogenous, the multilingual and multicul tural territorial state is invariably split between mainstream and ethnic cultures, and translation thus plays a key role in providing the condi tion for the flow ofjustice across ethnic differences. Translation consti tutes the very means whereby ethnic subjects of justice speak and are spoken to. In this way, the political dimension of justice . . . intertwines with the problematic of translation. The problematic at hand is, I argue, the translation of distributive justice into local language and culture, a translation of the material into the cultural, if the material is to be accepted as justice.

Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17533

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Introduction Dear Reader, I am glad and proud to present translation's third issue: it is growing, we are surviving despite several difficulties, and we are able to present a varied content that continues to explore the many different aspects of the phenomena of translation. Both our reader ship and authorship are increasing, and we are continuing to accom plish our ambition of being transdisciplinary. This does not in any way mean that we have reached our goal: we shall improve, grow, learn, change- always trying to be better. The better, as r see it, stands in a continuous eagerness of asking new questions about translation, never being satisfied with the answers we seem to have achieved. We need new questions, new people asking them, and I am sure we will discover new forms of translation where we didn't imagine it took place place, in unexpected fields and disciplines, among unexpected geographies and subjectivities, in unexpected layers of people's social and psychological lives. This issue repre sents translation's next step in this direction. The articles can be assembled in two main groups: one fo cusing on translation beyond written texts, as performance, as genre, as a means of cultural domination and liberation; the other address ing Bible translation. We begin with Kanchuka Dharmasiri's article that brings translation out on the streets, to social life and daily interactions of people, a place where I in the future would like to see more research. r n her streets of Sri Lanka, in postcolonial and alternative perform ance spaces, we find theatre, we find Brecht, in actual translational practices performed by political theatre groups of which she is "probing the politics of translations that occur in the margins." The kind of translation Dharmasiri is describing is "tran C") screative," envisaging a different translation model for theatre, where the director and translator are the same person. Transcreation ---- � generates "multiple meanings and constructlsl multiple realities," ---- C ·.::; C 7 going beyond a one-way process, demystifying the power of the Western text, the Western logos, and also revealing "the hybridity of the Western text." Chandrani Chatterjee delivers a "rethinking of genre and translation" in this issue's second article, arguing that the relation between the two has not received its due attention in translation studies. With reference to the so called Bengal renaissance she con vincingly demonstrates how the translation of literary genre is a par ticularly apt example of cultural translation, and how the "translations from the European languages into the native tongue affords many more interesting instances of cultural translation, ne gotiation, cross-overs, and departures, particularly with respect to a reconfiguration of generic boundaries." Quoting Bakhtin, Chat te1jee sees the phenomenon of the translation of a genre as the novel in Calcutta as the "answering word," as "active understanding," to analyse in the backdrop of the colonial encounter. A new genre, she asserts. "became the site of a dual struggle against the constraints of tradition on the one hand and the hegemonic tendencies inherent in the process of colonialism on the other." With a parallel to what we can read in Paul A. Soukup's ar ticle in this issue, Chatterjee considers the newly introduced printing press through the interesting example of the Bat-tala printers, show ing its decisive role in "translational departures": genre is transcre ated, reading habits change, oral and aural traditions are transformed, visual aesthetics is renovated. This focus on the inter relations between technology, materiality in general, iconography, and translation very welcome in this journal, since they remind us that translations emerge, exist, and change in socially and histori cally detem1ined situations, and can not in any way be reduced to written, textual elements. In the next article Edwin Gentzler analyses translation of Native American Literature, and again, as in the two preceding ar ticles, the setting is colonial and imperial. The translations he speaks about are "hidden," taking place "out-of-sight, behind the scenes, sous ratour or under erasure," in private intimate spheres, among - family members, in oral and often whispered forms, and, frequently involving trauma and repressed memory. Gentzler is taking an im portant step towards the necessary archaeology of the plurality of --- languages, expressions, voices, stories, and dances that have been --- i,j' u.) 8 repressed by the powerful US-English-only policy. Drawing upon Arnold Krupat's term of "anti-imperial translation," and works gen erally not included in translation scholars' references-but in which translation is everywhere present-Gentzler goes beyond the bor ders of both traditional terminology and the limits of what transla tion is. He discusses it in relation to conversion, elimination, and domestication and gives examples of where we can find imperial as well as anti-imperial translations. The anti-imperial translation characterized by a multidirectional flow reminds us of the transcre ative multi-meaning translations described by both Dharmasiri and Chatterjee in the two former articles, thus creating intertextual con nections and suggestions. The reader will notice that Gentzler's article appears differ ent from the others, in that it is broken up to parts and sections, in teracting with other forms of texts, both written and iconic. Gentzler and I have been discussing how we could textually and visually cre ate a more open text that in its manifestation is translative, transcre ative, and intersemiotic, and with our publisher's help we have tried to give a visual form to these ideas. The side bars, links, images, boxes, and even an article inside the article, create a kind of palimpsest that suggests nonlinear, non homogeneous, non mono lingual ideas and ideals. It is our wish to generate a new and open text space, that is already intentionally interacting with new forms of writing and translating that can be developed further in the elec tronic space of the journal's online version. The various internet links will obviously get their complete realisation when they appear on line. Gentzler's article should also be read as an example of the kind of articles that we very much appreciate in this journal. The three articles devoted to very different aspects regarding Bible translation represent our journal's interest in investigating the deeply relevant question of the translation of religious/holy texts. It is our impression that we are still in search of a language to study this kind of texts-the most translated texts of all times-limited by the contradiction that they are at the same time considered the most untranslatable of texts, and that we still need to overcome both (Y) prejudices and taboos surrounding them. To achieve this a transdis ----- ciplinary approach is no doubt necessary: holy scriptures scholars � ----- ·,:;; 9 have to meet with cultural studies scholars, historians with transla tion studies scholars, anthroplogists with semioticians. Let us con sider the three articles of this issue as a beginning towards this new transdisciplinary language for the study of the translation of holy/re ligious texts. Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole's article analyzes linguistic dif ferences in the Greek and Swahili texts of the New Testament from an intercultural perspective. The intercultural method, as alternative to the functional method that has dominated contemporary Bible translation, is, according to the author, able to reduce the gap that some approaches have created between exegesis and translation, and is built on a triple-rather than dual-frame of reference: the original biblical culture, church culture, and a contemporary target culture. For the sake of a constructive dialogue between the original and the translation, Loba-Mkole concludes, these three cultures have to be included in any study of Bible translation. A completely different aspect of Bible translation is ap proached by Lourens de Vries in his analysis of the so-called "Ro mantic Turn" in Bible translation and its development with the two German philosophers Buber and Rosenzweig as its protagonists. This turn is relevant to our field, he states, because of the way it puts the theme of otherness and foreignness on the agenda. With reference to what Lawrence Venuti calls the Romantic emphasis on foreignization, de Vries analyses Buber and Rosenzweig's transla tion project of the Bible, Die Schrift. De Vries underlines how much their project reflected the philosophical and Jewish tradition the two translators were part of, and how much their translation is a result of a precise hermeneu tic-interpretative position, as for instance expressed in the colomet ric structuring of the texts with the purpose of liberating the spoken Ur-reality imprisoned in the written form, the oral-aural dimension, the Leitworte. Such a translation emphasized the literary dimension of the Bible, a very much appreciated strategy in the postwar period and followed by many radical translators in the Western world. Interestingly, de Vries demonstrates how literalism and for eignization are not expressions of only one strategy, but may re spond to different, and even opposite, purposes. And the irony is, he continues, that the purpose of either foreignization or domesti ---- cation often produced the opposite effect. ---- w 10 The Bible's combination of a material object and spiritual text is the theme of Paul A. Soukup's article, especially when its translation into a vernacular becomes a mass-produced object des tined for publication as an "authorized" version for a national church. With a media ecology perspective that considers the inter action and interdependence between communication technologies and social practices, he considers the Bible as a communication phe nomenon, yes as a "normal" text, essentially demonstrating the same qualities as any other mass-produced text. Soukup concen trates on the King James Bible, the revised English translation that was to have such a wide diffusion and profound social impact thanks to Gutenberg's invention. According to Soukup the printing press is only one of eleven contexts of social practices included in a media ecology perspective, among which there are also the book trade, the scholarly world, the practices of translation, libraries, and politics. The reader will notice that the present issue includes articles by three members of this journal's boards: Edwin Gentzler and Paul A. Soukup, who are members of the editorial board, and Lourens de Vries of the journal's advisory board. With such a marked pres ence of "ourselves" we want to share our identities with our readers: we are not invisible, objective, and neutral beings, but rather active members of the community we are trying to create, whose voices also have to be heard. In my introduction to issue two l compared the journal to a growing plant, still with barely formed roots and only a few small flowers. Now, the roots are a little more vigorous and there are quite a few new flowers. Sherry Simon's arrival as a new member of the journal's advisory board is, I feel, one of the most important achievements in this fertile process. l am honoured to welcome her, and grateful that she has accepted our invitation. By way of intro duction, I would like to invite you to watch the interview l did with her in May, when she was one of the The Nida School of Translation Studies' professors. The video is available via the journal's on line version at http://translation.fusp.it/ During the conversation she il lustrates her special interest in the different layers and forms of --- translation that occur in multilingual cities. This aspect will be ex- --- � ·.;::; 11 plored further in the future special issue, "Spaces and Places," which she will be guestediting together with Federico Montanari. The happy news of Simon's joining the advisory board is unfortunately countered by the sad news of Martha Cheung's pre mature passing away. Martha has always been an important and supportive member of the journal's advisory board from the very outset, and we have decided to respectfully dedicate the closing pages of this issue to an In Memoriam for Martha Cheung. S. N. �. ---- ai' ---- w 12

Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17532

[ { "Alternative": "Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka", "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": "Current theories of translation and theacer, predominanrly centered in a Euro-American context, are of limited applicability co settings that are cul rurally, economically, and socio-politically different from professional and mainstream cheater spaces in the west. This paper explores the possibilities of expanding theories of cheater translation through an interrogation of actual cranslacionalpractices chat rake place in posccolonial and alternative performance spaces. This question is examined eh rough the transcreacions of Brechc's work by the Wayside and Open Theatre, the first political cheater group in Sri Lanka, analyzing how they transform Brecht into powerful street performances chat scrutinize the nature of power, violence, and silence in a posccolonial space. By examining these performances, I intend to reconsider accepted notions in studies of theacer translation such as the assumed dichotomy between translator and director. The study also explores the complex modes of transference and recransference of power characterizing cheater translations in posrcolonial spaces. I will also explore the multiple variables that come into play in cheater translations in alternative cheater settings, and discuss why the term \"cranscrearion\" would be appropriate in identifying chis process.", "Format": "application/pdf", "ISSN": "2240-0451", "Identifier": "17532", "Issue": "fall", "Language": "en", "NBN": null, "PersonalName": "Kanchuka Dharmasiri", "Rights": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "Source": "translation. a transdisciplinary journal", "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": "Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka", "Type": "Text.Serial.Journal", "URI": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation", "Volume": "3", "abbrev": null, "abstract": null, "articleType": "Articles", "author": null, "authors": null, "available": null, "created": "2022-03-17", "date": null, "dateSubmitted": "2022-03-17", "doi": null, "firstpage": null, "institution": null, "issn": null, "issue": null, "issued": "2022-03-16", "keywords": null, "language": null, "lastpage": null, "modified": "2022-03-17", "nbn": null, "pageNumber": "13-35", "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": null, "url": null, "volume": null }, { "Alternative": null, "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": null, "Format": null, "ISSN": null, "Identifier": null, "Issue": null, "Language": null, "NBN": null, "PersonalName": null, "Rights": null, "Source": null, "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": null, "Type": null, "URI": null, "Volume": null, "abbrev": "ttj", "abstract": null, "articleType": null, "author": "Kanchuka Dharmasiri", "authors": null, "available": null, "created": null, "date": "2013", "dateSubmitted": null, "doi": null, "firstpage": "13", "institution": null, "issn": "2240-0451", "issue": "fall", "issued": null, "keywords": null, "language": "en", "lastpage": "35", "modified": null, "nbn": null, "pageNumber": null, "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": "Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka", "url": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/download/17532/15422", "volume": "3" } ]

Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka Kanchuka Dharmasiri University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka [email protected] Abstract: Current theories of translation and theacer, predominanrly centered in a Euro-American context, are of limited applicability co settings that are culrur ally, economically, and socio-politically different from professional and main stream cheater spaces in the west. This paper explores the possibilities of expanding theories of cheater translation through an interrogation of actual crans lacional practices chat rake place in posccolonial and alternative performance spaces. This question is examined ehrough the transcreacions of Brechc's work by the Wayside and Open Theatre, the first political cheater group in Sri Lanka, analyzing how they transform Brecht into powerful street performances chat scrutinize the nature of power, violence, and silence in a posccolonial space. By examining these performances, I intend to reconsider accepted notions in studies of theacer translation such as the assumed dichotomy between translator and di rector. The study also explores the complex modes of transference and recrans ferencc of power characterizing cheater translations in posrcolonial spaces. I wiU also explore the multiple variables that come into play in cheater translations in alternative cheater settings, and discuss why the term "cranscrearion" would be appropriate in identifying chis process. Introduction You artists who pe1form plays In great houses under electric suns Before the hushed crowd, pay a visit sometime To that theatre whose setting is the street. The everyday, thousandfold, fameless But vivid, earthy theatre fed by the daily human contact Which takes place in the street. 1 In "On Everyday Theatre," Brecht entreats artists who per form "under electric suns" to observe everyday theater whose set- M 0 N 1 Berto It Brecht, "On Everyday Theatre." in Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956. trans. John Willet and Ralph ....... Manheim (New York: Methuen. 1976), 176. J§ ....... C: 0 ·.;::, ro <n C: 13 � ting is the street . Theater in the streets, for him, is dai ly interactions of people and he implores artists not to "become remote" from this theater, "l h lowever much l they l perfect l theirl art." In this equa tion , B recht establishes a dist inction between the artists in great houses and the people, but ignores the artist who steps to the streets with the specific i ntention of performing for the people. Perhaps this omission occurs because Brecht's own work was confined to great houses , as his mission was to pol iticize the works that oc curred inside them . 2 The street theater artist, however, takes Brecht's entreaty one step further, estab l ishing a connection with "everyday theatre" by taking their performances to the streets . Brecht 's invocation for the artist to investigate outside spaces ex tends beyond the theater artist to the l iterary critic when M i khai l Bakhtin i l lustrates the necessity of examining "the social life of dis course outside the art ist's study, di scourse in the open spaces of public squares , streets , cities and v i l l ages, of social groups" ( Bakhtin 1 98 1 , 259) in order to understand the dynamics of l i ving and evolving l anguage . I n this way, B recht and Bakhtin invite artists and critics to venture out of "grand houses" and the "aitist's study" into open spaces in order to witness "earthy theater" and the "st i l l evolving contemporary reality" ( Bakhtin 1 98 1 , 7 ) , thus shift ing away from the center toward an inquiry into the marginal and interstitial spaces. NgugT wa Thiong'o expands the debate by speak ing about the necessi ty of "moving the center in 1 - . . I two senses - between nations and within nations" (NgugT wa Thiong'o 1 993 , 1 7) . He points out the significance of surpassing presumed centers of knowledge beyond the borders of the Euro-American context and speaks of "the need to move the centre from its assumed loca tion in the West to a multipl icity of spheres in all the cultures of the world" (NgugT wa Thiong'o I 993 , I 6) . He furthermore i l lustrates the need to engage w ith local languages . Though translation theorists have ventured beyond "loca tion ! s I in the West" to engage with translation practices in "multi plicity of spheres" in the world, studies of translation and theater 2 In "Theater-in-the-street and the theater-in-theater." Peter Handke states, "Despite his revolutionary in tent. Brecht was so very hypnotized by the idea of theater that his revolutionary intent always kept within the bounds of taste, in that he thought it tasteful that the spectators, since they remain spectators, should �. (be allowed to) enjoy themselves unlit" (Handke 1 998, 8) The notion of the unlit audience is mostly present --- in performances that take place in enclosed theater buildings. --- w 14 remain predominantly centered on mainstream theater settings in the Euro-American context. As a result, they do not always lend themselves to the elucidation of translational practices in alternative theater spaces-both in the global north and the global south-and theater models in diverse "cultures of the world." An inquiry into such modalities opens up a space to examine variables that have not entered the theater translation debate thus far. In this paper, I propose to explore the possibilities of expanding theories of theater translation through an interrogation of actual translational practices that take place in postcolonial and alternative performance spaces, specifically examining the works of the Wayside and Open Theatre, the first political theater group in Sri Lanka. In doing so, I move from the Euro-American context to a postcolonial setting and from mainstream theater practices to alternative performance spaces, probing the politics of translations that occur in the margins. Through an inquiry into these practices, I intend to reconsider cer tain accepted notions in studies of theater translation such as the assumed dichotomy between the translator and the director of a play. The study also explores the complex modes of transference and retransference of power that characterize theater translations that occur in postcolonial spaces. Engaging with Ronaldo de Cam pos's and Gamini Haththotuwegama's ideas related to various modes of translational/transcreational practice, I will also discuss why the term "transcreation" would be a more apt way of identify ing this process. Although Brecht, in urging artists to be inspired by the "earthy theater" of the streets, did not envision the possibility of the artist performing in the streets, his ideas have inspired many street theater artists and his works have been translated and tran screated in a variety of ways and taken to diverse audiences. It is to transcreations of Brecht's work that I turn in my effort to envis age a different translational model for theater. I will examine how his parable "Measures against Power," a text that scrutinizes the nature of power, violence, and silence, is transforn1ed into a potent political theater piece in the Sri Lankan streets. Since the group constantly questions hegemonic power structures, it becomes in teresting to see how they utilize this text in a transcreated form to address issues that are endemic to the current political situation in --- their respective contexts. The work goes through a tremendous --- � 15 process of transformation in the transcreation process and assumes a life of its own, integrating local idioms and cultural signs while retaining the basic ideas of Brecht 's work. Translators and Directors One of the ongoing debates regarding theater translation concerns the place of the theater text. Many translation theorists maintain that the theater text is singular because of its performance aspects, which means that it cannot be translated in the same fash ion as any other text. As Susan Bassnett claims,"! t lhe linguistic sys tem is only one optional component in a set of interrelated systems that comprise the spectacle" ( Bassnett 1 980 , 1 20) and the process where the linguistic sign is transferred into another and subse quently retransferred on to a visual and auditory spectacle is a mul tilayered one. As a result , "l t lheatre texts, and therefore also their translation, do not necessarily follow the same rules as texts in a literary system" (Aaltonen 2000, 7). The auditory and visual com ponents and the live audience that factor in the final product make theater texts different from other textual translations. Apart from the agreed factor of the particular nature of the theater text , many theoretical discussions of translating in theater are contingent on certain other assumed notions about the theater system . For one, there seems to be a consensus about the strict di vision between the role of the translator and the role of the director. Since they are perceived as performing separate acts, some theorists are intent on finding strategies to bridge this gap. Otrun Zuber, re iterating the boundary between the translator and director, proposes a scenario where the translator "producel s l a reading edition l of the play I in the target language with comprehensive notes" and af firms that "l t l his would mean that the translator only points out the problems and the producer is left to solve them" (Zuber 1 980, 73). Furthermore, the relationship between the two is presented as an tagonistic when Phillis Zatlin asserts that "theatrical translators wish to be involved in the dynamics of rehearsals, standing in as the author's surrogate. But far too frequently, the translator is shunned aside" (Zatlin 200S, 4). In both cases, there is a strict sep aration established between the translator and the director, and in the latter case the relationship is even perceived as hostile . In fact, --era· most of the theories are contingent on the idea that the theater trans- -- w 16 lator and director are two different people; the process is seen as anything but a collaborative one. Susan Bassnett, who has extensively explored the complex ities inherent in theater translations, proceeds to make a distinction between the translator and the director in "A Case against Per formabi I ity": whi lst the principal problems facing a director and performers involves the transposing of the verbal into the physical , the principal problems facing the translator involve close engagement with the text on page and the need to find solutions for a series of problems that are primarily linguistic ones-differences in register involving age, gender, social position . etc. (Bassnett 1 99 1 , 1 1 1 ) Bassnett clearly demarcates the roles of the translator, director, and performers. The translator's main problems are "primarily linguistic ones" based on the specifics of the context, whereas the director 's problems involve the transposition of the verbal signs into physical ones. She argues that deciphering the gestic and visual signs is not a part of the translator 's task. In fact, Bassnett's main argument in the essay is centered on critiqu ing the notion of performability, claiming that it is not a universal concept and should not be given prime importance in the process of translating plays: "The theatre texts cannot be considered as identical to texts written to be read because the process of writing involves a consideration of the per formance dimension, but neither can an abstract notion of perform ance be put before textual considerations" ( Bassnett 1 99 1 , 1 1 1 ). She is opposed to the idea of giving primacy to the idea of perfor mativity when i t comes to the translation of a theater text. Yet, in the case where a play translation is done with the specific aim of being performed, the idea of performance is no longer "an abstract notion" and is as concrete as the textual considerations. Such a du ality between the written text and the performance is also ques tioned when the dichotomy between the translator and director is questioned. In fact, the performability factor gains ultimate signif icance when a translator/director translates with the distinct aim of performance because linguistic, gestural, visual, auditory, and a myriad of performative elements, ' as well as the as the ideology of both systems, come into play. 3 If a text is translated with the idea of being performed, performativity becomes such a significant dimen --- sion ot the process. --- � C ·.::; C 17 � Among translation theorists who write about theater, Andre Lefevere is one who does not make a strict separation between translators and directors in his works . Most of the examples he gives are of plays that are translated with the distinct intention of being performed.4 Referring to H. R. Hayes's, Eric Bentley's, and Ralph Manheim's translations of Brecht's Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder/Mother Courage and Her Children in the United States ( 1 94 1 , 1 967 , and 1 972 , respectively) , Lefevere ( 1 998 , 1 09- 1 2 1 ) contends that theater translations are predominately influenced by the ideology of the receiving system, with the semiotic shifts in the translated texts occurring in response to the ideological workings of the target system: He states that " l t lranslations are produced under constraints that go far beyond those of natural language-in fact, other constraints are often much more influential in the shap ing of the translation than are the semantic or I inguistic ones" (Lefe vere 2000 , 237). He illustrates how Eric Bentley and Hayes translate Mother Courage with the distinct aim of a subsequent per formance of the play for a mainstream Broadway audience.5 Though Bentley and Hayes are not the directors of the play, their intent of translating the play with a specific audience in mind changes the way in which the translation occurs . Thus, Hayes's mo tivation to depoliticize Brecht,6 to separate him from Marx, does not occur as a result of his close engagement with the text, but be cause of his desire to get the play approved to be performed in the United States , and, more specifically, in the commercial space of Broadway. If the politics of the receiving culture worked to diminish the political dimensions of Brecht's works when they were trans lated for the mainstream Broadway audience in the United States, the opposite occurs when Brecht is transported to the alternative theater setting in Sri Lanka, where Brecht's political ideas are used to critically probe an array of power politics within the target cul ture and to offer a rereading of Brecht's text. The artist there is more •1 In the examples he provides, none of the translators are the directors of the plays, but he does not proceed from a preconceived notion of a director- translator binary. 5 Lefevere illustrates how "Hays and Bentley also do their best to integrate the songs, which Brecht uses as the 'alienation effect' par excellence, fully into the play, approximating the model of the musical" llefe vere 1 998. 1 1 5). Such transformations occur in terms of language. form, structure. and ideology as well. 6 Lefevere shows the way "Hays also weakens the obvious connection between war and commerce in the -... person of Mother Courage by omitting [certain] lines Brecht gives her" llefevere 2000. 244). ar- -... w 18 intent on accentuating the political aspects and sharpening the po litical edge of the work. Theater in the streets of Sri Lanka W hile Bassnett, Lefevere, and Zuber speak about diverse aspects of translating in theater, the examples they consider are mostly European or American-based. Most of the the orists, except for Lefevere, also view the trans lator and director in binary terms, which is just one example of the ways in which a fundamen tal disconnect can arise in an attempt to apply these theoretical notions to theater translation Dining. in spaces that are culturally, economically, and sociopolitically different from the ones these theoreticians refer to. In Sri Lanka, for exam ple, a strict division of tabor does not charac terize theater practice;7 in fact, in this setting, the translator and director are often the same person. W hen one moves out of mainstream theater settings to practices of street theater in The guest asking for help. alternative spaces, one encounters yet another set of circumstances. The world that the street theater artist inhabits is one that is different from the study of the individual writer. The street theater artist 's work is based on discussions. workshops, and group activities where pe1formers work in unison to build up a par ticular piece.s In this context, the transcreation process can also be one in which several people participate. Also, as with the cases of the Wayside and Open Theatre, the translation could occur during the rehearsal process. There is input from other participants and the work is not based on an individual's isolated tabor. Though there are many aspects of the process of translation that take place in alternative theater spaces, in this article I focus on understanding the workings of the translation process when the 7 Translation has played a decisive role in the development of modern Sinhala theater and theater trans (Y) lations remain to this day one of the main components of the art form. 8 This type of dynamic occurs in alternative theater practices in Euro-American contexts as well, particularly ------- in works by community and devised theater groups. My focus in this article is alternative performance � spaces in the postcolonial context and thus will not be expanding this area. ------- ·.:, 19 g translator and the director are the same person. In such a context, the translator/director has to consider a multiplicity of elements ranging from the linguistic, visual, and auditory to the spatial, and needs to deliberate the ideological dimensions embedded in all these elements . M y exploration of this question is thus closely Taking a bath. related to the hegemonic power relations that exist between the source and the target cultures and the director/translator 's efforts to negotiate the ideological dimensions of the process. If the translator/director 's sole idea of translating a play is dependent on a future production, how does that change the trajectory of the transla tional process? In such a context, the translator does not have the luxury to leave physical, ges Taking a bath. tic, and verbal interpretations for the director or the performer and often works with a clear direction in mind . For example, for a director/translator such as Gamini Haththo tuwegama, one of the pioneers of the Wayside and Open Theatre, the main purpose of trans lating Brecht and Chekhov was to take "clas sic" texts to people who do not generally have the chance to experience them. When the goal is clearly defined, and the binary between the translator and director is nonexistent, and trans Listening to the Fox-girl story. lation in theater acquires a different signifi- cance . The translator/director has to think beyond the linguistic aspects of the text to envision the ways in which the text will be enacted with regards to its gestural, visual, auditory, and performative aspects. In order to address this dy namic, I will examine several elements that enter the translator/di rector 's repertoire as he transcreates a specific piece in a context far different from the one in which it was originally created. The translational works l explore here are not originally dramatic texts per se , but transcreations of Brecht's poems and parables into the atrical pieces. ---or- --- w 20 Transcreation and the Postcolonial Performance Space In my discussion thus far, I have fluctuated between the terms translation and transcreation. In many senses, the term tran screation is more apt at capturing the process that the street theater artist in the postcolonial setting is engaged in. The notion of tran screation entered translation studies through the work of the Brazil ian poet , critic, and translator H aroldo De Campos. For him , translation "is less an act of synthesizing or an act of resolution of the contradictions than a radical operation of transcreation (opera cao radical de transcriacao 1 98 1 : 1 8) that creates new, tangential lines of communication" (Gentzler 2008 , 1 3). He sees translation "as transgressive appropriation and hybridism (or cross-breeding) as the dialogic practice of expressing the other and expressing one self through the other, under the sign of difference" ( De Campos 1 997 , 1 3). In such a view, the linear teleology of translation, the assumption of a knowledge flow from one direction to the other is questioned. What occurs instead is a more complex integration of difference, creating a dialogic relationship between the two texts and contexts. De Campos develops his conception of transcreation through his engagement with Oswald de Andrade's "Cannibalist Manifesto ." De Campos especially points out the phrase "Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question," calling it a "phonic usurpation, a mistranslation by homophony, of Shakespeare's famous dilemmatic verse" ( De Campos 1 997 , 1 3). Thus , while "Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question" immediately evokes the quandary of the uncertain Prince of Denmark, for the Brazilian audiences, it also evokes the "the general language spoken by Brazilian Indians at the time of Brazi 1 's discovery" ( De Campos 1 997, 1 3 ) , which references the colonial moment, conjuring up images of the massacre of the native inhabitants. Translation becomes a "transgressive appropriation" within such contexts where the rewriting opens up space for mul tiple meanings and significations . Thus, this process of appropria tion , or to use De Campos's term , devouring, is not carried out "from a submissive and reconciled perspective of the ' good sav age,' but from a brazen point of view of the 'bad savage' devourer of white people, anthropophagus" ( De Campos 1 997 , 1 4). Slightly resonating with Caliban's famous utterance, "You taught me lan (Y) guage, and my profit on't/ls I know how to curse" (Shakespeare --- 2007 , I.ii.366-368), where the learning of the master's language en- --- � ·.:c 21 ables Caliban to curse him, in this instance, the "bad savage" irrev erently devours the master's text and transcreates it through an in tegration of local traditions and knowledges. Translation becomes a "radical act of transcreation." Consequently, rather than uncritical ly embracing texts com ing from the West, the anthropophagic translator takes the essence of the works and transforms them to address the Brazilian cultural political context. This concept gives more agency to the translator and to the formerly colonized subject rendering her an active cre ator of knowledge. As Edwin Gentzler states, "I s luch a rewriting of European classics through the phonetic and cultural background of Brazil results in new meanings and insights unique to Brazil that get woven into a sophisticated translation practice that leads to new definitions of translation as transcreation or transculturalization" (Gentzler 2008, 82). The hegemonic relationship between the col onizer and the colonized, the "classic" Western text and indigenous traditions is questioned in this context and the "European classics" are no longer perceived as ultimate "nuggets of knowledge" (Woolf 1 929, 3). They become acculturated and transformed by the cultural practices of Brazil. Speaking about the discovery of "the English book" (the Bible) , and specifically referencing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Dark ness, Homi Bhabha argues that a reversion of power occurs when the English book is not taken to be the ultimate authority, but a source of ambivalence which enables the colonized subject to vi sion a mode of resistance. H e asserts that If the effect of the colonial power is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the noisy command of colonial authority or the silent repression of native traditions, then an important change of perspective occurs . It reveals the ambivalence at the source of traditional discourses on authority and enables a form of subversion, founded on that uncertainty that turns the discursive conditions of dominance into the grounds of intervention. (Bhabha 1 994 , I 60) Both De Campos and Bhabha question the primacy of the Western word, the logos albeit in two contexts. Their premise-the idea of seeing colonial power as creating hybridization rather than merely serving as a mode of authority-directs one towards a change of perspective. [n such a situation, "Tupi or not Tupi" is a· ---iiI' Hamlet, but also the language of the Brazilian Indians. While Ham- --- w 22 let is struggling to protect his father 's legacy, "The Cannibalist Manifesto" appropriates the lines and in the "phonic usurpation" draws attention to the colonial situation and the destruction and dilemma caused by the colonial legacy. H ence , rather than follow ing a teleological trajectory, meaning speaks to multiple levels and directions. I would like to bring Gamini Haththotuwegama to the tran screational debate at this point. Though H aththotuwegama has not explicitly written about translation . he has extensively spoken about it through his practical engagement in the field.'' One of the pioneers of political street theater in Sri Lanka, Haththotuwegama was a scholar. writer, performer, and director. H e was a translator who transcreated works such as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Midsummer Night 's Dream , and Jean Anouilh's The Lark to be performed in mainstream and alternative theater spaces, and also transcreated works by Brecht and Chekhov for the Wayside and Open Theatre . Growing up, Haththotuwegama was firmly enmeshed in an English language and literature background and exposed to traditional per formances from a young age. He started his theatrical life doing English theater, but changed the direction of his theatrical ventures in a fundamental way in the 1 970s by becoming a part of the street theater group. 1 0 Deviating from an urban theater practice that he saw as exclusively addressing a middle class audience , he worked with the group to take theater to disparate audiences all over the country. H aththotuwegama preferred the word transcreation over translation. He used the term transcreation to indicate how a text from a specific context goes through a linguistic and cultural trans formation and takes on a new form and meaning in a different so ciopolitical and cultural setting. From his time as an English teacher and then subsequently a lecturer in the Depaitment of English and Fine Arts, his works were a mixture of Western works and indige- 9 He presented a paper on translation titled "Translation Theory Drives Me Mad: An Anti-Pedagogical Con fession" for the second annual translation conference held in 2005 in Kandy, Sri Lanka. His talk is not recorded, but his abstract remains. H• The Wayside and Open Theatre formed as an alternative, nonformal theater in 1 974. Moving away from C") the predominately bourgeois proscenium theaters, they performed in the streets, factories, temple premises, ----- universities, and urban slum areas. It was the group's stated goal to make theater spectatorship an intel J§ lectual. critical exercise for as many people as possible. ----- ·.;::; 23 nous traditions. In 1 96 1 , he produced Shakespeare in Sarong , 1 1 the title itself indicating the transformation of the bard to a Sri Lankan setting, where "good old Shakespeare appeared as Narrator, clad in long cloth and coat, sporting a 'konde' and twirling an umbrella" ( Haththotuwegama 2005, 345). Shakespeare, the bard in traditional garb, thus becomes incorporated into the local setting. Yet, his idea was not merely predicated on turning Shakespeare into a local char acter, embodying indigenous characteristics . It was based on a larger idea of culture and encounters. His question, "Certainly, if we grew up with Shakespeare, why not have alternative Shake speare growing up with us?" ( Haththotuwegama 20 1 2, 345 ) , shows the possibility of generating multiple meanings and constructing multiple realities. A space opens up to question the monolithic idea of a Shakespeare and expand Shakespeare to myriad possibilities. Ashley Halpe recalls Haththotuwegama's transcreation of Hamlet: 1 2 its "style was highly eclectic, drawing on the Nadagam, Kol am and Nurti 1 3 forms of the Sinhala theater, on the director 's substantial experience of the political Street Drama which he developed for Sri Lanka, and on some British and continental models and read ings" ( Halpe 20 1 0, 56) . The creative transcreation of Hamlet occurs in a space that interweaves Shakespeare, Western theatrics , indige nous theater forms , and the political street theater. Halpe asserts that, "fluid, 'rough,' dynamic, this production liberated Shake speare" ( Halpe 20 1 0, 59) . Haththotuwegama's production of Hamlet was done for a predominately university audience with a cast drawn mostly from the student body and some of the parts enacted by street theater performers. The situation was similar in the trilingual transcreation of Brecht's poem, " Difficulty of Governing." He created this play with his students at Kelaniya University, with the participation of some members of the street theater group. Neloufer de Mel recalls how they built the piece "workshop style [ .. . [ dramatizing each 1 1 A fabric wrapped around the waist traditional attire in South Asia. 12 Hamlet was translated by Haththotuwegama, Gamini Fonseka Edirisingha. and Lakshman Fernando. Haththotuwegama and Haig Karunarathne codirected the play. It was first performed in 1 990. u Nadagam was a folk drama in which stylistic dances and music were used. K51am, a ceremony that uti lized masks and stylized performance methods. was a performance practice that belonged to the coastal areas of Sri Lanka. Some of these performances still exist today, but not as often as before. Nurti, which �- were popular in the cities, consisted mostly of musicals and ohen were direct replicas of Indian Parsee ---- pieces. ---- w 24 verse."' 4 Brecht's poem about power and governance transformed into a forty-minute play, offering a satirical commentary on the changing political and economic landscape in Sri Lanka. In 1 977, the newly elected United National Party government instituted the executive presidency, centralizing power around the presidential office, 1 '' and the play interweaved this historic fact into the poem, reinventing the Brecht poem in a contemporary Sri Lankan context. The play was episodic in structure, integrating traditional dance movements, transformed folk songs, and local idioms . Brecht's lines such as "Without ministers/ Corn would grow into the ground, not upward'*' paved the way for the group to satirize recent polit ical events such as politicians taking part in paddy harvesting while wearing tennis shoes. 1 ·' Haththotuwegama states that the current political situation in Sri Lanka enabled them to further elicit the humor from the Brecht poem. Quite ironically, the trilingual Brecht transcreation was banned in 1 978 for criticizing the government. Haththotuwegama's concept of transcreation resembles that of De Campos's idea in certain ways. Though he does not use a de vouring metaphor, he does conceive translation as going beyond a one-way process. He inquires, " I i If translation is 'hegemonic,' is it a one-way process necessarily? While 'creating contexts of gover nance' does it not I iberate them? If there is 'transference of power through language' isn't there possibly a re-trans ference of power?" ( Haththotuwegama 2005). Thus, there is a tendency on the part of postcolonial translators and practitioners to see translation as more than a mere transference of power in one direction . W hile transla tion creates contexts of governance , it also functions to liberate them; thus the need for alternate Shakespeares. These theorists question the notion of the one directional epistemic flow. Knowl edge is more multifaceted; the moment Shakespeare enters the Sri Lankan setting, he encounters difference, and this difference helps render Shakespeare more creative and dynamic , liberating him. Such an act has fu1ther implications. Haththotuwegama asse1ts that "I think the very act of going to our own creative works and going 1 ➔ Interview with Neloufer de Mel. Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2010. 1 .< The balance of power between executive. legislature. and judiciary was changed in favor of the execu tive. 1 6 Bertolt Brecht, "Difficulty of Governing," 295. --- 17 Interview with Haththotuwegama. Bokundara. Sri Lanka. 201 0. --- � ·.:;; 25 � through them to the Western 'models' can be a decolonizing ven ture" ( Haththotuwegama 20 1 2, 345) . The encounter here is more interactive than hegemonic or hierarchical and thus paves the way for a more hybrid and integrated model of transcreation. Transcre ation is thus not a mere transference of a text from one context to another, but a process through which a text from another context is utilized not only to gain an understanding of the source culture, but to cast a critical eye on the receiving system. The hierarchy between the two texts is suspended. 1 8 Haththotuwegama asserts that his ideas o f transcreation were formed through his practical engagement in the field, a fact that becomes obvious when one considers his transcreation of Bertolt Brecht's parable "Measures against Power." The text un dergoes transformations in terms of language, performance, and genre. The parable, which is considered to be a fragment of a play, 1 9 becomes a full blown performance piece in the streets of Sri Lanka. A close look at the piece illustrates that the parable about "the time of illegality" acquires a completely different signification in the postcoloniaJ Sri Lankan setting. The play still addresses notions of power, rule, and authority, but the nature and mode of that power relationship changes in the Wayside perfmmance. The transcreated piece establishes a dialogic relationship between Brecht's notions of power and the political context in Sri Lanka. What all these the orists are drawing our attention to is a process of demystifying the power of the Western text, the Western logos . Such a practice also reveals the hybridity of the Western text. After all, Brecht's dramat ics were hugely influenced by Chinese opera and that fact also be comes a part of the discourse . In the hierarchical world of knowledge production, where the economically and politically powerful nations are deemed to have supremacy when it comes to writing and the arts, the arts and knowledge of the formerly colo- 18 This is not to ignore the unequal economic and political power hierarchy between the two contexts. The economic factor is particularly pronounced in the publishing industry and copyright laws as they affect con texts in the global North. 19 Some of the theater projects that Brecht was working on in the second half of the 1 920s were not com pleted. In is introduction to Brecht's Stories of Mr. Keuner, Martin Chalmers asserts that "Brecht detached a number of these brief commentary fragments from the dramatic context, reworked them so that they could stand independently, and wrote new pieces of a similar kind. These became the Stories of Mr. Keuner, ---al' the first eleven of which were published in 1 930" (Brecht 2001 , 97). --- (.0 26 nized nations is relegated to the periphery. Yet, by creatively weav ing that knowledge with the hegemonic products of the West, the postcolonial transcreator invents a new product that pierces, defiles, and enriches the Western text, rendering it more polyvalent and complex. The postcolonial artist transgresses, transforms, and tran screates, and "newness enters the world" (Rushdie 1 99 1 , 394) . Measures against Power/Marawara Mehewara "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail, yes I would, if I could": the performers of the Wayside and Open Theatre sing the first lines of Simon and Garfunkel's song "El Condor Pasa" ( 1 970) to a pop ular Sri Lankan folk rhythm and the accompaniment of a traditional drum. After the first verse in English, they shift to the Sinhala tran screation of the song where the affirmative lines in the original transform into questions: "What is your preference for, is it the cen tropus or the snail?" Following a slightly louder beat of the drum and a pause, the song changes to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh's "Get Up Stand Up" ( 1 973) as the drum continues to provide the beat necessary for the singers . As these songs are sung in the back ground, the performance space comes to life . Four actors enter, all in black, and create a door with their bodies. Another performer be gins a motion of sweeping the floor with a broom. As the songs end, we hear someone utter "hello." The "guest"20 has arrived. What we are about the witness is the transcreation of Bertolt Brecht's parable "Measures against Power" as Marawara mehewara (Thug Service/Thug Come, Come Here).2 1 "Measures against Power" is a commentary o n power political, social, and personal . According to the Brecht parable an agent arrives at Mr. Egger 's house and assumes an utterly privi leged position .2� After forcing Mr. Eggers to feed him and attend 20 There are two characters in Brecht's "Measures against Power": the agent. and Mr. Eggers. In the per formance, the characters are not given names; we encounter the self-identified guest and the silent host. I will refer to the characters as the "guest" and the "host" in my analysis of The Wayside and Open Theatre's Merawara Mehewara and refer to the character as the agent and Mr. Eggers when I talk refer to Brecht's parable :::i The Sinhala version has a double entendre. One of the main characteristics of Haththotuwegama·s work is his wordplay, particularly his use of allusive puns and his penchant for imbricate phrases. 22 According to Mr. Keuner. who recounts the story, "[t]he agent showed a document. which was made in CV) the name of those who ruled the city, and which stated that any apartment in which he set foot belonged ......._ to him; likewise. any food he demanded belonged to him; likewise. any man he saw. had to serve him" � (Brecht 2001 , 3) ......._ C ·.;::a C 27 to his i n numerable needs , the agent, without even look ing at Mr. Eggers , asks, "Will you be my servant?" M r. Eggers i s s ilent: M r. Eggers covered the agent with a blanket, drove away the fl ies, watched over his sleep, and as he had done on this day, obeyed him for seven years. But whatever he did for h i m , one thing Mr. Eggers was careful not to do: that was, to say a single word. Now, when the seven years had passed and the agent had grown fat from all the eating, sleeping, and giving orders, he died. Then Mr. Eggers wrapped him in the ruined blanket, dragged h i m out of the house, washed the bed, whitewashed the walls, drew a deep breath and repl ied: "No." (Brecht 200 I , 4) Mr. Keuner2· recounts this story to his students when they 1 confront him about his stance towards Power. The story explores di verse dimensions of power such as institutional systemic author ity and personal relationships within contexts of oppression . The parable, moreover, compl icates the relationsh ip between the op pressor and the oppressed and examines the significance of s ilence. The agent is aggressive and feels entitled, demanding to be treated with utmost hospital i ty; Mr. Eggers does not utter a single word until the end . "Measures against Power" was transcreated as Marawara Mehewara by Gamini Haththotuwegama i n 2000 and further de veloped during rehearsals . A close exam i nation of Marawara Mehewara i l lustrates how it weaves an intricate web of signifiers from different contexts to comment on contemporary power politics and the changi ng social ethos . Marawara Mehewara exami nes is sues pertain ing to colon ial/neocolonial power, neol iberalism , gen der, and class. The parable, as it is performed in the Sri Lankan setting, retains the basic structure of Brecht's story, while absorbing local lul labies , popular songs, and stories of foxes and grape preser vatives . Not only does Marawara Mehewara present us with a sol id example of a transcreation as it occurs in a postcolonial alternative performance setting, but it also opens up the space to investigate the dynamics inherent in a process where the translator transcreates with the exclusive idea of performing the piece . Haththotuwegama, the translating director or the directing translator, has two tasks here: the first is to conceptualize the best -- �. 2·1 Chalmers affirms that "[t]he fictional character of Mr. Keuner, 'the thinking man,' and the stories told by or about him, originated in the second halt of the 1 920s" !Brecht 200 1 , 97). -- Qj' c...., 28 possible way to familiarize the somewhat abstract Brecht narrative for diverse audiences in the country, the second is to envision the performance aspects of the play including how to enact it with the current members of the group . In the process, he also needs to take heed of the conditions of the eventual performance spaces and fore see how to visually enact the tension and the power imbalance be tween the two characters. H e has to make the narrative appeal to many different audiences, some of whose encounter with Brecht is not extensive. Haththotuwegama, the translator, cannot "only I point I out the problems" and leave the director "to solve them" (Zuber 1 980, 73) because he is the director as well. He is aware of the unpredictable and diverse audiences the group will encounter during their performances. The conceptual mapping of the transla tion thus encompasses visual, gestural and spatial elements, apart from the linguistic and cultural transference. As a practitioner of political street theater, he also has to consider the ideological di mensions of the texts. 1 n Haththotuwegama 's transcreation, the agent's presumed superiority and entitlement, his unwavering assumption that ''the other" would serve him , adopts significations pertaining to the post colonial setting, transporting images of the colonial narrative and how the native inhabitants were exploited by a series of colonizers who mistook their generosity for a sign of weakness. The guest constantly reminds the host of the ways of traditional hospitality and forces him to perform such rituals prevalent in Sri Lankan so ciety. In his performative of "traditional hospitality," the host ap pears submissive and unquestioningly complies with the guest 's wishes. The entitled guest, on the other hand, acts with total ease in the other 's space and expands and stretches his body, enclosing the space visually, while the host remains withdrawn. The guest's incessant chatter and aggressive manner stands as an absolute con trast to the more subservient and silent mannerisms of the host . Fur thermore, the play is particularly remarkable in the way in which it makes use of the actors ' bodies in the construction of stage props. The use of the human bodies is visually striking and metaphorically contributes to the critique of the exploitation of fellow human be ings. The human bodies transform into a bed, a bathtub , and a chair, which the guest so freely makes use of; he sits and sleeps on them ....... in the most entitled manner. � ....... ·.;::; 29 Such power dynamics are implicated and explored not only through the story of the "guest" and the "host," but also through a story that the host reads to the guest: the transcreated fo x and the bitter grapes fable, a considerable addition that takes up a majority of the performing time . The "host" in Marawara Mehewara is forced to read an animal fable to the "guest,"24 unlike Brecht's para ble where Mr. Eggers is silent till the end. The story within the story deserves close analysis because the animal fable depicts numerous instances where varying dynamics of power and relationships are explored. These additions bring up familiar elements from popular culture, while elucidating the Brecht narrative, enabling differential readings of it. The folk stories are transformed in the new global eco nomic order. The fox does not come across an unreachable bunch of grapes on a vine higher up, but instead notices a little girl on top of a tree,25 eating a slice of bread with Australian butter and grape preservatives. These two items allow the Wayside group to engage in their customary critique of the neoliberal economy and con sumerism. Just as these economic transformations have changed all areas of life, at the end of the fox fable, the familiar and perhaps most sung Sinhala lullaby undergoes a change as well. The mother is unable to feed her child not because the container of milk floated in the river as the old lullaby has it, but because she cannot afford to buy expensive dairy products. W hat is transcreated is not only the Brecht narrative, but also centuries-old folk tales and popular lullabies. The fox-girl story further explores gender and power. The cunning fox is defeated by the silent girl sitting on top of a tree; she is unperturbed by his chatter. He tries to cajole her by stating that he will procure her the opportunity to sing on a popular radio station. Undisturbed by his words, she silently gobbles down the slice of bread. Silence does not necessarily implicate weakness be cause the little girl ends up getting the bread. The outcome of the 2·1 While Mr. Eggers only utters the powerful "No" at the end of Brecht's narrative, the "host" in Marawara Mehewara is given more of a voice when he reads the story-he only reads and never comments or re sponds to the guest's questions or remarks. Yet, his tonal variations are important. 25 In both instances, the two girls are unclothed. Their nudity does not add anything to the narrative except for a crude sense of humor that creates laughter in the audience. Thus, though the question of gender and �. power figure into the story, it simultaneously propagates sexist humor. The issue of gender in the works of ...__ the Wayside and Open Theatre require more extensive discussion. a!' ...__ u.) 30 fox's next encounter with another little girl 26 remains ambiguous, an ambiguity that reflects the relationship between the host and the guest. This fact is further emphasized by the guest's imitation of and identification with the fox: he disapproves when the child eats the bread and is dismissive of girls on top of trees, exhibiting a cer tain patriarchal viewpoint about proper behavior for women. The guest enacts the fox's role as the host reads the story, and in the end he is on all fours howling and hooting. He identifies and empathizes with the fox by extolling his shrewdness. The story within the story-read by the host-comments on the frame narrative and the complex nature of power. It is obvious that the Brecht parable has taken on a whole different life in the streets of Sri Lanka. The postcolonial Sri Lankan setting endows the narrative with multiple significations -the old fox fable connecting with other narratives spatially and temporally-as the story advances from the colonial narrative to a neocolonial moment, the fable changes from a desire for grapes to desire for a slice of bread with grape preservatives and Australian butter, and the way to coax the girl is to tell her that she will be given a chance to sing in a popular radio station, an allusion to re ality shows that have become a pervasive element in the popular culture. The story within the story captures the change in the social fabric as a result of the open economy. The guest does not notice the host's tonal variations as he reads because he is more focused on the story and subsequently disappointed by the story's abrupt ending, which occurs as the fox approaches the second girl. The guest, who falls asleep disap pointed by the ambiguous ending of the story, suddenly wakes up with breathing difficulties; he signals the host to help him and the host obeys. W hen the guest wakes up again gasping for breath and furiously gestures for the host to help him, the host does not budge. At this particular moment, the play changes direction; there is a tangible shift in power. The host, immobile, stares as the agent pain fully arrives at his death-a silent, wordless death. The host checks the guest 's pulse to make sure that he is indeed dead. He then thrusts him to the floor and repeats the demands made by the (Y) 20 The words "little girl" are repeated and one can inquire as to why the littleness is emphasized multi ....... ple times. � ....... C ·� C 31 entitled guest in a stifled voice: "Will you feed me? Will you bring me water?, etc." As he reiterates the demands, his voice rises in a crescendo. The final act of defiance is exhibited when he screams with certainty: "No"27 - the ultimate moment of his silent resist ance, culminating in a powerful "no." The "no," uttered with firmness, critically overturns the actions of the guest. For the first time, the host is standing over the guest's body-thus reversing their spatial levels . The enactment of the scer>e with visual elements, the positioning of the guest and the host, the particular gestures, pauses, and the sudden stillness of the guest's body, who thus far was animated and free, contrasts with his dead stillness in the end. In Haththotuwegama's transcreation of the play, the signification of the word "no," as translated into Sinhala, accompanies the visual enactment of the power dynamics, which are most fuUy reversed through the movement of the other performers-who thus far were bodies that created props-as they push the guest's dead body out. We are faced with a situation where the principal problem of the translation involves the transformation of the verbal into the physical as well as finding solutions to the linguistic issues. And at times the solutions to the linguistic issues reside in physical ones . Such a process makes the task of the trans lator/director more complicated and more exciting because the "no" for the translating director is not a mere "no"; rather, it is sur rounded by the actions, gestures, and movements of defiance and subversion. The "no" is uttered against colonial oppression, neo colonial power politics, exploitation in terms of class and cultural hospitality, and gender. I t gives voice to the little girl on the tree, relates to the other little girl in the front yard, and integrates all the elements of the various folk stories . I am not stating that a theater translator who is not simultaneously the director is unable to con ceptualize such complications; they certainly do, as Lefevere has comprehensively illustrated in his analysis of Bentley and Hayes's translation of Mother Courage. His examples thoroughly illustrate how the ideology of the target culture dominates their work because they were intent on introducing Brecht to the United States . What I want to point out is that the politics and the poetics of the target �. 27 The "no" is translated into Sinha la as "Nae and Bae," and the host utters both words. They respectively ---- stand for "no" and "I woo't" ---- Lu 32 culture become all the more prominent and pressing when the translator is the director because for him the audience, space, and performance are not abstractions, but concrete events. The tran screation process is one where all these elements are taken into consideration simultaneously. Conclusion The Brecht narrative enables Haththotuwegama to explore the power dynamics within contemporary society as he devours the text with ease to create a product that not only captures Brecht 's ideas of power, but also offers a critique of neocolonial, class, and gender politics in Sri Lankan society. This text, "produced in the borderline between two systems" ( Lefevere 2000, 234), not only illustrates "the performativity of translation as the staging of cultural difference" ( Bhabha 1 994, 325 ) , but also shows that "l t lranslation is the performative nature of Cultural communication" ( Bhabha 1 994, 326) . In Haththotuwegama's words, it is "a two-way process." Translating with the intent of performing necessitates the consid eration of linguistic, ideological, and performative aspects of the text. On such a level, what often occurs is a devouring of the text, a radical act of transcreation. This creative act envisions spatial re lations, the physical enactment of the text, and considers the diverse live audiences. Hence, the translator/director is not the type who faithfully copies and mimics, but one who transfuses, demonically devours, and creates a new product . Thus, Haththotuwegama 's transcreation is not a "passivizing theory of copy or reflection, but I . . . I a usurping impulse in the sense of a dialectic production of differences out of sameness" ( De Campos 1 997, 1 8) . The transla tors/directors work in a setting where the linguistic, gestural, audi tory, performative, ideological, cultural, and spatial dimensions combine to generate the transcreation. It is with all these elements in mind that the translating director and the directing translator set to work and it is a multifaceted project-in other words, one of the best moments of transcreation. In Brecht's words. They do not, l i ke parrot or ape Imitate just for the sake of im itation , unconcerned What they imitate, just to show that they -- (Y) -- Can imitate; no, they J§ Have a point to put across. (Brecht 1 976, 1 76) C: ·_p C: 33 References Aaltonen, Sirkku. 2000. Time-Sharing on Stage. Drama Translation in Thea/er and Sociely. C levedon: Multili ngual Matters Ltd. Bakhtin, M ikhai l . 1 98 1 . The Dialogic Imagination. Edited by M ichael Holquist. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael I lolquist. Austin: Uni versity of Texas Press. Bassoett, Susan. 1 980. Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledgt:. -- -. 1 99 1 . "Translating for the Theatre: The Case Against Performabi lity." TTR: lraduction, lerminologie. redaclion 4 ( I ): 99- 1 1 1 . Bhabha, Hom i . 1 994. The Location of Cul!ure. London and New York: Routledge. Brecht, Bertolt. 1 976. "On Everyday Theatre." Bertoli Brecht: Poems 1 9 13- / 956. Translated by John Willet and Ralph Manheim. New York: Methuen. ---. 200 I . "Measures against power." In Slories of M1: Keuner, translated by Martin Chalmers, 3-4. San Francisco: C ity Light Books. De Campos, Haroldo. 1 997. "Tradition, Translation, Transculturation: The Ex Centric's Viewpoint." Translated by Stella E. 0. Tagnin. Trad Term 4 O): 1 1 - 1 8. Gentzler, Edwin. 2008. Trans/a/ion and ldenlity in !he Americas: New Directions in Trans/a/ion Theory. London and New York: Routledge. l lalpc, Ashley. "The Sharing I ndividualist." In Tales about Hatha, edited by Athula Samarakoon and Sudcsh Manthi lake, 49- 60. Peradeniya: Arts Council or Peradeniya. H andk.e, Peter. 1 998. "Theater-in-the-street and the theater- in-theater." In Radical Street Pe,jormance, edited by Jan Cohen-Cruz, 7 - 1 0. London: Routledge. Gamini Haththotuwcgama. 2005. "Translation Theory Drives Me Mad: An Anti Pedagogical Confession." Abstract subm itted to the second annual translation conference held in Kandy, Sri Lanka. ---. 20 1 2. "Let Shakespeare Enrich Our Cultural Encounters." In Streets Ahead with HaJhlhotuwegama, edited by Kanchuka Dharmasiri, Lohan Gunawccra, and N icole Calandra, 34 1 -346. Maharagama: Ravaya. Lefevere, Andre. 1 998. "Acculturating Bertolt Brecht." In Constructing Cu/lures: Essays on Literary Translation, edited by Susan Bassnett and Al'.ldre Lefevere. Clevedon: Multi l ingual Matters. - - . 2000. "Mother Courage's Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory or Literature." In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti. London and New York: Routledge. N gugT wa Thiong'o. 1 993. Moving the Center. Nairobi: East A frican educational Publishers Ltd. Rushdie, Salman. 1 99 1 . lmaginatJ' Homelands: Essays and Crilicism 1 981-1991. New York : Penguin. Shakespeare, William. 2007. The Tempest. Reprint of the 1 863 London ( Macmi llan and Co.) edition, Project Gutenberg. a· http://www.gutenberg.org/li les/23042/23042-h/23042-h.hlm. ..___ ru ..___ w 34 Wool f, Virginia. 1 929. A Room ofOne s Own. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. Zatl in, Phil lis. 2005. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation: A Practitioner s View. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Zuber, Ortrun. 1 980. "The Translation of Non-Verbal Signs in Drama." Pacific Quarterly Moana 5 ( I ): 6 1 -74. Kanchuka Dharmasiri is a theater director and translator. She is currently teaching postcolonial theater, performance theory, and alternative theater in the Fine Arts De partment at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She recently completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Kanchuka's re search interests include translation studies, postcolonial studies, and early Buddhist women's writing. She has translated and directed plays such as Eugene lonesco's La -- Cantatrice Chauve and Woody Allen's God. She is the editor of Streets Ahead with (") -- Haththotuwegama (2013), a selection of writings by and about Gamini Haththo tuwegama, a pioneer of political street theater in Sri Lanka. � ·.;:::, 35

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Translational Departures: Rethinking Genre and Translation C h a n d ra n i C h atte rjee University of Pune. India. eh and ran [email protected]. in Abstract: The present paper attempts to read certain episodes in nineteenth cen tury colonial Calcutta as processes of cultural translation. The translational aspect of the colonial encounter has been largely unnoticed. The cul rural traffic, the movement of languages, books, genres and ideas indicate a larger process of cul tural translation at work. In rethinking how cultures relate to one another at moments of cultural encounter, I have tried co emphasize the crucial role chat genres play in such a process. Through a select reading of the novel and some popular prinr genres in nineteenth cenrury Calcurt.a I suggest that instead of a stable mimetic theory of art we need to approach the colonial encounter as a process of constant negotiation and exchange, of translational departures which in rum helps us unsercle conventional notions of the rigidity of genre boundaries enabling a furthering of processes of translation. Introduction In the essay titled "The Law of Genre," Derrida comments in the following fashion: "Genres are not to be mixed. I will not mix genres . I repeat: genres are not to be mixed. I will not mix them" ( Derrida 1 980, 55). One of the least studied areas in translation studies is per haps its relation to genre and the phenomenon of generic translation. Derrida's comment opens new and interesting possibilities for un derstanding genres and their translational aspects. With the "cultural turn" 1 in translation studies, there has been a lot of scholarly dis cussion and debate on the way in which translation informs and is informed by its association with disciplines as diverse as culture studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, ethnography, and an thropology to name just a few. This has definitely widened the scope and the possibilities for translation studies and made it an 1 Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere were among the early proponents of the "cultural turn." The term a· --- then gained currency and has been used ever since by scholars and specialists across different disciplines. ---,.._, s 36 u.) interdiscipli nary if not a multidisc ipl i nary domain . However, it seems to me that, despite this w ideni ng of boundaries , the relation between genre and transl ation has not recei ved its due attention . It seems to me that the notion of cultural translation is perhaps best perceived in the translation of l iterary forms or genres . Not only are words, phrases, and sentences translated, but often the entire genre gets translated in the process of cultural interaction and trans mission . Genre provides an appropriate site for cultural negotiation and exchange. Genre translations become more interesting when the period to be studied is that of a colonial encounter. In the present paper I attempt to i l lustrate the process of generic translation in n ineteenth-century Calcutta, h ighl ighting the possibil ities that such an approach holds for scholars of translation studies and post colonial studies alike. It seems to me that the opening assertion in Derrida's essay is not workable when generic translations are con cerned . Genre mixtures is the only possible way of understanding the processes in which genres are shaped and reshaped over cultural exchanges, of which the colonial encounter may be one. These translational "departures" in genre formation ( I use the word "de parture" both in the sense of difference, that is, departing from the original and also indicating a movement, a crossing over, a ferrying across , thereby i ndicating a process of dislocation and a relocation in d ifferent spatial and temporal domains) open interesting ways of locating and answering questions related to colon ial and post colon ial phases in l iterary history. In the first section of this paper, I w i l l try to contextual ize the phase in the colon ial history of Cal cutta which was retrospectively cal led the Bengal Renaissance, h ighlighting the translational aspect of this period . I n the second section , I will discuss at some length the ways in which the colon ial encounter fac i l itated translations of genres, taking the example of the Bengali novel . I n the third section , I w i l l elaborate on the trans lational aspect of the print phenomena in n ineteenth-century Cal cutta and the ways in which print culture further faci l itated generic translations. The Bengal Renaissance The much discussed Bengal Renaissance has been de scribed as a phase of the beginning of modernity in the sociocultural --- history of I ndia. It was a period when the English educational cur- --- � C ·.;:::. C 37 riculum was successfully launched, and institutions for the dissem ination of English education were set up with the hope of creating a new class of Bengali intelligentsia. It was also a period of reform movements, new laws being promulgated to replace older ones, a phase of constant negotiation and exchange between the colonial masters and the natives. It was a phase when popular printing really took off in Calcutta, churning out a huge variety of texts and genres that in turn inaugurated a new reading culture and a public sphere in the city which boasted new marvels. Scholars who have tried to revisit this immensely productive, vibrant, and rich phase in the history of Bengal have also noted the difficulty of talking of the Bengal Renaissance as a unified and monolithic phenomenon , thereby escaping holistic definitions.2 lt seems to me that one of the defining features of the Bengal Renaissance which actually problematizes the way in which we understand this phase in colo nial history is the way in which translations played a very vital role in shaping sensibilities and, in the process , manufacturing knowl edge and intellectuals. The role of translation in defining the Ren aissance has not been studied with proper care. J n fact , one of the primary ways in which the cultural exchange in the colonial phase was facilitated was through the translation of European texts into Bengali in the nineteenth century. Often , these translations would help import new forms which would then be negotiated by native readers before they could be assimilated or rejected. These transla tions thus redefined the way in which literature would be under stood from this moment on . ltamar Even-Zahar, when discussing the polysystem theory, mentioned three instances where translations play and have played a vital role in the shaping of a literary culture. These are 1 ) when a literature is young or in the process of being established; 2) when a literature is peripheral or weak or both; and 3) wben there are turning points , crises , or literary vacuums in a culture.1 Even though the nature of the nineteenth-century transla- 2 Resea�h on the phase which was retrospectively called the Bengal Renaissance has been stupendous. Though scholars have held diverse opinions on the nature of this phase, however, they have all agreed on the productivity of this phase. Some studies on the Bengal Renaissance would include David Kopf, British - Drientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1773- 1835 IBerkley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1 969); R. C. Majumdar, Renascent Bengal!Calcuna: Asiatic Society, 1 972); Susobhan Sarkar, On the Bengal Rer,aissance !Calcutta: Ppyrus, 1 985); Sum it Sarkar. Writing Social �- History O)elhi: Oxford University Press, 1 997). -- 3 ltamar Even-Zahar. "The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem," in The Trans lation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti !London: Routledge, 2000). 1 92-1 97. -- ru' u.) 38 tions in Bengal cannot be understood in any of the abovementioned ways , these translations nonetheless played a vital role in shaping the culture of Bengal in particular and India in general. These trans lations gave rise to new genres and challenged notions of existing genres. In fact, Calcutta can be described in terms of a city found in translation. The sheer bulk of translated literature produced in the city from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth century in dicates the ways in which cultural translation and exchange formed the basis of the cultural plurality of the city as we know it even today. These translations cannot be appreciated without a brief overview of the way in which the introduction of English education transformed the sociocultural scene in Bengal in the nineteenth century. The controversy between the 'Orientalists' and the ' An glicists' over the utilization of the money that was set aside for ed ucation4 by the act of 1 8 1 3 was finally resolved in William Bentinck's tenure. By the Resolution of March 7, 1 835, it was re solved that the funds would "be henceforth employed in imparting to the Native population knowledge of English literature and science through the medium of the English language" (Spear 1 970, 1 27). Schools and colleges were set up by the British, and Persian gave way to English as the official language of the colonial state and the medium of the higher courts of law. Bentinck's administrative methodology thereby led to an induction of more and more Indians into the hierarchy, a possibility that was enabled by English educa tion. According to Gauri Yiswanathan, the introduction of English education can be seen as "an embattled response to historical and political pressures: to tensions between the English Parliament and the East India Company and the native elite classes" (Viswanathan 1 987, 24). The colonial practice of translation played a very sig nificant role in the way in which prevalent practices were negotiated and rearticulated in this phase of history. While the European trans lations of Indian texts prepared for a Western audience provided the educated I ndian with a whole range of Orientalist images , the translations from the European languages into the native tongue 4 For more on the education debates in colonial India see Lynn Zastoupil and Moir Martin, eds., The Great --.. Indian Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Drientalist- A nglicist Controversy, 1781-1843 (Surrey: � Curzon Press, 1 999) --.. C ·.p C 39 affords many more interesting instances of cultural translation , ne gotiation , cross-overs , and departures , particu larly with respect to a reconfiguration of generic boundaries. Translational Departures: Reconfiguring Generic Boundaries With the introduction of the colonial l iterary models came the initial desire to emulate them . We have records of the ways in wh ich the English poets who were studied within the new educa tional curriculum immensely inspired the first generation of English learners in Calcutta . These new learners were not only avid readers of English poetry but they were also attempting to write poetry l i ke the poems they were reading. So we have evidence of the ways in which poetry writing was encouraged in the H indu college, one of the earl iest institutions set up for the teaching of English. It is in teresting to note the translational practice at work in the choice of themes , recurring images, and the procolonial discourse at work in these early poems. Harachandra Ghosh's "Benaras" comes imme diately to mind . Th is poem was listed as one that was selected for an award at the Annual Prize distribution ceremony of the H indu Col lege .5 What strikes the reader is the encomiastic nature of the poem . Having l i sted the earl ier colonizers of India as dangerous, the poetic persona sighs with relief at the way in wh ich the country has been rescued by the English . The rest of the poem is in praise of the present rulers interweaved through a history of the natives. Such poetic compositions can perhaps best be read as works of translation - a translation of the anxiety of a young group of Eng l i sh learners who wanted to draw the attention of the ru lers and please them . Harachandra Ghosh 's poem and several other poems written in a similar vein cannot be understood without the colonial context and the introduction of the new educational system. How ever, poems of this genre cannot simply be understood, either, as a mere copy of any of the English poets who were being read as part of the new educational curricul u m . There was a desire to emulate, but local history and culture added new dimensions to these poems , maki ng these new works of art. �. ---ci!' 5 This poem is cited in R. K. Dasgupta, East -West Literary Relations !Calcutta: Papyrus, 1 995). 278. --- u.) 40 In fact, a study of the history of translation reveals the ways i n which orig inal texts are rewritten and also exposes the routes through which innovations are introduced into the literary f ield. The colonial context of these works inscribes the asymmetrical relationship between the European originals and their Indian trans lations. The proliferation of texts translated from European lan guages, especially English, in colonial India i ndicates the multiple layers of contact between the two cultures. A study of texts trans lated into Bengali from 1 800 to 1 900 reveals the copious work which was being done in translation around this time.6 Apart from literature, which is divided into fiction, poetry, drama, and miscel laneous works, there are translations of the B ible, biographies and exemplary lives, economics, general science, geography, history, law, medicine and child rearing, philosophy, political tracts, and religion and history of rel igion. With particular reference to literary genres one often notices a curious blurri ng of generic boundaries and i nteresting examples of cultural translation. The Arabian Nights was one of the most popular texts and was translated over and over again by different translators. Nilmani Basak translated the work as Arabya Upanyas in three parts. The term upanyas in Ben gali translates to the genre category that is called the novel in Eng lish. Moreover, the i nitial confusion and debate regarding the nomenclature of this genre is interesting to note. In different parts of India, writers and scholars debated what the correct Indian equiv alent of this genre might be. In some cases new words were coined for the new genre, while in others the English word was retained. Supriya Chaudhuri notes how the term upanyas was still new, and was used interchangeably with other more well known terms as late as 1 93 1 : I n an essay published in Prabasi ( 1 93 1 ) Rabindranath Tagore distinguished the social realism of Bankimchandra's novel Bishabriksha ( 'The Poisoned Tree' , 1 873) from historical romance, for which he used the te1m kahini (usu ally translated as 'tale' ) as contrasted with akhyan (chronicle, nairntive). While the term inology he was trying to establish (at a time when the choice of the term upanyas for ' novel' was sti l l fairly recent) never found favour, Ra- (") 6 See P. R. Sen, Western Influence in Bengali Literature (Calcutta: Academic Publishers. 1 966); see also Time Charts of Events and Publications 1 798 -1900, prepared by the Department of English, Jadavpur Uni --- versity, Kolkata. --- � C ·.;::, C 41 bindranath 's autobiographical account of the breathless anticipation with which instalments of Bishabriksha were awaited (as they appeared serially in the journal Bangadnrshan from its first issue in 1 872) memorably evokes an un precedented literary experience . (Chaudhuri 20 1 2, I 08) In fact, this "unprecedented literary experience" led to sev eral sociocultural transformations interestingly through a new lit erary genre. The innate tendency of genres to diffuse is best witnessed in times of cultural exchange. In such situations, genres become intermediaries between two cultures revealing not only its formal and technical features but also the sociocultural and political situation of its emergence. The emergence of the novel in nine teenth-century Calcutta offers an interesting case study of the trans lational aspects of the colonial encounter. The Novel: A Translated G enre? The novel in nineteenth-century Calcutta provides an in teresting melange. Perhaps the only possible way to understand a complex phenomenon like the novel is by examining the dynamics of translatability that it puts forth and the "dialogic" activity that it necessitates. The dialogic act enables translators to preserve the difference between the "self' and the "other." Translation attains a voice of its own that is neither an imitation of the source text nor a completely detached work. Here I am referencing Mikhail Bakhtin's postulation of translation as the "answering word." It seems to me that the way in which the novel was introduced in the cultural horizon of India in general and Calcutta in particular and the way it was interpreted , understood , and translated makes it understand able along Bakhtinian paradigms of the dialogic and the notion of the answering word. Translation, according to Bakhtin, results from an interaction between two languages and cultures situated differ ently in time and space. A translation extends the influence of a source text to another culture, and thus contributes to the open ended nature of the text. It often keeps alive the source text's influ ence among readers of the native tongue. These aspects allow us to view translation as an "answering word" in the Bakhtinian sense. Bakhtin argues that "every word is directed towards an answer and cannot escape the profound influence of the answering word ---al' that it anticipates" ( Bakhtin 1 994, 280). Translators not only corn- --- w 42 pose an "answering word" referring to the source text but also pro duce it so that this answering word will meet the anticipation of target readers. Translation is thus the product of a dialogic triangu lation between the source text, the translator, and the target text audience. This "dialogic" demands that translators comprehend both the source culture and the target culture as "the other." Thus translation is the outcome of a "dialogic event," that is, open-ended and a never- ending dialogue between the translators ' consciousness and the source and target cultures. Bakhtin talks of translation as a process of "active understanding" .7 Theories that consider transla tion as a secondary and derivative activity, advocate "passive un derstanding." Passive understanding is monologic because it allows only one singular perspective to exist. In fact, active understanding is what makes translation an "answering word." In appreciating the novel in Calcutta as a phenomenon in cultural translation, I will refer to the Bakhtinian notion of the "answering word" as "ac tive understanding," for the novel was neither a pastiche of the English model nor can it be understood without the backdrop of the colonial encounter. It was a process of negotiation and exchange, an active understanding and interpretation that led to the develop ment of the novel in Calcutta. Bankimchandra Chatterjee ( 1 838- 1 894) is regarded as the first novelist of note so far as the development of Bengali prose is concerned. An ardent admirer of Shakespeare, Scott and the Romantic poets , Chatterjee utilized the form of the novel to question the basic premise of western education in Bengal namely, that western education acts as a morally uplifting, beneficial reforming force in the social sphere. He adopts a revisionist stance with regards to western education in the novels that deal with it. Chatterjee's first novel, Rajmohan 's Wife ( 1 864) , remains his only novel in English.8 Between the introduction of a new form and its assimilation or rejection in any culture there is generally a lapse of 7 The terms "active understanding" and "passive understanding" are taken from Bakhtin's conceptualiza tions on aesthetic activity Bakhtin draws attention to a conceptual category called "Being-as-event," which presupposes an answerable participation IBakhtin 1 993, 1-77). In his words, "lt)he entire aesthetic world as a whole is but a moment of Being-as-event, brought rightfully into communion with Being-as-event ('") through an answerable consciousness - through an answerable deed by a participant" IBakhtin 1 993, 1 8). 8 This is in keeping with many writers of the nineteenth century who tried their hand at the English language ---- and then returned to their mother tongue. The obvious example that comes to mind is that of Michael Mad � husudan Dutt. ---- ·.;::, 43 � time and several social and cultural factors play a role in it. ln the West as well, the novel was not the outcome of the experimentation of one single author or of some set conditions. It was a long-drawn process of additions and alterations that ultimately resulted in such a hybrid but distinct form.9 In the case of India as well, in the early part of the nineteenth century, many writers produced various kinds of prose writings claiming to be novels. However, it took around two decades for the form to consolidate itself. Bankimchandra's works depict this space of negotiation, exchange, and translation almost like a palimpsest. The traces of the �d world had to be written on. This world of rearticulation is what I understand as translation. The Bakhtinian notion of "outsi deness" becomes significant here. According to Bakhtin, " I i In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who under stands to be located outside the object of their creative understand ing in time, in space , in culture" ( Bakhtin 1 994, 7). The novel writers in Calcutta were located outside in time space and culture and could develop an active and creative understanding of the new form that was made available to them again primarily through transllations. In his first English endeavor, Bankimchandra starts nego tiating two worlds-one that was known to his readers, and another that was unfamiliar. In Rajmohan 's Wife, "woman" is portrayed as the traditional wife. However, the foregrounding of a female char acter (although unnamed in the title and only referred to as "wife") is worth noting. It is her story, the story of a suffering but coura geous woman, which is rendered in a hybrid genre, drawing on the tradition of the adventure story and romance. Certainly, the way a strong, beautiful woman is wasted on a brutal, evil man is meant to mark a critical stance towards the submission of woman to social norms. Moreover, the central position of the female character in the novel also hints at the implied criticism of gendered roles and fe male identity, both strongly connected to women's marital status. The "claustrophobia of women in incompatible marriages" (Mukherjee 1 996, vi) is countered by the romance plot which is based on a specifically Indian discourse on love and passion, al- 9 See Paul J Hunter. Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (New ---- York: Nortnn, 1 990). ru ---- C,.) 44 luding to Radha and Krishna, 1 0 a story about romantic, but extra marital, love. This very hybridity of genres is of interest to us. Not only is the novel a quite audacious blend of genres, but it certainly also draws together different discourses on women. As Makarand Paranjape notes, "I c lreated from an amalgam of classical, medieval and European sources and totally unprecedented imaginative leaps into what might constitute a new female subjectivity 1 -. . 1. She, moreover, embodies the hopes of an entire society struggling for selfhood and dignity" ( Paranjape 2002, 1 58). The translational as pect of this new genre can be located in the way it questioned and negotiated earlier modes of existence. It needs to be noted here that certain components of the novel, particularly the story and the plot, are universally present in all forms of narratives. Within the Euro pean tradition, too, one finds the epic and the romance, which are considered to be precursors to the novel. In the Indian literary tra dition there were fantastically sizeable narratives like the Ra mayana and Mahabharata, the vast storehouse of kathas. Yet readers almost immediately recognized the differences between the novel and existing narrative traditions. In fact, this new form led to several shifts in representation and interpretation and challenged prevalent conventions. In Bakhtin's conceptual framework it can be regarded as an active interpretation and an answering word for native writers who were experimenting with this new form. It is here that I locate the translational aspects of this new genre. Read ers were attracted by the stories that the novels narrated and the real-life men and women it conjured. When the novel appeared in India, it knocked on the door of modernity as it were. However, the shift in paradigms was not as easy and straightforward as it might appear to us now. In fact, one can perceive the ways in which the novel as a new genre became the site of a dual struggle against the constraints of tradition on the one hand and the hegemonic tenden cies inherent in the process of colonialism on the other. The early novels in most Indian languages convincingly illustrate this point. Traditions had to be reclaimed and revitalized as part of modernity in order to establish their continuity, while at the same time the le- 10 In the story of Krishna, as told in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana (ancient Hindu religious (Y) texts). he spends much of his childhood in the company of young cow-herd girls. called Gopis in the village of Madhuvan. Radha is one of the gopis The Radha-Krishna amour is discussed in later texts like the Gita --- Govinda. Radha pines and waits for Krishna who is married. This love outside the defined and conventional institution of marriage has been rendered in a variety of ways in different parts of India. --- � C ·.;::; C 45 gitimacy of modernity depended on how it conformed to tradition. The negotiation between these two worlds is what one notices in the early experiments with the novel. What one perceives, perhaps, is a process of cultural translation at work-an entire discourse re garding human beings, nature, religion, and society being trans lated. As Shivaram Padikkal notes: Even when we employ - as we are often forced to-the terms of reference of Western novel criticism, we real ize the unique nature of a Western genre as it unfolds in the I ndian context . This is not to suggest that the I ndian novel is merely imitative or derivative . The reception of a literary form is certainly not such a simple process, being a complex historical transaction rather than the decision of an individual author. (Padikkal 1 993 , 222) Two such important locales of cultural transaction were perhaps the emergence of new subjectivities, particularly with ref erence to women and the sense of history. In trying to elaborate on the translational nature of the novel in Calcutta, I would read some of Bankimchandra Chatterjee's writing in this light. However, before discussing Bankim 's contribution to the development of the genre of the novel, let us briefly look at the translations that in a way paved the emergence of the Bengali novel. In 1 835, Bunyan's Pilgrim 's Progress was translated into Bengali by the Calcutta Tract and Christian Book Society; in 1 837, Raja Kali Krishna translated Rasselas into Bengali; in 1 849 , Romeo and Juliet, the first of the dramatist 's stories to be thus rendered was translated by one Gurudas H azra from Lamb 's Tales from Shake speare. Some imaginative essays bordering on fiction proper but with an allegorical significance were translated by Akshay Kumar Dutta. His Svapna Darshan was a rendering of Addison's Vision of Mirza in the Tatter, published in the issues of the journal Tattvabod hini Patrika , 1 849-1 850. 1 1 It is, however, in the latter half of the nineteenth century that we come across more energetic and suc cessful attempts. The Vernacular Literature Society, with Govern ment support, took a leading part in paving the way for Bengali fiction by undertaking to translate many stories from English liter ature. Robinson Crusoe was translated in 1 85 3 , Lamb's Tales (nine �- 1 1 For similar details see Priyaranjan Sen's Western Influence in Bengali Literature (Calcutta: Academic ---- Publishers, 1 966) al' ---- w 46 tales) in 1 856, 1 857, and in 1 85 8 . Novel writing in Bengal also re ceived an impetus from social reformers. 1 2 Jay Kissan Mookherji of Uttarpra declared a prize of five hundred rupees for a novel in Bengali or English on the "l s locial and domestic life of the rural population of the working classes of Bengal." 1 ' The Viceroy also offered a prize of five hundred rupees "for the best Bengali tale or novel illustrating the social and domestic life of the Hindu." 1 4 Sisir Kumar Das, in an essay titled "Assimilation of For eign Genres," quotes a few lines from a play spoken by a young woman of modest education to an uneducated woman, a maidser vant, representing two types of readers and the nature of the genre, the novel: A series of new publ ications , have appeared these days; they are known as novels. No other works have so much knowledge to offer. Previously, how wonderful it was to read the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Now as I have learnt to read the novels, I don't l ike even to touch them . l wish I could teach you, you would have known the delight of reading novels. (Das 2004, 2 1 ) The young reader in the above conversation i s a woman who is talking about both the pleasure and instructional value of the novel. Moreover, the newness and the attractive nature of the genre cannot be missed in the above description. The most exciting aspect of this conversation, however, is the depiction of women readers and the concept of private reading. In fact, the novel intro duced a new form of female subjectivity that was a curious mixture of the old and the new and was conscious of its translated nature. The coexistence and often jostling of space between the prevalent and new concepts and ideas can be witnessed in the novel. Bankimchandra Chatterjee 1 5 provides an interesting entry point. Historians of Bengali literature have explored the various 1 2 See Time Charts of Events and Publications 1798- 1900. Jadavpur University, Kolkata. 13 The Hindu Patriot. February 6. 1 87 1 14 The Hindu Patriot, April 24, 1 87 1 . 1 5 Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1 838-1 894) was a forceful thinker who embraced Western thought enthu siastically and applied it to examine Hinduism within the framework of Positivist and Utilitarian thinking. His fame largely rests on his fictional work. He is regarded as having introduced the form of the novel in India. His first attempt at the novel was in English. Rajmohan's Wife ( l 864) remains his only novel written in English. He was also a poet and a journalist. His later and mature novel Anandamath (The Abbey of (Y) Bliss. 1 882) became a favourite during the nationalist struggle. In fact. this novel was the source of the song "Vande Mataram" ("I worship my Motherland for she truly is my mother") which was set to music by --- Rabindranath Tagore and was taken up by the freedom fighters. It is now recognized as the National Song of India. --- :-§ ·.p 47 £; Western literary influences on Bankim's writings. The affinities be tween his first novel in Bengali , Durgeshnandini ( 1 865) , 1 0 and Scott's Ivanhoe ( 1 820) have been commented upon repeatedly. Bankim himself acknowledged that his story of the blind girl, Ra jani, was inspired by Bulwer-Lytton 's wst Days of Pompeii ( 1 834) and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White ( 1 860) . Both his roman tic historical themes and the later "social novels" concerned with ordinary men and women of his own days and the problems of the human condition in a specific cultural context have very obvious Western resonances as I iterary products. Our concern here is not to accuse Bankim of consciously or unconsciously modeling his writ ing on Western forms or styles , but to indicate the sensibilities which informed his world of imagination and intellect and thereby to locate the translational aspects involved in this process. There was at least one attempt to write a novel in Bengali before Bankim, the famous A/aler Gharer Dula! by Tekchand Thakur 1 7 • Bankim's writing and this earlier literary effort do not belong to the same world of emotional, aesthetic, or intellectual ambience. The differ ences derive not simply from one man's individual genius but the complex interaction between distinct cultural influences in a par ticular historical situation resulting in new patterns of sensibilities (Raychaudhuri, 2002, 1 27- 1 28 ) . Perhaps the most striking new characteristic of Bankim's novels is an intensely romantic mood expressed in a variety of forms and contexts. It is a romanticism unmistakably different from the delight in the miraculous and the wonderful that educated Bengalis had acquired from their exposure to Arabic and Persian tales. His romantic imagination was no doubt inspired by his pro found reading of European, and particularly English, literature. However, the discursive strategy that was employed was one of recovering local history within western forms of writing. Those who were familiar with English literature immediately realized the deeper affinity between Durgeshnandini and the European romance. 16 Durgeshnandininarrates a story of the love triangle between Jagat Singh. a Mughal general. Tilottama. the daugnter of a Bengali feudal lord. and Ayesha. the daughter of a rebel Pathan leader against whom Jagat Si�h was fighting. The story is set against the backdrop of the Pathan-Mughal conflicts that took place in West Bengal during the reign of Akbar. 17 Published in 1 857, this work is retrospectively regarded as one of the earliest novels in Bengali. It was written by Peary Chand Mitra ( 1 8 1 4-1 883). The writer used the pseudonym "Tekchand Thakur" for this novel, which describes the society of the nineteenth-century Calcutta and the bohemian lifestyle of the pro ---- tagonist Matilal. It is a landmark in Bengali literature because of its use of the colloquial in prose writing. ---- Cu 48 It was not just an external resemblance analyzable in terms of plot and structure but a resemblance in mood and spirit. Soon after the publication of Durgeshnandini, some critics charged Bankim of plagiarism, noticing similariti�s with Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe deals with an episode in twelfth-century England , a period of confusion and oppression when hostilities between the Saxons and Normans still lingered. Durgeshnandini is set against the back ground of the Pathan and Mughal conflicts in sixteenth-century Bengal. Despite this parallel, the plan and policy of the two writers are entirely different. The obvious similarities in plot and structure cannot be overlooked, but this does not negate the originality of Durgeshnandini. The novel in India was the result of a tension be tween Western fiction and native traditions. Though the historical novel introduced by Bankim drew its inspiration from the West, it was also a product born out of the emotional requirements of the nineteenth century. As Sudipta Kaviraj suggests, "the fundamental asymmetry between the European and the Bengali made a simple imitation of the European manner of doing history impossible. To discover the truth of historical objects and connections is the ironical privilege of the subaltern" ( Kaviraj I 995 , l 07). There is therefore in nineteenth-century Bengal, a double turning towards history. On the one hand it is a subject of empirical research, while on the other it is a site of imaginative freedom. Nowhere is the engagement with history more complex than in the fiction of Bankim. Thus , whether Bankim had read Ivanhoe before writing Durgeshnandini will remain a matter of debate among scholars studying cross-cul tural literary exchange and influence. But what is significant is the way in which through his acquaintance with English literature, Bankim created a new genre which not only became a site for rewriting history but also gave the Bengali writers a new form of writing that they had been struggling to create. This genre opened new imaginative domains and redefined human relations which have played a significant role in the shaping of Bengali culture in the nineteenth century. It seems to me that Bankim used historical material to create a space where history and romance mingled freely. More than his concern with a particular form was his exper imentation with a new aesthetics. In fact, the form of the historical (Y) novel was found particularly suitable by the western educated Ben --- galis as a means of critiquing the dominant ideology at the end of --- 2 C ·.:, C 49 the nineteenth century. Chatterjee used this form to question the malpractices of the contemporary society regarding.women's free dom and the institution of marriage. The concept of premarital love , a concept translated from English literature, was explored by many writers of the time. When the socially sanctioned marriageable age for girls was five or six and that of boys ten, premarital romance was absurd. The historical romance provided the scope for dealing with youthful and premarital life. In fact, the readers in Bengal be gan to deal w ith love from the literary end. That is to say, at first it was transferred to Bengali literature from English literature, and then taken over from literature to life. It is perhaps necessary to understand the translational aspect at work here. We are talking of a new form, which is read and translated ( in the sense of each reading/interpretation being a translation) into a completely different sociocultural and literary environment. The process, of course , in volves obvious transformations so far as the features of the genre are concerned. The translational departure in the case of Bankim was to use the framework of the historical romance to express powerful ideas in a covert form. Chatterjee as a representative of his generation , found the woman question one that required special attention. Proper education of women and their engagement outside the domestic sphere becomes a recurring theme in his novels. H is novels became a powerful tool for the propagation of his religious and social i deas. By deifying the Bengali woman into an aspect of the Motherland and by repeatedly reviving a sense of a forgotten past Chatterjee's literary works pioneered the Indian nationalist movement. According to Sudipta Kaviraj , "I h I is characters are people who are nearly always living their lives close to these regions of intersection, of liminality, where opposites come to play with each other. If there is a central theme in his novels, I suggest it is this enquiry, this concern about the nature of the liminal" ( Kaviraj 1 995 , 1 5) . Taking Kaviraj's notion one step further, I suggest that the "liminal" is largely a zone of translational departures. ---- o!' ---- c,.:, 50 Print G enres and Translation The translational departures of the kind discussed above are also witnessed in the ways in which the advent of print tech nology revolutionized practices of reading , introducing new and transforming existing genres. Printing in India dates back to the sixteenth century when the Portuguese set up the first printing press on the subcontinent. However, indigenous printing and publishing really took off in Bengal in the first half of the nineteenth century. Bengal emerges as the focus of study for various reasons. It was not only the seat of the first established vernacular press (The Ser ampore Press) 1 8 and the earliest printing and publishing industry in the country, but also the seed bed of Indian nationalism. In his largely informative book titled Indian Response to European Tech nology and Culture, Ahsan Jan Qaisar discusses at length the arrival of this new technology in India and the way it was received. It is amazing, says Qaisar, that the Chinese knowledge of wooden block printing did not create a ripple of reaction in India. The early reac tion to this new technology was varied-one of awe and fear, of wonder and, of course, full of the contamination myth according to which the printing press was an alien agent and, along with the missionary project, designed to pollute and convert the natives. However, one of the sections of society who resisted this new tech nology the most were the organized calligraphers and illuminators whose livelihood was threatened with the coming of the printing press. As Francesca Orsini (2009) rightl y comments, unlike in Eu rope, print did not take off immediately in the East and Far East, because the infrastructure needed for the flourishing of a print cul ture was not available. So , although the technique of woodblock printing had been developed by the eighth century at the latest, and that of metallic movable type no later than the twelfth century, sev eral centuries elapsed before it was commercially exploited in Ming China and seventeenth-century Korea and Japan . Thus in nine teenth-century Calcutta, commercial publishing in particular faced two daunting challenges: the low literacy rate and the strong pres ence of oral and aural cultures which it was difficult to replace corn- (Y) 18 The Serampore Press was established by William Carey in 1 800 in Serampore. in the Hooghly district of Bengal. Around 1818, the press started printing in the Bengal i language. For a detai led study of the beginnings of printing in Bengal in ...._ particular and India in general, see A. K. Priokar. The Printing Press in India.· Its Beginnings and Early Development I Mumbai: � Marathi Samshodhana Mandala, 1 958). ...._ ·.;::; 51 pletely with the printed book. Instead of looking on this as an ob stacle or hurdle which printing was finally able to overcome, I choose to read the early days of commercial printing in Calcutta as an instance of translational departure. There was an attempt to in crease the sale of printed books, but it was not done by outdoing or replacing earlier practices of the oral and the aural. Rather, popular commercial printing in Calcutta created new and translated genres which would incorporate and also negotiate the new space that the print medium had brought along with it. This negotiation was not easy and required a rearticulation of ideas and sentiments and a new semiotics of reception. A study of the emergence of the popular print phenomena in Calcutta in the nineteenth century affords in teresting examples of the translational phenomena at work. As has already been mentioned, the shift from a largely oral and aural cul ture to a print culture was not easy, nor was it one of complete re placement. Print technology in certain ways facilitated a carrying forward, a translation of the prevalent forms. Print created the space for the oral and the aural to exist alongside the printed medium. In other words, it translated the earlier forms into a new format. Let us consider some examples. While the elite presses located in the south of Calcutta 1 9 were primarily catering to the printing of the Bible and other official treatises, the popular printing extravaganza was located in the north of Calcutta in the area known as Bat-tala.20 The Bat-tala presses were run by the natives and were doing a brisk trade in the publication and sale of cheap literature . The output of these presses often exceeded those of the elite presses and was con sumed by both the elite and the nonelite. Wherein lay the popularity of Bat-tala literature? Social historians have commented on the con sumers of Bat-tala literature, identifying them as consisting mainly of office clerks who would commute via ferry from the neighboring villages to Calcutta and would return to their villages in the evening. These readers were looking for entertainment, and Bat tala had a lot to offer. The Bat-tala printers and artists would take 19 The area in the north of Calcutta, called the Black Town, is the area where the natives had settled. while the south of Calcutta, where the British had settled. was called the White Town. 10 The terra Bat-ta/a (literally Bat "'banyan tree," and ta/a '"beneath"') refers to the numerous presses that operated im the north of Calcutta in the nineteenth century. They could be compared to the bibliotheque bleue in e<l"ly modern France, and offered cheap texts which were adapted, abridged, or cannibalized with ...__ scant regard for scholarly decorum and put together for quick sale and wide circulation . ...__ w 52 contemporary polemical events, often spicing them up , and create very cheap twenty- to thirty-page booklets with plenty of illustra t ions. Often veering on the pornographic, Bat-tala almost became synonymous with the lowly and was forbidden to be read among the respectable. Bat-tala became a genre in i tself, coterminous with the common and the deviant. But a critical reading of Bat-tala lit erature would show that the pri nters and writers were social ob servers often criticizing the changing sociocultural scenario with utmost contempt and cynicism . Apparently conservative in content, Bat-tala also produced much social farce, which was one of the most popular genres. It therefore seems to me that Bat-tala was the popular sociocultural register that was translating a rapidly chang ing and transforming world for its readers. It is in the critical ob servation and often cannibalization of ancient texts and the critical rendition of contemporary sociocultural events that the translational departures of Bat-tala may be located. Operating from the periphery of a society that was undergoing rapid transformation, the Bat-tala writers and printers were keen observers trying to record this tran sitional phase, not as mere factual recorders, but as artists and aes theticians who were crucially aware of the way in which readi ng tastes were alteri ng with the advent of the new technology of pri nt and several sociocultural readjustments. It is clear that in Bat-tala and i ts cheap street l iterature lies one of those hidden spaces of ne gotiation and exchange that often goes unnoticed. Moreover, in translating the prepri nt world into the world of print, the Bat-tala printers were careful about the way the book appeared to its readers. The preponderance of images and p ictures in the Bat-tala printed books is an obvious i ndicator of the shift these popular printers were negotiating. For an audience accustomed to the oral and the aural, the visual would have an immediate appeal. Instead of the eye being guided along a page full of letters, the space for accom modating the image was created. Also , we cannot forget the fact that Bat-tala catered to a modestly literate audience. In this case, too , the p ictures served a purpose-it was pictures, rather than printed matter, that often guided a reader. This is one of the major ways in which the earlier forms crept into the Bat-tala genres, mak ing it not only a popular phenomenon but also a translational phe C0 nomenon. Furthermore, the language used in these pieces, rather ---- � than the standardized Sanskritized Bengali of the elite presses, was ---- C ·.;:::; "' C 53 very close to the colloquial vernacular. While the government was busy standardizing the Bengali language, trying to get rid of the Persian and Arabic influences, Bat-tala-produced texts were often full of Persian and Arabic words (Ghosh, 2006, 259). In defying standardization, Bat-tala pri n ted texts opened further possibilities of negotiation between the center and the periphery. It is interesting to note that in the early days a large bulk of Bat-tala printing comprised manuscripts that were bought from the neighborhood villages. James Long, one of the most avid readers of popular print in Calcutta, commented on the way in which the best advertisement for the book was a living agent-the bookseller himself. Hawkers were often employed to sell printed matter, and these hawkers would not only sell the books, but in return would also acquire manuscripts from households which they would then bring to the printers. The printers would use these manuscripts, often translate them (in the wider sense of the word) , embellish them with pictures and images, and print them again.2 1 The printed book here becomes the afterlife of the manuscript. Apart from this direct translational aspect, a study of some of the title pages of printed matter produced in Calcutta between 1 800 and 1 900 woul d show the broad use of the word "translation." Often, translations of texts from the European languages would be called a "new work" or modeled on some author's work. The notion of "transcreation" was perhaps a quality that these early printers, publishers, and writers were aware of. Moreover, in most instances the English and the Bengali appeared together on the title page in dicating a playful coexistence of the two languages in the early days of printing. Apart from indicating a clear translational feature, these title pages also point to the varied readership that the printers an ticipated. It also undoubtedl y makes us contemplate the growing literacy rate and the clear increase in the number of people who could read English. The title pages provide interesting insights into a culture in transition, a culture minimally inhabiting two linguistic domains. Sherry Simon's (20 1 2) notion of the "dual city" is perhaps best witnessed with respect to the transformations and transitions 2 1 See Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Street: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Cal cutta (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1 989); Anindita Ghosh, Power in Print(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, a· 2006); Stuart Blackburn. Print, Folklore and Nationalism in Colonial South India (Delhi: Permanent Black, ---ru 2003) --- <,.) 54 that print necessitated . Often, there are quotations from canonical English writers on the title page. Some writ ers are repeatedly quoted-Shakespeare and Dickens being two of the most popular. The sheer variety of the title pages is an indi cation of the different generic experimentations that nineteenth-century printers were practicing. While there were popular and cannibalized renderings of clas sical stories, moral tales, and educational tracts, these presses also published new genres such as the social Title page of a collection of poems farce, the novel, and the almanac. on the occasion of the new year. Interesting to note is a quotation from Young's Night-Thoughts. The social farce of nineteenth-century Calcutta is probably the best example of the translational depar tures that we have been discussing. It is in these farces that one notices a vivid rendering of a society that is on the threshold of change and also the apprehensions that accompany such change. Often in these farces, conven tional practices are pitted against new ways of life and the former upheld. Moreover, the farces did not stop there . With caustic remarks and hatred at a rapidly transforming society, these social farces often used un fortunate and scandalous contemporary events to make their point about the evils of the new age. Churned out Title page of a compilation of lsh warchandra Vidyasagar's Instruc primarily by the popular presses in Bat-tala , these tive Stories. It is interesting how the Bengali and English existed si farces were also full of hatred of the elite, the babu as multaneously on the title page. he was called, for his "translated" nature. He had not only learnt the master 's language, but he was also fol lowing a lifestyle modeled on the English . He had changed the way he dressed, ate, and conversed in his desire to be recognized by the masters . The popular presses at Bat-tala were inundated with a variety of rep resentations of the babu, including the visual. Most of these farces were accompanied by woodcut prints, which were sometimes also sold alone. The printers at Bat-tala followed the indigenous technique of the Ka lighat pat painters here. Themes, motifs, and concepts were translated into the new medium of the printed --- book at Bat-tala. Many scholars and book historians Title page of a social farce. --- 2 C ·.;:::, C 55 � have studied this phase in the colonial history of Calcutta, but the translational aspect of the popular print phenomenon has not re ceived due attention. I locate the translational departures of popular printing in nineteenth-century Calcutta in two primary aspects. I n the first place, the Bat-tala book market is, for me, the melting pot of a wide variety of genres. That is to say, unlike the more estab lished elite presses, which limited themselves to single , specific genres, at BaHala, where no stipulations or rules applied , anything could be printed. I ts readership had not been clearly defined and the printers and publishers at Bat-tala were testing the waters, as it were, in an attempt to determine popular reading tastes. It is in such circumstances that Bat-tala creates new combinations, new genre mixtures, which can be understood perhaps only in terms of trans lational departures . There was nothing "original" about Bat-tala genres-they were either retellings of ancient myths or rearticula tions of stories and incidents whose source can be located else where. However, it is this rearticulation that I am particularly interested in as therein lay the possibilities of innovation , addition, and, often , can nibalization. l n the second place, Bat-tala translates a whole set of visual aesthetics into print. I am here referring to the woodcut artists of Calcutta. As Ashit Paul comments, Beginning as illustrators for the new books, they soon came to publish their works as independent works of art. They drew inspiration from the Kalighat artists. The Kalighat artists had not only severed the connections the picture had had traditionally with the spoken word and the musical narrative, but had also I iberated it from its ties with ritual . 1 . . . I The works of the woodcut artists and en gravers had the same independence, and the same secular approach even though dealing primarily w ith religious and mythological themes. (Paul 1 983, 8) I n fact, the popular print phenomenon translated a whole set of re ligious iconography to a more secular and polemical domain. Re ligious and mythological representations were repeatedly used, but their secularized contexts and translated natures were not difficult to locate. Moreover, the new visual vocabulary was a translation of a variety of Western motifs. The popular printers and woodcut artists, developed the notion of perspective and distance in their il lustrations, which was not to be seen before the nineteenth century. �. I n the depiction of classical and mythological narratives, one often ----- finds European motifs and patterns being used. For example, iii' ----- w 56 though a representation of a nine teenth-century babu would typically portray him in his dhuti and kurta (tra ditional Bengali attire for men) he would be wearing English "pump" shoes or would be smoking a pipe. In the depiction of the interiors of a do mestic setting, European furniture and architecture would often be used. Mo tifs and themes from European art could even be discerned in Hindu Fig. 1-Scene from the childhood of Lord Krishna. mythological depictions. For example in figure I , which depicts a scene from Lord Krishna's childhood, one cannot fail to notice the Roman arches and columns used as a backdrop. Figure 2 and figure 3, both depict Lord Krishna with the gopinis. In figure 2 one notices the use of per spective, a foregrounding of Lord Kr ishna in the center surrounded by the gopinis creating a kind of balance in the depiction . Moreover, the two scenes in the corners in the back ground depicting episodes from Lord Fig 2-Krishna with gopis. Krishna's life also creates a unique balance, which was not found in ear lier woodcut prints. Figure 3 is again an episode from Lord Krishna's life, stealing clothes of the gopinis. This is one rare depiction of Krishna playing the flute standing. Conventionally he is depicted playing the flute sitting. This vertical central motif is balanced by two trees on either sides. It is clear that the central tree and the trees on the sides do not look similar. In fact, (Y) "' CJ ---- the side trees remind one of floral Ei marginal motifs which the woodcut Fig 3 -Another depiction of Krishna with gopis. ---- c a "' C 57 _fg artist may have seen in some European book. ( Paul, I 983 , 50-56). Such translational aspects of the popular print episode in Calcutta have generally gone unnoticed. Although woodcut print production declined rapidly with the arrival of lithography and oleography in popular art, this phase in the popular print history of Calcutta is one of experimentation and translation-a cultural translation which was facilitated by the colonial encounter. Conclusion In Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation, Umberto Eco questions the traditional way of viewing translation as fol lows: What I want to emphasize is that many concepts circulating i n translation studies (such as adequacy, equivalence, faithfulness) will be considered in the course of my lectures from the point of v iew of negotiation . Negotiation is a process by virtue of which , in order to get something, each party renounces somethi ng else, and at the end everybody feels satisfied since one cannot have everything. (Eco 2003 , 6). These "negotiations," in fact, defined the colonial period in Calcutta. We have seen how the Bengali novel in the nineteenth century was not just a product of the colonial encounter, but drew upon a multiplicity of literary traditions , indigenous as well as for eign. The fissures and uncertainties which accompanied such ne gotiations in a way transformed our understanding of literature, life, and society. As Supriya Chaudhuri remarks , "the 'realism' of the novel clearly offers native writers a unique opportunity for the self-representation of their class and people in a period of rapid transition" (Chaudhuri 20 1 2, 1 04). Jn the case of the print genres, too, there were similar negotiations which redefined visual aes thetics along with transforming traditional iconography and a ques tioning of social values and a rapidly transforming society. Stuart Hall, in an essay titled "When was 'The Post-Colonial' ? Thinking at the Limit," argues that The term post-colonial is not merely descriptive of this society rather than that, �- or of then and now. It re-reads colonization as part of an essentially transna- ....... ....... c..., 58 tional global process - and it produces a decentred, diasporic or global rewrit ing of earlier, nation-centered imperial grand narratives. 1 - . . I I t obliges us to re-read the binaries as forms of transculturation , of cultural translation, des tined to trouble the here/there binaries forever. ( Hall 1 996, 242-260) The colonial encounter in Bengali literature provided us with rich material for similar explorations and theoretical debates. While most analyses would agree on the translated nature of the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century, they often tend to overlook the fact that the process of translation cannot be simply understood as the effects of cultural imperialism. Rather, under standing the colonial encounter as a process of cultural translation enables us to look at the interactive, dialogic, two-way process in volving complex negotiation and exchange. The cultural traffic, the movement of languages, books, genres, and ideas indicate the larger process of cultural translation at work, including the sociocultural, economic, and political frameworks through which ideas are cir culated and received. In rethinking how cultures relate to one an other at moments of cultural encounter, I have tried to emphasize the crucial role that genres play in such a process. Instead of a stable mimetic theory of art, approaching the colonial encounter in Cal cutta through the negotiations in the spaces of the liminal helps us unsettle conventional notions of the rigidity of generic boundaries enabling a furthering of processes of translation. (Y) -....... � -....... C ·.;:::, C 59 References Bakhtin, M. M. ( 1 975) 1 994. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by MM. Bakhtin. Edited by M ichael Holquist. Translated by Caryl Emerson and M ichael Holquist. Austin : University of Texas Press, 1 994. - - . 1 993. Toward a Philosophy ofthe Act. Edited by M ichael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov. Translated by Vadi m Liapuno. Austin: University of Texas Press. Banerjee, Sumanta. 1 989. The Parlour and the Street: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Blackburn, Stuart. 2003. Print, Folklore and Nationalism in Colonial South India. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003. Chaudhuri, Supriya. 20 1 2 . "The Bengali Novel." In The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture, edited by Vasudha Dalmia and Rashmi Sadana, 1 0 1 -23. Cambridge: Cambridge U niversity Press, 20 1 2. Das, Sisir Kumar. 2004. "Assimilation of Foreign Genres." I n Genealogy: Literary Studies in India, 1 7-23 . Kolkata: Jadavpur University. Derrida, Jacques. 1 980. "The Law of Genre." Translated by Avital RoneI I . Critical Inquiry (On Narrative), 7 ( 1 ): 55-8 1 . Eco, Umberto. 2003. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. London: Phoenix. Even-Zohar, l tamar. 2000. "The Position of Translated Literature within the Liter ary Polysystem ." I n The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 1 92- 1 97. London: Routledge. Ghosh, Anindita. 2006. Power in Print. New Delhi : Oxford University Press. Hall, Stuart. 1 996. "When was 'The Post-Colonial '? Thinking at the Limit." In The Post-Colonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons, edited by l ain Chambers and Lidia Curti, 242-260. London/New York: Routledge. Hunter, Paul J. 1 990. Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts ofEighteenth-Century English Fiction. New York: Norton. Kaviraj, Sudipta. 1 995. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopad hyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. PadikkaJ, Shivarama. 1 993. " Inventing Modernity: The Emergence of the N ovel in I ndia." In interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India, ed ited by T. N iranjana et al. Calcutta: Seagul l . Paranjape, Makarand. 2002. "The Al legory of Rajmohan's Wife ( 1 864): National Culture and Colonialism in Asia's First English Novel." In Early Novels in India, edited by Meenakshi Mukherjee, 1 43-1 60. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Orsini, Francesca. 2009. Print and Pleasure: Popular literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India. Delhi: Permanent B lack. Paul, Ash it, ed. 1 983. Woodcut Prints ofNineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull Books. �. Priokar, A. K. 1 958. The Printing Press in India: Its Beginnings and Early Develop --- ment. M umbai: Marathi Samshodhana Mandala. --- w 60 Qaisar, Ahsan Jan. 1 982. The Indian Response to European Technology and Culture A . D. /498 -1 707. Delh i : OUP. Raychaudhuri, Tapan. Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions ofthe West in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New Delhi: Ox ford University Press, 2002. Sen, Priyaranjan. 1 966. Western Influence in Bengali Literalure. Calcutta: Aca demic Publ ishers. Spear, Percival. 1 970. A History ofIndia, vol . 2. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1 985. "Reading the Archives: The Rani of Sirmur." In Europe and Its Others: Proceedings ofthe Essex Conference on the Soci ology of Literature, edited by F. Barker et al., 1 28-1 5 1 . Colchester: Uni versity of Essex. - - . 1 987. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Methuen. - - . 2000. "The Politics of Translation." In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 397-4 1 6. London and New York: Routledge. Time Charts of Events and Publications 1 798-1 900, prepared by the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Viswanathan, Gauri. 1 987. "The Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India." In Oxford Literary Review 9 ( 1 -2): 2-26. -- - . 1 989. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York: Columbia University Press. Internet source: All images for the woodcut prints in nineteenth century Calcutta are available at the following web address ( accessed April 22, 20 1 3) : http://www.google.co.in/search?q = woodcut+prints+in+nineteenth+cen tury+ca1cutta&hl=en&tbm= isch&tbo=u&source= univ&sa=X&ei=VL50Ub nsH MX lrA fe6oDwDQ&ved=0CEgQsAQ&biw= I 366&bih=643 . Chandrani Chatterjee is Assistant Professor of English at U niversity of Pune, India. Her areas of interest include translation studies, comparative literature, gender studies, postcolonial and cultural studies and history of the book. She was Fulbright-Nehru Vis iting Lecturer, Fall, 201 3 at U niversity of Massachusetts, Amherst. (Y) --- --- � C ·.::, C 61 g

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Imperial and Anti-imperial Translation in Native American Literature E dwi n G entzler University of Massachusetts Amherst U.SA [email protected] Abstract: I n this paper I crace a brief history of translation o f Native American texts, looking at both imperiaJ and anti-imperiaJ practices and strategies. The opening section discusses a series of omissions and false substitutions by impe riaJistic translators, whose goals may have been directed more at conversion and domestication than translation proper. I then focus on ethnographic and ethnopo etic translation strategies practiced by anthropologists and literary translators that were less imperiaJ and more open to inclusion and diversity. FinaJly, I turn to Arnold Krupat's conception of "anti-imperiaJ translation" chat aJlows Native American terms, sounds, and structures to co-exist in the English language, thereby enlarging the both English and Native American cultures and pointing to a new way of thinking about translation in a (post)translation fashion. The American I ndian is the vengeful ghost lurking in the back of the troubled American mind. Which is why we lash out with such ferocity & passion, so muddied a heart, at the black-haired young peasants & soldiers who are the Viet Cong. That ghost will claim the next generation as its own." Gary Snyder (Rothenberg 1 972, 475) Preface: On Thanksgiving In light of my being from Massachusetts, I wish to first mention a ceremony held annually on Thanksgiving Day at Ply mouth Rock, just south of Boston, Massachusetts, the site where the William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed in 1 620. Every November, there is a large and well-attended recreation of the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, celebrating the day when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Native Americans for helping them through that first year. This celebration in "America's Hometown," attended by hundreds of thousands of people, lasts three days , with �- food festivals, concerts, waterfront activities, and live streaming -... web feeds. The counterceremony I wish to cite, however, is led by -... w 62 the Wampanoag Indians, and is called "Thanksgrieving." W hile Thanksgiving is not a Christian Holiday, it is a day that most Amer icans celebrate, and it has shifted from the white immigrants thank ing the Indians for their help during the difficult early years , to whites offering prayers to God, thanking Him for providing a boun tiful harvest. The ceremony held by the Wampanoag. however, is a bit different. It involves the people forming two concentric circles: an inner circle, which is quite tight and is comprised of all Indians; and an outer circle, where the non-Indians-mostly whites coming to observe and witness-stand at a respectful distance. The Native people hold hands, and, while there is some chanting, the Indians mostly just hold each others' hands and cry-and there is much crying. After a while, the Native Americans break the circle and walk down to the ocean's edge where the Pilgrims landed and throw objects into the water, with more tears and more holding on to each other. The white observers are not asked to come. At the end, the Indians quietly leave, and the observers are asked to stay in silence until the Indians have passed ( Ayvazian 20 1 1 , A6). Introduction This paper stems from my interest in what I have been calling "hidden" translation, exploring translational phenomena that take place out-of-sight, behind the scenes. sous ratour or under erasure (Gentzler 2008 , I 0- 1 3) . These translations often take place in very private spheres-in the communities of so-called "lesser known" languages, or "languages of limited diffusion." They take place in private meetings, in families, between fathers and sons or grandmothers and granddaughters. Often they involve trauma, re pressed memories that are hard to talk about in the first place, let alone in translation. Most frequently, they are oral, intimate, whis pered. The chanting, tears, and hand-holding that take place in the Thanksgrieving ceremony cited above serves as just one example of such an intimate, private space. Another space where hidden translations occur is in creative writing, passages adapted/recreated/ reinscribed in original work, blurring the boundaries between trans lation and creative writing, which I will discuss toward the end of -- this paper. There are often good reasons for keeping such translations out of sight, as invariably the ideas and knowledge communicated -- � C ·.;:::; C 63 do not fit with the domi nant language and culture, such as the im m igrant, enslaved, and indigenous languages in the United States, or the experimental, subversive, and nontraditional forms and genres comprising contemporary writing. In the U n ited States, the English-only policy is a powerful one, dat i ng back to the pre Revotutionary War period. Invariably, the discipline of translation studies tends to study texts and not oral tales, empirical printed matter rather than oral stories, memoi re, song, and dance. The dis cipline tends to focus on what gets translated and omits what does not get translated, thereby coming up with little or no explanation for the gaps, silences, repressions, and omissions that are also part of any given translation and any literary or cultural system of trans lated texts. Translation studies as a discipline is generally guilty of conformi ng to the most traditional definitions of translation; al though these may vary from culture to culture, unless the texts being studied are designated as translations by some normative defin ition, most translation studies scholars have avoided them. Many of the "texts" I study have probably not been classified as translations nor entered into any computer databases and made available to corpus studies scholars. How is such research carried out? Larger conceptual frames are needed, ones which extend beyond what is normally considered under the domain of translation studies. As Saussure has shown, one cannot study sameness without also studying difference. Most of my examples in this paper from the translation of Native Amer ican texts are chosen precisely because they illustrate how a focus on sameness covers up differences. English-only l inguistic policies, European political philosophy, capitalist economic policies, and Christian beliefs and m issionary causes aimed at colonization and assimilation have led to the eradication of indigenous cultures. Their wider adaptation by educational systems and govern mental programs, not to mention the ideological domi nance, makes it im possible to study Amerindian translation without the broader un derstanding of the pervasive i nfluence of English l iterary forms, European economic and philosophic structures, and Judea-Christian i deas across all Native American writing. ::, Surprisingly, postcolon i al scholars and translation studies �- scholars have done little work on indigenous Amerindian texts. ---- ::, Given the nature of Native American writing, it seems as if it might ru' ---- c,.:, 64 be perfectly suited for such postcolonial investigations. The subject matter of resistance to colonization, the use of non-Western forms of communication, the hybrid and heterogeneous nature of most texts, and the embedded secret codes are perfectly suited for post structuralist, postmodern, and postcolonial investigations. Certainly the subversions, parodies, plays on words, and performances lend themselves to deconstructive analysis. The concerns with opposi tion, oppression, marginality, and otherness are perfect for post colonial investigations. The social conflicts between tribals versus whites, manifest in everyday life as well as periods of war, the economic disparities, the power relations between tribal versus European languages, and the native forms for art and poetry versus European forms alJ might lend themselves to sociological, historical, and literary translational studies investigations, but they really have not. Apart from Eric Cheyfitz's The Poetics of Imperialism: Trans lation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan ( 1 997), the field is pretty wide open. Even scholars such as Mary Louise Pratt in her Imperial Eyes ( 1 992), which well documents the history of European colonization of the Amerindian tribes, does not really touch upon translation questions other than to talk about the erad ication of indigenous languages. There is so much else that could be discussed about the language issues in the contact zone, from translation into indigenous languages, to translation of the Indians into the European languages, to combinations thereof, to developing a linguafranca, to ethnocentric translation, nonethnocentric trans lation, ethnographic translation, adaptation, and transcultural trans lation. Even nontranslation could be subject to a translational analy sis . This paper hopes to begin such a discussion. Instead of translation studies scholars' investigations, 1 draw upon the work by scholars of Amerindian texts, in which translation is everywhere present. While many of these scholars Eric Cheyfitz, Arnold Krupat, Gerald Vizenor, David Treuer, and Winfried Simerling- are not well versed in translation studies dis course, their work is informed throughout by translational phe nomena: translation between languages, translation from oral to written, translation of marginal into central, cultural translation, adaptive translation, mistranslation, and silencing in translation. I n many ways, the entire corpus of Native American literature is --- already in translation, for, with very few exceptions, the oral histo- --- � C ·.;:::; C 65 Jg rians and storytellers have either passed away, or the remaining native speakers have all died. W hat is left is the presence of a lan guage, traditional forms or performance, and memories of events in a lost or hidden culture. Most remaining elements consist only of the traces. In The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Culture , Arnold Krupat coined the term "anti-imperial translation" (Krupat 1 996, 32) to refer to the way that contemporary Amerindian writers use fiction to translate their ideas and beliefs into English, which very much informs this paper. in his theory, there is a reversal of source and target texts: rather than translating from the native language into English, Krupat and his followers, while writing in English, maintain that they are translating English into the Native culture. Thus the Native American creative writing is viewed less as "original" writing and more as a "translation" of English into the Native, creatively remaking and rewriting American English to include spaces for Amerindian ideas and forms of expression. I find this to be a new and original idea for translation studies, and one worth pursuing. A quick note on term inology: there are great difficulties in writing about this topic because neither the translation studies dis course nor social studies discourse are adequate to the task. " Amer ican" and " Indian" are misnomers, European labels applied to the l and and people first encountered. Thus l use a variety of naming strategies, varying the terms " indigenous," "aboriginal," "lndian," "Amerindian," and " Native American," none of which are adequate. I also am not that happy with the term "postcolonial," as coloniza tion continues in many Indian reservat ions and lands , none of which, with the possible exception of certain Pueblo lands, might be considered homelands anymore, and dispossession is widespread throughout the United States.' I thus use both terms such as "post colonial" and "(post)colonial," as well as "anticolonial" and "anti imperi al ," to describe the ongoing situation. I am attracted to the concept of "posttranslation studies," as coined by Siri Nergaard and Stefano Arduini (20 1 1 , 8). I feel a strong need to move beyond empirically based corpora and source- or target-based approaches that limit seeing all those variable, exceptional, and creative texts �- ---- See article within this article by Winfried Siemerling, 87. ru' ---- w 66 and performances that border on translation, but are not called such by scholars. I am currently leaning toward (post)translation studies to indicate an expansion of the kjnds of texts considered and an expansion of the kinds of methodologies used to analyze the new translational phenomena, retaining many of the older methodologies for analyzing empirical phenomena, but adding new tools for assessing elements that extend beyond translation proper. The paper is divided into two parts: ( I ) "Imperial Transla tion," which includes sections on conversion, elimination, imperi alism, and domestication; and ( II) "Anti-imperial Translation," which includes sections on anthropological translation, total trans lation, disguise in translation, and anti-imperial translation. I. Imperial Translation 1. Conversion In my Thanksgiving example, above, does translation play a part in this story? It certainly does. Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe, a now extinct band belonging to the Wampanoag confederacy, served as the first interpreter for the Puritans. He had learned English because he had been kidnapped http://www.nativcnewstoday.com/20 I 3/03/01 /squanto-paw- tuxettisquantum-january- 1 - 1 585-november-30/ earlier in his life by one of John Smith's soldiers, taken to Spain, Tisquarrtum (January 1, 1 585 - November 30, 1622). also known as Squanto, was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after to be sold into slavery by the Eng their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. lish. Rescued by local friars, who He was a member of the Patuxet tribe, a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy. saw his value in terms of convert ing Indians to Christianity, Tisquantum made his way to London, and then back to the colonies, only to find that many Massachusetts tribes had already been decimated by infectious diseases brought by the white colonists. In the 1 620s, he settled with the Pilgrims, to whom he taught sur vival skills in the new world, including fishing and planting tech niques, as well as serving as a guide and translator, especially in communication with the Wampanoag sachems . The 1 630s and '40s saw a massive increase in immigration (Y) into New England and Massachusetts. Over twenty thousand new --- settlers arrived during this period, often referred to as the Great --- � ·.;:a 67 Migration, and new towns were formed west of Boston, including Hartford, Springfield, Northampton, and, a few years later, my hometown of A mherst, founded in 1 658, "purchased" for 200 wampum and a few small gifts . All of these new settlements en croached upon the land of the native Algonquin-speaking tribes, and tensions predictably escalated. In addition to the unjust en croachment upon the land, the English colonists were committed to their missionary work: in 1 646, the Massachusetts General Court ordered that "efforts to promote the diffusion of Christianity among aboriginal inhabitants be made with all diligence" (Samworth 20 1 1 ). In 1 649, the English Par- http://raunerl i brary.blogspoLcom/20 I I /09/el iot-bi ble .html liament enacted an "Ordinance for the Advancement of Civiliza tion and Christianity Among the Indians" that created The Society NEGONNE OOSUKKUHWHONK JIC O S E S, Ne .-.,w'!etan::uk for the Propagation of the Gospel -C E N E S I S· in New England, the first Protes tant missionary society. For the next ten years, Eliot dedicated himself to the task of translating the Bible, with the assistance of a Massachusetts Indian named Wassausmon, also known in En glish as John Sassamon, whose ability to speak and write English proved invaluable to Eliot. ( I will come back to Wassausmon later.) Thus , at first, the early English policy for converting the Natives was that of learning their languages and translating the Bible into those languages-an early national translation policy, as it were. However, it soon became apparent that that policy was not going to work; it was simply too difficult to learn the various indigenous languages. In his book Magnalia Christi Americana ( 1 702), Cotton Mather, for example, a prominent Puritan minister, author of hun dreds of books, sermons, and pamphlets, and well known for his role in the Salem witch trials, claimed to be utterly baffled by the A lgonquin language (Samworth 2006). With Cotton Mather and subsequent Puritan leaders, the two-way flow of Amerindian �. British communication ended. I would suggest that the mistrust and ------ misunderstandings that ensued over the next two centuries can ------ w 68 largely be attributed to the lack of effort by the colonists to learn and understand the languages and cultures of the indigenous peo ples. 2. Elimination The translation policy became one of nontranslation into non-English languages. The thanks exchanged at early Thanksgiv ings ceased, the holiday disappeared, hostilities began, and soon immigrant Europeans began their http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Spring04/war- killing, directly, and efficiently at fare.cfm?showSite=mobile first. My town of "Amherst," Massa chusetts, was named after Lord Jef frey Amherst, commander-in-chief of British forces in New England in the 1 700s, famous for winning battles in the French and I ndian War, but also infamous for committing the first germ warfare known to man when he ordered that blankets infected with smallpox be given to Native Ameri cans. Those who survived were forced to assimilate to the English language, customs, and laws, their lands were taken away, and their lan guages , religions, and native cultures repressed. Estimates vary, but by Sir Jeffrey Amherst. shown here in Joseph Blackburn's 1 758 painting, some estimates there were over ten suggested Bouquet infect the Indians with smallpox. (Mead Gallery, Amherst) million Native Americans when the Pilgrims and Puritans arrived; by 1 900 there were only 230,000 left. As of the 1 880s, the US gov ernment required all teachers in Native American schools to teach in English, and many Indian ceremonies were banned. The policy was quite successful: according to Ethnologue ( Lewis 2009), over half of the Native American languages have been lost, with only 1 54 remaining, spoken by just over 300,000 people. Seven are only spoken by one person. About 1 50,000 speak Dine, a Navajo lan guage ( Reyhner 200 I ). Jn The Name of the War: King Philip 's War and the Origins --- ofAmerican Identity, Jill Lapore ( 1 998) suggests that the defeat of � --- ·.;::, 69 the Indians in King Philip's War ( 1 675- 1 678), sometimes called Metacomet's War- Metacomet being the main leader of the Native American side, who was called King Philip by the British-the first war between Native Americans and the English colonists, marked the beginning of the new American identity, one built upon policies of extermination. As op http://raunerlibrary.blogspot.com/20 1 1 /09/eliot-bible.html posed to a former identity which considered the colonists as British settlers, as the war had largely been fought with American sol diers, resources , and supplies only, it lent the new Americans a sense of independence and au thority. The war was one of the bloodiest in American history, drawing in English settlements throughout New England and Indian tribes from a variety of regions . There were many casualties on both sides , and , proportionally, more English died in the war than in any other war in history. But also proportionally, six times as many Amerindians died as British set tlers. The eventual English victory secured New England for the British and opened up all of New England for British colonization and appropriation. As Lapore sug gests, the new American identity was based upon the elimination of Native American languages and cultures. As Emily Apter has pointed out in The Translation Zone (2006), translation policy and military policy are closely connected. Citing Carl von Clausewitz's dictum that war is a mere continuation of policy by other means , Apter claims that war is a logical extension of a policy of mis translation . She writes that "I w lar is, in other words , a condition of �- nontranslatability or translation failure at its most violent peak" ..._ ( Apter 2006, 1 6, italics in original). al' ..._ u.) 70 To return to the Wassausmon example, in addition to his work translating the Bible, some argue that he was one of the pri mary causes of King Phi l ip's War, showing how distrusted transla tors were. Wassausmon served as a translator and interpreter for both Metacomet and the Native Americans before returning to Pu ritan society, where he became a minister in the Plymouth colony. Because of his knowledge of language and culture, as wel l as his contacts among chiefs and educators, he was both respected and distrusted by al l parties. Wassausmon is best known today because of his assassination. ln 1 674, he warned Josia Winslow, then gov ernor of the Plymouth colony, that an attack was being organized by Metacomet. Just a short while later, his body was found at the bottom of a local pond, and the settlers were quick to accuse Meta comet of ordering the assassination. Three of Metacomet's men were arrested, found gui l ty at a hasti ly organized trial, and executed. A year later, some say as a result of the trial which Wampanoags say infringed upon their sovereignty, war broke out. The descendants of the Algonquian Wampanoags ( Wompanaak) are the very same Indians who are conducting the Thanksgrieving ceremony of today. 3. Imperialism A few translation studies scholars have written about trans lation and imperialism, including Eric Cheyfitz, author of The Po etics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan ( 1 997) and The ( Post)Colonial Construction of Indian Country: U.S. American Indian Literatures and the Federal Indian Law (2006); Stephen Jay Greenblatt, author of Marvelous Possessions ( 1 992), an analysis of travel , judicial, and literary doc uments on the discovery and appropriation of the New World, and Vicente Rafael, author of contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in the Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule ( 1 993), who focused on the analogous example of the Spanish translation and colonization process in The Phil ippines . Cheyfitz is one of the best authors detailing the history of imperial practices, and is not afraid to be very blunt about the atroc ities committed in the name of European mil i tary, social, and reli -- (Y) -- gious practices. Here is how he begins the Columbian Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United States since 1 945: � C ·.;::, C 71 European settlers built the post- 1 492 Americas on stolen I ndian land with stolen African and I ndian tabor. The very European name "Americas" marks the mo ment of the beginning of this institutional theft. The United States is no excep tion . Where the Spanish invaded and settled in Notth America, stolen Native land and tabor were part and parcel of the same v iolent movement to dominate Native territory and tabor through a system of encomiendas and repartimienlo I . . . I The Catholic Church joined the state in playing a significant role in this violence. (Cheyfitz 2006. vii) Cheyfitz 's first "chapter" in the Columbian Guide goes on for 1 24 small-print pages, over 85,000 words, a book in and of itself, doc umenting in detail the wars, enslavement, forced labor, extermina tions, language policies, nontranslation policies, and theft of land, rights, and indigenous religious and literary practices-in short, a chronicling of the colonial reconstruction of Indian culture. Trans lation and religious policies are at the heart of the imperial project in all Indian affairs. In The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Coloniza tion from The Tempest to Tarzan, Cheyfitz ( 1 997) lays out his ar gument that translation was a key factor, perhaps the most important factor, in the Anglo-American imperial policy, first as foreign policy toward the neighboring Indians, and later, after 1 824 and the creation of the Bureau of I ndian Affairs, as a domestic pol icy as the U S boundary shifted westward. For Cheyfitz, the poetics of imperialism refers to speech itself, the persuasive power of lan guage and rhetoric into which Native American ideas and expres sions were translated as fluidly as possible in European terms. Cheyfitz analyzes the elegant orators who speak for Native Amer icans-from Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest, through Edgar Rice Burroughs in Tarzan of the Apes ( 1 9 1 2), to later Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, the "great communicator" of the late twentieth century. Cheyfitz's point is that the portrayal of the Native American in translation has been a fiction rather than fact, and only by unpacking layers of fictional translations can one ex pose the rhetorical technologies that have supported ongoing Anglo-American imperialism to this day and the role of translation in the construction of power. �. Signaling a shift of translation policy from the initial Puri ---al' tan attempt to learn and translate into indigenous languages, Chey- --- w 72 fitz cites the Instructions given in 1 609 by the London Council to the Virginia Company, headed by Sir Thomas Gates , to develop a plan to educate the weroances ( Algonquian leaders) "in ! the Eng lish I language, and manners" so that the Indians would "easily obey you and become in t ime Civill and Christian" (quoted by Cheyfitz 1 997, 6). Cheyfitz continues: The problem of translation , the complex interactions between cultures and h is tories, is at once announced and annulled. This rewriting has significant repe r cussions i n the conflict between oral and written cultures under consideration here. And we can read these repercussions in the European travel narratives, where what were necessarily the difficulties , discords, i ndeed absences of translation, are displaced into fictive accords of communication , composed, except for a scattering of transliterated naive terms, wholly in European tongues. (Cheyfitz 1 997, 7) Tracing a pattern of disfiguring Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes (191 2) and demonizing in rewritings and Tarzan is a Translator. Raised speaking the language of the apes, translation, Cheyfi tz goes on to Tarzan teaches himself to read and write English by correlating pic analyze the discourse represent tures (fantasized implicitly in this fiction as a universal ur-language) and words in the books that his father transported from England to ing Native Americans i n both po Africa. Tarzan discovers these books as a boy among the apes, litical and l iterary texts. Tarzan, though he dies not learn to speak his father's tongue until the very end of the romance, after ha has become fluent in French, his first for example, i s seen as a transla spoken European language, which his mentor, O'Arnot, taught him. tor: raised speaking the language Tarzan's search for identity, then, is a linguistic search, in which he is literally translated from ape into man; in learning to read, what of the apes, he teaches h imself to Tarzan learns centrally is that "[hie was a M-A-N, they were A-P-E read and write Engli sh and S" (50), a distinction that the language of the apes cannot make, "for in the language of the anthropoids there was no word for man" {85). French. H i s search for identity is Translated through the power of books from ape into written English, both linguistic, from animal lan Tarzan, with the aid of his father's knife (the mastery of a written, or European, language and of an "advanced" technology are identical guage into European languages, in this romance), gains an imperial power over what appeared to be and physical, literally, from "sav his kin, precisely because they cannot follow Tarzan or can only fol low him partially in his translation: "So limited was their vocabulary age" ape into "civilized" man, a that Tarzan could never even talk with them of the many new truths, process through which he gains and the great 'fields of thought that his reading had opened up be fore his longing eyes, or make known ambitions which stirred his imperial power over his savage soul" (91 ). Tarzan cannot fully converse with the apes because writ ten English cannot be translated into their impoverished tongue, kin. The power of books , in this which Burroughs represents in that self-consciously metaphoric lan case the books Tarzan's father guage that "savages" typically speak in European discourse. And un able to converse fully with the apes, Tarzan can only dominate them. brought to the wild, is more pow The failure of dialogue, figured as genetic inability in the other, erful than the armies that follow, rather than as a problem of cultural difference, is the imperial alibi for domination. and the idealistic result conforms CV:, Eric Cheyfitz, The Poetics of Imperialism. Translation and Coloniza "' --- CJ to the civilizing ideological mis tion from The Tempest to Tarzan, (Expanded Edition, Philadelphia: sion of the colonizers. So, too, in University of Pennsylvania Press, 1 997), 1 5--1 6. -- � c:: a ·.;::, <n c:: 73 � Shakespeare's The Tempest is Caliban presented as having been born a savage-"born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick" ( IY.i. 1 88- 1 89)-who subsequently learns English but con tinues to be viewed as a monster and potential rapist despite his ed ucation . Cheyfitz sees Caliban as always in translation (Cheyfitz 1 997 , 1 65 and following) , between the gabble of the animal and the eloquence of English, perennially in conflict. Significantly, Cal iban 's war against Prospero is aimed at Prospero's books and the power of his magic. Through such figures as Tarzan and Caliban emerges Cheyfitz's theory of translation: T his theory of translation constitutes a theory of what is human. Put another way, we could say that in the Renaissance and until the founding of biology in the nineteenth century, theories of what is h uman are theories of translation , theories of cultare rather than nature. In Tarzan of the Apes, we read how a theory of evolution , a theory of nature, is the repressed form of a theory of translation that blurs the boundary between " human" and "ape" by a1ticulating the boundary as literal, this is , scriptural, rather than natural. In other words , we speculate that theories of evolution are always theories of translation . (Cheyfitz 1 997 , 1 67) Cheyfitz radically expands the notion of translation theory from its linguistic sense to a historical cultural theory of the human. Cheyfitz views Tarzan, the displaced European, as a translator, speaking both the language of the apes, and later French and Eng lish. Tarzan translates himself on several levels: from oral to written, from broken to fluent, and from impoverished to powerful. In the process, he gains power. The translation is not merely a linguistic one, but a mental and physical one as well, from animal to full fledged human. Caliban, the indigenous native, is also multiply transtated. His name, a mistranslation of some unknown Native American term for "cannibal," marks him in the eyes of the invading others , and in the eyes of himself, the figurative inscribed upon the body. As Caliban enters Prospero's world, the culture is an imported one: European ideas and values inscribed upon, translated into, the New World. Caliban is forced to learn the language of the oppressor, which only serves to further his enslavement and alienation. In the Native American world, therefore, translation operates not a foreign �- policy, but a domestic one, carried out from within, and it has ---- drastic material consequences . This all too physical aspect, Cheyfitz ---- c,,:, 74 argues, has been repressed by trans http://prettycleverfilms.wordpress.com/2012/03/0l /tar lation studies scholars, who focus con zan-of-the-apes- 1 9 1 8/ s iderably on the linguistic and cul tural, and less on the human and individual. In the Poetics of Imperi alism, Cheyfitz looks both at transla tion as a theory of communication, and at the consequences, socially and psychologically, of translation upon live individuals . And in the case of Native Americans, the consequences have been devastating. Despite learn ing the language of the colonizer, the Tarzan translator is never to be trusted, never quite obtaining the eloquence of the master, which remains in a pure/white form. In the end, Caliban, the other, the hybrid, the deformed, remains alone and isolated on the island, only his image remains in the imaginations http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/shakespeare/plays/the-tem of the colonizers. Anglo-American pest/ 1 982-photo-gal lery.aspx policies of Native American transla tion have served to either fictionalize or marginalize Native American lan guage, culture, and concepts, to the point that little is left. Populations have been eradicated, languages lost, and the few translations reduced to cliches, such as trickster characters refigured or Plains Indians hunting buffalo. Often the representations add layers of obfuscation, making it all but impossible to unpack the images and access any objective "truth." What remains are mere traces of Indian ex pressions in oral tales, literary texts, and memoires passed on in translation (Y) from generation to generation. --- Caliban --- � ·.p 75 4. Domestication Perhaps the most influential translation studies scholar of the past twenty years in North America has been Lawrence Venuti. Author of The Translator 's Invisibility ( 1 995) and editor of Rethink ing Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology ( 1 992) , Venuti criticizes the humanistic underpinnings of most literary translation in the United States and shows how it reinforces prevailing domes tic beliefs , forms , and ideologies. Venuti 's main thesis is that trans lation tends to be an invisible practice in the United States, where by invisible he means that translators tend to be self-effacing in their work, denying their own voice. Translations are judged to be successful when they read "fluently," giving the appearance that they have not been translated (Venuti 1 992 , 4). The problems with such a situation, according to Venuti , are twofold : fi rst , it marginalizes practicing translators , making them subservient to the author and defining thei r practice as deriv ative and secondary, ranking far below high quality creative writing and in-depth literary analysis; and secondly, and perhaps more im portantly, it erases the linguistic and cultural differences of the for eign text that the very act of translation purports to carry over into the receiving culture. By rewriting the text according to the pre vailing styles of the receiving culture, and by adapting images and metaphors of the foreign text to the target culture 's preferred sys tems of beliefs , translators are not only severely constrained i n terms of their options to carry out their task, but also forced to alter the foreign text to conform to the receiving culture's forms and ideas. Thi s kind of translation performs an act of domestication, making the foreign familiar, providing readers with the experience of recognizing their own culture in the foreign, and enacting, ac cording to Venuti , a kind a cultural imperialism, one which pre serves social h ierarchies, and maintains political and religious conceptions. This form of translation has characterized generations of translators of Native American texts. Let me give just one example, which has often been anthologized and serves as representative Henry Row Schoolcraft's early nineteenth-century translation of "Chant of the Fire-fly": �. ---- ---- <,.) 76 Ojibwa/Chippewa: Wau wau tay see ! Wau wau tay see ! E mow e shin Tshe bwau ne baun-e wee! Be eghuan-be eghuan-ewee! Wau wau tay see ! Wau wau tay see ! Was sa koon ain je gun Was sa koon ain je gun. (Schoolcraft's transcription, as cited by Day 1 95 1 , 27-28 ; Hymes 1 98 1 , 39; see also Treuer 2006, 1 7) For which Schoolcraft's literal translation is: Flitting-white-fire-insect ! waving-white-fire-bug! give me light before I go to bed ! give me light before I go to sleep! Come, little dancing white-fire-bug ! Come, little flitting white-fire-beast ! Light me with your bright white-flame in strument-your little candle. (Schoolcraft's literal translation , quoted by Day 1 95 1 , 27-28; Hymes 1 98 1 , 39) While Schoolcraft's literary translation is: Fire-fly, fire-fly ! bright little thing, Light me to bed, and my song I will sing. Give me your light, as you fly o'er my head, That I may merrily go to my bed. (Schoolcraft literary translation , quoted by Day 1 95 1 , 27-28; Hymes 1 98 1 , 39; see also Clements 1 996, 1 27-1 28) The Schoolcraft translation of "Fire-fly" well illustrates Venuti's portrayal of domestication in translation: adapting the complex compound nouns to quite simple English terms, eliminating repe tition, deleting the performative quality, adding new terms not pres (Y) ent in the original to make it more fluid and accessible, and, ---- � especially, trivializing the ideas and marvel at nature and turning it ---- ·.;:::; 77 into an infantile children's lyric. Here is what Hymes has to say about the Schoolcraft version: "Thanks to Schoolcraft's scholar ship, we can appreciate in depth how bad his translation is . Almost anyone sharing modern standards and taste I . . . I will prefer the lit eral translation as more satisfactorily poetic, both in what it avoids and in what it contains" ( Hymes 2004, 40) . Unfortunately, the Schoolcraft style of translation, as Venuti successfully argues, was prevalent in the United States in the past century, and, for example, greatly influenced poets such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (see his The Song of Hiawatha ( 1 855)) as well as other poets of his gen eration. It continued well into the twentieth century, often based more on empathy than on linguistic talent; intuited meaning rather than cross-cultural skills . Generations of translators relied on trans lation cribs and adapted Amerindian texts to English forms, expres sions , and, especially, Anglocentric worldviews . For decades, the use of domesticated words when no word exists in the receiving language and the racial discrimination in language were readily vis ible in such translations . II. Anti-imperial Translation 1 . Anthropological translation I n works such as Rethinking Translation ( 1 992) and The Translator's Invisibility ( 1 995), Lawrence Venuti suggested that in twentieth-century translations into North American English have tended to be fluent and domesticating. This may have been true for many literary translators, but not for all. For example, most anthro pological translations , especially of Native American texts, have tended toward the literal and foreignizing. Franz Boas, for example, a German Jew who came to the United States in the early twentieth century, was well versed in physics and geography, after which his geographic interests took him to Canada and the American North west, where he studied Inuit/Eskimo groups and recorded, tran scribed , and translated Amerindian work. Perhaps because of - growing resentment towards Jews in Europe, he took his first job in anthropology at Clark University in Worcester, MA, and stayed �- in the United States , moving to the Field Museum in Chicago and --- later to Columbia University in NYC, where he founded the first --- Qj' w 78 PhD program in anthropology. Boas and his students, including Ed ward Sapir, Paul Rivet, L. J. Frachtenberg, Melville Jacobs, and later followers such as Dell Hymes, pioneered the recording and preservation of Amerindian texts . Their approach combined lin guistics and cultural factors, paying particular attention to sounds and the perception of sounds, showing how different cultures per ceive sounds in various fashion. Boas and his students would live with the tribes being researched, conduct work in the native lan guage, and collaborate with native speakers. Their descriptions of texts were very scientific and based on empirical observations, but still included musical and cultural data (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File: Dance_Song_of_the_Thompson_River_lndians.ogg). Boas's group argued that one could only understand cultural traits by observing behaviors, beliefs, and signing practices in their local context. He and his students not only described the language and grammar, but also the myths, folktales, beliefs, and even recipes. The focus was not just on generalities and common behaviors, but also on relationships, difference of opinions, and in dividual agency within a language culture. Boas and his students were very active in terms of combating racism in research and prac tice, particularly against blacks in New York, and Native Americans in the Northwest. This method later led to the Sapir-Whorf hypoth esis, which holds that the structure of a language determines how one conceptualizes the world, and is widespread in translation stud ies, especially those who challenge meaning-based and functional theories of translation and theories that posit laws or universals of translation. This hypothesis of linguistic relativity challenged the sense of European and white Anglo-American superiority in terms of language and cognition and changed the way translators translated. Interests expanded to a new focus on music and image as well as linguistic meaning. New forms of movement and dance lent varia tions to tones and meaning. Certain songs were recorded in multiple versions, highlighting the importance of the performer and individ ual variation of the texts ( Krupat 1 989, 1 09). Their commitment to science led them to prefer the most literal versions. Here is an ex ample of the transcription of one of the Coyote tales from the Pa -- (Y) cific Northwest: -- � -� 79 Coyote was com ing. He came to G6t'a't. There he met a heavy surf. He was afraid that he might be drifted away and went up to the spruce trees. He stayed there a long time. Then he took some sand and threw it u pon that surf: "Th is shal l be a prairie and no surf. The future generations shall walk on this prairie." Thus Clatsop became a prairie. The surf became a prairie. ( Boas 1 894) Or another example: At Nia' xaqce a creek originated. He went and bu ilt a house at N ia' xaqce. He went out and stayed at the month of N ia'xaqce . Then he speared two silver side salmon , a steel -head sal mon , and a fall sal mon . Then he threw the salmon and the fal l salmon away, say ing: 'Th is creek is too smal l . . . " On the next day he went again and stood at the month of the creek . He d id not see anything until the flood tide set in. Then he became angry and went home. He defecated . He spoke and asked his excrements: " Why have these silve r -s ide salmon d isap peared?" H i s excrements said to him: "I told you , you w ith your bandy legs, when the first silver-side salmon are k i l led spits must be made, one for the head , one for the back, one for the roe , one for the body. The gills m ust be burnt." "Yes," said Coyote . ( Boas 1 894) These excerpts illustrate the anthropologists' preference for more literal strategies, aimed at keeping indigenous place names, pre serving syntactical structures, and maintaining an oral quality. In terms of the content, the deep attachment to, and even conversation with, nature is preserved, as are scatological references and exple tives, often taboo in literary circles at the time. Another anthropologist and Boas disciple, sociolinguist Dell Hymes, also worked on languages of the Pacific Northwest, and also focused on language and social relations, but his transla tions are less descriptive and literal, and instead incorporate more of the poetics and performative nature of the text. Here is an ex ample of the firefly poem in a version by Dell Hymes: Flitting insect of white fire ! Flitting insect of white fire ! Come, give me light before I sleep! Come, give me light before I sleep! Flitting insect of white fire ! Flitting insect of white fire ! ---- ii3"' ---- w 80 Light me with your bright instrument of flame . Light me with your bright instrument of flame. ( Hymes 1 98 1 , 4 1 ; Krupat 1 992, 25 ; see also Treuer 2006a, 2 1 ) In contrast to the domesticated version above by Henry Row Schoolcraft, in Hymes's version we see the preservation of the com pound nouns, including the repeated lines, retaining an oral perfor mative quality, similar syntactic structures, and literal adherence to the original terms with no additions to make it more fluid, accessi ble, or aesthetic. The translation demonstrates respect for the in digenous ideas, rhythms , repetitions, and structure of the verse . Hymes was one of the first anthropologists to point out that the eth nologists' literal descriptions and transcriptions, while often reli able , may not be taken as empirical factual accounts , and that literary translation, while often better than their literal counterparts, also at times distort and obscure . Again, what was needed in the field was a methodology to uncover both what was easily dis cernible as well as what was hidden by either ethnographic or lit erary translation in the process, however well-intentioned. 2. Total Translation While H ymes was open to restoring certain aesthetic mark ers in his translation style, it was invariably with many reservations, always checking against the original, and always in fear of going to far. One translator. who also consulted the ethnographic record but who also versed himself in Native American poetics and per formance , was Jerome Rothenberg, who coined a new term for his ethnographic and aesthetic approach as "total translation" ( Rothen berg 1 972, xxii) . In his introduction to Shaking the Pumpkin : Tra ditional Poetry of the Indian North Americans ( 1 993 ) , Rothenberg lays out his approach, which combines a number of translational methodologies. Rather than picking one approach (faithful versus free , literal versus literary, domesticating versus foreignizing), Rothenberg uses several at a time in his translations, combining f ethnography, cultural studies, poetry, art, and per ormance . While not restricting himself to traditional methodologies for translation, (Y) he also does not restrict himself to traditional definitions of a text. --- He opens himself up not just the aesthetics of the text, but also to --- � ·p 81 � the time and place of the performance, including landscape, audi ence, body movements, sounds, and responses, applying cultural translation in its broadest sense. Native American culture, according to Rothenberg, represents a vast array of languages, cultures, his tories, and modes of communication, not the least important of which include written, oral, and corporeal signs; rhythm and tone; music and dance; and visions and dreams. Rothenberg writes about his combined approach: As a poet I was able to experiment with more direct approaches to translation: ( I ) in collaboration with Seneca songmen, who acted at the very least as intermediary translators, & from whom I could get a clearer picture of how the poetry (songs, prayers, orations, visions, dreams, etc.) fitted into the l ife; & (2) through working with ethnomusicologist David McCallester on cooperati ve translations 1 - . . I I became interested in the possibility of "total translation" -a term I use for translation ( of oral poetry in particular) that takes into account any or all elements of the original beyond the words. (Rothenberg 1 972, xxii-xxi i i ) Here are two examples of Seneca poems translated by Jerome Rothenberg and Richard Johnny John: ( 12) THE SONGS I t he t r i B s s o n he r E T g sb ePn G H eg i sUa I E n h e o Mm N I r ePnPe H R UMP g KH E N KINs J I R A S i s h NG E M t h e c Sll p E i rn g iH u H a me i s E M I H IG n t E p G H HE h h e K H E EY e e v I H E EY e e y N • • . Now I'm dumping the whole bag oE songs in the middle, & each oE you can sing whichever ones you want . • • Rothenberg 1972. xxii ----- iii' ----- u.) 82 From the same volume, here is "Poem about a Wolf and Maybe Two Wolves": A POEM ABOUT A WOLF MAYBE 1WO WOLVES be comes running across the field where he comes running be comes running along the hill where he comes running Rothenberg 1 972, xxxi In the above two examples, readers get a quite different sense of Amerindian poetry than from the ethnologists of the previous gen eration . In the first poem, the poet/performer, copying the oral tra dition, dumps a bag of texts, words, poems in the middle of a circle and allows each of the audience to come up and forge his or her own poem. The format allows readers to participate in the con struction of the poem as their gaze shifts through the bag of words/letters and combinations emerge. In the second poem about one or two wolves, the translators mimic the oral howl of the animal graphically, circulating it within the text while at the same cY) time describing the wolves' movement as they run along the hills. --.... Equally fascinating in the texts themselves are the extensive foot- � --.... C ·.p C 83 g notes accompanying many of the poems and the large array of people with whom Rothenberg consulted: translators, linguists, ethnographers, and native speakers obviously, but also performers, dancers, musicologists, poets, and philosophers in the indigenous languages. The commentaries lend an aura of authenticity to the methodology, one which values the creativity as well as the lin guistic fidelity. There is still little consensus regarding the contribution of total translation. Some suggest that his translations tells us more about Rothenberg and the poetry of the age, influenced maybe more by concrete poetry, musical experimentation of the 1 960s, and perhaps the peyote smoked by that generation. Others suggest that Rothenberg made a significant contribution to the field, cap turing many aesthetic dimensions neglected over the years, and al lowing openings for future performances and creative interpretations that are very much in the spirit of the originals. Elsewhere I have talked about the importance of this generation of literary translators in the United States (Gentzler 1 996); here I merely want to suggest that Rothenberg's multifaceted theory of translation anticipated contemporary translation theories that are beginning to be more multi theoretical, multicultural, and performance oriented. 3. Disguise in translation She was a bear and teased me in mirrors as she did the children, and at the same time she said that tribal stories must be told and not recorded, told to l isteners but not readers, and she insisted that stories be heard through the ear and not the eye. (Yizenor 1 992 , 6) As a caution against translation theories that show prefer ence for ethnographic strategies and forms, or for those which use an invigorating and multifaceted approach such as Rothenberg's, despite consultations with any n umber of indigenous informers, one of the hardest things for a scholar or translator to decipher is when members of a tribe being studied behave truthfully, honestly, and naturally when in the presence of an outsider. In a paper titled "Covert and Overt Ideologies in the Translation of the Wycliff Bible into H uao Terero," Antonia Carcelen-Estrada (20 I 0) discusses the concept of disguise in translation. H uao Terero is the language ---- of the H uaorani people, an indigenous group living in the Amazon, al" ---- c,.:, 84 primarily in the jungles of eastern Ecuador. The Huaorani, invari ably called savages by outsiders, have proven to be highly intelligent in resisting colonization, and one of their strategies is to learn the norms of the invading group, be it Quechuas , Spaniards, Ecuado rians, rubber industrialists, evangelists, translators, or most recently oil companies, and write appropriate texts, or wear appropriate clothes (jaguar- tooth necklaces, etc.), thus conforming to the cliched image of their culture by .outsiders so that they can In this context it is not possible to give a comprehensive survey of all the various in disguise and protect their terests, cultural groups, and cultural systems interacting with the Huaorani people. Figure 1 , however, gives an idea of the complexity of the systemic interactions, and, own. Examples given by from a Western standpoint, represents a tentative hierarchy of those interacting cul Carcelen- Estrada range tural systems. from Bible translations, Center in which indigenous de Transnational or corporate powers (e.g Texaco and other oil companies) ity beliefs are hidden I Transnationli Missions (SIL) Anti-coipoiaie powers I within the translation; The national government ol Ecuador Ecological Organi zalrons Scienul� NGOs /': court testimony, in which ( vepresenting the national society as well) Other Minorities and CXllooos I witnesses fabricate and "-...._ \ Kichwa communi1ies acting as mediators� Yasuni Nalional Park play dress-up for the � \/ Wood hunters Tourism companies West; and ethnographic The Huaorani community (presented as an illusory unified whole) / performances, allowing Periphery anthropologists to trans Fig. 1-Systems in interaction with the Huaorani from a Western perspective late their culture into the Contrary to what one might conclude from Figure 1 , the relationship between the texts and images that re Huaorani and other groups is not merely a top-down power relationship. Rather searchers were looking there is a two-way flow; herein lies the hidden form of translational resistance tak ing the form of silence and invisibility. It is a particularity of the Huaorani to silently for in the first place. The resist outsider cultural impositions. This practice is consistent with indigenous poli power of the disguise al tics of difference elsewhere that seek recognition apart from constructs that project illusory homogenous national identities . Indigenous groups in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, lows the culture to resist and Guatemala, for example, claim to have survived culturally be keeping the secrets of their ancestors from reaching outsiders despite their seeming assimilation to actual translation and ap Western cultural standards. This cultural strategy of survival through silence has propriation by the West , been revealed to the world and become widely known through the writing of Rigob erta Menchu about the descendants of the Mayans. Menchu believes that the hard sacrificing certain ele ships her people endure must be overcome with the presence of their ancestors and ments of their culture to that by hiding their true identity, the people have resisted Westernization and oblit eration for five hundred years (Menchu 2005/1985, 220, 245). The deep cultural preserve others. Signifi transformations endured by the Huaorani have likewise taught them to keep their se cantly, the most inti crets to themselves while superficially appearing to be whatever the observer wants to make of them. Silence is the strongest Huaorani weapon to resist encroachment, mately preserved forms just as it has been for the descendants of the Mayans now fighting under the motto of Huaorani culture have "we are still here." to date outlasted all at Antonia Carcelen-Estrada, "Covert and Overt Ideologies in the Translation of the tempts to access and pur Bible into Huao Terero," in Translation. Resistance, Activism. ed. Maria Tymoczko (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. 2010). 77-78. --- loin them via translation. --- 2 C: ·.;:::; C: 85 In many ways, through disguise in translation, the Huaorani mock the invaders, be they industrial capitalists or born-again Christians, making fun of their futile attempts to comprehend and rearticulate their cultural space. Again, developing scholarly methodologies to be able to read texts against the grain, to see processes of adaptation and domestication by the scholars, and , as Carcelen-Estrada points out, self-adaptation to conform to the expectations of the researcher/ translator become paramount to the field . While Carcelen-Estrada's study concerns H uaorani in Ecuador, my guess is such practices of disguise might also readily be found throughout the Americas. 4. Toward post-imperial translation Disguise in translation, for whatever reason, tends to satirize the translator; deny, delay, and defer access to any so-called "origi nal," and extend beyond the boundaries of whatever is normally termed translation. As soon as it may be detected, it effaces itself only to reappear in another disguised form later. To return to Arnold Krupat in The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Culture ( 1 996) , his concept of anti-imperial translation defies conceptions of translation practiced by European-American translators, ethno graphers, scientists, and scholars in all its guises . Anti-imperial translation is a form of writing in English that allows Native Amer ican ideas, concepts, sounds, structures, and meanings to coexist. Translation is conceived less as a one-way process of bringing some thing across from one language into another and more of a two-way or muttidirectional flow that informs and changes both cultures. The new definition of translation changes the very definition of separate and distinct languages. Instead of saying that he is translating Native American culture into English, the argument is reversed: Krupat and his feUow writers, while writing in a language that appears to be "English," claim they are translating English into Native American languages. For Krupat, all languages are dynamically evolving in a multilingual fashion . Anti-imperial translation produces texts that look like novels and short stories in English, but they are not . For Krupat, they are indigenous, part of Native American literature; Eng lish , in this case, is the imperial, foreign, or other language. In anti imperial translation, Anglo-American forms and ideas are adapted and integrated into Native American culture. Winfried Siemerling, ---- who discusses Krupat's work in the New North American Studies ---- w 86 ( 2005), suggests that this form of translation involves a "doubling of both 'target ' and ' source' cultural practice" ( Siemerling 2005 , 63). Native American thoughts and prac- tices are doubled in their expression in Anti-imperial Translation, Native Writing, and native tongues and English. As English Postcolonial Theory: Thomas King, Gerald narrative forms and genres are incorpo Vizenor, Arnold Krupat rated into Native American culture, so too is English doubled, enriched by Win fried Siemerling (University of Waterloo) restoring lost traces and ideas that disap peared during the periods of extermina Adapted from The New North American Studies: Culture, Writing, and the Politics ofRe/Cognition, tion and extreme language assimilation. (New York and London: Roucledge, 2005), 62-3. The words , ideas, place names, prac tices, flora, fauna, peoples, genres, and The encounter between Native humor and myths have always been American with what Gerald Vizenor calls the "terminal creeds" historical and cultural antecedents before of "social science monologues" is also about the the Europeans an·ived, but have been lost need to balance closed interpretations chat are and covered up over time. Both cultures often associated with writing in general with thus expand and adapt into each other, principles derived from Native stories and oral iry. In many Native written texts, the simultane forming a kind of oral-written literary ity and encounter of these two modes of hybrid that, I contend, is'more indicative reference lead to inven tive trickster strategies of culture in the Americas than any for and performances. eignized translation imported into it (Gentzler 2008 , 38). While such encounters are generally a sub In Native American Fiction, ject of posccolonial studies, Vizenor, Thomas King, and the theorise Arnold Krupat all suggest David Treuer (2006a) goes even further, specific reservations with respect to the term suggesting that there has been an "postcolonial." Vizenor uses the term-if at all overemphasis on translating Native -in phrases like "postcolonial domination" American literature in order to uncover ( 1 989, 1 1 ), as if to drive home Anne McClin facts about the culture with translators tock's critique of the term as "prematurely cel adhering more to the literal expressions ebratory" ( 1 992, 88). King's article "Godzilla and meanings than the art, poetics, style, vs. Postcolonial" ( 1 990) goes further by dis and form. He suggests that Native cussing how the term actually (re)imposes the American fiction has yet to be studied temporaliry of European contact and thus " frames" Native cultures through problematic as literature (Treuer 2006a, 3). The texts recognition. Krupat notes in his essay " Post should not be viewed as scientific ethno colonialism, Ideology, and Native American Lit graphic documents, but instead should erature" that the term is tempting in the context be seen as literary texts, ones that read of contemporary Native American literatures; -- (Y) C) N ers can take pleasure in reading. He yet after having examined the glosses offered in .f: makes the distinction between reading Arif Dirlik's "The Postcolonial Aura" ( 1 994) - c a ·.;:, "' en 87 ,fg that locate postcolonialism indeed after the end books as culture and reading books that of colonialism, he finds it of l ittle use (Krupat suggest culture (Treuer 2006a, 5 ) . He 1 996, 30). In this sense of the term, as Krupat wants the reader to think less about what points out, with some notable exceptions "the Native American texts tell us about past material condition of contemporary Native 'so cieties' is not a postcolonial one ( 1 996, 3 1 ) . " and more about what they tell us about Nonetheless, h e concedes that Native American the future, the future of good writing fiction, albeit "produced in a condition of on that knows no ethnic or linguistic bor going colonialism," often "has the look of pose ders . Style, innovation, performance, colonial fiction" and also "performs ideological and original insight help create culture, work that parallels chat of postcolonial fiction and Native American writing should be elsewhere ( 1 996, 32)." seen within that inventive and creative I nstead of the "postcolonial," however, he framework. He looks at the work of, for proposes the category of "anti-imperial transla example, Loui se Erdrich, who writes tion," which is here directly linked to the func both about Native American and Ger tion of the oral tradition. A nti-imperial man immigrant cultures, and who has a translation, as Krupat suggests with reference to distinctly innovative Ameri can voice . a passage by Rudolph Pan nwitz (taken up also Her novel Love Medicine ( 1 984), while in Benjam in's "The Task of the Translator" about Oj ibwa life, and in which she uses ( 1 969) and Talal Asad's "The Concept of Cul a Native American form of the story tural Translation in British Social Anthropol ogy"( l 986)), creates perturbance in the target cycle, also contains many Western liter language and culture. In the case of Native writ ary techniques of plot, character, crisis, ing, this kind of cultural translation, although and resolution. What is interesting in Er it produces " texts that look l ike novels, short drich's work is the blended story and stories, poems, and autobiographies" ( Krupat multiple techniques as Ojibwa charac 1 996, 36) , produces them in an English pow ters search to find their way in the pres erfully affected by tongues that are, in this case, ent world, not the world of the past. not foreign but rather indigenous (either liter While Erdrich relies on inherited no ally other languages, or figuratively other cul tions of Indian life, she goes beyond tural practices): "The language they offer, in Asad's terms, derives at least in part from other them into the realm of creating new forms of practice, and to comprehend it might openi ngs for an individual and distinct just require, however briefly, that we attempt to life and identity in the future, creating, imagine other forms oflife" ( Krupat 1 996, 36). in Treuer 's view, a literary text that stands on its own merits. Krupat's category of "anti-imperial trans Treuer has also done the same lation" means transformation and doubling of both "target" and "source" cul rural practice. Al as Erdrich in his own creative writing. though the "target language" of many written H is The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Native texts may be English where anti-impe Love Story (2006b), for example , is a rialist cultural translation produces a critical fictional work that is a translation, and percurbance and ironic doubling the translation a translation that is a fictional work. The -- N � 88 main character, Dr. Apelles, a Native can simultaneously be seen to proceed in the American who works as a librarian and opposite direction, as an adaptation and inte translator of Native American texts , is gration of Western forms into Native practices. The process of "translation" and transformation very self-effacing in his ways, conform is here a two-way street: what for one audience ing to an orderly yet boring and lonely only looks like a transposition of Native culture life . Then he comes across an old man into a non-Native, "Western" medium is, in uscript that only he can translate. As he many ways, aJso a curative i ntegration of what begins this new work, he weaves a tale King caJls "the anomalies such as the arrival of that moves between and among a vari Europeans in North America or the advent of ety of forms of translation, including non-Native literature in this hemisphere" (King translating a lost Native American text 1 990, 1 2) into a Native frame of reference or, into English, remembering scenes from as Alessandro Porcelli puts it, an "extension and cont inuation" ( 1 994, 2 1 1 ) of Native verbaJ and his own past, trying to make sense of a social practice. This curative, reverse perspective love story of the present, narrating a sec comes to the fore in Thoma.� King's discussion ond love story within the fictional trans of how Native oral traditions and creation sto lation, and . all the while, erasing ries work (King 1 986, 2003). This problematic boundaries between translation and informs both Ki ng's consideration of the term original creative writing. Without giving "postcolonial" and his approach i n fictional away the ending, which contains a trick texts like Green Grass, Running 'W'ater ( 1 993) or of the imagination that transforms the One Good Story, That One ( 1 993) to the avail entire novel, in the process of carrying ability of oral and written traditions. out such multiple translations the main character begins to find his own voice , one that draws upon past and present, self and other, the power of love and human connections, and es pecially the creative power of translation over the written word. While there are many "traditional" insights into the oppression of the Native American and the oppression of translators, the use of translation to rework and rewrite not just the past, but the translating self. the disappearance of the translation as it nears completion, takes on a life of its own, with many new insights into the hidden nature of translation in all its aspect. As the translation re-places the original, readers are surprised to find themselves wondering what the original was, or if there ever was an original. Through the creative and fictional reworking of the text, the author discovers a language for himself-not the source or target languages, but a lan guage for talking about his own complex identity entwined in Na -- (Y) -- tive American and Anglo-American culture , caught between translation and writing original fiction, now doubly translated into � C ·.;:a C 89 Campaspe might ask about his life. He grew nervous, and he had never a no longer oppressed self. thought og himself as a nervous man. And like all nervous men he was anx This newly transformed nar ious to please, and the desire to please her made him feel trapped. His only way out - he could not talk of tie past and he could not talk of the present rator is now capable of because that told her very little - was to talk of his work as a translator. He love-and there is a power spoke of translating as though it had something to do with his life. And so it had become something between them. ful love story with a col "Can I see it?" league at the library where "I don't know. No. Maybe." "Shouldn't we order? Should we get the usual? Two margaritas," she Dr_ Apelles works-and em said to the waitress across the bar. powered to produce new and "It's not finished and it's boring anyway. It's only interesting to me. I don't want to bore you with it." original work. The novel su "But I want to. I want to hear it". perbly illustrates anti-imper "It seems like we always order the same thing. Just like that first time." "It's not that I wouldn't understand it." ial translation at its best: no No, no. No. It's a mess is al! and I don't know if you'd ever be able to longer a carrying across from read my handwriting." But it had become a thing fer them. one language to another, but "Two margaritas." And to her, "Long day." rather using translation cre " How's the translation? How is it?" "Growing. Always growing." atively to invade self, leading But it had become a thing foc her. to self-realization, and ex "How's the translation? I'll get her. Margarita? Two." And so it went. He could not tell her about himself. Not directly. So his pressing oneself in new and translation became the story he told her of himself, as a substitute for the original translational forms story of his life. that reshape culture from Treuer 2006b, 206. within . Conclusion One of the great hidden tools in cultural construction has always been translation_ A better understanding of how individuals under specific circumstances react to propagated belief systems , how they conform, how they resist, and how such nonconformity is expressed, can only open the field of possibilities for future ac tions and translation strategies . I believe that an increased interplay of languages in translation and an increased openness to new ideas via translations can only help construct a freer, more diverse and tolerant society. Some techniques may be simple: the "translation" of a term such as "Thanksgiving" into "Thanksgrieving," by the mere introduction of an additional phonetic sound alters signifi cantly the conceptual field and (re)introduces an Amerindian per spective into the frame, restoring a historical repercussion long missing from the tradition. Others may be more complicated, such as inventing new forms, as Erdrich and Treuer do, creating a mul -- �. tidirectional flow of ideas, forms , translations , and narrative strate gies in a truly posttranslation studies fashion. The goal is a rewriting -- ru Lu 90 for the future, broadening the imperial language, allowing private translations and interpretations to enter the public space, thereby opening avenues for healing, acceptance, and diversity. By way of conclusion, I end with a poem by Gary Snyder, one of the famous beat poets of the 1 960s and '70s in the United States , who studied literature and anthropology at Reed College in Oregon in the 1 950s and was good friends with fellow student Dell H ymes. Snyder, also known for his Japanese translations , studied the Amerindians of the Pacific Northwest, and lived and worked on the Warm Spring Indian Reservation in central Oregon after graduation and returned on several occasions. I suggest his creative work is infused with similar forms of anti-imperial translation, as he himself is in an inclusive and diverse Amerindian context. In the poem "For All," below, "Turtle Island" is a translation of the Native American term for the continent of North America. Postscript ''For AW' Ah to be al ive on a mid-September morn fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up, holding boots, pack on , sunshine, ice in the shal lows, northern rockies. Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters stones turn underfoot, smal l and hard as toes cold nose dripping singing inside creek music, heart music, smell of sun on gravel . I pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the soi l of Turtle Island, and to the beings who thereon dwell one ecosystem in diversity under the sun (Y) With joyful i nterpenetration for all . --- (Snyder 1 983, 1 1 3) --- � ·;::; 91 References Apter, Emi ly. 2006. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Prince ton: Princeton University Press. 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Accessed November 1 8, 2 0 1 1 . http://www.culturalsurvival .org/ourpubl ications/csq/article/cul tura 1-surv i val-vs-forced-ass i 111 i lation-renewed-war-d i vers ity. Rothenberg, Jerome, ed. and trans. 1 972. Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poe/Jy of the Indian North Americans. New York: Doubleday. Samworth, I lerbert. 2 0 1 1 . "John El iot and America's First Bible." Sola Scriptura Magazine. Accessed November 1 6, 2 0 1 1 . http://www.solagroup.org/arti cles/historyo fthebible/hotb_0005. htm I. Siermerling, Win fried. 2005. The New North American Studies: Culture, Writing, and the Politics ofRe/cognition. London: Routledge. Snyder, Gary. 1 983. "For A l l ." In Axe Handles, 1 1 3 . San Francisco: North Point (Y") Press. Spivak, Gayatri. 1 995 . "The Pol itics of Translation." In Outside in 1he Teaching ....... Machine, 1 79-200. London: Routledge. � ....... ·p 93 � Treuer, David. 2006a. Native American Fiction. St. Paul: Graywolf. - --. 2006b. The Translation ofDr. Apelles: A Love Story. St. Paul: Graywol[ Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002 . Translation and Power. Amherst: U niversity of Massachusetts Press. Venuti, Lawrence, ed. 1 992. Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London: Routledge. - - -. 1 995. The Translator s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge. Yizenor, Gerald. 1 992. Dead Voices. Norman: U niversity of Oklahoma Press. - --. ed. 1 989. Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Albuquerque, N M : U niversity of New Mexico Press. Edwin Gentzler is Professor of Comparative Literature and the Director of the Transla tion Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of Translation and Identity in the Americas (2008) and Contemporary Translation Theories ( 1 993). which was updated and revised in 2001 and has been translated into Italian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Arabic, and Persian. Gentzler coedited (with Maria Tymoczko) the anthology, Translation and Power (2002). His research interests include translation the ory, literary translation, and postcolonial theory. He serves as coeditor with Susan Bass nett of the Topics in Translation Series for Multilingual Matters, and is a member of the �. advisory board of several journals. Gentzler serves on translation's editorial board. ...__ or ...__ w 94

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AN INTERCULTURAL CRITICISM OF NEW TESTAMENT TRANSLATIONS J ea n- C l a u d e Loba- M ko l e ............... ................. . University of Pretoria South Africa [email protected] Abstract: The aim of rhis srudy is ro show s i m i larities and differences berween Greek and Swal1i l i texts of the New Tesrament , especially ar the lexical, morpho logical, syntactic, and semantic levels. It uses an i nrercultural approach char com pares G reek, La r i n , and Swa h i l i texts, and argues that rhere is a great deal of similarity berwecn the G reek and the Swahili languages ar the grammat ical level, except for the G reek deponent form, which has no formal equivalent in Swahi l i . O n e of rhe most stri king lexical fi ndi ngs concerns r h e m ismatch berween rhe G reek form of Jesus's name and i ts Larin or Swahili translations. Borh Latin and Swahili do not have formal articles, wh i le the G reek language uses them even before proper names. The original, authentic, and meaningful form of Jesus's name is the Hebrew or Aramaic ;:1i1VW , or :1V1l) ("he saves") . The La rin fesus and the Swah i l i Yesul Yezu stand as correspondent transl iterations of rhe mean ingless G reek 6 'Inaov�. In a Larin Church cu lture, the meaning of a proper name in itsel f may nor be rhar i m portant, bur in rhe Swa h i l i target culture a proper name is bound to be mea n ingful and i n formative through i ts own word i ng. Consequently, the Swa h i l i Yehoshua or Yeshua would be a more considerate rendering ofJesus's nan1e in view of th1.: target culture frame and chat of rhe most original bibl ical culture. I. Introduction The New Testament was written in "common" Greek, and "from the very first days of Christianity the NT has been translated into other languages, for the benefit of people not acquainted with the Hellenic language. This work of translation continues till today" (Caragounis 20 1 1 ) . A translation inevitably involves a lower or higher degree of equivalence and transgression between the target text and its source (Engler 2007 , 308). ln other words, there is noth ing that can be translated perfectly (i.e. a certain degree of mis match is unavoidable), and there is nothing that cannot be translated (") (i.e. a certain degree of "equivalence," "representation," or "ade --- quacy" is possible). --- � C ·p (/) C 95 This study uses an intercultural approach that will be de fined later on. The aim is to show similarities and differences be tween the Greek, Latin, and Swahili texts of the New Testament for the sake of a better understanding of some specific Swahili renderings. Due to space restrictions, only few examples have been taken at random to highlight similarities or differences at lexical, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels. These examples in volve some basic issues and therefore are important for a fair com parison between the languages and cultures concerned. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this paper illustrates certain linguistic patterns that substantiate how the Greek, Swahili, and Latin lan guages might operate differently, though they are ultimately able to communicate the same message through s imilar but not neces sarily corresponding categories. The awareness of such lexical, grammatical, and semantic similarities and dissimilarities can help a translator avoid imposing some particular features of a given language upon another one. For this study, the Greek texts are taken from the Greek New Testament edited by the United Bible Societies (2008), while the Swahili gloss texts come from a Greek-Swahili NT I nterlinear (2009). This Interlinear also includes the literal Swahili Union Ver sion Revised (SUVR) and the common language Biblia Habari Njerna ( BHN 2006). These two Swahili Bible versions appear to be the most widely read in Tanzania and Kenya, where the use of the standard Swahili is largely promoted. They also have the same publisher as the Greek-Swahili NT Interlinear (GSNTI), namely the Bible Societies of Tanzania and Kenya. Some cases of dissim ilarity between the three Swahili renderings will be pointed out as part of an internal dialogue within a same contemporary culture. This shows that an intercultural mediation does not take place only between external cultures. Furthermore, internal dialogues befit both a horizontal and a vertical interculturality since the same cul ture can produce many contemporary versions (horizontality) as well as several versions from different generations (verticality). A study of vertical interculturality will also be interact with Latin texts of the Vulgate (V UL). Mediations between external cultures and internal sub-cultures may certainly "reveal things that we did �. not know or which we had chosen to forget" ( Bringhurst 2007 , ---- 302). or- ---- u.) 96 This study consists of two major parts, namely, the presen tation of the underlying methodological framework and a consid eration of some translation issues. The overall findings are expected to contribute towards consolidating a more constructive dialogue not only among the distinct Greek, Latin and Swahili texts of the New Testament, but also among some different Swah i l i NT texts . II. Contextual and Methodological Frameworks 1 . Eugene Nida's Legacy in Bible Translation What is translation? There have been many theories and app l ications of translation with an emphasis either on literal rendi tions or meaning-based renderi ngs. [n the history of B ible transla tion , Eugene N ida (assisted by Charles Taber) seems to have been the first to elaborate a functional equivalence where ideally both original form and meaning have to be communicated so that the target audience can experience the same impact as if it were for the original aud ience. In this perspecti ve, translation consists of "reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the SL message, in terms of meaning and style" ( N ida and Taber 1 969, 1 2) . This functional approach remains the first mi lestone in the conceptualization of Bi ble translation work since translators of the Septuagint, Coptic New Testament or Vulgate did not produce such theory, even if they share a preference for common language translation . l n other words, common language translation did not start with N ida, nor will it end with him , yet his peculiar contribution resides in the theorization of this approach under the name func tional approach. Besides , N ida's translation method has been insti tutionalized by the Un ited B ible Societies and widely adopted by other Bible translation agencies. Continually nurtured and supported by N ida and translation teams , this approach has been spreading all over the world since the 1 960s. For example, N ida led the first translation seminar i n K inshasa in 1 965 and , along with the Bible Society of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, launched projects for availing common language B ible translations in the Lingala, Kongo, Tshi luba, Swah i l i , Luba, Uruund, and Songye languages. (V) In spite of their worldwide success , some common language trans --- lations did not rigorously convey Nida 's view of keeping the balance --- � C C 97 between the content and form, as they pushed more for meaning based translations at the expense of the form. A second important contribution from Nida was that of maintaining the translation focus on specific target audiences. His target audiences included both ordinary and scholarly communities, but each had to be provided with an appropriate product. With Nida, Bible translation becomes itself a missionary, ecumenical, and scholarly endeavor. With Nida, a specific focus is placed on the language accessible to the youth, women, and non-Christians , as they constitute the majority of ordinary people i n many countries. As for academic audience , Nida initiated or promoted projects that produced scholarly works such as the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgarten sia, the Greek New Testament, the journal The Bible Translator, and numerous translator 's guides. Unlike some of the great Bible translators such as the Septuagint translators (third century B .C.E.), U l fila (3 1 1 -383), Jerome (340-420) , Martin Luther ( 1 483- 1 546) , King James Bible translators (sixteenth-seventeenth century), Louis Second ( 1 8 1 0- 1 885), Samuel Ajayi Crowther ( 1 809- 1 89 1 ), and others who translated the Bible themselves but without a very elab orate theory of translation , Nida's significant contribution to Bible translation does not relate to the translation of a particu lar Bible. H e excel led, rather, in translation consultancy and theorization , wh ich led to many Bible products. Nida became a wel l known name in the fields of both translation studies and Bible translation, with positive, constructive , and even controversial influence (Gent zler 1 993 , 4; Mojola and Wendland 2003, I ; Porter 2009 , 1 1 7- 1 1 8; Stine 2005, 7 ; Stine 20 1 2, 38). Nonetheless, Nida remains in a binary model involving the source text ("Biblia Hebraica Stuttgar tentia" or the Greek New Testament) and the target text (the trans lated text in making) , with less emphasis on any church canonized translation. According to the intercultural approach, the latter is an integral part of triple frame of reference. This view on the Church culture is lacking not only in Nida's functional equivalence, but also in other competitive models such as Ernst Gutt's "Relevance Theory," Katarina Reiss, Hans J. Vermeer, Justa Holz-Mantarri, Christiane Nord's "Functionalist Theory," and Ernst Wendland's "Literary-Functional Equivalence" (See Mojola and Wendland �- 2003, 1 -25; Loba-Mkole 2008, 253-266). A concrete application ---- of a functionalist translation is provided by Berger and Nord ( 1 999) . Qj' ---- w 98 2. Intercultural Approach to Bible Translations An intercultural approach to biblical exegesis or to Bible translation studies can fil l in the gap that has been widening between these two disciplines. As Porter and Hess ( 1 999, 1 3) put it: The translation and understanding of the B ible, whether by rendering it in the vernacular or through careful study of the original languages in which it was written , i s an essential step in study and i nterpretation of the text. For this rea son , it is surprising that more studies are not devoted to the question i nvolved in the process and the final product . Intercultural mediation is a dialogical process that involves not only literary works but also artistic symbols and human beings who ensure the transmission of the biblical text from an original culture to a contemporary one, including the critically assessed heritage of a church culture ( See Loba-Mkole 2004a, 37-58; 2004b, 79- 1 1 5 ; 2005a, 58-80; 2005b, 29 1 -326; 2007, 39-68; 2008 , 253- 266; 20 1 2). Here , culture is to be understood not only as an artistic component of a society but mainly as a totality of a human experi ence in a given time and space . I t is never holistically apprehended at once and for all , but it al lows itself to be progressively accessed through languages and texts. The concept of cultural or cross-cul tural mediation in not new in translation studies, however intercul tural mediation as developed in this study needs some clarifica tion. "lntercultural" involves a relation between two or more cultures while "mediation" evokes the idea of a representation. In that sense , a translated Bible is a representation of two or more cultures: a source-text culture , a target-text culture , and a church culture (the latter is expected to be sensitive to both Christian and non-Christian audiences). Even if intercultural mediation is less known in biblical exegesis, it can be argued that an exegetical study is a representation of the source-text culture, a church culture , and a target audience culture. The peculiarities of intercultural me diations are stated below for the sake of a general overview; further details can emerge when this method is being applied in other works of Scripture translation or exegesis. It is worthwhile noting that intercultural mediation could also refer to a process, a product or a criticism (analysis, study) based on that approach. Research --- on this method-like the current paper-can fall under the category --- � ·.;:::; 99 of an intercultural criticism, analysis, or study, while a work that applies this method to interpret and/or translate the Scripture can be called an intercultural exegesis or intercultural translation ( Loba Mkole 2004a; 2004b; 2005a). Intercultural process involves the use of peculiar features of this method in order to deliver a relevant product or criticism. For example, an intercultural process was used in producing the New Testament in Lari and Beembe languages of Congo-Brazzaville, respectively in 2005 and 20 1 3. In both proj ects, the final product is a translated text negotiated between the Greek New Testament (representing an original biblical culture), the Yulgate (representing a church culture), and the Lari or Beembe language (representing a contemporary culture). At the level of contemporary culture, horizontal interculturality was applied in the sense that some of the present-day translations in French and Lingala were consulted. Models of intercultural exegesis have been offered by Ukpong ( l 996) , Matand ( 1 998) , Cilumba (200 1 ) , Manus (2003 ) and Loba-Mkole (20 I 0, 20 1 3) among others. Intercultural method is applicable to both exegesis and translation; hence its contribution to reducing the gap that some approaches have created between exegesis and translation. lntercultural mediation takes into account a triple frame of reference: the original biblical culture, church culture, and a con temporary target culture. Languages play an important role in the expression and understanding of those cultures. The original biblical culture is accessible through the languages in which the biblical texts were originally written ( Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). Sim ilarly, a church culture or a contemporary culture avails itself through its particular languages, such as Latin for the Roman Catholic Church culture or Swahili for an African contemporary target culture. In view of Ethnologue data , Swahili is spoken by approximately I 00 million people living in Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Yemen , Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, the United States of America, and possibly other parts of the world (Mulokozi 2008; Lewis, Simons and Fennig 20 1 3). QJ lntercultural mediation operates with a triple epistemolog ical privilege; that is, the epistemological privilege is granted not a· --- only to the contemporary audience (contra Ukpong 2002, 62; Tamez --- QJ w 100 2002a, J O; 2002b, 58), but also to all three sets of cultures involved. The unique epistemological privilege of canonicity is given to the original biblical cultures because they contain authoritative books for ruling in matters of faith and conduct. The unique privilege of elderliness is conferred to the church cultures because on the one hand they shape the original biblical cultures through the fixation of the biblical canons, and on the other they spiritually engender their target contemporary cultures through the evangelization min istry. The unique epistemological privilege of liveliness is bestowed upon the target contemporary cultures because they revitalize both the original biblical cultures and the church cultures. In other words, the target contemporary cultures are the only ones presently active and who are responsible for improving their own lives while con necting the past, the present, and the future. By definition, an epis temological task refers to intellectual and practical efforts which have to be deployed for the attainment of knowledge (See van Aarde 1 994, 584; Loba-Mkole 2005b, 298; Pym 2007 , 1 95). Ac cording to Arduini, translation epistemology is a rhizome where "knowledge is the point where the rhizome's roots cross and overlap and make paths" (Arduini 2004, 9). For intercultural mediation, the rhizome of knowledge is located at the junction of paths from the original biblical cultures, church cultures critically assessed, and the target contemporary cultures. After that junction, the journey has to continue on the road of the target contemporary cultures, leading to the future. lntercultural mediation embraces three epistemological val ues: a target culture worldview (what is valuable is that which pro motes life), a message from the historical Jesus (what is valuable is that which concurs with a message of the historical Jesus) , and a Christian culture value (what is valuable is that which is in conso nance with the Church's critically assessed culture). In terms of ethical values , intercultural mediation includes accuracy to the original culture (ethics of accurate representation) , loyalty to the current target culture (ethics of serv·ce) , and honesty toward a crit ically assessed church culture (ethics of transparency). Intercultural mediation integrates a triple cultural scope: current cultural locations of the mediator, horizontal cultures , and -- -- vertical cultures. Current cultural locations of the mediator consist of diverse situations in which the mediator lives. The horizontal � C ·.;::; C 101 � intercultural scope deals with the experiences between neighboring cultures and the target culture, while the vertical intercultural scope applies to the interplay between the present target culture and its past, as well as its future. As a matter of fact, each of the triple cul tural scope shapes the mind of the mediator, and their viewpoints need to be clearly spelled out to avoid confusions on the one hand and pave the way for genuine harmony on the other (See Akper 2006 , 1 - 1 1 ; August 2006, 1 2- 1 8 ; Jonker 2006, 1 9-28 ) . The originality of the intercultural biblical mediations re sides in its triple frame of reference, triple epistemological privilege, triple epistemological value, and triple cultural scope. Furthermore, it is impo11ant to bear in mind that an intercultural mediation re quires the practitioner to be creative in order to invent points of agreement between the cultures concerned. For van Binsbergen lntercultural communication is always transgressive, innovative, subject to bricolage. Genui ne differences [ . . . ] can only be reconciled in dialogue, love, seduction, trade, diplomacy, therapy, ritual, ethnography and intercultural phi losophy in an innovative way [ . . . ] that is not compel lingly imposed. (van B insbergen 2003, 5 1 6) Even without being exhaustive regarding each aspect of an intercultural mediation, the present paper envisions to promote intercultural approach to both exegesis and translation, viewed as two distinct yet integral parts of the same interpretive endeavor. I I I. Translation issues in Swahili Renderings of the Greek N ew Testament The Greek New Testament is a set of theological books. One may raise the question whether the Swahili language is able to express this set of theological ideas. Such a question assumes that the Greek language has more epistemological privilege than the Swahili language, which from intercultural perspective is not the case. The epistemological privilege of the Greek language of the New Testament is limited to the original biblical culture, which it shares with Hebrew and Aramaic, while the epistemological priv ilege of the Swahili language is limited to its contemporary target audience, which it shares with various local and international lan ------ guages. The Swahili language cannot take the place of the Greek a!' ------ w 102 language in the original biblic�I culture, nor can the Greek replace Swahili in the target culture. Each language is unique and irreplace able in its own symbolic world. Each expresses the theological ideas of the New Testament books in a unique way, yet with a great deal of similarity. None of the two languages is theological in itself, except when argued from an incarnation perspective whereby Jesus Christ is confessed as the Son of God who became human. But in this case every human language (including Greek and Swahili) is theological because Jesus shared his divine nature with all human conditions, except sin. Succinctly, the content or ideas of the New Testament books remain theological, but not the languages through which those ideas are expressed (Greek or Swahili). These lan guages are human though they have acquired theological status through the incarnation of the Son of God and by the virtue of com municating theological ideas. Nevertheless, this paper focuses on the similarity and dissimilarity of the Greek and Swahili languages with regard to the New Testament texts since the linguistic patterns of each of them constitute a significant vehicle for theological ideas. Language patterns seem to confirm that there is no language that has inbuilt theological words. Theological ideas are, rather, ex pressed through human languages like any type of human knowl edge even if each science can develop a specific terminology. 1 . Contrastive features with regard to idiomatic expressions Contrastive features will be examined based on the U BS Greek New Testament (GNT), the Vulgate (VUL) and the three Swahili versions: Swahili Union Version Revised (SUVR), Biblia Habari Njema ( B H N) and Greek-Swahili NT Interlinear (GSNT I). SUVR represents a formal sub-culture, while B H N and GSNT I stand for a common language sub-culture and a scholarly sub-cul ture, respectively. It is obvious that Greek idioms cannot be rendered literally into Swahili. For example GSNTI and SUVR render notiJaau ovv xarprov in Matthew 3 : 8 with "zaeni basi matunda" (produce then fruits) instead of ''fanyeni basi tunda" (make then fruit). In addition to the idiomatic rendering of JTDtriom:£ by "zaeni ," the Greek accusative singular xag:rcov is rendered in Swahili by the plural "matunda" (fruits), since naturalness in Swahili cannot tol ........ erate the literal ''fanyeni tunda" (make fruit). B H N reads "Onesheni � ........ ·.;:::. 103 kwa vitendo" (show by actions). Interestingly, the literal ''fanyeni tunda", avoided by the three Swahili versions, corresponds to the V U L rendering ''facite ergo fructum" (make therefore fruit). In ad dition, J'COlfj� EAErJ!lOOVVrJV in Matthew 6:2 is translated in SUVR with "utoapo sadaka" (as you give alms), while B H N translates it with "unaposaidia maskini" (as you help the poor) , and GSNT J has "ukitoa sadaka" (when you give alms). All three Swahili ver sions agree not to literally render the idiom :,wdcv iJ...c17µoavv17 with ''fanya sadaka" (do or make alms): SUVR and GSNT replace the verb "fanya" with "toa ," since the latter fits better with the word "sadaka" in this context. B H N chooses a Swahili idiomatic equivalent ("unaposaidia maskini"). V U L has "cum ergo facies elemosynam" (as you then make an aim). These examples show that the same Greek verb (:,wdcv + noun) can be rendered by dif ferent Swahili equivalents: "zaa" (produce) , "toa" (give) , and even "saidia" (help) when it is accompanied by EAcYJµoavv17v. V U L constantly uses the equivalent ''facere" even where the context sup ports an idiomatic meaning. 2. Contrastive features with regards to lexical items There is no perfect equivalence between certain Greek terms and Swahili because of the differences at the syntactical level or word order in a sentence. For example, the Greek lexicon includes a gender system (M/F/N) , where nouns are also categorized as being definite, indefinite, or neutral. The gender is often enhanced by the presence of an a,ticle, though an anarthrous use of a noun does not affect its gender. In contrast , the Swahili lexicography is characterized by noun class system which determines whether a noun belongs to the category of human beings, animals, nature, inanimate things, abstract things, etc. While the gender of a Greek noun defines the gender of the qualifying article and adjective, the class of a Swahili noun determines the form of the affix of the ad jective and verb. Furthermore, it has to be noted that even if Swahili does not have articles, it can express the definiteness by means of an elaborate demonstrative system. The Greek 'Ev G.QX'YJ (in + anarthrous "beginning") , 6 J...6 yo� (definite aiticle "the" + the noun "word") as well as the anarthrous 0co� (god) in John I : I have all been rendered respectively as a· ---- "katika mwanzo" (in beginning) or "hapo mwanzo" (there in be- nr ---- w 104 ginning), "neno" (word) and "mungu" (god). As is to be expected for a language that has no explicit articles, all the three Swahili versions render a Greek noun with or without the article in a same way ("mwanzo" for <iQX17, "neno" for 6 )..6yos, and "mungu" or "Mungu" for 0eos) . Nevertheless, GSNTI gives "mungu" in lower case as does GNT, while SUVR and BHN both give "Mungu" with upper case. However, they use a lower case where GNT has an upper case in John I 0:34: <9wi tare ("nyinyi ni miungu", you are gods). VUL capitalizes the equivalent of 6 )..6yos ("Verbum ," Word) and 0eos ("Deus") , but it uses a lower case for the capital letter of <9wi tare ("dii estis," you are gods) . The word 0eos is not a proper name, but a common noun which has both singular and plural forms. It should not be capitalized everywhere as if it were a proper name, as SUVR, BHN and V U L have done. Similarly, it should not be written with a lower case where GNT has an upper case (John J 0:34, contra SUVR, B H N, and V U L). The exegetical and translation debate around the absence of the article before dextf ("beginning") and 0eos ("God") in John 1 : I is almost irrelevant from the perspective of Swahili language syntax. Nonetheless, the absolute or relative meaning of aexti and 0eos can be determined from the context ( Wallace, I 996). But, the vocative case of the Greek article in Colossians 3: I 8-4: l , also known as "vocative span" ( Young 1 994, 253), is con veyed in Swahili by a personal pronoun as shown in the following (Colossians 3 : 1 8; 4: I ): Ai yuvaixcc:;, 'UJtO't<lOOW0£ wic:; avogaOtv Enyi wake, Tiini waume You wives, obey to the husbands Ol X'U ()lOL, .o 6(x.awv x.a\, 'tf]V i,061:ri1:a wic:; oou1-..mc:; JIDQEXW0£ Enyi mabwana, haki na adili watumishi watendeeni You masters, the just and the fair to the slaves do GSNTI uses "enyi" where SUVR has "nyinyi." BHN alter nates "nyinyi" and "nanyi," which is a shorter form of "na nyinyi" -- (and you), but the addition of "na" (and) seems to be superfluous. (") "Nyinyi" can be used for personal pronoun, second person plural, nominative and vocative cases, but "enyi" is strictly used for the -- � ·;::; 105 vocative, second person plural . I t is worth noting that "enyi" or "nyinyi" covers both Greek femin ine and mascul i ne forms because Swah i l i does not have a gender system. S ince Latin has no articles, VUL does not represent them, but the meaning of the Greek vocative is conveyed by the correspondent Latin vocative ("mulieres subditae estote," wives , be submissive; "domini quod iustum est et aequum servis praestate ," masters exhibit to your servants what is just and equal ) . A Swah i l i reader who is accustomed to interact with the New Testament through European l anguages such as Engl ish , French , and others may be surprised to see that the Greek uses ar ticles even before proper names (e.g. "6 'J ryao iJr;," the Jesus) while these l anguages use them only before common names . The Greek form "6 J ryaofJr;" has no meaning, whi le the H ebrew or Aramaic ";;iiw1l_7"or ":ww" means "he saves." In Bantu culture a personal name is mean ingfu l ; can a Bantu language like Swah i l i continue translating a mean ingless Greek form of the mean ingful Hebrew name of Jesus and others? From the perspectives of Semitic lan guages, the Swah i l i rendering of Jesus's name would not be " Yesu" (a mere S wah i l i transl iteration of the G reek form) , but rather "Yehoshua" or "Yeshua." Un fortunately, the GSNT[ , S U V R and B H N have all used "Yesu," wh ich is simi lar to the Latin transl iter ation "lesu" (V UL). Another lexical i ssue concerns the phrase "6 vlor; wiJ av0g dxnov" ( the son of the man). S U V R translates it as "Mwana wa Adamu" (son/daughter of Adam) , whereas B H N renders it "Mwana wa Mtu" (a Son/daughter of H uman Person) , G S NTI "mwana wa mtu" (son/daughter of human person) , and V U L "Filius hominis" (Son of man) . I n many occurrences , this phrase records Jesus's self-designation . On those grounds, V U L might be right in using the upper case only for "Filius" which begins the whole phrase but not for "hominis." In the Swah i l i l anguage, the expres sions "mwana wa mtu," "mwana wa adamu," whether in upper or lower case , refer unmistakably to any indefinite female or male hu man being. First, the word "mtu" (a human being) belongs to the noun class of human beings; secondly, the genitive marker "wa" (of) associates "mwana" (daughter or son) with "mtu" to indicate where she or he belongs. However, the NT phrase "mwana wa --ru mtu" refers to a male because it translates the GNT phrase of mas- -- <.,J 106 cul ine gender 6 vlor; wv dv0QWJWV . On that basis, the Swah i l i "mwana wa mtu" can be understood not as daughter of a human being, but more precisely as a son of a man . The phrase 6 vlor; wv dv0Q WJWV, l ike the case of 6 0cor; or 0cor;, is not a proper name but a common n ame wh ich has i ts pl ural form in vlo[ rwv dv0QWJTOJV (see Mark 3 :28) as wel l as an anarthrous form vlor; dv0QWJWV (John 5 :27; Revelation 1 : I 3 ; 1 4: 1 4) . Furthermore, the Swah i l i phrase "mwana wa mtu," whether it appl ies to a female, male, or both has an idiomatic meaning of "a human being." The strange double determinative (definite article + genitive) in the word 6 vlor; rov dv0Q WJWV (the son of the man) has led the majority of New Testament scholars to insist on the titular use of this expression , which is reflected in SUVR and B H N through cap italization . An argument based on articles w i l l not work in Swah i l i , though the latter can sti l l indicate definiteness with regard t o a word which is quali fied by an article in the source language (Loba M kole 2000, 563 ; 2003, 853; 20 1 0, 1 25- 1 27; Casey 2007 , 3 1 9) . I n the M asoretic text, "ben adam" 1$7□ �1 in Ezekiel occurs n inety-three times, whereas the Aramaic �Jt.V �7 only appears in Dan 7: 1 3 . The Septµagint has rendered both expressions with dv0QdJJWr;, which means a man , a human being. Nevertheless, a great number of bibl ical scholars consider the son of man i n Daniel as the most subl i me messianic conception that the Bible offers since he seems to be not a collective character, but a transcendent Messiah with heaven ly and divine features (Feui l let 1 975 , 478; K uzenzama 1 990 , 1 9 and 76; M ul holland 1 999, 1 87). Some extra biblical writings ( ] Enoch 46-7 1 ; 4 Ezra 1 3 :3) have been brought forward to support the expectation of the Messianic "Son of man" in J udaism . However, this interpretation goes far beyond l iterary evidence . The most persuasive view is that the Danielic son of man is a symbolic expression which refers not to an individual messianic figure, but to the people of I srae l . They are represented by a human figure that antici pates the ki ngdom of God while other k ingdoms have been compared to beasts ( Hampel 1 990, 32. 42, and 63) . This view is shared by some exegetes, such as Leivestad ( 1 972, 244; 1 982, 234), B ietenhard ( 1 982, 337) , Coppens ( I 983, I 1 1 ) , Haag ( 1 993 , 1 67) and Koch ( 1 993, 84) , among others . (Y) Phi lological research attributes three understandi ngs to �Jl.V --- �7 , namely the generic sense (every human being), the indefinite --- � · � 107 sense (someone), and the circumlocutional sense of the first person personal pronoun ( ] ). At all levels, it refers to a human being in the third or the first person (auto-reference). There are three types of auto-designation conveyed by the phrase "son of man": exclusive auto-designation (when the speaker refers to himself alone); the in clusive auto-designation (when the speaker refers to himself and to all other human beings); and the idiomatic auto-designation (when the speaker refers to himself and to a class of persons he associates with) ( Lindars 1 983, 23-24) . On linguistic grounds, the phrase 6 vios wiJ dv0QWJWV refers to a human being without implying any divine or messianic connotation. In the history of religions, there is no convincing evidence indicating that this expression bore a divine or messianic meaning that could account for its titular use. Nonetheless, Jesus of Nazareth is the only religious and historical leader who is recorded as someone who used this phrase to refer to himself, not for revealing his divine nature but to confirm his human nature. Moreover, no church con fesses Jesus's divinity through this expression. The Swahili phrase "mwana wa mtu" (GSNTI) is not a lit eral equivalent but an accurate rendering of the Greek 6 vios dv0QwJWv and 6 vios roiJ dv0Qwnov in the sense of a human being. The difference between the source and the target terms per tains to the fact the Greek phrase is a masculine gender referring to a male human being while the Swahili rendering is gender-inclusive. The Latin.filius hominis also has its own peculiarity. While "filius" is a masculine gender, "hominis" (homo) can be gender-inclusive like the Swahili "mtu," but generally it cannot refer to a female hu man being alone (as per the Greek dv0QWJWs) , whereas the Swahili "mtu" can do so. 3. Swahili Equivalents ofGreek Moods, Tenses, Voices, and Aspects The Swahili particle "na" is used to represent the Greek in dicative mood, present tense, active voice, as in the following ex ample (Matthew 3 : 1 1 ): iJ µii£ �amO;o) £V 'UClfftl ninawabatiza kwa maJI I you baptize 111 water �- ---- a!' ---- u.) 1 08 GSNT and SUVR have both the form "ninawabatiza" ( I baptize you), while BHN records "ninawabatizeni", where the ending "ni" emphasizes the plural form of the verb complement. This emphasis can be left out without affecting the plural form of the verb com plement "wa," which is a personal pronoun in second person plural. "Ninawabatiza" and "ninawatizeni" are both accurate renderings of the same "vµdr; f3ami�w." However, this example displays the remarkable agglutinative character of the Swahili language, where the personal pronoun subject "ni," the tense marker "na," the per sonal pronoun object "wa," and the verb stem "batiza" are expressed with a single word ("ni-na-wa-batiza"). V U L has "ego quidem vos baptizo" (l indeed baptize you) , adding an extra personal pronoun "ego" ( I) to the one included in the verb "baptizo" ( I baptize). Another particular feature of the Swahili verb pertains to the use of the particle "hu" (not translatable in English) at the be ginning of a verb in the present active indicative to show a habitual action (Matthew 8:9): Myw 'W'lrt</), IlOQEU0rrn, xal, rrDQEUEi:aL n inasema kwa huyo, Nenda, na huenda I say to this one, "Go," and he goes The GNTI, SUVR, and B H N use the particle "hu" as a marker of a habitual verb action , but a mere present form such as "anaenda" (s/he goes) can also convey the sense of a habit similar to V U L's "dico huic vade et vadit et alio veni et venit" ( I say to th is one go and he goes and to another come and he comes). The particle "ta" is used to represent a Greek future tense (e.g. Matthew 3: 1 1 ): uµd.<; �am(oa EV JtVEUµa'tL ay(<p xat Jt\J QL arnwabatiza kwa mtakatifu roho na moto he will you baptize In holy spirit and fire GSNTI, SUVR and BHN all have the same future tense marker "ta", which corresponds to the Latin "h" ("haptizaf2.it," he will baptize). The aspect of aorist indicative active in Greek can be ren (Y) dered by the Swahili particles "Ii" or "ka," which are markers of ....... J§ the past tense (e.g. Matthew l :2): ....... ·;::; 109 A�gaaµ £YEVVT]O£V '"COV 'Ioaax Abrahamu ali(m)zaa Isaka Abraham begat Isaac GS NTI , S U V R , and B H N all have the same "li" for the Greek in dicative aorist while VUL has the perfect "genuit" (begat) . However, in some cases the Greek aorist is rendered by the Swahili perfect tense like in Matthew 1 4: 1 5: nagf]A8ev saa tayari imepita the hour already has passed BHN differs from GNTI and SUVR by using a plural form "saa zimepita" (hours have passed), which is not in the Greek source text. But the Swahili singular form "saa imepita" and the plural form "saa zimgpita" can be used interchangeably. The Swahili perfect "imgpita" or "zimgpita" conveys the sense of a recent past, whereas the past tense "ifjpita" ( used as an equivalent of Greek indicative aorist) evokes a distant past . V U L has a pluperfect "hora praeteriit" (hour had passed). The use of the aorist in Greek is wide ranging and complex . I n Swahil i , the particle "li " is used to represent the indicative aorist active (e.g. M ark 1 4:22). E00LOV'"CWV ainu)v A.a�wv OQ'"COV eiJAoy�oai; £'XA.U0£V wakiwa wanakula alipochukua mkate al ipobarik i al i(u )mega eating they he took bread he blessed he broke xal, £()(J)X£V ainoii; xal, ELJI£V na ali(wa)pa na al isema and he gave them and said Unl ike GS NTI , SUYR and BH N use "ka" in some places to repre sent both the i ndicative aorist active and participle aorist active (e.g. Mark 1 4: 22): "walipokuwa wakila (SUVR) / wafjpokuwa wanakula ( B H N ) , "afitwaa mkate, akabariki, akaumega, akawapa, akasema" (as they were eating, he took bread , he blessed, he broke , �- he gave them, he said). The succession of verbs in this verse could ---- eventually explain the choice made by both SUVR and B H N for ---- w 1 10 the use of "ka" instead of "li." It is known that "the aorist participle usually denotes antecedent time to that of the controlling verb. But if the main verb is also aorist, this participle may indicate contem poraneous time" (Robertson 1 934, 1 1 1 2- 1 1 1 3 ; Wallace 1 996 , 6 1 4). The main verbs are in the aorist indicative (fxlaaEv -xai l!ow-xEv I . . . I -xai cbrev). Moreover, laf3cvv and Evlo y iJaac; are aorist par ticiples, suggesting that actions expressed by these participles took place before those of the main verbs ( Porter, Reed, and O' Donnell 20 1 0, 1 J O). In addition , ia0t6vrwv avrwv is a genitive absolute that provides background information. Y U L renders this genitive absolute with an ablative absolute "manducantibus illis" (as they/ these ones were eating), and it uses an indicative perfect ("accepit," "fregit") or a present participle ("bendicens") in the place of Greek aorist participle "accepit Jesus panem et benedicens fregit et dedit eis et ait" (Jesus took bread and blessing he broke and gave to them and said). The Greek present indicative participle is represented by the particle "ki" (e.g. Uy wv, "akisema ," "saying" by SUVR and GSNTI, or V U L with "dicens" in Matthew 5:2). B H N drops this present participle. In addition , when a participle is used as a noun , the particle "ye" serves to represent this noun participle (e.g. Luke 1 4: 1 1 ): 6 lJ'ljJWV tmnov xal 6 i:anHvwv eau,:ov yule anayejikweza mwenyewe na yule anayejishusha mwenyewe he who exalts himself and he who humbles himself SUVR differs from GSNTI and B H N in another form of nominal participle, namely "ajikwezaye ." In any case, "anayejik weza" in GSNTI and BH N-or "ajikwezaye" in SUYR-also func tions as a relative clause (he who exalts), thus corresponding to the rendering "qui exaltat" by Y U L. When the participle or relative pronoun marker "ye" is used in Swahili, it comes at the end of the verb, and the present tense marker "na" disappears. It must be noted that when the Greek article is used before an adjectival participle, it can be conveyed in Swahili by a demonstrative pronoun adjective (cf. "yule"). Likewise, the Greek article in vocative case can be represented by the Swahili personal pronoun referring to the ad dressee (compare the vocative span of Colossians 3: 1 8-4: I ). More --- over, SUVR, GSNTI, and BHN have introduced the reflexive particle --- J:! C ·.;::. C 111 g "Ji," which is absent in GNT as well as in V UL. Unlike the Greek and Latin languages, in Swahili the reflexive particle "Ji" is combined with "mwenyewe" (him/herself) to indicate that the action of the verb emphatically refers back to the subject involved. This particle is not used when the action of the verb refers to a complement of object (e.g: "yule anayekweza uzuri wake mwenyewe," the one who exalts his/her beauty him/herself). The reflexive particle ''ji" can also be used without "mwenyewe" in a context where the subject is a beneficiary or victim of his/her own action. This case corresponds to the Greek middle voice- for example ").vaaµEvoc;," "aliyeJi fungua" (person who loosened him/herself) (see Olson 1 99 I, 1 09). In Greek, a noun participle is usually accompanied by an article (6, rj , or r6, which are respectively masculine, feminine, and neuter), but in Swahili only the particle "ye" signals the presence of a nominal participle, since Swahili has neither article nor gender. As was suggested above, the particle "me" is used in Swahili to represent a Greek perfect active indicative tense (e.g. Matthew 3:2): 'YJYYlXEV ya.g flamAda TWV ou gavwv umekaribia maana ufalme wa mbinguni it has approached for the reign of the heavens The indicative perfect active in Mathew 3:2 is rendered by the same "umekaribia" in GSNTI, SUV R , and BHN, or its equivalent "adpropinquavit" (has approached) in V UL. The Greek indicative plupe1fect active in Swahili is repre sented by the particles " ... li-kuwa ... me-kwisha .... " (e.g. Mark 1 5 :7): EV Tfl OTCt0£l cp6vov :iT£l10ll]X£LOUV katika uas1 mauaji walikuwa wamekwisha fanya in the insurrection murder they had committed GSNTI uses the pluperfect "walikuwa wamekwishafanya," as does V UL with ''fecerant homicidium" (who had done homicide). SUVR has "waliosababisha" (who caused), which is a past participle or a relative clause, while BHN has "kwa kusababisha" (for causing), an infinitive form. The Greek indicative imperfect active is rendered in Swahili -- by the particles " ... li-kuwa ... na" (e.g. Matthew 8: 1 5 ): -- w 1 12 Otl]XOVH ain:cp alikuwa ana(m)tumikia yeye she was serving him GSNT [ uses the indicative imperfect active "alikuwa ana(m)tu mikia ," while V U L likewise uses "ministrabat eis" (she/he was serving them), though the two differ regarding the number of the object complement (him or them). SUVR prefers "akawatumikia" (she/he served them) and BH N "akamtumika" (she served him). Both prefer to use the particle "ka ," which marks a succession of actions but has the disadvantage of not accounting for different as pects or tenses of the verbs involved among which some might be in the indicative aorist. others in the imperfect, and so on. The Greek present subjunctive is rendered by the Swahili particle "e" at the end of the verb . The subjunctive mood is com monly used to convey a wish or an order (e.g. Matthew 5:45): OJW)£ ylvria0r uLo\, 1:01.J JUHQO£ uµwv iii muwk. watoto wa baba yenu so that you may become children of father your GSNTI has a straightforward subjunctive form "muwe," as does V U L with "sitis" (you may be), while SU V R and B H N use an aux iliary form of the verb "mpate" before the verb "kuwa" ("mpate kuwa ," you may become). l n the protasis of a conditional sentence, Swahili uses the particle "kama" (if) followed by a verb in the indicative mood where the stem is preceded by the particle "nge" ( GSNT I) or its variant "ngali" (SU V R and BH N). In the apodosis, Swahili also uses a verb in indicative with "nge" or "ngali" particle (e.g. John l l .2 1 ). This particle indicates that an undesirable action has taken place in the past. EL �£ (;)OE O'lJX O.V cmi:OaVEV 6 aoEAcp6£ mou kama u�kuwa hapa ha�kufa kaka yangu if you had been here he not had died the brother of mine While GSNT I, SUVR, and BH N stick to the indicative mood where (Y) the past aspect is suggested by the particle "nge ," V U L uses the --- conditional pluperfect "si fuisses hie frater meus non fuisset mor- --- � C '+:, C 1 1 3 Jg tuus" (if you could have been here, my brother would not have died). The Greek passive voice is represented by the Swahil i suffix "wa" (added at the end of the verb stem; e.g. Matthew 1 5 : 1 2): oi, <J.)ag Loaim fox.avoa11.Lo8rioav Mafarisayo wali kwazwa The Pharisees were scandali zed Both SUVR and B H N have "walichukizwa" (they were annoyed) with the same end ing suffi x "wa," l i ke GSNTI, to express the passive voice. V U L has a gerundive with the verb "esse" (to be) in the indicative present: "Pharisaei scandalizati sunt" ( Pharisees are scandal ized). The Greek also uses the m iddle voice, which is formed in the same way as the passive voice although i t has the sense of the active voice. However, it often underl ines an action intended for the benefit (or detriment) of the subject of the verb (e.g. Matthew I I :7): JtOQEUOµ£VWV wakiwa wanakwenda zao they departing for themselves S U VR uses the participle aorist "walipokwenda" (they having de parted ) whi le B H N has the participle imperfect "walipokuwa wanakwenda" (as they were departing). GSNTI sticks to the Greek participle present "wakiwa wanakwenda," and it adds the emphatic "zao" (for themselves) to indicate the sense conveyed by the middle voice. V U L has an ablative absolute "illis beuntibus" (as they/these ones were departi ng), where the emphasis is expressed by the demonstrative pronoun "illis ." The Greek uses deponent verbal forms, which are repre sented in the passive voice but have the meaning of an active voice. GSNTI uses a straightforward rendering in the active voice . For example, the passive deponent dnEXQi0ry in John I :2 1 has been rendered by the active "alijibu" (he/she answered) instead of the �. passive "alijibiwa" (he/she was answered). SUVR and BHN do ---- the same, even though they prefer the particle "ka" to "Ii" to render ---- L.) 1 14 an indicative aorist. VUL also has an indicative active, albeit in the present tense, "respondit" ( he answers) . The Greek deponent verbs do not necessari ly correspond to Latin deponent, semideponent , or gerundi ve verbs. For example, GNT has a present participle 6 naeaxaJ,.,wv (he who exhorts) in Rom 8: 1 2 , but V U L uses a de ponent or gerundive "qui exhortatur" ( he who exhorts). I n ancient Greek, some verbs were defective rather than deponent as far as voice is concerned (some did not have all tenses in both active and middle voices) ( Robertson I 934, 332); this is also the case with Latin . Summary of Basic Equivalence between NT Greek, Latin, and Swahili Greek/Latin Swahili Swahili Renderings Noun +/+ + Translatable Nominative, accusative, +/+ + Translatable ( Bound or Unbound) dative Vocative +/+ + Personal pronoun or "ee" before nouns Genitive +!+ + Possessive particle (e.g. "wa," "ya") Pronoun +/+ + Translatable Adjective +/+ + Translatable Article +/- Not translatable as definite or indefinite article Conjunction +/+ + Translatable Adverb +/+ + Translatable Preposition +/+ + Translatable Interjection +/+ + Translatable Verb +/+ + Translatable Active Voice +/+ + Translatable Middle Voice +/+ + Addition of a pers.pron. or "Ji" particle Passive voice +/+ + "wa" at the end of the verb --- Indicative present active +/+ + " na ,. --- 2 ·.;:::; 115 Greek/Latin Swahili Swahili Renderings I nd icative future active +!+ + "ta" I ndicative aorist active +/- + "ii" I ndicative present participle +!+ + "ki" Indicative aorist participle +/- + "po " Pa11iciple noun +!+ + "ye" Indicative Imperfect +//+ + "alikuwa . . . ana . . ." I ndicative perfect active +!+ + " me" Indicative Pluperfect +/+ + "aliku wa . . . amekwisha . . ." Subjunctive (exhortation) +!+ + "e" Subjunctive (or condition) +/+ + "kama" . . . ."nge" Imperative +/+ + "a" I nfin itive +/+ + "ku" at the beginning of the verb Deponent +!+ Active voice Verbal endings +!+ Person + N umber + tense are (person + n umber + tense expressed at the beginning of the markers are generally at verb ( " ni"-"u"-"a"-" tu"-"m u"- the end , except for Greek " wa"+ "na," "ta ," " Ii," etc) aor, imp, perf, and pluper) Gender (masc , fem . neut) +!+ Persons and things Bound morphemes (Verb +/+ + Subject Personal + Personal Pronoun Endings) Pronaouns+Verb+Objects +: l iteral presence of l i nguistic item; - l iteral absence of a l i nguistic item �- w 116 Conclusion The study of the New Testament both in its original language and translation can prove to be enriching, as similarities and differ ences between the two or more types of texts are being highlighted for the sake of a constructive dialogue. This dialogue is challenging but possible when the epistemological privileges are equally yet distinctively granted to original biblical cultures, church cultures, and contemporary target cultures . An overview of the Greek and Swahili New Testament texts with regard to their lexical, morpho logical, syntactic, and semantic similarities and differences has shown how both languages strive to communicate the same message with accuracy and naturalness , even if some mismatch is inevitable. The first striking difference is related to idioms: the Greek and Swahili languages have different idioms, which do not match in mean ing when translated literally. A second important difference between the Greek and the Swahili languages concerns the presence of articles in Greek and their absence in Swahili , though in some cases Swahili is able to convey definiteness by the means of an elaborate demonstrative system or even by personal pronouns in vocative case (cf. Colossians 3 : 1 8-4: I ). Thus, in Greek the presence of the definite article before nouns 0Eor;;, vior;; roiJ dv0ewnov . A6yor;;, and others is not explicitly marked in Swahili, yet their original meanings are well conveyed, taking into account the Semitic background of some of these familiar terms, especially in the case of via� wv av0e wnov . A third substantial difference between the Greek and Swahili words of the New Testament pertains to proper names such as Jesus and others. The Swahili " Yesu" is a meaningless transliteration of the Greek mean ingless 6 'JryaoiJr;;. But the mean ingful Hebrew or Aramaic ;;"!illllll or ":w1j]'' could be rendered in Swahili as " Yehoshua" or the shorter form " Yeshua" (both mean i ngful transliterations) and be given the same original mean ing. As for certain grammatical elements such as moods, tenses, voices, or aspects, the Swahili language has all the equ ivalents of the Greek of the New Testament moods, except for deponent verbs, though they may be conveyed in Swahili through active forms . In brief, a comparison between Greek, Latin, and Swahili linguistic patterns indicates that both Latin and Swahili do not have formal equivalence ('") of all Greek words, but they still find ways of conveying at least --- some aspect of these lexical and grammatical features (see the case --- � -� 117 � of articles , aorist aspect, deponent verbs , gender, verbal affixes and suffixes, agglutinative or nonagglutinative features). One of the most striking lexical findings concerns the mis match between the Greek form of Jesus's name and its Latin or Swahili translations. Neither Latin nor Swahili have formal articles , while Greek even uses them before proper names. The original , authentic, and meaningful form of Jesus's name is the Hebrew or Aramaic 7;-iiww or �WW (he saves). The Latin "Jesus" and the Swahili " Yesu"l" Yezu" stand as correspondent transliterations of the mean ingless Greek 6 'Jrwovr;. In Latin church culture, the meaning of a proper name in and of itself may not be that important, but in the Swahili target culture a proper name is bound to be meaningful and informative through its own wording. Consequently, the Swahili " Yehoshua" or " Yeshua" would be a more considerate rendering of Jesus's name in view of the target culture frame and that of the most original biblical culture. �- ---- ru' ---- w 118 References Agano .Jipya Kigiriki - Kiswahili Baina Mistari. 2009. Paratext Version, edited by Peter M. Renju & Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Nairobi; Bible Society of Kenya; Dodoma: Bible Society of'Tanzania. Akper, lornenge Godwin. 2006. "From Multiculturality to l ntcrculturality? Locat ing the Ongoing A frican Agency Discourse in the Debate." Scriptura 9 1 ( 1 ): 1 - 1 1 . Arduini, Stefano. 2004. "Simi larity and Di fference in Translation." I n Similarity and Difference in Translation, edited by S. Arduini and R. Hodgson, 7- 1 4. Rimini: Guaraldi . August, Karel TH . 2006. "The Nature of l nterculturality in Development. A Theo logical Perspective of Relat ional ity." Scripture 91 ( I ): 1 2- 1 8 . Berger, Klaus, and Christ iane Nord. 1 999. Das Neue Testament undfruhchristliche Schrifien. Frankfurt am Main: l nscl Verlag. Bib/ia. Habari Njema. Tafsiri ya Ushirikiano wa Makanisa. 2006. Nairobi : Bible Society of Kenya; Dodoma: Bible Society of Tanzania. Biblia Sacra Vulgata. 2007. Editionem quintam emendatam retractatam, edited by Roger Gryson, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bi belgesellschaft. Biblia. Yaani Agano la Kale na Agano .Jipya Nairobi. 2006. Bible Society of Kenya; Dodoma: Bible Society of Tanzania. Bietenhard, Hans. 1 982. "Der Mensehensohn - ho huios tou anthropou. Sprachl iche und Religionsgeschichtl ichc Untcrsuchungcn zu eincm Begriff der synop tischen Evangel ien I ." A ufvtieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt 1 1 .25 ( I ): 265-350. Bringhurst, Robert. 2007. "Arc you now or have you ever been? A one-way conver sation with the border guards or language." Religious Studies Review 33 (4): 302-304. Caragounis, C. Chrys. 20 I I . "Greek Language and NT." Word and life. Accessed December 8, 20 1 1 . http://www.chrys- caragoun i s.com/Popu lar. Sc i enti fie .Studies/Greek_I .anguage_and_NT. pd f Casey, Maurice. 2007. The Solulion oflhe "Son of Man ·· Problem. London- New York: T & T Clark. Cilumba-C imbumba, Antoine 200 I . Wunder. Claube und Leben bei .Johannes. Eine exegetisch-hermeneutische Studie am Beispiel van Joh 3 im Hinblick auf die lnkullurationsaufgabe. Bonn: Borengasser. Coppens, Joseph. 1 983. Fils d 'homme vetero et intertestamentaire. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Engler, Steven. 2007. "Economies of transgression . Translation in Religious Stud ies." Religious Studies Review 33 (4): 306-308. Feuil let, Andre. 1 97 5 . Etudes d 'exegese et de theologie Biblique. Ancien Testament. Paris: Gabalda. -- CV) Gentzler, Edwin. 1 993 . Contemporary Translation Theories. London: Routledge. -- Haag, Ernst. 1 993 . "Der Menschcnsohn und die Heiligen (des) l-lochstcn. Eine litcr arform- und traditionsgeschichtliche Studie zu Daniel 7." In The Book of -2 ·.:;, 119 g Daniel in the Light ofNew Findings, edited by Adam Simon Van der Woude, 1 37- 1 86. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Hampel, Volker. 1 990. Menschensohn und historischer Jesus. Ein Riitselwort a/s Schlussel zum messianischen Selbstverfiindnis Jesu. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neu k i rchener. Jonker, Louis. 2006. "From M ulticulturality to l ntercultural ity. Can l ntercultural Biblical Hermeneutics be of any Assistance?" Scriptura 9 1 ( I ): 1 9-30. Koch, K ia.use. 1 993. "Messias und Menschensohn: Die zweistulige Messianologie der jiingeren Apokalyptik". Jahrbuch fur Biblishe Theologie 8 : 73-1 02. Kuzenzama, K. P. M ided. 1 990. Le titrejohannique du Fils de ! 'Homme. Essais lex icographique. K inshasa: Facultes Catholiques de Kinshasa. Leivestad, Ragner. 1 972. "Exit the Apokaliptic Son of Man." New Testament Stud ies 1 8: 243-267. ---. 1 982. "Jesus-Messias-Menschensohn: Die j Udischen Heilandserwartungen zur Zeit der ersten romischen Kaiser und die F rage nach dem messianis chen Selbstbewusstsein Jesu." A zifstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt 1 1 .2 1 ( 1 ): 220- 264. Lewis, Paul, Simons, F. Gary and Fennig, D. Charles (eds). 20 1 3 . Ethnologue: Lan guages ofthe World, Sixteenth Edition. Dallas: S I L International. Online Version. Accessed J uly 28, 20 1 3 . http://www.ethnologue.com. Lindars, Bernard. 1 983. Jesus Son of Man. A Fresh Examination ofthe Son ofMan Sayings in the Gospels in the L ight of Recent Research. London: SPCK. Loba-M kole, Jean-Claude. 2000. "The Kiswahili Mwana Wa Mtu and the Greek Ho Huios Tau Anthropou." In The Bible in Africa. Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends, edited by Gerald 0. West and M usa Dube, 557-566. Leiden Boston-Koln: Bri l l . - --. 2003. "Son o f man and Exegetical Myths." Hervormde Teologiese Studies 53 (3): 837-858. ---. 2004a. "Bible Translation and I ntercultural Hermeneutics." In Biblical Texts and African A udiences, edited by Ernest Wendland and Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, 3 7-58. Nairobi: Acton. ---. 2004b. "Exegesis and Translation of Mark for an Audio-visual Culture." Journal ofBiblical Text Research 24: 76-1 1 5 . - - . 2005a. "Notes on the Holy Spirit for a Kongo Study Bible." I n Interacting With Scriptures in Africa, edited by Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole and Ernst Wendland, 56-80. Nairobi: Acton. - - . 2005b. "The Social Setting of Jesus' Exaltation in Luke-Acts (Lk 22:29 and Ac 7:56)." Hervomde Teologiese Studies 61 ( I and 2): 29 1 -326. - - . 2007. "From lnculturation Theology to I ntercultural Exegesis." In Cultural Readings ofthe Bible in Africa, edited by Andre Kabasele Mukeng, Jean Claude Loba-M kole, and Dieudonne Aroga Bessong, 39-68. Yaounde: C le. ---. 2008. "History and Theory of Scripture Translations." Hervomde Teolo giese Studies 1 6 ( 1 ): 253-266. ---. 20 I 0. "The New Testament and l ntercultural Exegesis in A frica." In Paul Foster, New Testament Studies, 1 1 5-1 32. London: SAGE. ---. 20 1 2 . Triple Heritage. Gospels in lntercultural Mediations. Second edi ---- tion. Nairobi: WordAlive. ru ---- w 120 - - . 20 1 3 . "lnterculturality in Peace Building ( Rm 1 4: 1 9)." forthcoming in Re flecting on Romans. Essays in Honour ofAndrie du Toil s 80th Birthday, edited by Jacobus Steyn Gert. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Manus, Chris Ukachukwu. 2003 . lntercultural Hermeneutics in Afica. Methods and Approaches. Nairobi: Acton. M aland, Jean-Bosco. 1 998. "L' Hermeneutique de l ' i nculturation dans Ac 1 5 et Ga 2, 1 1 - 1 4." In lnculturation de la vie consacree en Afrique a I 'aube du troisieme millenaire. Actes du cinquieme co/Loque international, edited by Joachim Kalonga., 1 44- 1 67. Kinshasa: Carmel Afriquc. M ojola, A loo, and Ernst Wendland. 2003. "Scripture translation in the era or trans lation studies." In Bible Translation. Frames of Reference, edited by Tim Wi lt, 1 -2 5 . Manchester- Northampon: St. Jerome. M ulhol land, M. Dewey. 1 999. Mark �- Stor)I of.Jesus, Messiah For all Nations. Ore gon: Wipf & Stock. Mulokozi, M . M . 2008. Kiswahili as National and International Language. Dar es Salaam : I nstitute of K iswahili Rcaserch/ University or Dar cs Salaam. Ac cessed February 27, 2008. http://www.helsinki. fi/hum/aakkl/documents/kiswahili .pd r. Nida, Eugene A., and C.Robert Taber. 1 969. The Theory and Practice of Transla tion. Leiden: Brill. Olson, S. 1 loward. 1 99 1 . Jifunze kiyunani. Dodoma: Central Tanganyi ka Press. Porter. E. Stanley. 2009. "Assessing Translation Theory. Beyond Literal and Dy nam ic Equivalence." In Translating the New Testamenl. Text, Translation, Theology, edited by Stanley E. Porter and M ark J . Boda, 1 1 7- 1 45. Grand Rapids, M I : Eerdmans. Porter, E. Stanley and S. Richard Hess. 2009. "I ntroduction. Problems and Prospects of Translating the B ible." In Transla!ing the Bible. Problems and Prospects, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Richard. S. Hess, 1 3-1 6. SheITT eld: Shemeld Academic Press. Porter, E. Stanley, Jef-Trey T. Reed, and Matthew B. O'Donnell. 20 I 0. Fundamen/als ofNew Testament Greek. Grand Rapids, M l and Cambridge, UK : Ecrd mans. Pym, Anthony. 2007. "On the H istorical Epistemologies of Bible Translating." In A History ofBible Translation, edited by Philip Noss, 1 95-2 1 5 . Rome: Edi zioni di Storia e Letteratura. Robertson, Archibald Thomas. 1 934. A Grammar ofthe Greek New Testament in the Light ofHistorical Research. Nashvi lle, TN: B. & H. Publishing Group. Stine, Phi l ip. 2005. Let the Words Be Writ/en. The Lasting Influence a/Eugene Nida. Leiden: Brill. Stine, Philip. 20 1 2 . "Eugene A. N ida. Theoretician of' Translation." lnternalional Bulletin of Missionar)I Research 36 ( I ): 38-39. Tamez, Elsa. 2002a. "Reading the B ible under a Sky without Stars." In The Bible in a World Context. An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, ed ited by Walter Dietrich and U lrich Luz, 3- 1 5 . Grand Rapids, M l and Cambridge, .....__ U K : Eerdmans. Tamez, Elsa. 2002b. "A Star I l lum inates the Darkness." In The Bible in a World � .....__ C ·.;:::, C 121 � Context. An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, edited by Walter Di etrich and Ulrich Luz, 53-58. Grand Rapids, Ml and Cambridge, U K : Eerdmans. The Greek New Testament. 2008. Fourth Edition, edited by Barbara Aland, Matthew Black et al., Stuttgart: United Bible Societies. Ukpong, J ustin. 1 998. "The Parable of the Shrewd Manager ( Luke 1 6: 1 - 1 3): An Essay in l nculturation Hermeneutics." Semeia 73, I 89-2 1 0. - - . 2002. "The Story of Jesus' Birth ( Luke 1 -2). An African Reading." In The Bible in a World Contexl. An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, ed ited by Walter Dietrich and U lrich Luz, 59-70. Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, U K: Eerdmans. van Aarde, Andries. 1 994. "The Epistemic Status of the New Testament and the Emancipatory Living of the H istorical Jesus in Engaged Hermeneutics." Neotestamentica 28 (2): 575- 96. van B insbergen, Wim. 2003. lntercultural Encounters. African and Anthropological Lessons towards a Philosophy of fnlerculturality. Munster: Lit. Wallace, B. Daniel . 1 996. Greek Grammar beyond the Basics. An Exegetical Syntax ofthe New Testament. Grand Rapids, M l : Zondervan. Young, Richard A. 1 994. Intermediate New Testament Greek. A Linguistic and Ex egetical Approach. Nashville, TN : Broadman and Holman. Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole (OP) is Professor Extraordinary at the University of Pretoria, a Research Fellow at Stellenbosch U niversity, a Visiting Professor at Hekima College (Nairobi), and a Bible Translation Consultant with the Bible Society of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He holds a PhD in T heology (University of Leuven). His (co)publica tions include: Triple Heritage: Gospels in lntercultural Mediations (WordAlive, 201 2); New Testament Interpretations in Africa (SAGE, 2007); Cultural Readings of the Bible g ::::, in Africa (Cle, 2007); Interacting with Scriptures in A frica (Acton, 2005); Biblical Texts en and A frican Audiences (Acton, 20Q4). His current research focuses on an intercultural approach to New Testament texts and Bible translations. - N � 122

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The Romanti c Tu rn in B i b l e Tra nslation Lourens d e V ri es VU University, Amsterdam Netherlands [email protected] Abstract: The paper presents an overview of the h istory of Bible translation in the " Romantic" tradition of Buber and Rosenzweig. The tradi tion has its roots in the Romantic turn in cranslation of early ni neteent h-century Germany, hut three other forces also shaped the translation ideas and pract ices of this tradition: general linguistic ideologies of the ni neteenth century; the philosophical climate of the l nterbellum period in Germany; and the hermeneutic a nd exegetical her itage of the rabbin ic tradi tion. The paper also look� at Europe and the USA after the Second World War co study the ways in which Bible translators dea lt with the hetirage of Buber a nd Rosenzweig, applying and transforming the tradition in new contexts. The paper concludes by placing thc h istory of " Romanric" Bibles in nvo broader contexts: fi rst in the context of the h istory of B ible trallS lation, contrasting " Romantic" foreignness with its Reformation counrerparr; second, in the conrext of general translation studies, contrasting the h istory of foreignness i n Bible translation with the h istory of foreignness i n the translation of other texts from antiquity such as the Iliad. Introduction This paper presents an overview of the history of the "Ro mantic" tradition in Bible translation. 1 The tradition originated in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century, with two Jewish philosophers, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, but found fer tile soil in Europe and America, among Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic translators. The history of this tradition is relevant to the field of Bible translation because of the way it put the theme of oth erness and foreignness on the agenda. Its construction of biblical otherness played a crucial role in the postwar polemic surrounding Nida's dynamic equivalence and continues to inform modern Bible translations. (Y) 1 This paper was originally presented at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, --- --- Amsterdam, July 2012. as a special lecture sponsored by the Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship The � analysis of Buber's orality notion is based on De Vries (201 2) C ·.;;:; C/) C 123 The term Romantic has been used i n relation to ( elements of) this tradition by scholars both outside the tradition (e.g. Britt 2000, van der Louw 2006) and within the tradition itself (e.g. Fox 1 995 , x). Contemporary German critics of Buber and Rosenzweig like Kracauer ( 1 926, 1 80) used the term volkische Romantik in a strongly negative way (van der Louw 2006, 1 5). They associated the way Buber and Rosenzweig constructed Hebrew otherness and i dentity with the way Romantic German national istic discourse constructed the notion of the German Volk ("people," "ethnic group"). Although the Euber-Rosenzweig tradition has its roots in the Romantic turn in translation of early n ineteenth-century Ger many, there are at least three other ideological, philosophical , and theological forces that were not Romantic at all and that crucially shaped the translation ideas and practices of this tradition: general linguistic ideologies of nineteenth-century Germany; the philosoph ical climate of the lnterbellum period in Germany; and the hermeneutic and exegetical heritage of the rabbinic tradition. The label "Romantic" therefore has limited value. The reason I main tained the term is that the early n ineteenth-century Romantic turn in translation forms the starting point for the history of Bible trans lation in the Euber-Rosenzweig tradition. One could also question the wisdom of subsuming Bible translations from very different times, places, and historical con texts under one label (whatever the label). There are good reasons to do so in this case. First of all, the translators in question , although they do not use the label "Romantic," explicitly place themselves, in prefaces and introductions, in what they see as a coherent tradi tion of Bible translation that started with Buber and Rosenzweig. The roots of the tradition in nineteenth-century Germany are gen erally ignored in those prefaces and introductions and its roots in Jewish tradition are emphasized, for reasons d iscussed below. Sec ond , the translators in this tradition all employ, in varying ways, the same set of translation strategies and principles that is charac teristic of Bible translation in the Suber-Rosenzweig tradition (con cordance, exoticizing lexical register, colometric format , name translations, transliteration, translating at root and stem level, im �. plicitation of conj unctions, literal translations of conventional ---w' metaphors). --- u.) 124 The German Romantic turn in translation is the topic of the first part of the paper. The second part describes the three other ide ological and phi losophical roots of the tradition . The third section of the paper looks at Europe and the USA after the Second World War to study the ways in which B ible translators dealt with the her itage of Buber and Rosenzweig, applying and transforming the tra dition in new contexts. The fourth section concl udes the paper by placing the history of "Romantic" B ibles in two broader contexts , first in the context of the history of B ible translation , contrasting "Romantic" foreignness with its Reformation counterpart; second , in the context of general translation studies, contrasting the history of foreignness in B ible translation with the history of foreignness in the translation of other texts from antiquity such as the I l iad . Venuti ( 1 995) was my main source for the early nineteenth century Romantic turn in translation and for the translation history of nonbiblical texts in the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries, and van der Louw (2006) for the l inks between Suber-Rosenzweig and the Romantic period and for the contrast between Reformation and Romantic l iteralism. Gordon (2003) was my main source for the links between S uber-Rosenzweig and the philosoph ical climate of the lnterbellum, and especially Heidegger. The Romantic Turn in Translation The starting point of Romantic reflection on translation in early ni neteenth-century Germany is a distinction between two types of texts that required two radically different translation ap proaches from a Romantic perspective: translation of texts with business and informative purposes versus translation of "higher" texts of literature and scholarship that reflect the individual ity of the writer, his Gemut, and the indi viduality of his language , its Sprachgeist, or "language spirit." This emphasis on individual ity is a core theme of the Romantic era and it pervades its reflection on translation as it saturates other domains, for example the theology and hermeneutics of Schleiermacher (van der Louw 2006, 6). The fol lowing statements from Schleiermacher contain the notions of "higher" texts and of the dual individual ity of writer and language: M Daher nun will jede freie und hohere Rede auf zweifache Weise gefaBt sei n , -..... teils aus dem Geiste der Sprache, aus deren Elementen s i e zusammengesetzt -r:1 -..... C ·.;::; C 125 £; ist, als eine durch diese Geist gebundene und bedingte, aus ihm in dem Re denden lebendig erzeugte Darstel lung; sie w i l l auf der andern Seite gefaBt sein aus dem Gemtit des Redenden als eine Tat, als nur aus seinem Wesen gerade so hervorgegangen und erklarbar. (Schleiermacher 1 838, 2 1 5) This passage has been translated by Lefevere as follows: Therefore each free and h igher speech needs to be understood twice, once out of the spirit of the language of whose elements it is composed , as a l iving rep resentation bound and defined by that spirit and conceived out of i t in the speaker, and once out of the speaker's emotions, as his action , as produced and explicable only out of his own being. ( Lefevere 1 97 7 , 7 1 ) The passage is notoriously difficult to render into English. The Ger man term Gemut, rendered by "emotions" in Lefevere's version is actually broader than "emotions ." In the context of Schleierma cher's reflection on translation, it refers to the individuality, the unique self, of the writer which, through the act of writing, perme ates his writing. Both the unique individual personality of the writer and the spirit of his language cannot be separated from, and form a unity with, the text to be translated. Where according to Romantic views the translation of busi ness texts should aim at clearly rendering the message of the text in an understandable and normal style, using fluent language, with out special concern for the individuality of the writer or his lan guage, the Romantic goals for the translation of "higher" texts are the opposite and strongly antifluent: the aim is to let the sensitive, educated reader experience and encounter the individuality of the original writer, his Gemut, and at the same time the individuality of the original language, i ts unique Sprachgeist. The task of the translator is to bring the reader as close as possible to what makes this individual uniquely different and to what makes his language different and unique, even if this means that the German language has to be bent "zu einer fremden Anlichkeit" (Schleiermacher 1 883 , 277 , quoted by Venuti ( 1 995, 85) , who also gives Lefevere's Eng lish translation-"bent towards a foreign likeness") . The Romantic ideal was, in the words of Goethe, as rendered by Lefevere ( 1 977 , 39), a translation that "requires that we should go across to what is foreign, and adapt ourselves to its conditions, its use of language, --- its peculiarities." --- Qj' w 126 According to Venuti ( 1 995), this Romantic emphasis on foreign ization is a break with the fl uency tradi tion i n translation of texts from antiquity into French and English i n the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The German Romantic opposition to these establ ished translation practices of England and especial ly France shou ld also be seen as part of a wider. nationalistic resistance to the cultural hegemony of other countries (Venuti 1 995; van der Louw 2006) . Most of the foreignness v isible i n the transl ation practices of Romantic translators is caused by i nterference from source lan guages and source texts , the result of closely fol lowing lex ical and styl istic patterns of sources , but some n ineteenth-century Romantic translators also del iberately added foreignness, without bei ng forced to do so by their sources , to create an experience of otherness and a foreign atmosphere in the Gemiit of the reader. Newman 's for eignizi ng translation of Homer i nto Engl ish of 1 853 is a good ex ample. Newman del iberately uses archaic, rare, or otherwise ec centric words to create an atmosphere of foreignness, ancientness, and otherness (see Venuti 1 995 , 1 03 , and especially, for example, callant "young man ." bulkin "calf," Scotti sh words such as skirt "cry shri l ly," syne "since") . Buber and Rosenzweig, and many of their followers, routinely used rare and very marked words to create alterity, also where the Hebrew used words from neutral and un marked registers (van der Louw 2006; see the next section for his examples) . The Schleiermacher quote above shows a second break with the past in the Romantic way Sch leiermacher writes about language: he breaks with the classical representational view of l an guage ( Berman 1 984; Venuti 1 995; van der Louw 2006) where verba "words" represent res "th ings" and languages have different verba to represent the same res. I nstead , he adopts an expressive v iew of language, as a specific, subjective horizon of understanding, as intertwi ned with un ique cultural practices, conceptualizat ions, and norms of a certain people. The Romantic Turn in Bible Translation I t took these Romantic translation approaches and con (Y) structions of otherness more than a century to hit the field of B ible ---- Jo' translation with ful l force. And when these ideas reached B ible ---- -� 127 translation, they were understood and transformed by the ideological and philosophical frameworks of the lnterbellum period in Germany where Martin Buber ( 1 878- 1 965) and Franz Rosenzweig ( I 886- 1 929) worked on their translation of the Hebrew Bible, Die Schrift. After the death of Rosenzweig in 1 929, Buber continued the work alone, completing his last version between 1 954 and 1 962. Buber, who was born in Austria, studied philosophy from 1 897 to 1 909 in Leipzig and other places in Germany, where he absorbed the philosophies of nineteenth-century Germany (Schmidt 1 995; Askani 1 997) . Both men, born and raised in Jewish families, had a lifelong and very intense intellectual interaction with the philosophical heritage of the German nineteenth century and with the contemporary philosophy of the Interbellum, especially Hei degger (Gordon 2003). It should therefore not come as a surprise that their views of the translation of the Hebrew Bible are incom prehensible without taking their German philosophical and ideo logical background into account. However, in postwar Europe and America, after the horrors of the Holocaust but also because of de velopments in theology that led to a renewed interest in the Bible as a Jewish collection of books, Buber and Rosenzweig were first and foremost seen as Jews, and their translation as a Jewish trans lation which obscured their deep roots in nineteenth-century Ger man philosophy. Four influences crucially shaped the translation philosophy and practices of Buber and Rosenzweig: first, German Romantic views of translation; second, generally accepted linguistic ideologies of nineteenth-century Germany that lasted well into the twentieth century; third, the philosophical climate of the German Interbellum period; and fourth, the Jewish heritage of Buber and Rosenzweig. Euber-Rosenzweig and Romantic views of translation. According to van der Louw (2006, 1 4), perhaps the most important link between German Romantic ideas on translation and Buber-Rosenzweig is the notion of a translation as deeply and di rectly felt experience of the individual otherness of the original writer and of the individual otherness of the language, its unique Sprachgeist. Like the early nineteenth-century Romantic transla tors , Buber and Rosenzweig assume an expressive rather than rep a· ---al' resentational theory of language, language as a horizon of --- w 128 understanding of a Volk, inseparable from the worldview of its speakers, j ust as the text a writer produces is inseparable from the inner world of the writer it expresses . The term Sprachgeist features importantly in the reflections of Buber and Rosenzweig ( Reichert 1 996) , and to do justice to the fremdes Sprachgeist ("foreign lan guage-spirit") of Hebrew and the individual otherness of the foreign bibl ical writers, they frequently bent the German language "zu einer fremden Anlichkeit" ("towards a foreign l ikeness") , to use the Ro mantic turn of phrase, pushing the German language to its limits, with a mix of brand new, neologistic German invented by B uber and Rosenzweig (e.g. konigen, darnahen, and Nahung) , and very archaic, rarified German . Just as Newman uses rare, archaic, and eccentric Engl ish words to create a Homeric or Ancient Greek atmosphere and to fa cil itate a connection with totally different worlds of antiquity, Buber and Rosenzweig use words from very marked German registers to fac i l i tate the experience of otherness , even where the Hebrew words i n the source texts were unmarked and belonged to neutral registers . Van der Louw (2006, 1 4) gives examples such as the fre quent Hebrew word wajjomer, neutral in register, which B uber and Rosenzweig rendered rather solemnly with er sprach "he spoke," and never with the more neutral er sagte "he said ." When Lot bakes bread for his guests in Genesis 1 9: 3 , an old German form of the verb is used (buk) in Die Schrift rather than the unmarked German form backte. I n Genesis 1 9: 1 2 , B uber and Rosenzweig do not use the unmarked , neutral German term Schwiegersohne for sons-in law, but the rare Eidame (van der Louw 2006 , 1 4) . Euber-Rosenzweig and general linguistic ideologies of nineteenth century Germany. Regard i ng general assumptions on language that were prevalent in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, there are two with special significance in the works of Buber and Rosen zweig- the primacy of diachrony, and unity assumptions. Language was primari ly viewed and understood from a di achronic perspective in n ineteenth-century Germany. Languages were compared in order to reconstruct the Ur l anguage from which (Y) they all descended . Linguists studied the roots of words from a --- historical and comparati ve perspective . The meaning of a word --- � C ·.;=; C 129 was not so much located in its synchronic networks with other words and in the various contexts of usage but rather in the ety mology of the root of the word . Both the theoretical discourse and the actual translat ion practices of Buber and Rosenzweig are satu rated with this diachronic perspective . Rosenzweig writes about the etymological Tiefsinn der Worte (the deep meaning of words) and uses the metaphor of a m i ne shaft: we have to descend into the deepest shafts of recurrent Hebrew roots in the Bible where, deep beneath the surface, the Ur meanings are h idden , using such German terms as the Wurzelschicht der Worte "the shaft of the root of words" (van der Louw 2006, 4) . For example, B uber and Rosen zweig translate f?n (qal "to draw off," "to withdraw from"; ni phal "to be del ivered") with herausreissen "to pu l l out ," based on a ( contested) etymology. This leads to a focus on Hebrew root consonants as a fun damental level of translation . Below we w i l l see that this focus on recurrent roots also has to do with other notions such as Gesprochenheit, and w ith traditional Jewish hermeneutics . To see how this plays out in translat ion decisions, take the translat ion of the Hebrew consonant root :np in Lev iticus I : 2 , where Buber und Rosenzweig created new German words (Nahung="near-ing"; dar nahen="to near there") to reflect the Tiefsinn of the repeated root Jlji "near"), and translated as fol lows: "Ein Mensch , wenn er von euch I H M eine Nahung darnaht 1 - - - 1 -" Everett Fox ( 1 995), in the tradition of Suber-Rosenzweig, also translates at root level: "When (one) among you brings near a near-offering for Y H W H ." The more fl uent translation of the Jewish Publ ication Society ( 1 926) gives "When any of you presents an offering I . . . I . " Buber and Rosenzweig, l ike nearly everyone else with their education and background , not only inherited ideas about the pri macy of diachrony, the focus on roots , and an etymologizing ap proach to l anguage, but they also absorbed the notion of Einheit "unity" that occu1Ted very prom inently in nineteenth-century l i n gu istic ideologies. Foley (2005 , 1 57) defines l inguistic ideology as "that cl uster of bel iefs that a particu lar speech community holds about the form and function of language ." As an influential example of such a l inguistic ideology, Foley mentions the emergence of ideas about l anguage in the context of German Romanticism and ---or national ism of the eighteenth and ni neteenth centuries: --- w 130 These bel iefs were clearly articulated by the German Romantic philosopher Herder, who argued for an essential correlation between the language of a community and the ir m ind or spirit (German Geist) . This was part of a w ider German national ist project of the 1 8th and 1 9th centuries, to forge a unified German nation-state from numerous pri ncipal ities and k ingdoms of central Europe that were German speaking and th is led to a triple equation: the culture of a people is essentially correl ated with the language they speak and in turn shou ld ideally correspond to a nation-state. (Foley 2005 , 1 57) Every people or Volk, homogeneously and "purely" construed in an essentialistic manner, had its own distinctive Geist, a spirit ex pressed in and reflected by their language or Sprache. The German Volk had a German Geist, obviously, and their very own Sprachgeist. The same was true of the ancient Hebrew language, and it was the task of the translator to try to preserve the unity of the Hebrew lan guage form and Hebrew worldview. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the ancient Hebrew Geist was generally supposed to be primordial, concrete, and holistic rather than abstract and an alytic. Because of the unity of Geist and Sprache scholars of those days looked for evidence of this concreteness and holism in the ancient Hebrew language. Pedersen ( 1 926, 1 1 3), for example , saw the so-called construct state of Hebrew nouns in genitival con structions as evidence for this concreteness and holism, with pos sessor and possessed being one (see Baayen 1 990, 1 3). The idea of Hebrew concreteness is still very much alive in recent translations of the Bible in the Suber-Rosenzweig tradition, and crucially affects the way body-based metaphors are translated (see the ex ample of Oussoren (2004) in the section "Romantic Bibles after the Second World War"). Euber-Rosenzweig and German lnterbellum philosophy. Although born in the nineteenth century and exposed to nineteenth century philosophies and ideologies when educated as philosophers (Schmidt 1 995), Buber and Rosenzweig related to that heritage in the terms and frameworks of their own time. When they worked together on their translation and wrote lengthy philosophical trea tises on translation, language, religion, identity, and many other M topics , it was the time of the lnterbellum in Germany. The trauma ...._ of the lost First World War had eroded many absolute truths and � ...._ C C 131 certainties of earlier generations, in religion and philosophy. Hei degger gave expression to this lnterbellum climate with a philoso phy that left no longer left any room for absolute truths beyond time and place. The starting point and foundation of any philosophy could only be the temporal existence in the historical here-and now of the individual, the Dasein, an existential ontology that broke with nineteenth-century absolute metaphysical foundations of philosophy in an anti-idealistic and relativistic climate (Gordon 2003). Van der Louw (2006, 5) also points to the connections be tween Buber and Heidegger, for example in the emphasis on the existential function of language, but also in a shared focus on roots and etymology. Buber and Rosenzweig translated the tetragrammaton JHW H with personal pronouns in small capitals ( ICH, D U, I H M ) . This was a daring and completely novel translation that broke with all traditions, but it was also a translation that violated one of their own core principles-the oral-aural dimension-because the rep etition of the Name could not be heard in their translation. To un derstand this very peculiar feature, it is important to realize that a number of elements come together in this translation decision (van der Louw 2006): core themes of Romantic translation ideals (ex periencing the other in the translation), general nineteenth-century approaches to language and meaning (etymology, Ur meaning lo cated in roots), and lnterbellum existential ontology (experiencing the Name in your individual Dasein "being-there," and connecting the Name to your own existence in the temporality of here and now). First, Suber-Rosenzweig analyzed "God-with-us in our ex istence" as the etymological Tiefsinn of J H W H . Then they looked hard to find a rendering that made the listener (listening reader) existentially experience that deep meaning, hidden below the sur face in the root: "Es gait, eine Wiedergabe zu finden, die in dem horenden Leser ein jener aus den Namen zustromenden Gewissheit verwandtes Geftihl erzeugt, das Bei-ihnen-, Bei-uns-sein Gottes nicht begrifflich aussagt, sondern gegenwartlich verleiht."2 Gordon, in his review of the translation of the tetragrammaton and of a :: "It was pertinent to find a rendering that evokes in the listening reader a feeling akin to the certainty �. that flows out of the Name, a rendering that does not spell out the 'with-you.' 'with-us-being of God' con ---- ceptually but evokes its presence." Translation mine. ai' ---- G..) 132 number of other translation decisions, concludes that "these trans lation choices rehearse a similar philosophic polemic. They assert the superiority of a worldly ontology while criticizing the attempt to seize upon a realm of ideas beyond time and the world" (Gordon 2003, 266). This break with nineteenth-century German idealism and with its grounding of philosophy in transcendental absolute notions and this adoption of the relative perspective of the individual in the temporal, physical existence, in the here-and-now, reminds us that Buber and Rosenzweig dealt selectively with the lnterbellum, the heritage of nineteenth-century Germany, as children of their time. Another signi ficant break with the nineteenth century is their antidiachronic approach to biblical texts. Whereas they are still di achronic and focused on etymology and Ur meanings of roots in their analysis of words, when it comes to texts Buber and Rosen zweig break with the diachron ic, historical-critical heritage of nineteenth-century Germany that analyzed Hebrew biblical texts i n their historical growth, as composite, i nconsistent texts that con tained pieces of different traditions and origins. The composite na ture and i nconsistencies are not so much den ied by Buber and Rosenzweig, but they approach biblical texts as literary units, as shaped by a coherent final redaction. Biblical texts are approached in ahistorical fashion , as autonomous, self-referential worlds-of words to which close reading techniques should be applied to find the hidden mean ing of the texts, detached from the historical con texts i n which these Hebrew texts originally functioned. Euber- Rosenzweig and the rabbis. Buber and Rosenzweig connected the heritage of ni ne teenth-century Germany as they understood it in the philosophical climate of lnterbellum Germany with theological thoughts about the Einheit of the Hebrew Scriptures and about the unity of the Hebrew canon and traditional rabbinic readi ngs that creatively linked Hebrew roots, words, and phrases in very different parts of the Hebrew Bible. Buber and Rosenzweig believed that the Hebrew Bible was a un ity, one Book, the result of an Einheitsbewusstsein "awareness of un ity" ( Buber 1 964, 1 1 1 3) that was already operative (Y) in Scripture itself before it was canonized ( Schravesande 2009, --- 262-263). --- � -� 133 � Beneath the surface of the different Hebrew sacred writi ngs there was one divine Voice. But how could disillusioned and skep tical modern Germans experience this Voice, listen to it, in their concrete individual existence here and now, in their Dasein? Buber believed that i n all humans, Jews and others, there was an openness for the Voice that could be heard by modern people when Scripture was called out and God would enter the existence, the temporality of individuals, through their ears (van der Louw 2006, 4). This brings us to the notion of Gesprochenheit "spoken ness," the oral-aural Urwort dimension of Buber and Rosenzweig. According to Everett Fox ( 1 995, x), "Buber and Rosenzweig based their approach on the Romantic ni neteenth-century notion that the Bible was essentially oral literature written down." This is indeed different from postwar notions of spokenness of Scripture i n ( Neo-)Romantic Bible translations that view the Bible as written literature but written to be read aloud, to be listened to. For Buber and Rosenzweig, the ultimate reality of the Hebrew Bible does not reside i n the written form; rather, the written form is the prison from which the spoken Ur-reality must be freed. This liberation takes place when people start to listen to the Voice that breathes and speaks in the fundamentally oral Hebrew Bible. This is why colometric structuring of the texts is so crucial. Buber and Rosen zweig divided the Hebrew text into colons, un its that could be spo ken in one Atemzug "draw of breath," and that they saw as breath units and meaning units at the same time (Buber 1 964, 1 1 76- 1 1 77). Colometric structuring is a disti nctive characteristic of all transla tions in the tradition of Buber and Rosenzweig. However, not all translations use sound criteria (pause, breath, musical notations, the nota distinctivi and conjunctivi of the Masoretes). I nstead, syn tactic criteria are also used to find the colons. This fragmentation of the translated text into small breath units is no threat to the underly ing Voice or unitary Botschaft "message" because the Einheitsbewusstsein "awareness of un ity " operative in Scripture creates a n intertextual web o f audible linkages between these breath un its, by repetition of words and roots, not just within one literary unit, say a psalm or a book, but also across the whole canon ( Buber 1 964 , 1 1 77). These Leitworte, or repeated leading words and roots, are a dialogic encounter 6' ---- within Scriptures themselves: words in totally different books en- ru' ---- w 134 counter each other and in doing so create meaning. The listener, in tum, hears the repetitions, ponders on their links , and by doing so becomes partner in, and is drawn into, the inner Scriptural dialogue. He or she then listens to the Voice , the underlying unity in the Hebrew Bible , in a real and direct encounter where the Voice speaks to the listener in his or her existence, then-and-there . The Leitwort analysis of Suber-Rosenzweig, in other words, combines literary aspects with theological motives, the unity of Scriptures , and the unity of canon and rabbinic reading traditions . But also philosophical themes of the Interbellum (the Leitworte speak exis tentially to the listeners) and Romantic themes of direct experience (the Leitworte speak directly to the listener who thus experiences the Voice) are part of the Leitwort approach. No wonder that the Leitworte became the cornerstone of the Romantic tradition in Bible translation. Romantic Bibles after the Second World War. Suber and Rosenzweig found many followers in Europe and America. Their ideas were applied in many Bible translations and in very different national, theological, and cultural contexts. It is a living tradition that still inspires new translations all over the world. Europe , after the Second World War, had to come to terms with the Holocaust and the destruction of Jewish communities in their midst. At the same time, Christian theologians rediscovered the Jewish nature of the Bible , including the New Testament, and the rich heritage of rabbinic exegesis and hermeneutics . This tendency to rediscover the Jewish nature of the Bible had its roots before the war, but gained momentum after the war. The Jewish aspect of the Buber and Rosenzweig tradition is emphasized in all postwar literature and it is a recurrent theme in prefaces to translations. At the same time there is an almost total silence on their German philosophical and ideological background. I t was not just the rediscovery of the Bible as a Jewish col lection of writings and of the richness of rabbinic reading traditions that created a favorable climate for the reception of Suber and Rosenzweig. The emphasis on Leitworte, and more generally on -- (Y) -- the oral-aural dimension, pointed to the Bible as literature. This :I§ literary aspect had a strong appeal, especially since it seemed to C: · � C: 135 � offer an alternative, or a complement to, the historical-critical ap proach. The endeavor of Suber and Rosenzweig to let the translation speak directly and existentially to listening readers-modern, skeptical, and disillusioned after two horrible world wars-also had its appeal, providing ancient words with new meaningfulness. The positive reception of E uber-Rosenzweig in postwar Europe is in remarkable contrast to the negative, or at best mixed, reception of their translation in the Interbellum (van der Louw 2006, 3; Rosenwald 1 994, 1 4 1 - 1 65 ). Two types of Bible translations can be distinguished within the Suber-Rosenzweig tradition in postwar Europe and America: the first type is radical in its application of the inherited principles and translation strategies (e.g . Chouraqui in France, Oussoren in the Netherlands); and the second type selectively applies these principles and strategies, adapting the tradition for new contexts and new purposes (e.g. Everett Fox in the U SA, Societas Hebraica translations in the Netherlands) . The second type is still recognizable as fruit of the tradition initiated by Suber and Rosenzweig because, first , they explicitly place themselves in that tradition in the paratexts of their translations and, second, they share a number of properties with the more radical translations, namely the emphasis on the oral-aural dimension, colometric text divisions, translations at root level, verbally consistent or concordant translation of Leitworte, a striking tendency of elimination of Hebrew and Greek conjunctions in translation (van der Louw 2006 , 1 3), and "folk et ymological" name translations. The translation by Everett Fox ( 1 995), a moderate and pragmatic American follower of Buber and Rosenzweig, exemplifies these shared properties. The translation starts in the preface with a quote from Buber and mentions Suber and Rosenzweig as sources of inspiration. But the preface also explains that the translation deals selectively with that inheritance: it emphasizes the literary and sound dimensions. The translation divides the text into colons, translates Hebrew names according to the folk etymological asso ciations that the sound of the name had in the ears of ancient Hebrews (e.g. Yaakov/Heel-Holder, Yisrael/God-Fighter), translates at root level (e.g. Leviticus I : 2 "W hen (one) among you brings �. near a near-offering for Y H W H"), translates away Hebrew con ---al"' nectives (see example below in the section "Romantic and Refor- --- (,_) 136 mation Literalism"), and is very sensitive to repeated Leitworte (see example of )ad "hand," below in this section) . The fact that radical and moderate translations share these features does not mean that there are no differences in the approach to these shared features. Of course, it is hard to separate the literary from the other aspects in this tradition (Benjamin 2007), but it seems possible to say that moderate postwar translators in the Su ber-Rosenzweig tradition tend to emphasize the literary aspect and literary motivations, talcing smaller literary units into account. They base their translation decisions less on theological or philosophical views of the Bible as a whole, and sometimes explicitly mention literary approaches in the preface (e.g. Robert Alter) as an inspira tional source alongside Suber and Rosenzweig. The differences between moderate and radical postwar Ro mantic Bibles are found in the following areas. In terms of the translational approach to word meanings, radical translations main tain the nineteenth-century idea of root meanings, where the sense of a word that was historically basic tends to prevail in the transla tion whereas moderate translations are more sensitive to the syn chronic meanings of words in different contexts. For example, the moderate Everett Fox translates :i�iq in Exodus 2: 3 with shore (of the Nile), the contextual sense, but the Dutch translator Oussoren translates this with lip "lip" according to its root meaning (de lip van de Stroom "the lip of the Stream," see Dubbink 2008, 1 659). In terms of lexical register, radical translations have an ex oticizing, eccentric register (neologisms, archaisms, rare words) whereas moderate translations have a much less exotic, much more neutral register. To illustrate the etymologizing and eccentric lexical register of postwar radical translations we will consider some ex amples from the French translation by Chouraqui ( 1 974) . He trans lates Genesis I : I with "Entete Elohi'ms creait les ciels et la terre." Entete is an etymologizing translation based on the etymological relation between r,,W�J and w� · 7 "head." It is rather eccentric French, and other versions have au commencement. Chapter I of Revelation in the version of Chouraqui is another good example of exoticising lexical choices: C') 1 Decouvrement de leshoua' , le messie: Eloh,ms le lui donne --- pour montrer a ses serviteurs ce qui doit arriver vite. --- � -� 137 f; II le signifie en l'en voyant par son messager a son serviteur lohanan . 2 II temoigne du logos d' Eloh'i'ms et du temoignage de leshoua' le messie, de ce q u'il a vu 4 1 - . . I grace et paix 1 - . . I des sept souftles qui sont en faces de son tr6ne 8 Moi, je suis l 'aleph et le tav, dit I H V H Eloh'i'm s, l' Etant et le Venant, Elo hi'ms Sebaots Chouraqui uses transliterations from the Greek (verse 2, logos) and inserts Hebrew words where the source text has Greek words (verse 8 , aleph, tav, IHVH, Eloht'ms, Sebaots). The radical emphasis on the Jewish background of the New Testament leads to an equation of Jewishness and Hebrew, without much regard for the Jewish-Greek and LXX background. Decouvrement in verse I is an etymologizing translation of a.JtOxaa.AU'ljJL�, used here in the metaphorical sense of "revelation," but translated according to its etymological Ur meaning by Chouraqui. The combined effect of these lexical choices is a strong foreignization . Another striking characteristic of a number of postwar rad ical translations is the translation of Hebrew imperfect and Greek aorist verbs in narrative contexts with present tenses, to give an ef fect of direct experience, where moderate translations have the more traditional past tense renderings. Notice for example the pres ent tense translation of the Greek aorist verbs in verses I and 2 of Revelation I in Chouraqui's version quoted above in this section. In Genesis I : 4 (and elsewhere) , Chouraqui uses the present tense ("Eloh1ms voit la lumiere: quel bien !") where more moderate trans lators such as Everett Fox use past tenses to render the Hebrew im perfects in such contexts ("God saw the light: that it was good."). The difference between moderate postwar translations and radical translations also clearly shows in the approach to conven tionalized biblical body metaphors such as panim (lifne) that syn chronically often have the abstract meaning of a preposition rather than the more concrete, physical meaning. Following Buber and Rosenzweig, radical translators translate these lexical metaphors throughout the canon with words denoting body parts (such as a· --- face) , to reflect the Ur worldview ascribed to the ancient Hebrews --- C,J 138 and to do justice to the perceived unity of Scripture based on that one concrete, physical, nondichotomous Hebrew worldview as cribed to both the Old and the New Testament. For example, in Numbers 27: 22, Chouraqui translates 'J.!?7 twice with faces ("II le fait se tenir faces a El'azar, le desservant, et faces a toute la com munaute") where moderate translators such as Everett Fox translate with before ("he had him stand before El'azar the priest, and before the entire community"). The Dutch radical translator Oussoren motivates this con sistent etymologizing translation of panimllifne with archaic Dutch terms for face (aanschijn, aangezicht) on the basis of the "Hebrew worldview" in an interview published by Dubbink and van Willi genburg : De dingen en de natuur hebben in het Hebreeuws een lijf, een aanschij n . Dat is n iet alleen maar een Hebreeuwse zegswijze, het drukt ook een visie uit op de wereld 1 - . . I A lles heeft een gelaat, een ponem . De dingen kijken je als het ware aan en doen een beroep op je. Je wordt aangezien , aangekeken en daarmee tot iets geroepen. (Dubbink and van Willigenburg 2007 , 1 0)1 Moderate Bibles only translate such conventional metaphors as panim withface in selected passages where they see literary mo tivations at work in small text units, not as a default strategy based on motivations of etymology or Hebrew worldview. For example , the moderate translator Everett Fox translates Genesis 32:2 1 -22, where Jacob has to "face" Esau and face is a literary Leitwort, as follows: I will wipe (the anger) from his face With the gift that goes ahead of my face; Afterward , when I see his face, Perhaps he will lift up my face The gift crossed over ahead of his face (Y) 3 ""Things and nature have a body in Hebrew. a face. That is not just a Hebrew way of saying things. it also expresses a worldview [ . . . J All things have a face. a ponem. Things look at you. you might say. and appeal --- to you. You are being looked at. watched. and so you are called to something:· Translation mine. --- � ·� 139 Conclusion and discussion This part concludes the paper by placing the history of Bibles in the Euber-Rosenzweig tradition in two broader contexts: first in the context of the history of Bible translation, contrasting Reformation alterity with its Romantic counterpart ; second , taking the perspective of translation studies, in the context of the history of the translation of nonbiblical texts from antiquity, contrasting the different histories of "foreignness" in the translation of biblical texts compared to other texts from antiquity. Romantic and Reformation Literalism . Postwar translators and theologians who felt attracted to the tradition of Buber and Rosenzweig emphasized the importance of literalism, based on ideas of the Bible as literature, and based on the unity of form and meaning, of language and culture (Sprachgeist) . This theme of literalism was reinforced when the ideas of Nida and other advocates of meaning-based, communica tive, and dynamic Bible translations began to spread in America and Europe. Nida's ideas came under attack from two sides, from people who took traditional literal Reformation Bibles as their translation models, the authorized versions of the various Western languages, and on the other hand from people in the Suber-Rosen zweig tradition of foreignizing literalism. This polemical postwar context also explains why people in the Euber-Rosenzweig tradi tion sometimes claimed that their approach basically continued Reformation literalism. For example, Breukelman, the most influ ential advocate of Buber and Rosenzweig in the Netherlands, writes that the seventeenth-century Dutch authorized version is "een zeventiende eeuwse Nederlandse Euber- Rosenzweig" ( Breukelman and Hemelsoet 1 985, 1 2) .4 In fact, Romantic and Reformation lit eralism are very different (van der Louw 2006) , and it is in com paring the two that we get a much sharper picture of the nature of the Romantic tradition. The translational differences, not surpris ingly, have their basis in the totally different theological, philosoph ical, and ideological environments of both traditions. a· 4 "a seventeenth-century Dutch Suber-Rosenzweig." Translation mine. ...._ al" ...._ c.u 140 The literalism of Reformation Bibles focuses on the level of words ( H of 2009). And in their approach to words , the di achronic and etymologizing bias of the nineteenth century is absent. Units below the word level- roots and stems- are not significant units of translation, unlike in Romantic Bibles. In fact, translating repeated key roots (Leitwortstil at root and stem level) often makes it impossible to translate repeated key words with the same words (Leitwortstil at word level). For example, the Dutch translator Ous soren translates the repeated root ayy{:,"A in Mark I with words con taining the root aankondig "announce," for example in verse I EuayyE"A(ou becomes aankondiging "announcement," a.yyE"A6v in verse 2 aankondiger "announcer," and the a.yyE"AOL in verse 1 3 be come aankondig-engelen "announce-angels." But in other passages in the gospel of Mark , where the root ayy{:,"A is not repeated, Ous soren translates euanggelion with "evangelie." Reformation trans lators would have been shocked to find words like euanggelion and anggeloi translated in varying ways rather than with one and the same word. Notice that translating repeated roots does not just destroy word level concordance but also forces translators to create new words and word combinations and leads to novel uses of existing words (aankondig-engelen and aankondiger are neologisms in Dutch) . This abundant use of neologisms is characteristic of the Buber-Rosenzweig tradition and contributes to the exotic lexical register (especially in combination with archaisms). Neologisms make the text sound foreign and strange, an advantage when you want to stress otherness, but a disadvantage for Reformation trans lators with their emphasis on perspicuity. Reformation Bibles (especially Calvinistic Bibles) have re versed priorities from Romantic Bibles as far as literalism goes (van der Louw 2006), and these reversed priorities have been described as follows. For Romantic literalism this is the priority list: I ) root and word concordance (stereotyping) ; 2) maintaining word order; 3 ) maintaining parts of speech; and 4) maintaining the number of words (quantitative alignment). For Reformation literalism the pri orities are: I ) quantitative alignment; 2) maintaining parts of speech; 3 ) maintaining word order; and 4) word concordance (es pecially of theologically crucial words), where root concordance is --- not relevant at all (see van der Louw 2006). --- J:! C C 141 The importance of word-level equivalence made quantita tive alignment of words a central principle in Reformation Bibles. In fact, the Word of God amounted very much to the ( Hebrew, Ara maic, and Greek) words of God. And words in translation that did not correspond to Hebrew or Greek words were undesired because of verses such as Revelation 22: 1 8- 1 9 ( King James Version): 1 8* For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things , God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: I 9and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shal l take away his part out of the book of l ife, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book ." That is why the following Rule of Translation was added to the translation principles section of the Synod of Dordrecht ( 1 6 1 8- 1 6 1 9) that guided the Dutch authorized version, the Staten vertaling ( 1 637): I I . Dat zij , om den zin van den tekst, die niet ten voile uitgedrukt is, te vervullen, zoo weinig woorden daarbij doen als mogelijk is, en deze in den tekst met eene andere letter, en tusschen haakjes besluiten , opdat ze van de woorden van den tekst mogen onderscheiden worden .5 The principle of quantitative alignment forces Reformation translators to translate all conjunctions and connectives in Hebrew and Greek. Consider for example Genesis I : 2-3 in the King James Version: 2 And the earth was without form . and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said , Let there be l ight: and there was light. Buber and Rosenzweig omit these conjunctions on a grand scale in their translation, for example: " "'That they, to complete the meaning of the text, that has not been expressed fully, add as few words as �- possible. and print these with a different lener and between brackets that they are distinguished from the ---- words of the text."' Translation mine. a!' ---- w 142 2 Die Erde aber war l rrsal und Wirrsal . Finstern is Uber Urwirbels Antl itz. Braus Gottes schwingend Uber dem A n litz der Wasser. 3 Gott sprach: Licht werde! Everett Fox likewise omits the connective elements: 2 When the earth was w i ld and waste, Darkness over the face of Ocean , Rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters , 3 God said: Let there be l ight! This implicitation of Hebrew and Greek conjunctions in translations of the Suber-Rosenzweig tradition is not limited to Genesis I but occurs in all text types and, together with colometric formatting, causes a kind of "poetification" of the Bible (van der Louw 2006), a tendency to neutralize source genres and to translate biblical texts in a kind of uniform poetic style. Reformation trans lators saw the Hebrew and Greek conjunctions and connectives as inspired words of God, not to be omitted. They are much more lit eral in this respect than the Bibles of the Suber-Rosenzweig tradi tion. Foreignization is not a desirable aim but an unintended side effect in Reformation Bibles (because of the combination of inspi ratio and perspicuitas hermeneutics , de Vries 2003). Reformation Bibles added marginal notes to translations to mitigate foreignness and did not insert foreignness when not forced to do so by source patterns, unlike Romantic Bibles that may add foreignness to create an experience of otherness, for example Buber 's translation of per fectly normal Hebrew words from a neutral register with rare . strange, and eccentric German words (see the examples given above such as wc�jjomer rendered as er sprach rather than er sagte "he said," buk "baked," an old German form of the verb rather than the unmarked German form backte, not Schwiegersiihne for sons in-law but the rare word Eidame, and so on). Romantic literalism employs novel transliteration of "un translatable" Hebrew and Greek words as a regular translation strat egy, but this is avoided by Reformation literalism. Reformation --- Bibles refrain from that translation strategy because it clashes with --- � ·;;:; 143 their perspicuity hermeneutics (the idea being that God not only speaks i n his Word , or inspiratio, but that He speaks in principle clearly, or perspicuitas). In Leviticus 1 4: 1 3 , Everett Fox translates as follows: Then he is to slay the l amb i n the place where one slays the hallat-offering and the offering-up, i n a holy place, for l i ke the hattat-offering, the asham-of fering is the priest's, it is a hol iest holy portion . The King James Version has: And he shal l slay the l amb i n the place where he shall k i l l the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place: for as the sin offering is the priest's, so is the trespass offeri ng: it is most holy. I n Leviticus 1 3 :44, Everett Fox has "he is a man with tzaraat, he is tamei," and the King James Version has "he is a lep rous man, he is unclean ." A bove we saw other examples such as the use of logos i n Revelation I :2 by Chouraqui ("II temoigne du logos d'Eloh"i'ms"). The fundamental difference between Reformation foreign ness and Romantic foreignness resides in the fact that the foreign ness of Reformation B ib les is the unintended result of inspiration bel iefs, the Bi ble being v iewed as inspired by the Holy Spirit, word by word , forcing translators to be very literal at the word level. The principle of the perspicu ity of Scriptures and the ideal of lay hermeneutics formed a counterforce, mitigating the effects of the inspiratio doctrine on the translation . B ut when inspiratio and per spicuitas clash , it is inspiration that prevai ls in the translation de cisions. They tried to translate as clearly as possible w ithin the (narrow) boundaries set by the holy inspiration doctrine. Adding "unnecessary" foreignness as Romantic translators often do, for ex ample by employing a difficult and eccentric lexical register to cre ate a sense of alterity in the reader, is therefore al ien to Reformation l iteralism. Homer and the Bible: separate histories offoreignness. According to Venuti (2008) , the German Romantic empha sis on foreignization was a break with the fluency tradition in trans ------ lation of texts from antiquity into French and English in seventeenth ------ w 144 and eighteenth centuries. It is impo1tant to note that, as a general rule, this fluency tradition did not extend to the Bible in the seven teenth to the twentieth centuries . Although the works of Homer, Ovid , and the Bible are all texts from antiquity, Bible translation history followed very different paths in those centuries compared to the history of translation of other texts from antiquity such as Homer or Ovid. Venuti (2008) emphasizes the dominance of do mestication in early modern and modern translation history, and for him people like Schleiermacher and Newman were dissidents, counter voices . But the kind of far-reaching domestication that Venuti observes in the translation of classical texts in English and French was as a general rule unacceptable in that period in Bible translations until Nida's dynamic equivalence. Of course, this does not mean that the history of Bible translation before Nida never saw relatively free translations of the Bible that deviated from the literal norm of most religious commu nities. The eighteenth century, for example, saw a number of such free translations of the Bible but these are exceptional-they were criticized by contemporaries for their free character, they had not been commissioned by church or state authorities, did not have a liturgical skopos but were made by individual scholars as study Bibles to complement, but not replace, authorized versions. Exam ples are relatively free Bible translations of enlightened scholars in the eighteenth century, often with notes, to enlighten a broad public and linked to new ideas of historical-critical scholarship, for ex ample Harwood 's extremely domesticating English of 1 768 and van Hamelsveld's Dutch translation of 1 796 (van Eijnatten 2003). I f anything , literalism was the norm in Bible translation, with the authorized versions as translation models , especially for Bibles intended for use in liturgical contexts. Luther 's translation, often said to be communicative and free, in fact squarely falls within the parameters of Reformat ion literalism (van der Louw 2006). Luther got his undeserved reputation f o r fluency because of one quote that is always repeated and because his theology occa sionally got the better of him , and this led to infamous translations such as the addition of allein "only" in Romans 3:28. Van der Louw (2006, I ) points out that the often repeated statement by Luther that one should consult housewives, children, and common people talk ---- -1:! ing in marketplaces and translate accordingly, disagrees both with ---- ·.p 145 his translation practice and his other statements, where he explains why he translated in the high written style of the chancelleries (van der Louw 2006, I ). The most important reason why Luther was ascribed a flu ent and naturalizing translation approach is probably the same rea son why adherents of Romantic literalism such as Breukelman (see above) claimed that their approach was followed by the translators of the Reformation: both literalists and antiliteralists looked for au thorities in the Bible translation past to back them up. Defenders of Nida's dynamic equivalence certainly needed authorities of the Reformation to back up their position in the polemics of the day and the one Luther quote about the language of the markets and the streets did the job to paint Luther as dynamic equivalent avant la Lettre. I n fact, Nida and Schleiermacher shared the role of dissi dents, of counter voices, each in their own contexts. Schleiermacher and other German Romantic thinkers came up against a dominant norm of fluency in the translation of classical texts, and Nida fought for the right to translate fluently in a world where Bibles were ex pected to be literal, to be foreign, and to be far removed from every day language. The doom of domestication. The history of foreignness in the translation of the Bible is deeply ironic because the harder and the more consciously transla tors tried either to domesticate the Bible and reduce its foreignness or to exoticize it and enhance its foreignness, the more their efforts yielded opposite results. Consciously communicating the otherness of the Bible in a translation requires that the translator first of all identify what the very otherness or foreignness actuall y is and where it resides , it re quires a theorization and locating of the otherness of the Bible. But of course this understanding and theorizing of the Hebrew or Greek otherness and individuality can only be done in domestic terms. This is the "doom" of domestication: even when translators try to convey the otherness of the Bible in translation, they understand this alterity in the terms of their own time and background and they communicate this otherness in terms that their contemporary audi -- �. ences can relate to. -- ai' C,.:, 146 Buber and Rosenzweig are a good example of how theo rizing alterity can only be done in domestic terms and how this forms a back door through which domestication sneaks back into the house of the translation that it was forced to leave through the front door. Buber and Rosenzweig understood and constructed the otherness of the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew language in the domes tic frameworks of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany (for example, a diachronic view of language, root etymology, Sprachgeist, Romantic orality theory, essentialistic constructions of ancient Hebrew Geist as holistic, concrete, nondichotomous) that they had absorbed during their academic education. The irony of Die Schrift is that the very passages meant to evoke Hebraic other ness in fact strongly evoke Germany, in the sense that they evoke how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German intellectuals constructed Hebraic alterity. It was this layer of inscription of do mestic German ideologies in the translation that was perceived by contemporaries of Buber and Rosenzweig such as Kracauer when he talked about volkische Romantik (see above). Precisely because the foreignness in Reformation Bibles such as the Dutch Staten vertaling was the result of inspiration doctrines and not the result of consciously trying to convey a theorized alterity in the transla tion , the foreignness of Refonnation Bibles is more "innocent" and lacks the strong domestic scent left behind by the "ideologized" al terity of Romantic translations of the Bible. The same irony is visible in the history of the conscious and methodical domesticating of the Bible in translation . Domes ticating translations try to suppress foreignness but the result is a very sharp contrast between the fluent text of the Bible translation and the "weirdness" of the persons, events, attitudes, and cultural practices denoted by the fluent text (de Jong 20 1 2) . This contrast evokes and enhances the experience of foreign ness in the reader. This is an effect comparable to cross-dressing macho men : the fe male clothing and make up, however perfect and natural, emphasize rather than hide the underlying irrepressible masculinity. (") --- --- 2 ·;::; 147 References Askani, H. 1 997. Das Problem der Ubersetzung-dargestellt an Frans Rosenzweig: die Methoden und Prinzipien der Rosenzweigschen und Buber-Rosen zweigenschen Ubersetzungen. TUbingen: Mohr. Baayen, H . 1 990. "Woorden onder elkaar." I n Aspecten van Bijbelvertalen. Edited by R.H. Baayen and J . de Waard. Haarlem : Nederlands Bij belgenootschap. I -29. Benjamin, M. H. 2007. "The Tacit Agenda of a Literary Approach to the Bible." Prooftexts 27: 254- 274. Berman, A. 1 984. L 'epreuve de l 'etranger. Culture et traduction dans l 'Allemagne romantique. Paris: Gallimard. Breukelman, F. H. and B. P. M. Hemelsoet. 1 985. "Van 'N ieuwe Vertaling' naar 'Groot N ieuws ' : Over het grondbeginsel van bijbelvertalen." Amster damse Cahiers voor Exegese en Bijbelse Theologie. Edited by K . A . Deurloo, 6: 1 1 - 1 2 . Britt, B. 2000. "Romantic Roots of the Debate o n the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible." Prooftexts 20 (3): 262-289. B uber, M. 1 964. Werke. Vol . 2, Schriften zur Bibel. Munich: Kosel. Buber, M., and F. Rosenzweig. 1 997. Die Sehr/ft. GUtersloh: Glitersloher Ver lagshaus. --- . 1 994. Scripture and Translation. Translated by Lawrence Rosenwald. Bloomjngton: I ndiana University Press. Chouraqui, A. 1 974. La Bible. Paris: Desclee de Brouwer. de Jong, M . 20 1 2. "The Bible in Plain Language: Targets, Demands, Strategies." Unpubl ished paper delivered at the Society of Bibl ical Literature Confer ence, Amsterdam. de Vries, L. 2003 . "Paratext and the Skopos of Bible translations." In Paratext and Megatext as Channels ofJewish and Christian traditions, edited by W. F. Smelik, A. A. den Hollander, and U . B. Schmidt, 1 76- 1 93 . Leiden, Boston: Bri l l Publishers. Dubbink, J ., and Th. van Wil l igenburg. 2007. Van Aanschijn tot Zaaizaad. In gesprek met de vertaler van de Naardense Bijbel. Vught: Skandalon. Dubbink, J. 2008. "Bijbelvertalen na de N aardense Bijbel." In P. Oussoren, De Naardense Bijbel. Yught: Skandalon. 1 655-1 665 . Foley, W. A. 2005. "Personhood and Linguistic Identity, Purism and Variation." Language Documentation and Description, 3: 1 57-1 80. Fox, Everett. 1 995. The Five Books of Moses. A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary and Noles. New York: Schocken. Gordon, P. E. 2003. Rosenzweig and Heidegge,: Between Judaism and German Phi losophy. Berkeley: University of Cali fornia Press. Kracaucr, S. [ I 926] 1 963 . "Die Bibel auf Deutsch. Zur Obersetzung von Martin Buber und Franz Rosenzweig." In S. K racauer, Das Ornament der Masse. Essays. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 1 73-1 86. �. Lefevere A. 1 977. Translating Literature: The German tradition from Luther to ---- Rosenzweig. Assen: van Gorcum. iii' ---- u.) 148 Oussoren, P. 2008. De Naardense Bijbel. Vught: Skandalon en Plantijn. Pedersen, J. 1 926. Israel. Its Life and Culture. Volume I. Oxford: Ox ford Uni versity Press. Reichert, K. 1 996. "It Is Time. The Bubcr-Roscnzwcig Translation in Context." I n Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser, The Translatability of Cultures: Figu rations ofthe Space Between, 1 69- 1 86. Stanford, Cal ifo rnia: Stan ford University. Rosenwald, L. 1 994. "On the Reception or Buber and Rosenzweig's B i ble." Proof texts 1 4 (2): 1 4 1 - 1 65. Schleiermacher, Fr. 1 838. Siimtliche Werke. 3 Abt., 2 Bd. Berlin: G. Reimer. Schmidt, G. G. 1 995. Martin Buber :S Formative Years: From German Culture to Jewish Rene1,val, 1897-/909. Tuscaloosa: University or Alabama Press. Schravcsande, 1- 1 . 2009. Jichud. Eenheid in het werk van Martin Buber. 7,oetcrmecr: Boekencentrum . van der Louw, Th. A . W. 2006. "Vertalen volgcns d e Duitse romantiek ( Schleierma cher, Buber) en soortcn lcttcrlijkhcid.'' Kerk en Theo!ogie 57 ( I ): 59-79. van Eijnatten, J. 2003 . Liberty and concord in 1he United Provinces. Religious Tol eration and the Public in Eighteenth-century Netherlands. Leiden: 8rill. Venuti, L. 2008 . The Translator :S Invisibility A History of Translation. Second Edi tion. New York: Routledge. Vries, Lourens de. 20 1 2. "Local Oral-Written I nterlaces and the Nature, Transmis sion, Performance and Translation or Biblical Texts." In Translating Scrip/Ure for Sound and Performance, edited by James Maxey and Ernst Wendland, 68-97. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Lourens de Vries is a professor at VU University, Amsterdam. His main interests are the languages and cultures of New Guinea, and the theory and history of Bible transla tion. Some of his recent publications are " Seeing, hearing and thinking in Korowai, a language of West Papua" (in Aikhenvald and Storch, eds., Perception and Cognition in Language and Culture, 2013); " Local Oral-Written Interfaces and the Nature, Transmis sion, Performance and Translation of Biblical Texts " (in Maxey and Wendland, eds., Trans ("') lating Scnpture for Sound and Performance, 201 2); and "Speaking of clans: language in Awyu-Ndumut communities of I ndonesian West Papua" ( International Journal of the --- Sociology of Language, 2012). Lourens de Vries serves on translation's advisory board. --- 2 ·.= 149

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A Media Ecology of the King James Version Paul Soukup Santa Clara University, U.SA [email protected] Abstract: The media ecology approach to communication study proposes the analysis of the environments of communication-technological, h istorical, lin guistic, psychological, and so on-in an attempt to better understand how some times hidden aspects of communication work together to affect the understanding, impact, and use of communication and communication prod ucts. As with any environment, the interaction of the elements offers new op portunities; an unstable or changing environment provides a particularly fruitful laboratory to understand communication. This essay applies the media ecology methodology to the translations project of the King James Version of the English Bible, first published in 1 6 1 1 , during a tumultuous period of change in com mun ication media and social relations. It examines eleven of the contexts of that translation project-Gutenberg's invention, the book trade, the scholarly world, the practices of translation, l ibraries, politics, language, rhetoric, the media, the ology, and reception. Each of these involves some aspect of communication and the social practices that developed along with it. In addition to its relevance to communication study, the method also offers a set of tools for translation studies, which in habit a world similar to that of com munication. As far as material objects go, a personal or family Bible differs from most. Even though it is an i mportant spiritual text, it is also an object of mass pro duction with a vast circulation . At odds w ith the status of a sacred text, a B ible originates from nowhere special, essentially having the same qualities as any other mass-produced textbook or magazine . (Woodward 2007 , 1 1 ) Of course, the content, not the properties of the object matter, but as an object, the Bible was not always the mass-produced object familiar to contemporary culture. It existed and exists in oral mem ory; written upon skins (vellum) or papyrus rol ls; bound in carefully � :::, illuminated and preserved manuscripts; and among the first products � - a ---- :::, of the printing press. And it existed and exists in ancient Hebrew ru ---- "' s 150 c,:, and Greek . Apart from its material condition, the Bible provides both a record of theology (that is, faith reflecting on its meaning) and a source for further theology. As a combination of spiritual and material , the.Bible offers a glimpse into media ecology, partic ularly at the moment that transformed the Bible into a mass-pro duced object: the translation into a vernacular destined for publi cation as an "authorized" version for a national church. Media ecology refers to an approach to communication study that "looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception , understanding, feeling, and value." It ex amines "environments: their structure, content, and impact on peo ple." Building on the biological metaphor of the ecosystem, media ecology regards communication media themselves as parts of a larger system, which they in tum affect. Such an ecosystem specifies what people and their communication do and can do. "In the case of media environments (e.g., books, radio, film , television , etc.), the specifications are more often implicit and informal, half con cealed by our assumption that what we are dealing with is not an environment but merely a machine" (Postman 2009). Media ecology aims to illuminate the environments and to help people understand how the ecology works and how communication structures human lives. As a communication phenomenon , the Bible in this sense holds interest for study and opens communication study to alterna tive means of examining the object. Rather than addressing envi ronments per se, communication theory or communication study historically begins with messages and audiences. Rhetoric, as Ar istotle proposes, deals with finding the available means of persua sion (Aristotle, 1 .2). He lists three main headings: ethos, pathos, and logos-characteristics of the speaker, of the audience, and of the message. The three find their way into more contemporary communication study, with ethos and logos often collapsed into studies of persuasion or media technology, and pathos firmly fixed as audience studies, especially studies of message reception or the measurement of the effects of messages upon audiences. Each of the three (ethos, pathos, logos) does offer a way to understand the ecology of communication intertwined with Chris M tian theology-the translation and dissemination of its texts. Almost --.... from its beginnings, Christianity depended on translation: the Ara- � --.... 151 g maic stories of Jesus quickly spread in the Greek-speaking Jewish Diaspora (who themselves used the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) . Then , as Christianity spread both farther west and farther east, its adherents and missionaries rendered the sacred texts from Greek into Latin, Coptic, Syriac, or other lan guages with, as Jaroslav Pelikan ( 1 974, 4 1 ) points out, doctrinal significance found in word choices and linguistic differences. These texts, and the debates flowing from them , offer yet another oppor tunity to think about how communication and theology interact. And while they do suggest places to examine persuasion and audi ence effects, they also even more strongly suggest the fruitfulness of a media ecology approach that expands the scope of communi cation studies. Translation and any particular translation-like any other aspect of communication-does not exist in a vacuum, lying open to examination separate from a wider context. As the media ecology metaphor suggests, each communication act or artifact exists in an ongoing and living set of relationships both with other communi cation acts, tools, or products and with things that coexist with them in the human environment. As the biological metaphor of media ecology makes clear, all of these interact: change one and all the others adjust. The introduction of a new means of commu nication will affect everything else. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century context of the King James Bible offers precisely this situation of a changing environ ment, where communication technologies and social practices in teract to create a new balance. H ere a revised English translation of the Bible emerged in the midst of major shifts in communication practices, which in turn fed the ferment of religious debate. And the theological world took advantage of the affordances provided by the new communication infrastructure. The most immediate of these communication tools is, of course, the printing press. But the "printing press" entails a much larger world of social practices. People had to find ways to use the printing press before it could have an effect on everyday life, religious practice, and theological understanding. Those uses fit into a number of contexts. A media ecology of the King James Bible involves at least eleven contexts: those of Gutenberg's invention, of the book trade, a· ---ai' of the scholarly world, of the practices of translation , of libraries, --- w 152 of politics, of language , of rhetoric, of the media, of theology, and of reception . Each of these involves some aspect of communication and the social practices that developed along with it. Culture scholar Roger Silverstone's remark about the analysis of television as a communication technology applies here as well as to television, "It involves a consideration . of technology as being a part of. and not separated from, the social institutions that produce and consume it" (Silverstone 1 994, 80) . The King James Bible, coming as it does in 1 6 1 1 , in the relative early maturity of the printing press, offers a privileged look at the social institutions surrounding this mass medium of the pre-Enlightenment era. The G utenberg Context Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the West in the middle of the fifteenth century; in 1 455 he printed the 42-line Latin Bible. Though popularly identified with that edition of the Bible, the Gutenberg press issued many other texts. ln so doing, the invention dramatically transformed learning and life in Europe, if in no other manner than by making books widely available . Before Gutenberg, copyists produced books in multiple copies but even the best scriptoria could only produce a limited number of books each year ( Bobrick 200 I , 82). Increasing the speed of making copies meant not only that more copies of a given book circulated, but also that a greater variety of books cir culated. The time saved in copying meant that those produci ng books could print more things, that is, a greater selection of things (Eisenstein 1 979, 1 69). And at this time, there was no shortage of things to print. Historian Benson Bobrick notes that Gutenberg's invention "was launched on a rising tide" of demand for material. In the century before him, the wealthy, who could afford manu scripts and the education to read them, drove the market . "Books of all sorts-cookbooks, medical manuals, educational treatises, tales of courtly love, and so on-appeared, variously illustrated and in a number of different calligraphic styles" ( Bobrick 200 1 , 82) . After the printing press , mass market forces take over as de mand shifts from the wealthy to a wider group of readers. The making of multiple copies from a single master set in (Y) type also meant that workers could more easily find errors and --- correct them - an important aspect of quality control and one that --- � ·.;:::; 153 helped establish the reputation of printers. On the other hand, mak ing multiple copies from a single master also meant that when errors occurred they became widely circulated, as several well known instances attest, even in the first editions of the King James Bible (the "he" and the "she" Bibles, after an error in gender in the book of Ruth; or the "wicked Bible" after an edition that omitted "not" in the commandment regarding adultery). The timing of the invention of the Gutenberg press also meant that it became a tool for the Renaissance and served the Hu manist rediscovery of Greek and other language texts from the East. Among other things, the early printers issued the texts of Greek philosophy, drama, and poetry; commentaries on language and learning; dictionaries; and, of course, the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, along with translations into vernacular languages. The Gutenberg context meant that the King James version transla tors had not only the original language editions before them but also several English-language translations to consult. The Book Trade Context Printers built on an existing network of a book trade, a trade that existed at least since the stationers in thirteenth-century Paris who sold and traded manuscript copies. The sixteenth-century printers increased that trade dramatically, with more editions and copies for the market. Clearly, printers published texts in order to sell them, something they did both locally and through traveling sellers. Italy alone produced I 0,000 printed works in the fifteenth century; the printers of Venice some 27,000 editions in the sixteenth century (Nuovo 20 I 0). These ranged from devotional works to ed ucational texts to poetry and popular stories, anything to satisfy the tastes of the buyers. During the course of the sixteenth century, the proportion of books printed in Latin to those printed in the ver nacular shifted, with a decided preference for vernacular material ( Nuovo 20 1 0). Similar things occurred in other cities and regions, with centers of printing well known in Venice, Paris, Mainz, Stras bourg, Nuremberg, Zurich, Augsburg, Cologne, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Basel, and Geneva ( Hoffmann 1 999). Even today scholars still recognize the names of the leading sixteenth-century printers Aldus Manutius, Johann Froben, William Caxton, and ci' ----- Robert Estienne. oJ' ----- w 154 The Renaissance printers combined business and scholar ship, though in different degrees. Some focused more on quickly issuing editions to capture the market; only later did printers rec ognize that their sales depended on the quality of their books. Print ing also grew with governments' fostering the print trade, through various licensing schemes; traders organized book fairs to promote the exchange of books and create a kind of European market . The book fairs also benefitted from the Reformation , with works by key reformers like Martin Luther selling widely-according to Dickens, quoted in Eisenstein ( 1 979, 303), "between 1 5 1 7 and I 520, Luther 's thirty publications probably sold well over 300 ,000 copies." The competing religious groups quickly took to printing to spread their respective ideas, something that increased the book trade itself ( Eisenstein 1 979, 407). Of course, the printers' output ranged far beyond the religious or the Scriptural or even the classical languages. The mix of texts led to a vibrant business, with printers setting up in every major city and selling books even in remote areas through the services of book peddlers ( Eisenstein 1 979, 376). Depending on the country, the printing and book trade busi ness also depended on government patronage, permission , or li censing. In England , the crown could seize illegal copies and destroy the presses that produced them. During the century prior to the King James or Authorized Version, English translations of the Bible took place mostly outside of England and depended on smugglers to reach their intended audience. The sixteenth-century book trade became a huge business, spurred on by profits, of course, but also by religious conviction when it came to the Bible, and by imaginative ways to deliver finished or partly finished texts to the market. The history of the translations includes the accounts of nu merous smugglers, secret agents , spies. and scholars . Later, with a change of monarch and an authorized version, printers and the printing business had a strong commercial moti vation to promote that version. Literary scholar David No11on com ments: In spite of the later perception of the KJB 's superiority, this publ ishing triumph owed nothing to its merits (or l the l Geneva I B ible I 's demerits) as a scholarly (Y) or l iterary rendering of the originals: economics and pol itics were the key fac --- tors. I t was in the very substantial commercial interest of the K ing's Printer, --- � ·.;;:;; 155 f; who had a monopoly on the text, and the Cambridge University Press, which also claimed the right to print the text, that the KJB should succeed. (David Norton 2000, 90) Like the text, the relatively new communication medium of printing succeeded less on its own merits than on those of the industry it joined. In the end, this context and the competition among printers and traders led to an environment that increased the availability of books, improved the quality of those printed, promoted sales, and lined up alliances with state and trade. This provides a good exam ple of Silverstone's idea that communication technology, like any successful technology, must become part of social institutions for it to succeed. For the printing press and the printing of vernacular Bible translations, the social institutions included business, both legal and illegal. The Scholarly Context Having readily accessible texts in sufficient numbers led to an explosion of study and of language skills. Some of the printers mentioned already produced dictionaries and lexicons. Henri Esti enne 1 1 "carried on the pioneering lexicographical work that his fa ther had begun in the Thesaurus linguae latinae of 1 53 1 and the Latin-French and French-Latin dictionaries of 1 538 and I S39-40 , with his own monumental Thesaurus linguae graecae in 1 S72-73" ( Hoffmann 1 999, 390). These dictionaries provided one foundation for general and translation education. Another foundation appeared in the educational system itself. No longer did students have to travel to find a text; in fact, the sixteenth-century printers increased the availability of school texts . Hoffmann recounts the innovation of the Parisian printer Thomas Brumen, "three-quarters of whose production consisted of interfoliated and double-spaced quarto edi tions in which the student copied the translation between lines and their teacher's literary and grammatical commentaries in the mar gins and extra leaves" ( Hoffmann 1 999, 386). The printers aided scholarship in two other ways, one of which would have great significance. The lesser contribution came �- first from Aldus Manutius, who introduced Greek fonts; a Venetian ---- type-cutter, Francesco Griffo, "surmounted the technical problems or ---- w 156 associated with designing Greek fonts which included all the nec essary diacritics" (Hoffmann 1 999, 387). Even more valuable was the practice of producing corrected critical editions of the Greek and Latin texts. Erasmus led the way. "The publication of an emended Greek text of the New Testament with a parallel Latin translation in 1 5 1 6 established Erasmus as the premier evangelical humanist" ( Boyle 1 999, 44). Not only did he provide a text, but he corrected it in subsequent editions. Despite his criticism of the slop piness of early printers , Hoffman explains a key point: Printing in fact boasted an undeniable advantage over manuscripts: if one proof read early enough , one could reset type, whereas a scribe enjoyed fewer options with regard to a pen stroke already indelibly committed the page. In other words, although the initial typesetting could easily prove inferior to scribal work , movable type afforded the opportunity to achieve a level of correction unattainable even in the best scriptorium. (Hoffman 1 999, 388) Such scholarly collaboration between Humanists like Eras mus and his successors and the best printers (particularly Manutius, Froben, and Estienne) led to the establishment of accurate texts. Hoffman gives the example of Estienne, whose careful work led to the situation that h is editions remained standard references centuries afterwards. He intro duced innovations such as verse numbering still in practice today, and for his I 550 edition of the Greek New Testament, he collated no fewer than fifteen man uscripts-demonstrating just how far the qual ity of printed editions had come i n the hundred years since Gutenberg 's 42-line Bible. ( Hoffman 1 999, 390) But as in any social practice, the collaboration between scholars and printers amplified the importance of the communica tion technology and spilled over into other areas as well. The avail ability of the materials to study language and texts went hand in hand with the expectation-indeed the demand, at least by Eras mus-that theologians know the Scriptures. Marjorie O' Rourke Boyle explains: Although grammatical knowledge did not make a theologian , neither did its (Y) ignorance. Erasmus corrected the scholastic neglect and abuse of grammar by --- requ iring a classical tri l ingual education and by commending its util ity. The --- � ·.::; 157 comprehension of the mysteries of Scripture often depended on knowing the nature of the thing designated . Knowledge was double: of thi ngs and of words. ( Boyle 1 999 , 46) The renaissance of texts and of classical l anguages also in fl uenced the great ed ucational i nstitutions, which promoted the study of these new material s . Such educational reform in the six teenth century prepared the way for a l ater generation of B ible translators , giving them the social practices of educat ion , textual emendation , and ongoi ng correction that has come to define learn ing. By the time K i ng James cal led for work on the B ible translation to commence, he cou ld draw transl ators from Oxford and Cam bridge and entrust the work to these universities. The Translation Context The scholarly context of " B ibl ical h uman ism , which re ceived a new i mpetus after typefonts cou ld be cast" (Eisenste i n 1 979, 33 1 ) and o f critical editions, opened t h e way for translations. Key elements came together: the increased study of classical l an guages , the avai labi l i ty of corrected texts, interl inear editions, a w i l l ingness to revise existing translations (as seen , for example, in Erasmus's work on the Yulgate), and a market for comparing trans lations . By the early sixteenth century, scholars had two critical edi tions in the works of Erasmus and of Cardinal X imenes. In addition, they had wider access to a number of vernacular language transla tions . I n the period of the Reformation many groups published translations of the B ible, since they encouraged B ible readi n g among the people, most o f whom did not read Lat i n . I n the Engl ish-speaking world, translations o r partial trans lations had existed for centuries , w ith texts first prepared in Old English. By the fourteenth century the Engl ish-speaking world had the translation of Wycliffe in manuscript form , and in the sixteenth century W i l l iam Tyndale began work on a complete Engl ish trans lation (English New Testament printed l 526) . Others soon fol lowed: the Coverdale B ible ( 1 535), the Matthew B ible ( 1 537), the Great B ible ( 1 539) , the Geneva B ible ( 1 560) , the B ishops ' B ible ( 1 568) , the R heims New Testament ( 1 582) , and the Douai ful l B ible ( 1 6 1 0) . In addition , revisions and new editions appeared regularly, --o:r �. with or without crown approval ( Metzger 200 I , 5 6-67) . -- w 158 The translators and revisers working on the King James Version drew on all these translations and more. Bobrick points out some of the translation resources: They pored over all previous Engl ish versions; consulted the Complutensian Polyglot of 1 5 1 7 ; the A ntwerp Polyglot of 1 572 (wh ich i ncluded a fresh inter linear Latin translation of the Hebrew by Arias Montanus); the Tremellius-Ju n i us B ible of 1 579 (which contained a Lati n translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Syriac); Sebastian Munster's Latin translation of the Old Testament; Theodore Beza's Latin translation of the New; Latin translations of the whole B ible by Sanctus Pagninus, Leo Juda, and Castalio; the Zurich B i ble; Luther's B ible; the French translations of Lefevre ( l 534) and Olivetan ( l 535); the Span ish translations of Cassiodoro de Reyna and Cypriano de Valera ( 1 602); and G iovann i D iodati 's Ital ian B ible ( 1 607) . ( Bobrick 200 1 , 238) The translators themselves clearly understood that they acted in a long tradition of Bible translation. In the preface, "The Translators to the Reader," of the 1 6 1 1 edition, one section, "The Translating of the Scripture into the Vulgar Tongues," provides a brief history of translation from Jerome to at least the fourteenth century. The media context for the King James Version translators consists, then, of a variety of printed books in the original biblical languages, Latin, and the key languages of Europe and of an inter personal network of scholars and translators. Indirectly, the com munication ecology also includes the expectation that people should have the Bible in translation and that some, at least, should develop the language skills for translation . Libraries Libraries provide another element in the media ecology of the King James Version. While libraries had long existed in monas teries and cathedral schools, they had limited and noncirculating collections. Printing and the book trade led not only to an increase of books but to an increase of private libraries. Printers, scholars, and noble families kept collections of books, thus making reference easier. James I, who authorized the translation, was a true bibl ioph ile. He built up a considerable private l ibrary in the classics; ---- � owned a host of theological works (including those by Calvin, which he read ---- 159 in Latin); was especially well read in the French poets, such as Ronsard , Du Bellay, and Marot; and of course had many writings in English and Scots . (Bobrick 200 I , 206) Such collections add another dimension to the communi cation background of the King James Version: the habit of having books in many languages available increases the likelihood or the expectation of people's knowing those languages and being pre pared to translate them. Private libraries also made it more likely that the translators themselves had access to a fairly broad spectrum of sources, in a number of languages. The Political Context The existing English translations raised a number of theo logical and political issues, another circumstance that constitutes the larger environment of the King James Version. These extend beyond the specific communication contexts, but they do affect the communication. Some of the areas of contact illustrate how media ecology works. The religious and political elite recognized that the Bible formed a teaching tool and that it communicated particular expec tations to the people. King James himself objected to glosses in the Geneva Bible that implied a limitation on the power of the monarch. He also recognized the problem of keeping both the es tablished church group and the Puritan group aligned with the monarchy and the church. At the Hampton Court conference in 1 604, most of the decisions supported the Anglican group. Some commentators suggest that one reason James commanded a revised translation was to offer something to the Puritan group. When John Rainolds (or Reynolds), the Puritan head of Corpus Christi College, asked for a new translation, the King quickly agreed. This "group process" model suggests that a political communication influenced the King's actions. Another political factor also played a role: the fact that the King "authorized" the revision meant that the translators could both work freely and draw on royal support. This has at least two consequences for the work. On the one hand, in contrast to the six teenth century, the translators did not need to work outside of Eng ---- land, in places free from persecution or other external constraints Qj' ---- w 160 (Ellingworth 2007 , I 08) . On the other hand, the royal authorization of the work implied a possible interference or at least a subtle in fluence on the work. James already had reservations about the Geneva Bible-when Rainolds requested a new translation, the King replied that he "could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is the worst" ( Bruce 1 978, 96) . The translation/revision teams working under royal com mand would have understood the political limits to their charge. The guidelines for their work included instructions about lexical items and about the use of marginal notes, including 3. The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be trans lated congregation , &c . . . 6. No marginal notes at al l to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution , so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text. (Campbell 20 1 0 , 36-37) In addition to royal politics, ecclesiastical politics played a role. The Anglican and Puritan groups differed theologically and each used a Bible to support their positions. The more radical re formers, those influenced by Calvin and Knox, rejected church hi erarchy and translated key terms differently: "elder" rather than "priest" for the Greek presbyteros; "overseer/manager" rather than "bishop" for episcopos; "assembly" rather than "church" for ekklesia; and so on (Ellingworth 2007 , 1 09). The choice both sup ported an ecclesiology and presumed one. "The decision to retain 'bishop' (instead of 'elder' or ' senior ' ) reflects a decision to favor episcopacy rather than presbyterianism as a model of church gov ernment; as disagreement about the forn1 of government was a gaping fault line between the church hierarchy and the Puritan mi nority, this decision was critically important" (Campbell 20 1 0 , 82) . The Roman Catholics, in their Douai-Rheims translation, often chose Latinate terms, opting to maintain a continuity with accepted theological usages (Norton 2000, 45-47) . Each transmitted its po sition in the word choices of their translations. Here, ecclesiastical politics guided linguistic choices in the King James Version. A final aspect of the political context emerges only after the translators completed their work. Done at royal command and ..__ funded by the crown, the translators produced an "authorized ver- � ..__ ·.;::; 161 � sion," commanded to the churches and commended to the people. But it took time for the Authorized Version to gain favor. "It is one thing to be the Bible of the official Church, another to be the Bible of the people. In 1 6 1 1 the people had their Bible, the Geneva, and the KJB was simply the Church's third attempt to produce its own Bible" (Norton 2000, 90). Within forty years the situation changed. "The last regular edition of the Geneva Bible was published in 1 644. Thereafter, to buy a Bible meant to buy a King James Bible" (Norton 2000, 90). Norton acknowledges that the eventual triumph of the King James Version arose not from any sense of its superi ority, but from "economics and politics." The "authorized" certifi cation made it attractive and profitable to printers. Linguistic Context The translators' wrestling with word choices in their work something of concern for English Bible translators from Tyndale in the I 520s to Gregory Martin working on the Catholic Rheims New Testament published in 1 582 (Norton 2000, 4 1 -45)-serves an a reminder that the English language itself was still developing and evolving as a language in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unlike many languages , English has freely adopted (and adapted) words from other languages (Crystal 20 I 0), leading to its huge vo cabulary today. Largely German and Celtic, English received an in flux of French words at the Norman conquest in I 066, with the upper classes bringing their French across the English Channel. The tradition of Latin in academic, learned, legal, and administrative circles added yet another set of often specialized vocabulary. Trade across the English Channel brought renewed contact with German and Dutch peoples and words. Regional dialects added more varia tion. William Caxton, the first English printer, "was keenly aware of the impact of his work on English diction, then in considerable flux, and in his own translations tried not to overemphasize unusual words (or 'curious terms ,' as he called them) while not wanting his language to seem too plain" ( Bobrick 200 1 , 83). The Bible translators could choose from a variety of words and themselves introduced both words and phrasing. The English penchant for importing words and the resemblance of Anglo Saxon's stress rhythms to Hebrew patterns in some ways made the ---o:r translators' work easier. Bobrick comments on both as he discusses --- w 162 the work of Tyndale. First, the Anglo-Saxon patterns enabled Tyndale to draw on traditions of native expression to give the Hebrew an English feel. H is fidelity to the original also gave rise to the quintessential "noun + of + noun" construction of English bibl ical prose. I nstead of "Moses' book" we have "the book of Moses"; instead of "a strong man ," "a man of strength." This extended to the way superlatives were expressed: instead of "the holiest place" or "the best song," Hebrew had "the holy of holies" and "the song of songs." This imparted to English a certain rhythmic sonority it had not formerly possessed . (Bobrick 200 I , 1 1 9) He continues, addressing the easy ability to bring new words into English: Tyndale also boldly adopted a number of Hebrew words and compounds, such as "scapegoat," "passover," and "mercy seat," which English has kept, as well as various Hebraic turns of phrase among them, "to die the death," "the Lord's anointed," "the gate of heaven," "a man after h is own heart," "the l i ving God," "sick unto death ," "flowing w ith milk and honey," "to fall by the sword," "as the Lord liveth ," "a stranger in a strange land," "to bring the head down to the grave," and "apple of h i s eye." It is said that he also introduced into English the adjective "beautiful." ( Bobrick 200 1 , 1 1 9) Later translators, both the King James Version team and the Douai-Rheirns team , did the same, though not all their choices successfully entered the language. Many of Martin's terms in the Rheims New Testament (especially the Latin ate ones) come into English through the King James Version, which took them over. However, other terms like "exinanited" were not accepted into English (Norton 2000, 46). The freedom and the necessity with which the translators imported words comes as a heritage of Elizabethan England. Ebel notes that an earlier generation had to import a vocabulary. B ut it i s useful to recall here that at the outset of English printing, and well into the early years of Elizabeth's reign , translators were apologetic and uneasy about their " inadequate" language; that their embarTassment was justified by the real poverty of the English vocabulary ; and that in the course of the century, as vocabulary and idiom seeped into English from the continental vernaculars (partly by means of translations) , English actually experienced a resplendent triumph . ( Ebel 1 969, 596) -� 163 Motivated by a desire to make learning available in English and not restricted to universities and Latin speakers (Ebel 1 969 , 598), Elizabethan translators extended Tyndale's and the Reformers' desire to make the Bible available in common English to a desire to make everything available in English. But it required a linguistic flexibility. "Florio prefaces his translation of Montaigne with a list of neologisms which includes 'conscientious, endeare , tarnish, comporte , efface, facilitate, ammusing, debauching, regret, effort, emotion"' (Ebel 1 969, 596 note 1 7) . That practice of listing new words in prefaces appears in tables at the end of Tyndale's work as well as at the end of Martin's Rheims New Testament ( Norton 2000, 45). Rhetorical Context The religious, political, and linguistics contexts of language choice hight ight yet another part of the media ecology of the King James Version: the rhetorical context. "Rhetoric" here refers to the sixteenth-century usage , indicating the decoration of language , belles lettres, the arrangement of words, the use of imagery, and other stylistic things, rather than to the classical Greek and Latin understanding of rhetoric as the finding of available arguments or the use of probable proofs. Every language has its canons of style. For a translator, a key question emerges as to how to render such aspects of language as well as the verbal meaning of a given text. This challenge for Bible translators dates back at least to Jerome's work on the Yulgate: how much of the style of the H ebrew or Gre�k should become a part of the translation (into Latin, in Jerome's case), particularly when "style" itself differs from one language to another? That is, a given tum of phrase or word arrangement (or alliteration, assonance, etc.) may prove elegant and meaningful in one language but not in the other. A given word arrangement, alliteration, or assonance may prove impossible to recreate in another language . Bible trans lators face a choice between translating words in the word order of Greek or Hebrew or translating the high (or low) style into Latin or English, even though that means that they have to abandon the "literal" approach. Jerome , who translated both classical Greek texts as well as the Bible, followed different principles at different --a· times. "In his letter to Pammachius, he says that while translating -- cii' w 164 literary works he followed the classical idea of a 'free translation,' with one exception, the Bible. He saw 'mystery even in the word order of the Bible "' (Jinbachian 2007 , 33). At the same time , Jerome was not slavish, recognizing with Cicero , Horace , and Boethius that a word-for-word correspondence could betray the original text (Jinbachian 2007, 32). As justification for this, he cites the Scriptures themselves: The Apostles and the Evangelists in q uoting from the Old Testament sources have tried to communicate the meaning rather than the literal words, and that they have not cared greatly to preserve exact phrases and sentence construc tions, so long as they could clearly present the substance of their subj ect to men's understanding I...I In dealing with the Bible one must consider the substance and not the literal words. ( Jinbachian 2007 , 33) The situation takes on greater complexity with the variety of material in the Bible. "The contrasting forms of the Bible made it necessary to render it 'word-for-word' ( verbum e verbo) where it was a legal document, and to translate 'sense-for-sense' (sensus de sensu) where it was a literary work" (Jinbachian 2007 , 34; see also Burke , 2007 , 88-89) . This marked a change from the Old Latin (that is, pre-Jerome) translations, which "is largely 'word-for-word,' probably because that was understood to have been the Septuagint approach, and because it was, after all, the word of God being translated" ( Burke 2007, 84). Later generations of translators would further distinguish, for example , between formal correspondence translation and dy namic equivalence translation, resembling in some ways these two approaches, though drawing on contemporary social science (an thropology, ethnology) , as Pym points out in regards to the work of Eugene Nida ( Pym 2007, 202). While informative, Pym's sub stantive criticism of these approaches as following a "representa tional epistemology"-that there exists a meaningful source text with an existence independent of language such that its meaning can be separated and reinserted into another language-raises more questions than it settles about the role of rhetoric. It does, however, support the wider media ecology approach, which indicates that all factors play a role. While not taking sides, media ecology does (Y) affirm that the translation choice itself is meaningful. The commu --- nication event or experience consists of all aspects of the ecology. --- � C ·.:, C 165 The rhetorical choices taken by the various translators leave their marks . Tyndale's identification of Hebrew poetic structure with that of Middle English led him to translate the Psalms, for ex ample, with a more literal dependency on the Hebrew texts ( Bobrick 200 I , 1 1 9). The use of the Psalms in the daily prayer of the church in turn established a preference for this style of poetic translation, which itself influences the later development of English stylistics . The King James Version similarly cultivates a growing preference for Elizabethan expression and vocabulary among subsequent gen erations of English speakers, long after Elizabethan and Jacobean English had passed from popular usage. The Media The King James Version, like the earlier English versions since Tyndale's, appears as a printed book rather than as a manuscript or other form of communication. That matters for media ecology. The book form itself also involves any number of communicative choices: the page size, the type face(s), decorative capitals, the use of images, the quality of the paper, the quality of the editing, the use of white space (that is, the arrangement of type on the page, with or without marginal notes), the binding, and so on. Each of these contributed to the look and to the cost of the book. And each of these things communicates something about the book itself. For example, the Great Bible, intended as a pulpit Bible, had a size too large for personal use. The King James Version appeared first as a pulpit Bible "of great volume" or size and only later in smaller sizes for individual use. Bobrick describes the first editions: The text itself, printed Gothic type and fol io format ( 1 6 inches by I O½ inches), was laid out in double columns enclosed within rules. Ornamental capitals adorned the beginnings of chapters, but the chapter summaries , head i ngs, and marginal notes were set in roman type. Also in roman were those words not in the original but inserted to make the meaning clear. ( Bobrick 200 1 , 253) This latter usage led to the unintended consequence in later editions of people misinterpreting the change of typeface to signal importance rather than addition. During the early years of its publication, though, the King James Version appeared as one among several other Bible transla a· ---iii' tions , with the most popular alternative the Geneva Bible favored --- C,.) 166 by the Puritans. Anglican Bishops commended the King James Version to the people, using phrases referring to the book's ap pearance. Norton comments on an interesting consequence of this . "It may have gone without saying that Bibles 'of the largest volume' and Bibles without notes meant the KJB, but such phrases do sug gest that people found it difficult to distinguish the KJ B from the Geneva Bible as a version, but relatively easy to distinguish it as an artefact" ( Norton 2000, 92). The physical appearance of the text acted as a carrier of meaning or identity. The printer and the translators may have deliberately used the physical appearance to signal other things as well. "In keeping with the idea that the new version was but a revision of the old, there were emblems of con tinuity; for example, some of the general ornamentation of the title page had been borrowed from the Geneva Bible, while the Bishops' Bible supplied a figure or two as well" (Bobrick 200 1 , 253). The Theological Context The King James Version was produced during a period of intense theological dispute, starting with the Reformation debates about Catholic practices in the early sixteenth century and contin uing throughout Europe and England. Those debates became in creasingly public with controversialists on every side publishing tracts and books , which became best sellers for both private and public reading. "Under the aegis of patrons like the Earl of Leicester, corps of translators labored to convert useful and edifying works of every kind into the mother tongue. The missionary zeal of lay evangelists, who objected to withholding Gospel truths from any man, was completely compatible with the new movement" (Eisen stein 1 979, 360). Not only did the Reformers want the Scriptures translated, they wanted to highlight passages that supported their positions. Thus, as noted already, they and their Catholic opponents debated over how to translate words - for example, was ecclesia better rendered "church" or "assembly"? But they also fought a war over marginal notes , with the Geneva Bible, among others , taking a strident tone against the papacy. The same theological ur gency marked out the parties in England, the Puritans arguing for a position more compatible with that of Continental reformers and (Y) the Anglicans remaining closer to Roman positions . The theological ..___ competition most likely improved the overall translation enterprise � ..___ 167 as more and more individuals undertook translation. W hatever the particulars, this heated theological atmosphere spurred translators on. King James, as we have seen , approved the translation/revision project for theological as well as political reasons. The translations became part of a virtuous theological circle, since those trained in theology undertook more education in Scrip ture. Moreover, since even the untrained could read the Bible, more people engaged in the reflection on faith that defines theology itself. The Reception of the King James Version Communication study often concerns itself with audiences and with audience reaction to and interpretation of messages Aristotle's pathos . Lacking survey research for the seventeenth century publication of the King James Version , we must turn to proxy measures in the publication history and contemporary dis cussion. Even here, the evidence remains slim. From the perspective of four hundred years, we see the success of the King James Version. H owever, this did not happen immediately. Norton comments: It is one thing to be the Bible of the official Church, another to be the B i ble of the people . l n 1 6 1 1 the people had their B ible, the Geneva, and the KJB was simply the Church's third attempt to produce its own B ible. To become the Bible of the people it had to dom inate the field of B ible production and to be the form of words habitually used when a text is quoted, for that is the hallmark of acceptance and the key to specific literary appreciation . (Norton 2000, 90) The eventual successful reception of the Authorized Version depended on its authorization. The King's printer 's exclusive con tract (along with that of Cambridge University) made it very much in the commercial interests of these presses for the Authorized Ver sion to succeed. In effect , they stopped printing the Geneva Bible "for 'private lucre, not by vi1tue of any public restraint, l and so l they were usually imported from beyond the seas "' ( Norton 2000, 9 1 ) , usually through Amsterdam. "The ultimate success of the new Bible would owe much to the enthusiasm of James. Published by royal authority, it 'swept forward with a majestic stream of edi tions' -in folio, quarto, and octavo-which eventually left all its rivals behind" ( Bobrick 200 I , 253 ) . But it took time. And it had -- �. time, with editions regularly coming off the presses. -- ai' w 168 Popular opinion about the King James Version is difficult to determine. Norton offers an interesting observation: "If there was instant acclaim for the KJB, all evidence of it has been lost, whereas evidence of dissatisfaction has survived" (Norton 2000, 90). The latter evidence consists of critiques by contemporaries like Hugh Broughton and Ambrose Ussher. Broughton, a scholar omitted from the translation teams-some say because of his diffi cult personality-published a Censure of the late translation for our churches. In it, he writes "l had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses" than to recommend the King James Bible. He goes on to criticize everything from word choices to the translation of proper names. Given his personality and perhaps resentment at his exclusion, it is hard to know how much to credit his critique. Ussher, writing around 1 620, sought to revise the translation. "He offers a large number of new interpretations not to be found in any other translations, and I . . . I he implies that he is offering a more el egant translation. Unlike the translators so far discussed, he suggests that elegance of style is to be found in the originals and preserved in the translation" (Norton 2000, 94). As Norton noted, little else remains in the record. The eventual success of the King James Version comes partly from its monopoly position and, as a consequence of that, from its familiarity in the language of the church. As people heard it and prayed with it, its phrases and cadences helped shaped the l i nguistic practices of English speakers throughout the world. But that took time and appears more varied than many suppose. David Crystal, the eminent English Iinguist and historian of the language, specifically addresses the question of the influence of the King James Version on the language, noting that "if there is an influence on our present-day written language, it has to appear in grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, or the broader patterns of usage that we impressionistically refer to as matters of ' idiom' or 'style'" (Crystal 20 I0, 4). He discounts any influence on grammar, spelling, and punctuation as these do not show any appreciable influence of the King James Version. Conducting a careful review of the text, Crystal concludes that he finds "only 257" stylistic influences, though he acknowl (Y) edges that these far outnumber the idiomatic influences of the next --- ranking sources, the plays of Shakespeare (Crystal 20 1 0, 258). --- ]? 169 However, this inheritance as wel l as that of vocabulary comes from the set of translations that the K i ng James Version team drew on . The greater i nfluence , Crystal thinks, comes from an infl uence on spoken and written Engl ish - the result of people's hearing and read ing the text in church or in school . Here he credits the King James Version as creating preferences for rhetorical expressions ( bathos , ch iasmus, hyperbole, i rony, oxymoron , person ification , and satire), language play, phonetic properties (iambic rhythms, alliteration, assonance , euphony, monosy llabicity, and rhyme), and brevity of expression (Crystal 20 l 0, 26 l ) . From a publ ishing perspective and from a communication perspective, the K ing James Version eventually had a most im pressive reception . Other measures of i nfl uence find a substantial infl uence, but one perhaps measured more in perceived infl uence than grammatical or graphological characteristics . The media ecology of the K i ng James Version gives some idea of the complex interaction of commun ication and other factors that affected the translation . As w ith any human project, thi ngs did not have to turn out as they did, but the new communication tech nology and its associated social practices al lowed them to take the path that they took. Without these communication technologies , that path wou ld not have opened in the same way and the K ing James Version's production and subsequent h istory would not have been the same . �- --- --- u.) 170 References Aristotle, The art ofrhetoric. Translated by H. C. Lawson-Tancred. London and New York, Penguin, 1 99 1 . Bobrick, Benson. 200 I . Wide as the Wafers: The Story of the English Bible and !he Revolution It Inspired. New York: Simon & Schuster. Boyle, M ar:jorie O' Rourke. 1 999. "Evangelism and Erasmus." I n The Cambridge Histo1y of Lilerary Criticism, Vol. 3, The Renaissance, edited by G. P. Norton, 44-52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruce, F. F. 1 978. His/o,y of!he Bible in English: From the Earlies/ Versions. New York: Oxford University Press. Burke, David G. 2007. "The First Versions: The Septuagint, the Targums, and the Latin." I n A Histoty a/Bible Trans/a/ion, edited by Philip A. Noss, 59- 89. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Let:teratura. Campbell, Gordon. 20 1 0. Bible: The Story ofthe King James Version, / 6 1 1-2011. Ox ford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, David. 20 I 0. Begot: The King James Bible and 1he English Language. Ox ford: Oxford University Press. Ebel, J. G. 1 969. "Translation and cultural nationalism in the reign of Elizabeth." Journal ofthe HisLory of Ideas 30: 593- 602. Eisenstein Elizabeth L. 1 979. The Printing Press as an Agenl ofChange: Communi cations and Cultural Transformalions in Early-Modern Europe. Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 979. Ellingworth, Paul. 2007 . "From Martin Luther to the English." I n A History ofBible Translation, edited by Phi lip A. Noss, I 05-39. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Folger Shakespeare Li brary. "The Road to Hampton Court." Accessed June 20, 20 1 1 . http://www.mani foldgreatness.org/index.php/bef'ore/the-road-to hampton-eourt/. Hoffinann, G. 1 999. "Renaissance Printing and the Book Trade." In The Cambridge History ofLiterw:v Criticism, Vol . 3, The Renaissance, edited by Glyn P. Norton, 348-9 1 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. J inbachian, Manuel. 2007. "I ntroduction : The Septuagint to the Vernaculars." In A History of Bible Translation, edited by Phi l ip A. Noss, 29- 57. Rome: Edi zioni di Storia e Letteratura. Maltby, J udith, and Helen Moore. 20 1 1 . "Origins of the Project." In Manifold Greatness: The Making ofthe King James Bible, edited by Helen Moore and Jul ian Reid, 4 1 -59. Oxford: Bodleian Library. McCullough, Peter, and Valentine Cunni ngham. 20 1 1 . "A lterlives of the K ing James B ible, 1 6 1 1 - 1 769". I n Manifold Greatness: The Making ofthe King James Bible, edited by l lelen Moore and Julian Reid, 1 39- 1 6 1 . Ox CV) ford: Bodleian Library. Metzger, Bruce M . 200 1 . The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions. ........ Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. � ........ ·.;::; 171 £; Norton, David. 2000. A History ofthe English Bible as Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. N uovo, A. 20 1 0. ''The Book Trade in the I talian Renaissance: Structure and Regula tion." 46th Annual Erasmus Lecture, given at the University of Toronto October 2 1 , 20 I 0. Accessed February 1 3, 2 0 1 1 . http://www.medieval ists.net/20 1 0/ 1 1 I 1 4/the-book-lrade-in-the-italian-renaissance-structure and-regulation/. Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1 974. The Christian tradition: a history ofthe development of doctrine. Vol. 2 : The spirit o_f Eastern Christendom (600-1 700). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Postman, Neil . 2009. "What Is Media Ecology?" Accessed November 2, 20 1 1 . http://www. med ia-eco logy.org/media_ecology/index .htm I. Pym, Anthony. 2007. "On the Historical Epistemologies of Bible Translating." I n A History ofBible Translation, edited by Philip A. Noss, 1 96---2 1 5. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Silverstone, Roger. 1 994. Television and Everyday Life. London and New York: Routledge. Woodward, I an . 2007. Understanding Material Culture. Los Angeles: Sage Publica tions. Paul A. Soukup, S.J., explores the connections between communication, theology, media ecology, and other disciplines. From his i nterest in orality and11iteracy studies, he and Thomas J. Farrell have edited five volumes of the collected works of Walter J. Ong, S.J., and, most recently, O f Ong & Media Ecology (201 2). a collection 'of essays applying Ong to media ecology. He has worked with the American Bible Society's new media Bible translation project, editing Fidelity and Translation: Communicating the Bible in New Media, with Robert Hodgson (1 999). A graduate of the U niversity ofTexas in Austin (PhD, 1 985), Soukup now teaches in the Communication Department at Santa a· Clara University. Soukup serves on translation's editorial board. .....__ .....__ c...., 172

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translation speaks to Robert J.C. Young translation editor Siri Nergaard met with Robert J. C. Young i n New Your City o n September 1 4th 201 2 at the Nida Research Symposium. During the conversation Young expresses how, as a scholar of postcolonial studies, he became interested in translation and how he discovered that " translation in some sense is what postcolonial studies is all about. " After a discussion on the centrality of power in translation, the conversation shifts to empowerment and how, in the colonial context and elsewhere, this involves a three-stage process that includes the exper� ence of being translated, then of de-translation, and finally of retranslation of the self. Young explains how he intends " cultural translation, " a process in which he is particularly inter ested, especially in the sense of a specific practice. With examples from both Freud and Fanon, he explains how we can reconstruct such a practice-a practice that encloses a theory -through a kind of archaeology of how it has been performed in earlier idioms. ( I ssue 1 of translation contains Young's article " Frantz Fanon and the enigma of cultural trans lation"); (Robert Young's lecture at the 201 3 Nida Research Symposium was devoted to how Freud can be considered a theoretician of translation and how his psychoanalysis can be seen as a form of translation. The lecture can be accessed at the NSTS website: http://nsts.fusp.it/events/conferences-and-symposia). The discussion then deals with the question of whether it is necessary to limit the definition and use of the concept of translation, the authors who have meant the most to Young, and the theme of national languages and multilingualism. The interview with Young was recorded and can be viewed at the journal's website: http://translation.fusp. it/interviews NERGMRD: Since we are i nterviewing you for o u r journal called translation, the first question I would like to ask-and we a re very pleased to learn that you have been tor a quite long while now working and focusing more and more on translation-is why? How did you get into the question of translation ? YOUNG: Well, that's a n i nteresting question. I suppose in practical terms the fi rst time I cried to chink about translation in a postcolonial frame was when I was invited to give a talk at Mona Baker's MA i n Translation Studies at Manchester. There was a developing in terest i n translation i n my own field, postcolonial studies, with respect to translation studies, so I started getting people i n trans lation studies contacting me to ask about it. That led me to focus on an area of post-colonial studies that actually had al ready been developed quite considerably. Translation, after all, in some sense is what postcolonial studies is all about because it is about the (Y) degree to which h istorically colon ialism performed acts of trans lation, if we can speak metaphorically. --- --- � C C 173 What it added to that idea of cultural contact and transformation was of course the relation of power, which maybe had not been so prominent in translation studies i tself, although people l i ke Lawrence Venuti, from a slightly different angle, but in some sense already not entirely foreign to the postcolonial, had been developing i deas about the question of power in translation. So along with that was the role that translation actually performed h istorically as part of the colonial project or whatever you might l ike to call it. And chat agai n brings up the question of power, because the people who performed the acts of translation were generally the o nes who were empowered, and the translations chat they produced usuall y reflected their own concerns and needs, though of course chat's not unique co them, that happens today. Every translation in a way is l i ke that, but in the postcolo nial context it means that i t's possible to chart the transforma tions that translations produce in terms of translating one culture to another. An obvious example would be the translation of law in India, which began in the eighteenth century: the need of the British to establish information about how law operated in India i n Eng l ish rather than in either Persian or Sanskrit, because the re sources, particularly the Sanskrit, were inaccessible to chem. And yet when they translated, they did not j ust translate faithfully, they actually transformed the law in the act of translation. That transformation is particularly what I am i nterested in . The process which follows from that becomes the colonial question: how do I, as a colon ized person, or as a person who is in a situ ation being dominated by another power more generally-how do I retranslate myselP.-if my culture has been translated by a dominant foreign culture and I have been transformed into a dif ferent kind of being. The anticolon ial question, we could say, was precisely "How do I retranslate myself?" Boch Gandhi and Fanon argue, in di fferent ways, that before liberation could be successful, the people, the colonized people, needed to perform acts of translation personally in order to achieve independence. So there has been a long history of interaction of translation within the procedures of colonial and decolonizing acts. NERGMRD: It is interesting that you insist on the aspect of power, and I think the power question is an example of how much translation studies had learned from postcolonial studies so much that Edwin Gentzler and Maria - Tymoczko published a book called Translation and Power. They proposed that there is, or should be, or is on the way, a "turn " in translation studies al � :::, and that is the turn of power. That is interesting and I think that is a good � example of that dialogue. Another thing I would just ask you a little more a· ---al' :::, about is how do colon ized peoples retranslate themselves? There are --- s N w 174 also examples of the suba ltern who finds another way to translate him or herself, that is not as a dominated-but turn ing the terms arou nd so the question of power becomes more complex because it is not " I am dominated and you are the dominator" but I turn the terms around and maybe empower myself in retranslating myself. YOUNG: And that idea of empowering through translation is a very i n teresting one. Of course the very word "empower" is a relatively new word in many languages. We can l i nk it dramatically to the term "translate" in this context. Probably in that process there is going to be somethi ng of a procedure of de-translation in order to effect retranslation. You have got probably a three-way / three part scheme there, in terms of being translated, then de-trans lating yourself in order to retranslate yourself and that is, I would say, the procedure chat needs to be followed in the colonial con text. It is a procedure chat we can think of operating or using i n all sorts o f other contexts too--intellectually for example, as well as pol i tically. How do we de-translate ourselves out of certain i deological assumptions that we've been brought up with i n order to perform new aces o f translation ? NERGMRD: To describe this process, is that when you can use the term "cul tural translation" 7 YO UNG: Well, chat could be a way of describing what cultural transla tion performs and chat is something I have been particularly in terested i n. le is a difficult phrase, because translation is a hugely complex issue and culture is equally problematic, perhaps more problematic than translation. So, for example, the idea of cultural translation came from anth ropology; anthropologists i nvented that term, but actually they do not use it any more-it has been appropriated into cultural studies. And it tends to be used in a relatively loose way com pared to the way people use the term translation in translation studies. One of my int erests is to th ink more about chat concept of cultural translation and to develop ideas of how we can think about it as a more specific practice. It is not going to be obviously just a si ngle practice, but what does it really mean and what use is the word, either cultural or partic ularly translation, what is it doing there? Do people mean j ust change, or is there something more significant goi ng on? That is someth ing I have been i nterested i n recen tly. NERGAARD: And do you have some hypothesis-some clearer idea of where a deeper understanding of the concept of cultu ral translation might lead us7 a M YO UNG: What I have been tryi ng to do recently is to look for examples --- N of where people have in some sense written or theorized about --- � C 0 ·;:o "' 1,1 C 175 fg cultural translation, probably not even usi ng the term because it is a relatively new term. I n creasi ngly it seems to me that i t is something that there has been written about quite extensively in the twentieth century without actually been given that label. To take one example from Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents: of course he did not use the word "civilization," he used the word Kultur, a term that was not used i n English translation because i n the 1 920s the word "culture" in Engl ish already had a specific meaning relating to Engl ish-German rivalries, so it was not a neutral term. But i f we th ink abour that book as Culture and Its Discontents, you can see that Freud was actually talking about the effect of culture on individuals, i n a way he was talking about the process of cultural translation that we all undergo, and mak ing a rather bleak argument about it, but producing, it seems to me, a theory of it. So there are ways l ike that that we can usefully think about cultural translation as it has been performed in ear l ier idioms. N ERGAARD: Very interesting. Are there other authors who develop a theory of cultural translation, in you r opinion ? You have written on Fa non for the journal, and in his work, you see the concept of cultural translation, too. YOUNG: Yes, Fanon is very interesting. I have kept my eye open, but I have not actually found him using the word translation, and i n fact it i s an i nteresting gap i n h is work. But h e does use the word "muration" quite a lot, and when he uses the word muta tion, he is talking about chat process of transformation chat I was describing earlier. Obviously, i n some sense it is Fanon I was thi nking about when I was talking about that three-stage process of transformation. I n his famous essay "On Linguistic Aspects of Translation," Jakobson also uses that term as a syn onym for translation, although he calls it "transmutation," i n his third category. I chink it i s not unrealistic, i t is not stretching a point too far, to carry that transmuracion as a concept i nto Fanon and see chat as a form of translation, i n some sense; not in a literal translation, "translation proper," but in a wider sense. I chink Farron really makes translation central co h is whole argu ment. Throughout his l i fe, it's a guiding thread. NERGAARD: As you said, it is not translation in the literal sense. As you know, there is a debate regarding these different uses and definitions of trans lation and Harish Trivedi, for instance, argues that we should not speak - about cultural translation because then everything is translation. It seems that you are a bit on both sides. al "' :::, - � YOUNG: I n-between. --- 0 :::, --- OJ s N w 176 N ERGAARD: In one sense you say-Yes, that's a problem, if we use it in this loose way it loses significance, but on the other hand you reformu late it or you redefine it through your reading of authors who invoke a form of cultural translation, maybe even without calling it translation. Maybe that is the kind of solution you find, or do you feel you are in-between these two? YOUNG: Well, yes, f sympathize with the arguments that Trivedi makes and many other people who are working within the practice of translation in terms oflinguistic translation. I mean I can certainly see their point and i t is a reasonable one. On the other hand, they do not have a kind of legal copyright over translation. I n fact, i fyou look at the h istory of the word, the practice o f I i nguisric translation is not the earliest way in which the term translation i tself was used. In different languages, translation as a concept also i nvolves different words that have different h istories so that is very varied as well. What you might call the metaphorical use of the word translation, or what seems to us now to be the non l iteral use of the word translation, is as old as translation i tself So i t is a lost cause in the first place to try and limit i t to language only; and secondly, since i t has never been limited to language only, it seems to have survived perfectly well. At the end of the day it still works for what people want i t to mean i n a precise way. As the word translation i tself suggests, all meani ng is metaphorical. Therefore when th i nking about translation, which has the advantage of being a specific practice, ifyou feel you have lost your bearings, you can always go back to that. But it can be used as a way of thinking about other ki nds of translation. Equally, doing that works back into translation i tself, because when you start thinking about cultures, for example, which of course i n any modern contemporary description are heterogeneous and not bounded, you start wondering about translation and the de gree to which it assumes separate languages char are bounded, where you need some act of moving one to the other. That may be the case now because it has been constructed in that way, say in Europe, though even i n Europe actually it is not entirely the case. For example, French and Italian are not totally separate lan guages i n practice, as you know, particularly if you go to the bor ders of France or I taly or Switzerland. Sim ilarly in India, for ex ample, where languages have a different kind of relation, or Arabic would be a good example- Arabic is officially one language, but actually in a way it is many languages. So should we assume that translation is about the transformation of these entirely separate languages, or should we start to rethi n k that and think about the (") 0 d ifferences between interlingual and intrali ngual in Jakobson's terms? Of course it is useful to separate languages, but maybe --- N they are not so strictly demarcated as we rend to assume. --- � c:: 0 ·.;:::; !le <n 177 g N E RGAARD: Yes, maybe because we a re very conditioned by national lan guages, languages as national languages. YO UNG: Yes, exactly. When you think about any national language it is already languages. Take Icalian--of course in a written form it is usually one language, but spoken I talian is actually many lan guages, and that is true for most languages i n fact. N ERGAARD : I personally agree completely and we need to delve m uch more deeply into culture to learn more about how it works and then come back to practice and translating in order to u nderstand what it is. We have to go not directly from one language to the other or only focusing on the practice. YOUNG: Right. NERGAARD: When we understand what is happening in cultu re, then we u n derstand what is happening directly in the practice. YOUNG: Yes, because it is culture that has produced our concept of what a language is, so we cannot j ust operate with those terms without thinking about them-they are not just given thi ngs. N ERGAARD: We have been speaking about authors who do not speak explic itly about translation, except for Jakobson. But among authors who do discuss translation, who has been i mportant for you ? YOUNG: F o r m e I suppose most o f the classic texts o n translation I find very i n teresting- Benjamin, obviously, j ust as for everybody i n the world it seems sometimes, i s totally fascinating because he is so enigmatic-his "The Task of the Translator" is such an odd essay. I n particular the metaphors he uses are so tantalizing be cause i n certain respects they do not seem to be the correct metaphors for translation at all, so that is very engaging. The de gree to which Heidegger turns i nto issues of translation in phi losophy, issues about etymology that have been so differently, b ut i n a very related way, developed by Derrida, are particularly i nteresting to me. But of course, as soon as p h ilosophers start to talk about translation, they im mediately move i nto the register of language, because (aside from Derrida) they want to find a language which can i n some sense speak "truth" of some kind and that is always a problem for philosophers-they keep going i nto that but translation makes it problematic. At the same time � they also want to extend the idea of translation, so they want to al ::J 'c'?.. also say translation happens not j ust between languages, but it �- actually happens within languages-i t happens actually with --- 0 ::J every kind of conceptualization. So they too are always extending ---"' o!' s w 178 the concept of translation into, not cultural translation, but you might say conceptual translation, or conceptualization as a form of translation, so that I find fascinating too. And then l am also particularly interested in ideas of polylin gualism, linguistic multiplicity, and the theorists who have ap proached that issue, because I think again few of us actually think or operate-and certainly few societies- in one language. And again there is an assumption that societies are monolingual and that translation is about translating into the language of another society in some sense. But o ne of the things you see very quickly if you work in the field of the postcolonial is that certainly every postcolonial society that J can think of, as well as the metropol itan societies that embody that postcoloniality-they are all mul tilingual. We do not really recognize the degree to which in fact we live in a very mul tilingual environment all the time. We do not j ust hear one language; any day of the week we hear many languages and different people have different relations to those. So that again complicates this relation of fixed single languages. NERGAARD: Thank you very m uch. YO UNG: Pleasure. Robert J.C. Young, FBA, is Julius Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York U niversity. He has published White Mythologies. Writing History and the West ( 1 990); Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Culture, Theory and Race (1 995); Postcolo nialism: An Historical Introduction (2001 ); Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (2003); and The Idea of English Ethnicity (2008). He is Editor of the bimonthly Inter M 5 ventions.· International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, and was also a founding editor of the Oxford Literary Review. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. --- N Young is a member of translation's advisory board. E-mail: rjy2@nyu .edu --- � C 0 ·;:::; _,!? Cl) C 179 g; = = translation / fall / 201 3

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translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17541

[ { "Alternative": "Martha Cheung, In Memoriam ", "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": "On behalf o f translation's edi torial board I would l ike to express our deep sadness for the passing away of Martha Cheung. We will always remember her for her distinguished scholarship, her engagement for the \"international turn\" in translation studies, and her teaching. Her publications, among which the groundbreaking Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation (2006) are a milestone for students and scholars the world over.", "Format": null, "ISSN": "2240-0451", "Identifier": "17541", "Issue": "fall", "Language": "en", "NBN": null, "PersonalName": "Siri Nergaard", "Rights": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "Source": "translation. a transdisciplinary journal", "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": "Martha Cheung, In Memoriam ", "Type": "Text.Serial.Journal", "URI": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation", "Volume": "3", "abbrev": null, "abstract": null, "articleType": "Articles", "author": null, "authors": null, "available": null, "created": "2022-03-17", "date": null, "dateSubmitted": "2022-03-17", "doi": null, "firstpage": null, "institution": null, "issn": null, "issue": null, "issued": "2022-03-16", "keywords": null, "language": null, "lastpage": null, "modified": "2022-03-17", "nbn": null, "pageNumber": "182", "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": null, "url": null, "volume": null }, { "Alternative": null, "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": null, "Format": null, "ISSN": null, "Identifier": null, "Issue": null, "Language": null, "NBN": null, "PersonalName": null, "Rights": null, "Source": null, "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": null, "Type": null, "URI": null, "Volume": null, "abbrev": "ttj", "abstract": null, "articleType": null, "author": "Siri Nergaard", "authors": null, "available": null, "created": null, "date": "2013", "dateSubmitted": null, "doi": null, "firstpage": "182", "institution": null, "issn": "2240-0451", "issue": "fall", "issued": null, "keywords": null, "language": "en", "lastpage": "182", "modified": null, "nbn": null, "pageNumber": null, "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": "Martha Cheung, In Memoriam ", "url": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17541", "volume": "3" } ]

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Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17533

[ { "Alternative": "Introduction", "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": "Dear Reader,I am glad and proud to present translation's third issue: it is growing, we are surviving despite several difficulties, and we areable to present a varied content that continues to explore the many different aspects of the phenomena of translation. Both our readership and authorship are increasing, and we are continuing to accomplish our ambition of being transdisciplinary.", "Format": "application/pdf", "ISSN": "2240-0451", "Identifier": "17533", "Issue": "fall", "Language": "en", "NBN": null, "PersonalName": "Siri Nergaard", "Rights": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "Source": "translation. a transdisciplinary journal", "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": "Introduction", "Type": "Text.Serial.Journal", "URI": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation", "Volume": "3", "abbrev": null, "abstract": null, "articleType": "Articles", "author": null, "authors": null, "available": null, "created": "2022-03-17", "date": null, "dateSubmitted": "2022-03-17", "doi": null, "firstpage": null, "institution": null, "issn": null, "issue": null, "issued": "2022-03-16", "keywords": null, "language": null, "lastpage": null, "modified": "2022-03-17", "nbn": null, "pageNumber": "7-12", "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": null, "url": null, "volume": null }, { "Alternative": null, "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": null, "Format": null, "ISSN": null, "Identifier": null, "Issue": null, "Language": null, "NBN": null, "PersonalName": null, "Rights": null, "Source": null, "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": null, "Type": null, "URI": null, "Volume": null, "abbrev": "ttj", "abstract": null, "articleType": null, "author": "Siri Nergaard", "authors": null, "available": null, "created": null, "date": "2013", "dateSubmitted": null, "doi": null, "firstpage": "7", "institution": null, "issn": "2240-0451", "issue": "fall", "issued": null, "keywords": null, "language": "en", "lastpage": "12", "modified": null, "nbn": null, "pageNumber": null, "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": "Introduction", "url": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/download/17533/15423", "volume": "3" } ]

Introduction Dear Reader, I am glad and proud to present translation's third issue: it is growing, we are surviving despite several difficulties, and we are able to present a varied content that continues to explore the many different aspects of the phenomena of translation. Both our reader ship and authorship are increasing, and we are continuing to accom plish our ambition of being transdisciplinary. This does not in any way mean that we have reached our goal: we shall improve, grow, learn, change- always trying to be better. The better, as r see it, stands in a continuous eagerness of asking new questions about translation, never being satisfied with the answers we seem to have achieved. We need new questions, new people asking them, and I am sure we will discover new forms of translation where we didn't imagine it took place place, in unexpected fields and disciplines, among unexpected geographies and subjectivities, in unexpected layers of people's social and psychological lives. This issue repre sents translation's next step in this direction. The articles can be assembled in two main groups: one fo cusing on translation beyond written texts, as performance, as genre, as a means of cultural domination and liberation; the other address ing Bible translation. We begin with Kanchuka Dharmasiri's article that brings translation out on the streets, to social life and daily interactions of people, a place where I in the future would like to see more research. r n her streets of Sri Lanka, in postcolonial and alternative perform ance spaces, we find theatre, we find Brecht, in actual translational practices performed by political theatre groups of which she is "probing the politics of translations that occur in the margins." The kind of translation Dharmasiri is describing is "tran C") screative," envisaging a different translation model for theatre, where the director and translator are the same person. Transcreation ---- � generates "multiple meanings and constructlsl multiple realities," ---- C ·.::; C 7 going beyond a one-way process, demystifying the power of the Western text, the Western logos, and also revealing "the hybridity of the Western text." Chandrani Chatterjee delivers a "rethinking of genre and translation" in this issue's second article, arguing that the relation between the two has not received its due attention in translation studies. With reference to the so called Bengal renaissance she con vincingly demonstrates how the translation of literary genre is a par ticularly apt example of cultural translation, and how the "translations from the European languages into the native tongue affords many more interesting instances of cultural translation, ne gotiation, cross-overs, and departures, particularly with respect to a reconfiguration of generic boundaries." Quoting Bakhtin, Chat te1jee sees the phenomenon of the translation of a genre as the novel in Calcutta as the "answering word," as "active understanding," to analyse in the backdrop of the colonial encounter. A new genre, she asserts. "became the site of a dual struggle against the constraints of tradition on the one hand and the hegemonic tendencies inherent in the process of colonialism on the other." With a parallel to what we can read in Paul A. Soukup's ar ticle in this issue, Chatterjee considers the newly introduced printing press through the interesting example of the Bat-tala printers, show ing its decisive role in "translational departures": genre is transcre ated, reading habits change, oral and aural traditions are transformed, visual aesthetics is renovated. This focus on the inter relations between technology, materiality in general, iconography, and translation very welcome in this journal, since they remind us that translations emerge, exist, and change in socially and histori cally detem1ined situations, and can not in any way be reduced to written, textual elements. In the next article Edwin Gentzler analyses translation of Native American Literature, and again, as in the two preceding ar ticles, the setting is colonial and imperial. The translations he speaks about are "hidden," taking place "out-of-sight, behind the scenes, sous ratour or under erasure," in private intimate spheres, among - family members, in oral and often whispered forms, and, frequently involving trauma and repressed memory. Gentzler is taking an im portant step towards the necessary archaeology of the plurality of --- languages, expressions, voices, stories, and dances that have been --- i,j' u.) 8 repressed by the powerful US-English-only policy. Drawing upon Arnold Krupat's term of "anti-imperial translation," and works gen erally not included in translation scholars' references-but in which translation is everywhere present-Gentzler goes beyond the bor ders of both traditional terminology and the limits of what transla tion is. He discusses it in relation to conversion, elimination, and domestication and gives examples of where we can find imperial as well as anti-imperial translations. The anti-imperial translation characterized by a multidirectional flow reminds us of the transcre ative multi-meaning translations described by both Dharmasiri and Chatterjee in the two former articles, thus creating intertextual con nections and suggestions. The reader will notice that Gentzler's article appears differ ent from the others, in that it is broken up to parts and sections, in teracting with other forms of texts, both written and iconic. Gentzler and I have been discussing how we could textually and visually cre ate a more open text that in its manifestation is translative, transcre ative, and intersemiotic, and with our publisher's help we have tried to give a visual form to these ideas. The side bars, links, images, boxes, and even an article inside the article, create a kind of palimpsest that suggests nonlinear, non homogeneous, non mono lingual ideas and ideals. It is our wish to generate a new and open text space, that is already intentionally interacting with new forms of writing and translating that can be developed further in the elec tronic space of the journal's online version. The various internet links will obviously get their complete realisation when they appear on line. Gentzler's article should also be read as an example of the kind of articles that we very much appreciate in this journal. The three articles devoted to very different aspects regarding Bible translation represent our journal's interest in investigating the deeply relevant question of the translation of religious/holy texts. It is our impression that we are still in search of a language to study this kind of texts-the most translated texts of all times-limited by the contradiction that they are at the same time considered the most untranslatable of texts, and that we still need to overcome both (Y) prejudices and taboos surrounding them. To achieve this a transdis ----- ciplinary approach is no doubt necessary: holy scriptures scholars � ----- ·,:;; 9 have to meet with cultural studies scholars, historians with transla tion studies scholars, anthroplogists with semioticians. Let us con sider the three articles of this issue as a beginning towards this new transdisciplinary language for the study of the translation of holy/re ligious texts. Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole's article analyzes linguistic dif ferences in the Greek and Swahili texts of the New Testament from an intercultural perspective. The intercultural method, as alternative to the functional method that has dominated contemporary Bible translation, is, according to the author, able to reduce the gap that some approaches have created between exegesis and translation, and is built on a triple-rather than dual-frame of reference: the original biblical culture, church culture, and a contemporary target culture. For the sake of a constructive dialogue between the original and the translation, Loba-Mkole concludes, these three cultures have to be included in any study of Bible translation. A completely different aspect of Bible translation is ap proached by Lourens de Vries in his analysis of the so-called "Ro mantic Turn" in Bible translation and its development with the two German philosophers Buber and Rosenzweig as its protagonists. This turn is relevant to our field, he states, because of the way it puts the theme of otherness and foreignness on the agenda. With reference to what Lawrence Venuti calls the Romantic emphasis on foreignization, de Vries analyses Buber and Rosenzweig's transla tion project of the Bible, Die Schrift. De Vries underlines how much their project reflected the philosophical and Jewish tradition the two translators were part of, and how much their translation is a result of a precise hermeneu tic-interpretative position, as for instance expressed in the colomet ric structuring of the texts with the purpose of liberating the spoken Ur-reality imprisoned in the written form, the oral-aural dimension, the Leitworte. Such a translation emphasized the literary dimension of the Bible, a very much appreciated strategy in the postwar period and followed by many radical translators in the Western world. Interestingly, de Vries demonstrates how literalism and for eignization are not expressions of only one strategy, but may re spond to different, and even opposite, purposes. And the irony is, he continues, that the purpose of either foreignization or domesti ---- cation often produced the opposite effect. ---- w 10 The Bible's combination of a material object and spiritual text is the theme of Paul A. Soukup's article, especially when its translation into a vernacular becomes a mass-produced object des tined for publication as an "authorized" version for a national church. With a media ecology perspective that considers the inter action and interdependence between communication technologies and social practices, he considers the Bible as a communication phe nomenon, yes as a "normal" text, essentially demonstrating the same qualities as any other mass-produced text. Soukup concen trates on the King James Bible, the revised English translation that was to have such a wide diffusion and profound social impact thanks to Gutenberg's invention. According to Soukup the printing press is only one of eleven contexts of social practices included in a media ecology perspective, among which there are also the book trade, the scholarly world, the practices of translation, libraries, and politics. The reader will notice that the present issue includes articles by three members of this journal's boards: Edwin Gentzler and Paul A. Soukup, who are members of the editorial board, and Lourens de Vries of the journal's advisory board. With such a marked pres ence of "ourselves" we want to share our identities with our readers: we are not invisible, objective, and neutral beings, but rather active members of the community we are trying to create, whose voices also have to be heard. In my introduction to issue two l compared the journal to a growing plant, still with barely formed roots and only a few small flowers. Now, the roots are a little more vigorous and there are quite a few new flowers. Sherry Simon's arrival as a new member of the journal's advisory board is, I feel, one of the most important achievements in this fertile process. l am honoured to welcome her, and grateful that she has accepted our invitation. By way of intro duction, I would like to invite you to watch the interview l did with her in May, when she was one of the The Nida School of Translation Studies' professors. The video is available via the journal's on line version at http://translation.fusp.it/ During the conversation she il lustrates her special interest in the different layers and forms of --- translation that occur in multilingual cities. This aspect will be ex- --- � ·.;::; 11 plored further in the future special issue, "Spaces and Places," which she will be guestediting together with Federico Montanari. The happy news of Simon's joining the advisory board is unfortunately countered by the sad news of Martha Cheung's pre mature passing away. Martha has always been an important and supportive member of the journal's advisory board from the very outset, and we have decided to respectfully dedicate the closing pages of this issue to an In Memoriam for Martha Cheung. S. N. �. ---- ai' ---- w 12

Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17532

[ { "Alternative": "Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka", "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": "Current theories of translation and theacer, predominanrly centered in a Euro-American context, are of limited applicability co settings that are cul rurally, economically, and socio-politically different from professional and mainstream cheater spaces in the west. This paper explores the possibilities of expanding theories of cheater translation through an interrogation of actual cranslacionalpractices chat rake place in posccolonial and alternative performance spaces. This question is examined eh rough the transcreacions of Brechc's work by the Wayside and Open Theatre, the first political cheater group in Sri Lanka, analyzing how they transform Brecht into powerful street performances chat scrutinize the nature of power, violence, and silence in a posccolonial space. By examining these performances, I intend to reconsider accepted notions in studies of theacer translation such as the assumed dichotomy between translator and director. The study also explores the complex modes of transference and recransference of power characterizing cheater translations in posrcolonial spaces. I will also explore the multiple variables that come into play in cheater translations in alternative cheater settings, and discuss why the term \"cranscrearion\" would be appropriate in identifying chis process.", "Format": "application/pdf", "ISSN": "2240-0451", "Identifier": "17532", "Issue": "fall", "Language": "en", "NBN": null, "PersonalName": "Kanchuka Dharmasiri", "Rights": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "Source": "translation. a transdisciplinary journal", "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": "Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka", "Type": "Text.Serial.Journal", "URI": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation", "Volume": "3", "abbrev": null, "abstract": null, "articleType": "Articles", "author": null, "authors": null, "available": null, "created": "2022-03-17", "date": null, "dateSubmitted": "2022-03-17", "doi": null, "firstpage": null, "institution": null, "issn": null, "issue": null, "issued": "2022-03-16", "keywords": null, "language": null, "lastpage": null, "modified": "2022-03-17", "nbn": null, "pageNumber": "13-35", "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": null, "url": null, "volume": null }, { "Alternative": null, "Coverage": null, "DOI": null, "Description": null, "Format": null, "ISSN": null, "Identifier": null, "Issue": null, "Language": null, "NBN": null, "PersonalName": null, "Rights": null, "Source": null, "Sponsor": null, "Subject": null, "Title": null, "Type": null, "URI": null, "Volume": null, "abbrev": "ttj", "abstract": null, "articleType": null, "author": "Kanchuka Dharmasiri", "authors": null, "available": null, "created": null, "date": "2013", "dateSubmitted": null, "doi": null, "firstpage": "13", "institution": null, "issn": "2240-0451", "issue": "fall", "issued": null, "keywords": null, "language": "en", "lastpage": "35", "modified": null, "nbn": null, "pageNumber": null, "readable": null, "reference": null, "spatial": null, "temporal": null, "title": "Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka", "url": "https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/download/17532/15422", "volume": "3" } ]

Brecht in the Streets of Sri Lanka Kanchuka Dharmasiri University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka [email protected] Abstract: Current theories of translation and theacer, predominanrly centered in a Euro-American context, are of limited applicability co settings that are culrur ally, economically, and socio-politically different from professional and main stream cheater spaces in the west. This paper explores the possibilities of expanding theories of cheater translation through an interrogation of actual crans lacional practices chat rake place in posccolonial and alternative performance spaces. This question is examined ehrough the transcreacions of Brechc's work by the Wayside and Open Theatre, the first political cheater group in Sri Lanka, analyzing how they transform Brecht into powerful street performances chat scrutinize the nature of power, violence, and silence in a posccolonial space. By examining these performances, I intend to reconsider accepted notions in studies of theacer translation such as the assumed dichotomy between translator and di rector. The study also explores the complex modes of transference and recrans ferencc of power characterizing cheater translations in posrcolonial spaces. I wiU also explore the multiple variables that come into play in cheater translations in alternative cheater settings, and discuss why the term "cranscrearion" would be appropriate in identifying chis process. Introduction You artists who pe1form plays In great houses under electric suns Before the hushed crowd, pay a visit sometime To that theatre whose setting is the street. The everyday, thousandfold, fameless But vivid, earthy theatre fed by the daily human contact Which takes place in the street. 1 In "On Everyday Theatre," Brecht entreats artists who per form "under electric suns" to observe everyday theater whose set- M 0 N 1 Berto It Brecht, "On Everyday Theatre." in Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956. trans. John Willet and Ralph ....... Manheim (New York: Methuen. 1976), 176. J§ ....... C: 0 ·.;::, ro <n C: 13 � ting is the street . Theater in the streets, for him, is dai ly interactions of people and he implores artists not to "become remote" from this theater, "l h lowever much l they l perfect l theirl art." In this equa tion , B recht establishes a dist inction between the artists in great houses and the people, but ignores the artist who steps to the streets with the specific i ntention of performing for the people. Perhaps this omission occurs because Brecht's own work was confined to great houses , as his mission was to pol iticize the works that oc curred inside them . 2 The street theater artist, however, takes Brecht's entreaty one step further, estab l ishing a connection with "everyday theatre" by taking their performances to the streets . Brecht 's invocation for the artist to investigate outside spaces ex tends beyond the theater artist to the l iterary critic when M i khai l Bakhtin i l lustrates the necessity of examining "the social life of dis course outside the art ist's study, di scourse in the open spaces of public squares , streets , cities and v i l l ages, of social groups" ( Bakhtin 1 98 1 , 259) in order to understand the dynamics of l i ving and evolving l anguage . I n this way, B recht and Bakhtin invite artists and critics to venture out of "grand houses" and the "aitist's study" into open spaces in order to witness "earthy theater" and the "st i l l evolving contemporary reality" ( Bakhtin 1 98 1 , 7 ) , thus shift ing away from the center toward an inquiry into the marginal and interstitial spaces. NgugT wa Thiong'o expands the debate by speak ing about the necessi ty of "moving the center in 1 - . . I two senses - between nations and within nations" (NgugT wa Thiong'o 1 993 , 1 7) . He points out the significance of surpassing presumed centers of knowledge beyond the borders of the Euro-American context and speaks of "the need to move the centre from its assumed loca tion in the West to a multipl icity of spheres in all the cultures of the world" (NgugT wa Thiong'o I 993 , I 6) . He furthermore i l lustrates the need to engage w ith local languages . Though translation theorists have ventured beyond "loca tion ! s I in the West" to engage with translation practices in "multi plicity of spheres" in the world, studies of translation and theater 2 In "Theater-in-the-street and the theater-in-theater." Peter Handke states, "Despite his revolutionary in tent. Brecht was so very hypnotized by the idea of theater that his revolutionary intent always kept within the bounds of taste, in that he thought it tasteful that the spectators, since they remain spectators, should �. (be allowed to) enjoy themselves unlit" (Handke 1 998, 8) The notion of the unlit audience is mostly present --- in performances that take place in enclosed theater buildings. --- w 14 remain predominantly centered on mainstream theater settings in the Euro-American context. As a result, they do not always lend themselves to the elucidation of translational practices in alternative theater spaces-both in the global north and the global south-and theater models in diverse "cultures of the world." An inquiry into such modalities opens up a space to examine variables that have not entered the theater translation debate thus far. In this paper, I propose to explore the possibilities of expanding theories of theater translation through an interrogation of actual translational practices that take place in postcolonial and alternative performance spaces, specifically examining the works of the Wayside and Open Theatre, the first political theater group in Sri Lanka. In doing so, I move from the Euro-American context to a postcolonial setting and from mainstream theater practices to alternative performance spaces, probing the politics of translations that occur in the margins. Through an inquiry into these practices, I intend to reconsider cer tain accepted notions in studies of theater translation such as the assumed dichotomy between the translator and the director of a play. The study also explores the complex modes of transference and retransference of power that characterize theater translations that occur in postcolonial spaces. Engaging with Ronaldo de Cam pos's and Gamini Haththotuwegama's ideas related to various modes of translational/transcreational practice, I will also discuss why the term "transcreation" would be a more apt way of identify ing this process. Although Brecht, in urging artists to be inspired by the "earthy theater" of the streets, did not envision the possibility of the artist performing in the streets, his ideas have inspired many street theater artists and his works have been translated and tran screated in a variety of ways and taken to diverse audiences. It is to transcreations of Brecht's work that I turn in my effort to envis age a different translational model for theater. I will examine how his parable "Measures against Power," a text that scrutinizes the nature of power, violence, and silence, is transforn1ed into a potent political theater piece in the Sri Lankan streets. Since the group constantly questions hegemonic power structures, it becomes in teresting to see how they utilize this text in a transcreated form to address issues that are endemic to the current political situation in --- their respective contexts. The work goes through a tremendous --- � 15 process of transformation in the transcreation process and assumes a life of its own, integrating local idioms and cultural signs while retaining the basic ideas of Brecht 's work. Translators and Directors One of the ongoing debates regarding theater translation concerns the place of the theater text. Many translation theorists maintain that the theater text is singular because of its performance aspects, which means that it cannot be translated in the same fash ion as any other text. As Susan Bassnett claims,"! t lhe linguistic sys tem is only one optional component in a set of interrelated systems that comprise the spectacle" ( Bassnett 1 980 , 1 20) and the process where the linguistic sign is transferred into another and subse quently retransferred on to a visual and auditory spectacle is a mul tilayered one. As a result , "l t lheatre texts, and therefore also their translation, do not necessarily follow the same rules as texts in a literary system" (Aaltonen 2000, 7). The auditory and visual com ponents and the live audience that factor in the final product make theater texts different from other textual translations. Apart from the agreed factor of the particular nature of the theater text , many theoretical discussions of translating in theater are contingent on certain other assumed notions about the theater system . For one, there seems to be a consensus about the strict di vision between the role of the translator and the role of the director. Since they are perceived as performing separate acts, some theorists are intent on finding strategies to bridge this gap. Otrun Zuber, re iterating the boundary between the translator and director, proposes a scenario where the translator "producel s l a reading edition l of the play I in the target language with comprehensive notes" and af firms that "l t l his would mean that the translator only points out the problems and the producer is left to solve them" (Zuber 1 980, 73). Furthermore, the relationship between the two is presented as an tagonistic when Phillis Zatlin asserts that "theatrical translators wish to be involved in the dynamics of rehearsals, standing in as the author's surrogate. But far too frequently, the translator is shunned aside" (Zatlin 200S, 4). In both cases, there is a strict sep aration established between the translator and the director, and in the latter case the relationship is even perceived as hostile . In fact, --era· most of the theories are contingent on the idea that the theater trans- -- w 16 lator and director are two different people; the process is seen as anything but a collaborative one. Susan Bassnett, who has extensively explored the complex ities inherent in theater translations, proceeds to make a distinction between the translator and the director in "A Case against Per formabi I ity": whi lst the principal problems facing a director and performers involves the transposing of the verbal into the physical , the principal problems facing the translator involve close engagement with the text on page and the need to find solutions for a series of problems that are primarily linguistic ones-differences in register involving age, gender, social position . etc. (Bassnett 1 99 1 , 1 1 1 ) Bassnett clearly demarcates the roles of the translator, director, and performers. The translator's main problems are "primarily linguistic ones" based on the specifics of the context, whereas the director 's problems involve the transposition of the verbal signs into physical ones. She argues that deciphering the gestic and visual signs is not a part of the translator 's task. In fact, Bassnett's main argument in the essay is centered on critiqu ing the notion of performability, claiming that it is not a universal concept and should not be given prime importance in the process of translating plays: "The theatre texts cannot be considered as identical to texts written to be read because the process of writing involves a consideration of the per formance dimension, but neither can an abstract notion of perform ance be put before textual considerations" ( Bassnett 1 99 1 , 1 1 1 ). She is opposed to the idea of giving primacy to the idea of perfor mativity when i t comes to the translation of a theater text. Yet, in the case where a play translation is done with the specific aim of being performed, the idea of performance is no longer "an abstract notion" and is as concrete as the textual considerations. Such a du ality between the written text and the performance is also ques tioned when the dichotomy between the translator and director is questioned. In fact, the performability factor gains ultimate signif icance when a translator/director translates with the distinct aim of performance because linguistic, gestural, visual, auditory, and a myriad of performative elements, ' as well as the as the ideology of both systems, come into play. 3 If a text is translated with the idea of being performed, performativity becomes such a significant dimen --- sion ot the process. --- � C ·.::; C 17 � Among translation theorists who write about theater, Andre Lefevere is one who does not make a strict separation between translators and directors in his works . Most of the examples he gives are of plays that are translated with the distinct intention of being performed.4 Referring to H. R. Hayes's, Eric Bentley's, and Ralph Manheim's translations of Brecht's Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder/Mother Courage and Her Children in the United States ( 1 94 1 , 1 967 , and 1 972 , respectively) , Lefevere ( 1 998 , 1 09- 1 2 1 ) contends that theater translations are predominately influenced by the ideology of the receiving system, with the semiotic shifts in the translated texts occurring in response to the ideological workings of the target system: He states that " l t lranslations are produced under constraints that go far beyond those of natural language-in fact, other constraints are often much more influential in the shap ing of the translation than are the semantic or I inguistic ones" (Lefe vere 2000 , 237). He illustrates how Eric Bentley and Hayes translate Mother Courage with the distinct aim of a subsequent per formance of the play for a mainstream Broadway audience.5 Though Bentley and Hayes are not the directors of the play, their intent of translating the play with a specific audience in mind changes the way in which the translation occurs . Thus, Hayes's mo tivation to depoliticize Brecht,6 to separate him from Marx, does not occur as a result of his close engagement with the text, but be cause of his desire to get the play approved to be performed in the United States , and, more specifically, in the commercial space of Broadway. If the politics of the receiving culture worked to diminish the political dimensions of Brecht's works when they were trans lated for the mainstream Broadway audience in the United States, the opposite occurs when Brecht is transported to the alternative theater setting in Sri Lanka, where Brecht's political ideas are used to critically probe an array of power politics within the target cul ture and to offer a rereading of Brecht's text. The artist there is more •1 In the examples he provides, none of the translators are the directors of the plays, but he does not proceed from a preconceived notion of a director- translator binary. 5 Lefevere illustrates how "Hays and Bentley also do their best to integrate the songs, which Brecht uses as the 'alienation effect' par excellence, fully into the play, approximating the model of the musical" llefe vere 1 998. 1 1 5). Such transformations occur in terms of language. form, structure. and ideology as well. 6 Lefevere shows the way "Hays also weakens the obvious connection between war and commerce in the -... person of Mother Courage by omitting [certain] lines Brecht gives her" llefevere 2000. 244). ar- -... w 18 intent on accentuating the political aspects and sharpening the po litical edge of the work. Theater in the streets of Sri Lanka W hile Bassnett, Lefevere, and Zuber speak about diverse aspects of translating in theater, the examples they consider are mostly European or American-based. Most of the the orists, except for Lefevere, also view the trans lator and director in binary terms, which is just one example of the ways in which a fundamen tal disconnect can arise in an attempt to apply these theoretical notions to theater translation Dining. in spaces that are culturally, economically, and sociopolitically different from the ones these theoreticians refer to. In Sri Lanka, for exam ple, a strict division of tabor does not charac terize theater practice;7 in fact, in this setting, the translator and director are often the same person. W hen one moves out of mainstream theater settings to practices of street theater in The guest asking for help. alternative spaces, one encounters yet another set of circumstances. The world that the street theater artist inhabits is one that is different from the study of the individual writer. The street theater artist 's work is based on discussions. workshops, and group activities where pe1formers work in unison to build up a par ticular piece.s In this context, the transcreation process can also be one in which several people participate. Also, as with the cases of the Wayside and Open Theatre, the translation could occur during the rehearsal process. There is input from other participants and the work is not based on an individual's isolated tabor. Though there are many aspects of the process of translation that take place in alternative theater spaces, in this article I focus on understanding the workings of the translation process when the 7 Translation has played a decisive role in the development of modern Sinhala theater and theater trans (Y) lations remain to this day one of the main components of the art form. 8 This type of dynamic occurs in alternative theater practices in Euro-American contexts as well, particularly ------- in works by community and devised theater groups. My focus in this article is alternative performance � spaces in the postcolonial context and thus will not be expanding this area. ------- ·.:, 19 g translator and the director are the same person. In such a context, the translator/director has to consider a multiplicity of elements ranging from the linguistic, visual, and auditory to the spatial, and needs to deliberate the ideological dimensions embedded in all these elements . M y exploration of this question is thus closely Taking a bath. related to the hegemonic power relations that exist between the source and the target cultures and the director/translator 's efforts to negotiate the ideological dimensions of the process. If the translator/director 's sole idea of translating a play is dependent on a future production, how does that change the trajectory of the transla tional process? In such a context, the translator does not have the luxury to leave physical, ges Taking a bath. tic, and verbal interpretations for the director or the performer and often works with a clear direction in mind . For example, for a director/translator such as Gamini Haththo tuwegama, one of the pioneers of the Wayside and Open Theatre, the main purpose of trans lating Brecht and Chekhov was to take "clas sic" texts to people who do not generally have the chance to experience them. When the goal is clearly defined, and the binary between the translator and director is nonexistent, and trans Listening to the Fox-girl story. lation in theater acquires a different signifi- cance . The translator/director has to think beyond the linguistic aspects of the text to envision the ways in which the text will be enacted with regards to its gestural, visual, auditory, and performative aspects. In order to address this dy namic, I will examine several elements that enter the translator/di rector 's repertoire as he transcreates a specific piece in a context far different from the one in which it was originally created. The translational works l explore here are not originally dramatic texts per se , but transcreations of Brecht's poems and parables into the atrical pieces. ---or- --- w 20 Transcreation and the Postcolonial Performance Space In my discussion thus far, I have fluctuated between the terms translation and transcreation. In many senses, the term tran screation is more apt at capturing the process that the street theater artist in the postcolonial setting is engaged in. The notion of tran screation entered translation studies through the work of the Brazil ian poet , critic, and translator H aroldo De Campos. For him , translation "is less an act of synthesizing or an act of resolution of the contradictions than a radical operation of transcreation (opera cao radical de transcriacao 1 98 1 : 1 8) that creates new, tangential lines of communication" (Gentzler 2008 , 1 3). He sees translation "as transgressive appropriation and hybridism (or cross-breeding) as the dialogic practice of expressing the other and expressing one self through the other, under the sign of difference" ( De Campos 1 997 , 1 3). In such a view, the linear teleology of translation, the assumption of a knowledge flow from one direction to the other is questioned. What occurs instead is a more complex integration of difference, creating a dialogic relationship between the two texts and contexts. De Campos develops his conception of transcreation through his engagement with Oswald de Andrade's "Cannibalist Manifesto ." De Campos especially points out the phrase "Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question," calling it a "phonic usurpation, a mistranslation by homophony, of Shakespeare's famous dilemmatic verse" ( De Campos 1 997 , 1 3). Thus , while "Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question" immediately evokes the quandary of the uncertain Prince of Denmark, for the Brazilian audiences, it also evokes the "the general language spoken by Brazilian Indians at the time of Brazi 1 's discovery" ( De Campos 1 997, 1 3 ) , which references the colonial moment, conjuring up images of the massacre of the native inhabitants. Translation becomes a "transgressive appropriation" within such contexts where the rewriting opens up space for mul tiple meanings and significations . Thus, this process of appropria tion , or to use De Campos's term , devouring, is not carried out "from a submissive and reconciled perspective of the ' good sav age,' but from a brazen point of view of the 'bad savage' devourer of white people, anthropophagus" ( De Campos 1 997 , 1 4). Slightly resonating with Caliban's famous utterance, "You taught me lan (Y) guage, and my profit on't/ls I know how to curse" (Shakespeare --- 2007 , I.ii.366-368), where the learning of the master's language en- --- � ·.:c 21 ables Caliban to curse him, in this instance, the "bad savage" irrev erently devours the master's text and transcreates it through an in tegration of local traditions and knowledges. Translation becomes a "radical act of transcreation." Consequently, rather than uncritical ly embracing texts com ing from the West, the anthropophagic translator takes the essence of the works and transforms them to address the Brazilian cultural political context. This concept gives more agency to the translator and to the formerly colonized subject rendering her an active cre ator of knowledge. As Edwin Gentzler states, "I s luch a rewriting of European classics through the phonetic and cultural background of Brazil results in new meanings and insights unique to Brazil that get woven into a sophisticated translation practice that leads to new definitions of translation as transcreation or transculturalization" (Gentzler 2008, 82). The hegemonic relationship between the col onizer and the colonized, the "classic" Western text and indigenous traditions is questioned in this context and the "European classics" are no longer perceived as ultimate "nuggets of knowledge" (Woolf 1 929, 3). They become acculturated and transformed by the cultural practices of Brazil. Speaking about the discovery of "the English book" (the Bible) , and specifically referencing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Dark ness, Homi Bhabha argues that a reversion of power occurs when the English book is not taken to be the ultimate authority, but a source of ambivalence which enables the colonized subject to vi sion a mode of resistance. H e asserts that If the effect of the colonial power is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the noisy command of colonial authority or the silent repression of native traditions, then an important change of perspective occurs . It reveals the ambivalence at the source of traditional discourses on authority and enables a form of subversion, founded on that uncertainty that turns the discursive conditions of dominance into the grounds of intervention. (Bhabha 1 994 , I 60) Both De Campos and Bhabha question the primacy of the Western word, the logos albeit in two contexts. Their premise-the idea of seeing colonial power as creating hybridization rather than merely serving as a mode of authority-directs one towards a change of perspective. [n such a situation, "Tupi or not Tupi" is a· ---iiI' Hamlet, but also the language of the Brazilian Indians. While Ham- --- w 22 let is struggling to protect his father 's legacy, "The Cannibalist Manifesto" appropriates the lines and in the "phonic usurpation" draws attention to the colonial situation and the destruction and dilemma caused by the colonial legacy. H ence , rather than follow ing a teleological trajectory, meaning speaks to multiple levels and directions. I would like to bring Gamini Haththotuwegama to the tran screational debate at this point. Though H aththotuwegama has not explicitly written about translation . he has extensively spoken about it through his practical engagement in the field.'' One of the pioneers of political street theater in Sri Lanka, Haththotuwegama was a scholar. writer, performer, and director. H e was a translator who transcreated works such as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Midsummer Night 's Dream , and Jean Anouilh's The Lark to be performed in mainstream and alternative theater spaces, and also transcreated works by Brecht and Chekhov for the Wayside and Open Theatre . Growing up, Haththotuwegama was firmly enmeshed in an English language and literature background and exposed to traditional per formances from a young age. He started his theatrical life doing English theater, but changed the direction of his theatrical ventures in a fundamental way in the 1 970s by becoming a part of the street theater group. 1 0 Deviating from an urban theater practice that he saw as exclusively addressing a middle class audience , he worked with the group to take theater to disparate audiences all over the country. H aththotuwegama preferred the word transcreation over translation. He used the term transcreation to indicate how a text from a specific context goes through a linguistic and cultural trans formation and takes on a new form and meaning in a different so ciopolitical and cultural setting. From his time as an English teacher and then subsequently a lecturer in the Depaitment of English and Fine Arts, his works were a mixture of Western works and indige- 9 He presented a paper on translation titled "Translation Theory Drives Me Mad: An Anti-Pedagogical Con fession" for the second annual translation conference held in 2005 in Kandy, Sri Lanka. His talk is not recorded, but his abstract remains. H• The Wayside and Open Theatre formed as an alternative, nonformal theater in 1 974. Moving away from C") the predominately bourgeois proscenium theaters, they performed in the streets, factories, temple premises, ----- universities, and urban slum areas. It was the group's stated goal to make theater spectatorship an intel J§ lectual. critical exercise for as many people as possible. ----- ·.;::; 23 nous traditions. In 1 96 1 , he produced Shakespeare in Sarong , 1 1 the title itself indicating the transformation of the bard to a Sri Lankan setting, where "good old Shakespeare appeared as Narrator, clad in long cloth and coat, sporting a 'konde' and twirling an umbrella" ( Haththotuwegama 2005, 345). Shakespeare, the bard in traditional garb, thus becomes incorporated into the local setting. Yet, his idea was not merely predicated on turning Shakespeare into a local char acter, embodying indigenous characteristics . It was based on a larger idea of culture and encounters. His question, "Certainly, if we grew up with Shakespeare, why not have alternative Shake speare growing up with us?" ( Haththotuwegama 20 1 2, 345 ) , shows the possibility of generating multiple meanings and constructing multiple realities. A space opens up to question the monolithic idea of a Shakespeare and expand Shakespeare to myriad possibilities. Ashley Halpe recalls Haththotuwegama's transcreation of Hamlet: 1 2 its "style was highly eclectic, drawing on the Nadagam, Kol am and Nurti 1 3 forms of the Sinhala theater, on the director 's substantial experience of the political Street Drama which he developed for Sri Lanka, and on some British and continental models and read ings" ( Halpe 20 1 0, 56) . The creative transcreation of Hamlet occurs in a space that interweaves Shakespeare, Western theatrics , indige nous theater forms , and the political street theater. Halpe asserts that, "fluid, 'rough,' dynamic, this production liberated Shake speare" ( Halpe 20 1 0, 59) . Haththotuwegama's production of Hamlet was done for a predominately university audience with a cast drawn mostly from the student body and some of the parts enacted by street theater performers. The situation was similar in the trilingual transcreation of Brecht's poem, " Difficulty of Governing." He created this play with his students at Kelaniya University, with the participation of some members of the street theater group. Neloufer de Mel recalls how they built the piece "workshop style [ .. . [ dramatizing each 1 1 A fabric wrapped around the waist traditional attire in South Asia. 12 Hamlet was translated by Haththotuwegama, Gamini Fonseka Edirisingha. and Lakshman Fernando. Haththotuwegama and Haig Karunarathne codirected the play. It was first performed in 1 990. u Nadagam was a folk drama in which stylistic dances and music were used. K51am, a ceremony that uti lized masks and stylized performance methods. was a performance practice that belonged to the coastal areas of Sri Lanka. Some of these performances still exist today, but not as often as before. Nurti, which �- were popular in the cities, consisted mostly of musicals and ohen were direct replicas of Indian Parsee ---- pieces. ---- w 24 verse."' 4 Brecht's poem about power and governance transformed into a forty-minute play, offering a satirical commentary on the changing political and economic landscape in Sri Lanka. In 1 977, the newly elected United National Party government instituted the executive presidency, centralizing power around the presidential office, 1 '' and the play interweaved this historic fact into the poem, reinventing the Brecht poem in a contemporary Sri Lankan context. The play was episodic in structure, integrating traditional dance movements, transformed folk songs, and local idioms . Brecht's lines such as "Without ministers/ Corn would grow into the ground, not upward'*' paved the way for the group to satirize recent polit ical events such as politicians taking part in paddy harvesting while wearing tennis shoes. 1 ·' Haththotuwegama states that the current political situation in Sri Lanka enabled them to further elicit the humor from the Brecht poem. Quite ironically, the trilingual Brecht transcreation was banned in 1 978 for criticizing the government. Haththotuwegama's concept of transcreation resembles that of De Campos's idea in certain ways. Though he does not use a de vouring metaphor, he does conceive translation as going beyond a one-way process. He inquires, " I i If translation is 'hegemonic,' is it a one-way process necessarily? While 'creating contexts of gover nance' does it not I iberate them? If there is 'transference of power through language' isn't there possibly a re-trans ference of power?" ( Haththotuwegama 2005). Thus, there is a tendency on the part of postcolonial translators and practitioners to see translation as more than a mere transference of power in one direction . W hile transla tion creates contexts of governance , it also functions to liberate them; thus the need for alternate Shakespeares. These theorists question the notion of the one directional epistemic flow. Knowl edge is more multifaceted; the moment Shakespeare enters the Sri Lankan setting, he encounters difference, and this difference helps render Shakespeare more creative and dynamic , liberating him. Such an act has fu1ther implications. Haththotuwegama asse1ts that "I think the very act of going to our own creative works and going 1 ➔ Interview with Neloufer de Mel. Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2010. 1 .< The balance of power between executive. legislature. and judiciary was changed in favor of the execu tive. 1 6 Bertolt Brecht, "Difficulty of Governing," 295. --- 17 Interview with Haththotuwegama. Bokundara. Sri Lanka. 201 0. --- � ·.:;; 25 � through them to the Western 'models' can be a decolonizing ven ture" ( Haththotuwegama 20 1 2, 345) . The encounter here is more interactive than hegemonic or hierarchical and thus paves the way for a more hybrid and integrated model of transcreation. Transcre ation is thus not a mere transference of a text from one context to another, but a process through which a text from another context is utilized not only to gain an understanding of the source culture, but to cast a critical eye on the receiving system. The hierarchy between the two texts is suspended. 1 8 Haththotuwegama asserts that his ideas o f transcreation were formed through his practical engagement in the field, a fact that becomes obvious when one considers his transcreation of Bertolt Brecht's parable "Measures against Power." The text un dergoes transformations in terms of language, performance, and genre. The parable, which is considered to be a fragment of a play, 1 9 becomes a full blown performance piece in the streets of Sri Lanka. A close look at the piece illustrates that the parable about "the time of illegality" acquires a completely different signification in the postcoloniaJ Sri Lankan setting. The play still addresses notions of power, rule, and authority, but the nature and mode of that power relationship changes in the Wayside perfmmance. The transcreated piece establishes a dialogic relationship between Brecht's notions of power and the political context in Sri Lanka. What all these the orists are drawing our attention to is a process of demystifying the power of the Western text, the Western logos . Such a practice also reveals the hybridity of the Western text. After all, Brecht's dramat ics were hugely influenced by Chinese opera and that fact also be comes a part of the discourse . In the hierarchical world of knowledge production, where the economically and politically powerful nations are deemed to have supremacy when it comes to writing and the arts, the arts and knowledge of the formerly colo- 18 This is not to ignore the unequal economic and political power hierarchy between the two contexts. The economic factor is particularly pronounced in the publishing industry and copyright laws as they affect con texts in the global North. 19 Some of the theater projects that Brecht was working on in the second half of the 1 920s were not com pleted. In is introduction to Brecht's Stories of Mr. Keuner, Martin Chalmers asserts that "Brecht detached a number of these brief commentary fragments from the dramatic context, reworked them so that they could stand independently, and wrote new pieces of a similar kind. These became the Stories of Mr. Keuner, ---al' the first eleven of which were published in 1 930" (Brecht 2001 , 97). --- (.0 26 nized nations is relegated to the periphery. Yet, by creatively weav ing that knowledge with the hegemonic products of the West, the postcolonial transcreator invents a new product that pierces, defiles, and enriches the Western text, rendering it more polyvalent and complex. The postcolonial artist transgresses, transforms, and tran screates, and "newness enters the world" (Rushdie 1 99 1 , 394) . Measures against Power/Marawara Mehewara "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail, yes I would, if I could": the performers of the Wayside and Open Theatre sing the first lines of Simon and Garfunkel's song "El Condor Pasa" ( 1 970) to a pop ular Sri Lankan folk rhythm and the accompaniment of a traditional drum. After the first verse in English, they shift to the Sinhala tran screation of the song where the affirmative lines in the original transform into questions: "What is your preference for, is it the cen tropus or the snail?" Following a slightly louder beat of the drum and a pause, the song changes to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh's "Get Up Stand Up" ( 1 973) as the drum continues to provide the beat necessary for the singers . As these songs are sung in the back ground, the performance space comes to life . Four actors enter, all in black, and create a door with their bodies. Another performer be gins a motion of sweeping the floor with a broom. As the songs end, we hear someone utter "hello." The "guest"20 has arrived. What we are about the witness is the transcreation of Bertolt Brecht's parable "Measures against Power" as Marawara mehewara (Thug Service/Thug Come, Come Here).2 1 "Measures against Power" is a commentary o n power political, social, and personal . According to the Brecht parable an agent arrives at Mr. Egger 's house and assumes an utterly privi leged position .2� After forcing Mr. Eggers to feed him and attend 20 There are two characters in Brecht's "Measures against Power": the agent. and Mr. Eggers. In the per formance, the characters are not given names; we encounter the self-identified guest and the silent host. I will refer to the characters as the "guest" and the "host" in my analysis of The Wayside and Open Theatre's Merawara Mehewara and refer to the character as the agent and Mr. Eggers when I talk refer to Brecht's parable :::i The Sinhala version has a double entendre. One of the main characteristics of Haththotuwegama·s work is his wordplay, particularly his use of allusive puns and his penchant for imbricate phrases. 22 According to Mr. Keuner. who recounts the story, "[t]he agent showed a document. which was made in CV) the name of those who ruled the city, and which stated that any apartment in which he set foot belonged ......._ to him; likewise. any food he demanded belonged to him; likewise. any man he saw. had to serve him" � (Brecht 2001 , 3) ......._ C ·.;::a C 27 to his i n numerable needs , the agent, without even look ing at Mr. Eggers , asks, "Will you be my servant?" M r. Eggers i s s ilent: M r. Eggers covered the agent with a blanket, drove away the fl ies, watched over his sleep, and as he had done on this day, obeyed him for seven years. But whatever he did for h i m , one thing Mr. Eggers was careful not to do: that was, to say a single word. Now, when the seven years had passed and the agent had grown fat from all the eating, sleeping, and giving orders, he died. Then Mr. Eggers wrapped him in the ruined blanket, dragged h i m out of the house, washed the bed, whitewashed the walls, drew a deep breath and repl ied: "No." (Brecht 200 I , 4) Mr. Keuner2· recounts this story to his students when they 1 confront him about his stance towards Power. The story explores di verse dimensions of power such as institutional systemic author ity and personal relationships within contexts of oppression . The parable, moreover, compl icates the relationsh ip between the op pressor and the oppressed and examines the significance of s ilence. The agent is aggressive and feels entitled, demanding to be treated with utmost hospital i ty; Mr. Eggers does not utter a single word until the end . "Measures against Power" was transcreated as Marawara Mehewara by Gamini Haththotuwegama i n 2000 and further de veloped during rehearsals . A close exam i nation of Marawara Mehewara i l lustrates how it weaves an intricate web of signifiers from different contexts to comment on contemporary power politics and the changi ng social ethos . Marawara Mehewara exami nes is sues pertain ing to colon ial/neocolonial power, neol iberalism , gen der, and class. The parable, as it is performed in the Sri Lankan setting, retains the basic structure of Brecht's story, while absorbing local lul labies , popular songs, and stories of foxes and grape preser vatives . Not only does Marawara Mehewara present us with a sol id example of a transcreation as it occurs in a postcolonial alternative performance setting, but it also opens up the space to investigate the dynamics inherent in a process where the translator transcreates with the exclusive idea of performing the piece . Haththotuwegama, the translating director or the directing translator, has two tasks here: the first is to conceptualize the best -- �. 2·1 Chalmers affirms that "[t]he fictional character of Mr. Keuner, 'the thinking man,' and the stories told by or about him, originated in the second halt of the 1 920s" !Brecht 200 1 , 97). -- Qj' c...., 28 possible way to familiarize the somewhat abstract Brecht narrative for diverse audiences in the country, the second is to envision the performance aspects of the play including how to enact it with the current members of the group . In the process, he also needs to take heed of the conditions of the eventual performance spaces and fore see how to visually enact the tension and the power imbalance be tween the two characters. H e has to make the narrative appeal to many different audiences, some of whose encounter with Brecht is not extensive. Haththotuwegama, the translator, cannot "only I point I out the problems" and leave the director "to solve them" (Zuber 1 980, 73) because he is the director as well. He is aware of the unpredictable and diverse audiences the group will encounter during their performances. The conceptual mapping of the transla tion thus encompasses visual, gestural and spatial elements, apart from the linguistic and cultural transference. As a practitioner of political street theater, he also has to consider the ideological di mensions of the texts. 1 n Haththotuwegama 's transcreation, the agent's presumed superiority and entitlement, his unwavering assumption that ''the other" would serve him , adopts significations pertaining to the post colonial setting, transporting images of the colonial narrative and how the native inhabitants were exploited by a series of colonizers who mistook their generosity for a sign of weakness. The guest constantly reminds the host of the ways of traditional hospitality and forces him to perform such rituals prevalent in Sri Lankan so ciety. In his performative of "traditional hospitality," the host ap pears submissive and unquestioningly complies with the guest 's wishes. The entitled guest, on the other hand, acts with total ease in the other 's space and expands and stretches his body, enclosing the space visually, while the host remains withdrawn. The guest's incessant chatter and aggressive manner stands as an absolute con trast to the more subservient and silent mannerisms of the host . Fur thermore, the play is particularly remarkable in the way in which it makes use of the actors ' bodies in the construction of stage props. The use of the human bodies is visually striking and metaphorically contributes to the critique of the exploitation of fellow human be ings. The human bodies transform into a bed, a bathtub , and a chair, which the guest so freely makes use of; he sits and sleeps on them ....... in the most entitled manner. � ....... ·.;::; 29 Such power dynamics are implicated and explored not only through the story of the "guest" and the "host," but also through a story that the host reads to the guest: the transcreated fo x and the bitter grapes fable, a considerable addition that takes up a majority of the performing time . The "host" in Marawara Mehewara is forced to read an animal fable to the "guest,"24 unlike Brecht's para ble where Mr. Eggers is silent till the end. The story within the story deserves close analysis because the animal fable depicts numerous instances where varying dynamics of power and relationships are explored. These additions bring up familiar elements from popular culture, while elucidating the Brecht narrative, enabling differential readings of it. The folk stories are transformed in the new global eco nomic order. The fox does not come across an unreachable bunch of grapes on a vine higher up, but instead notices a little girl on top of a tree,25 eating a slice of bread with Australian butter and grape preservatives. These two items allow the Wayside group to engage in their customary critique of the neoliberal economy and con sumerism. Just as these economic transformations have changed all areas of life, at the end of the fox fable, the familiar and perhaps most sung Sinhala lullaby undergoes a change as well. The mother is unable to feed her child not because the container of milk floated in the river as the old lullaby has it, but because she cannot afford to buy expensive dairy products. W hat is transcreated is not only the Brecht narrative, but also centuries-old folk tales and popular lullabies. The fox-girl story further explores gender and power. The cunning fox is defeated by the silent girl sitting on top of a tree; she is unperturbed by his chatter. He tries to cajole her by stating that he will procure her the opportunity to sing on a popular radio station. Undisturbed by his words, she silently gobbles down the slice of bread. Silence does not necessarily implicate weakness be cause the little girl ends up getting the bread. The outcome of the 2·1 While Mr. Eggers only utters the powerful "No" at the end of Brecht's narrative, the "host" in Marawara Mehewara is given more of a voice when he reads the story-he only reads and never comments or re sponds to the guest's questions or remarks. Yet, his tonal variations are important. 25 In both instances, the two girls are unclothed. Their nudity does not add anything to the narrative except for a crude sense of humor that creates laughter in the audience. Thus, though the question of gender and �. power figure into the story, it simultaneously propagates sexist humor. The issue of gender in the works of ...__ the Wayside and Open Theatre require more extensive discussion. a!' ...__ u.) 30 fox's next encounter with another little girl 26 remains ambiguous, an ambiguity that reflects the relationship between the host and the guest. This fact is further emphasized by the guest's imitation of and identification with the fox: he disapproves when the child eats the bread and is dismissive of girls on top of trees, exhibiting a cer tain patriarchal viewpoint about proper behavior for women. The guest enacts the fox's role as the host reads the story, and in the end he is on all fours howling and hooting. He identifies and empathizes with the fox by extolling his shrewdness. The story within the story-read by the host-comments on the frame narrative and the complex nature of power. It is obvious that the Brecht parable has taken on a whole different life in the streets of Sri Lanka. The postcolonial Sri Lankan setting endows the narrative with multiple significations -the old fox fable connecting with other narratives spatially and temporally-as the story advances from the colonial narrative to a neocolonial moment, the fable changes from a desire for grapes to desire for a slice of bread with grape preservatives and Australian butter, and the way to coax the girl is to tell her that she will be given a chance to sing in a popular radio station, an allusion to re ality shows that have become a pervasive element in the popular culture. The story within the story captures the change in the social fabric as a result of the open economy. The guest does not notice the host's tonal variations as he reads because he is more focused on the story and subsequently disappointed by the story's abrupt ending, which occurs as the fox approaches the second girl. The guest, who falls asleep disap pointed by the ambiguous ending of the story, suddenly wakes up with breathing difficulties; he signals the host to help him and the host obeys. W hen the guest wakes up again gasping for breath and furiously gestures for the host to help him, the host does not budge. At this particular moment, the play changes direction; there is a tangible shift in power. The host, immobile, stares as the agent pain fully arrives at his death-a silent, wordless death. The host checks the guest 's pulse to make sure that he is indeed dead. He then thrusts him to the floor and repeats the demands made by the (Y) 20 The words "little girl" are repeated and one can inquire as to why the littleness is emphasized multi ....... ple times. � ....... C ·� C 31 entitled guest in a stifled voice: "Will you feed me? Will you bring me water?, etc." As he reiterates the demands, his voice rises in a crescendo. The final act of defiance is exhibited when he screams with certainty: "No"27 - the ultimate moment of his silent resist ance, culminating in a powerful "no." The "no," uttered with firmness, critically overturns the actions of the guest. For the first time, the host is standing over the guest's body-thus reversing their spatial levels . The enactment of the scer>e with visual elements, the positioning of the guest and the host, the particular gestures, pauses, and the sudden stillness of the guest's body, who thus far was animated and free, contrasts with his dead stillness in the end. In Haththotuwegama's transcreation of the play, the signification of the word "no," as translated into Sinhala, accompanies the visual enactment of the power dynamics, which are most fuUy reversed through the movement of the other performers-who thus far were bodies that created props-as they push the guest's dead body out. We are faced with a situation where the principal problem of the translation involves the transformation of the verbal into the physical as well as finding solutions to the linguistic issues. And at times the solutions to the linguistic issues reside in physical ones . Such a process makes the task of the trans lator/director more complicated and more exciting because the "no" for the translating director is not a mere "no"; rather, it is sur rounded by the actions, gestures, and movements of defiance and subversion. The "no" is uttered against colonial oppression, neo colonial power politics, exploitation in terms of class and cultural hospitality, and gender. I t gives voice to the little girl on the tree, relates to the other little girl in the front yard, and integrates all the elements of the various folk stories . I am not stating that a theater translator who is not simultaneously the director is unable to con ceptualize such complications; they certainly do, as Lefevere has comprehensively illustrated in his analysis of Bentley and Hayes's translation of Mother Courage. His examples thoroughly illustrate how the ideology of the target culture dominates their work because they were intent on introducing Brecht to the United States . What I want to point out is that the politics and the poetics of the target �. 27 The "no" is translated into Sinha la as "Nae and Bae," and the host utters both words. They respectively ---- stand for "no" and "I woo't" ---- Lu 32 culture become all the more prominent and pressing when the translator is the director because for him the audience, space, and performance are not abstractions, but concrete events. The tran screation process is one where all these elements are taken into consideration simultaneously. Conclusion The Brecht narrative enables Haththotuwegama to explore the power dynamics within contemporary society as he devours the text with ease to create a product that not only captures Brecht 's ideas of power, but also offers a critique of neocolonial, class, and gender politics in Sri Lankan society. This text, "produced in the borderline between two systems" ( Lefevere 2000, 234), not only illustrates "the performativity of translation as the staging of cultural difference" ( Bhabha 1 994, 325 ) , but also shows that "l t lranslation is the performative nature of Cultural communication" ( Bhabha 1 994, 326) . In Haththotuwegama's words, it is "a two-way process." Translating with the intent of performing necessitates the consid eration of linguistic, ideological, and performative aspects of the text. On such a level, what often occurs is a devouring of the text, a radical act of transcreation. This creative act envisions spatial re lations, the physical enactment of the text, and considers the diverse live audiences. Hence, the translator/director is not the type who faithfully copies and mimics, but one who transfuses, demonically devours, and creates a new product . Thus, Haththotuwegama 's transcreation is not a "passivizing theory of copy or reflection, but I . . . I a usurping impulse in the sense of a dialectic production of differences out of sameness" ( De Campos 1 997, 1 8) . The transla tors/directors work in a setting where the linguistic, gestural, audi tory, performative, ideological, cultural, and spatial dimensions combine to generate the transcreation. It is with all these elements in mind that the translating director and the directing translator set to work and it is a multifaceted project-in other words, one of the best moments of transcreation. In Brecht's words. They do not, l i ke parrot or ape Imitate just for the sake of im itation , unconcerned What they imitate, just to show that they -- (Y) -- Can imitate; no, they J§ Have a point to put across. (Brecht 1 976, 1 76) C: ·_p C: 33 References Aaltonen, Sirkku. 2000. Time-Sharing on Stage. Drama Translation in Thea/er and Sociely. C levedon: Multili ngual Matters Ltd. Bakhtin, M ikhai l . 1 98 1 . The Dialogic Imagination. Edited by M ichael Holquist. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael I lolquist. Austin: Uni versity of Texas Press. Bassoett, Susan. 1 980. Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledgt:. -- -. 1 99 1 . "Translating for the Theatre: The Case Against Performabi lity." TTR: lraduction, lerminologie. redaclion 4 ( I ): 99- 1 1 1 . Bhabha, Hom i . 1 994. The Location of Cul!ure. London and New York: Routledge. Brecht, Bertolt. 1 976. "On Everyday Theatre." Bertoli Brecht: Poems 1 9 13- / 956. Translated by John Willet and Ralph Manheim. New York: Methuen. ---. 200 I . "Measures against power." In Slories of M1: Keuner, translated by Martin Chalmers, 3-4. San Francisco: C ity Light Books. De Campos, Haroldo. 1 997. "Tradition, Translation, Transculturation: The Ex Centric's Viewpoint." Translated by Stella E. 0. Tagnin. Trad Term 4 O): 1 1 - 1 8. Gentzler, Edwin. 2008. Trans/a/ion and ldenlity in !he Americas: New Directions in Trans/a/ion Theory. London and New York: Routledge. l lalpc, Ashley. "The Sharing I ndividualist." In Tales about Hatha, edited by Athula Samarakoon and Sudcsh Manthi lake, 49- 60. Peradeniya: Arts Council or Peradeniya. H andk.e, Peter. 1 998. "Theater-in-the-street and the theater- in-theater." In Radical Street Pe,jormance, edited by Jan Cohen-Cruz, 7 - 1 0. London: Routledge. Gamini Haththotuwcgama. 2005. "Translation Theory Drives Me Mad: An Anti Pedagogical Confession." Abstract subm itted to the second annual translation conference held in Kandy, Sri Lanka. ---. 20 1 2. "Let Shakespeare Enrich Our Cultural Encounters." In Streets Ahead with HaJhlhotuwegama, edited by Kanchuka Dharmasiri, Lohan Gunawccra, and N icole Calandra, 34 1 -346. Maharagama: Ravaya. Lefevere, Andre. 1 998. "Acculturating Bertolt Brecht." In Constructing Cu/lures: Essays on Literary Translation, edited by Susan Bassnett and Al'.ldre Lefevere. Clevedon: Multi l ingual Matters. - - . 2000. "Mother Courage's Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory or Literature." In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti. London and New York: Routledge. N gugT wa Thiong'o. 1 993. Moving the Center. Nairobi: East A frican educational Publishers Ltd. Rushdie, Salman. 1 99 1 . lmaginatJ' Homelands: Essays and Crilicism 1 981-1991. New York : Penguin. Shakespeare, William. 2007. The Tempest. Reprint of the 1 863 London ( Macmi llan and Co.) edition, Project Gutenberg. a· http://www.gutenberg.org/li les/23042/23042-h/23042-h.hlm. ..___ ru ..___ w 34 Wool f, Virginia. 1 929. A Room ofOne s Own. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. Zatl in, Phil lis. 2005. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation: A Practitioner s View. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Zuber, Ortrun. 1 980. "The Translation of Non-Verbal Signs in Drama." Pacific Quarterly Moana 5 ( I ): 6 1 -74. Kanchuka Dharmasiri is a theater director and translator. She is currently teaching postcolonial theater, performance theory, and alternative theater in the Fine Arts De partment at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She recently completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Kanchuka's re search interests include translation studies, postcolonial studies, and early Buddhist women's writing. She has translated and directed plays such as Eugene lonesco's La -- Cantatrice Chauve and Woody Allen's God. She is the editor of Streets Ahead with (") -- Haththotuwegama (2013), a selection of writings by and about Gamini Haththo tuwegama, a pioneer of political street theater in Sri Lanka. � ·.;:::, 35

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Translational Departures: Rethinking Genre and Translation C h a n d ra n i C h atte rjee University of Pune. India. eh and ran [email protected]. in Abstract: The present paper attempts to read certain episodes in nineteenth cen tury colonial Calcutta as processes of cultural translation. The translational aspect of the colonial encounter has been largely unnoticed. The cul rural traffic, the movement of languages, books, genres and ideas indicate a larger process of cul tural translation at work. In rethinking how cultures relate to one another at moments of cultural encounter, I have tried co emphasize the crucial role chat genres play in such a process. Through a select reading of the novel and some popular prinr genres in nineteenth cenrury Calcurt.a I suggest that instead of a stable mimetic theory of art we need to approach the colonial encounter as a process of constant negotiation and exchange, of translational departures which in rum helps us unsercle conventional notions of the rigidity of genre boundaries enabling a furthering of processes of translation. Introduction In the essay titled "The Law of Genre," Derrida comments in the following fashion: "Genres are not to be mixed. I will not mix genres . I repeat: genres are not to be mixed. I will not mix them" ( Derrida 1 980, 55). One of the least studied areas in translation studies is per haps its relation to genre and the phenomenon of generic translation. Derrida's comment opens new and interesting possibilities for un derstanding genres and their translational aspects. With the "cultural turn" 1 in translation studies, there has been a lot of scholarly dis cussion and debate on the way in which translation informs and is informed by its association with disciplines as diverse as culture studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, ethnography, and an thropology to name just a few. This has definitely widened the scope and the possibilities for translation studies and made it an 1 Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere were among the early proponents of the "cultural turn." The term a· --- then gained currency and has been used ever since by scholars and specialists across different disciplines. ---,.._, s 36 u.) interdiscipli nary if not a multidisc ipl i nary domain . However, it seems to me that, despite this w ideni ng of boundaries , the relation between genre and transl ation has not recei ved its due attention . It seems to me that the notion of cultural translation is perhaps best perceived in the translation of l iterary forms or genres . Not only are words, phrases, and sentences translated, but often the entire genre gets translated in the process of cultural interaction and trans mission . Genre provides an appropriate site for cultural negotiation and exchange. Genre translations become more interesting when the period to be studied is that of a colonial encounter. In the present paper I attempt to i l lustrate the process of generic translation in n ineteenth-century Calcutta, h ighl ighting the possibil ities that such an approach holds for scholars of translation studies and post colonial studies alike. It seems to me that the opening assertion in Derrida's essay is not workable when generic translations are con cerned . Genre mixtures is the only possible way of understanding the processes in which genres are shaped and reshaped over cultural exchanges, of which the colonial encounter may be one. These translational "departures" in genre formation ( I use the word "de parture" both in the sense of difference, that is, departing from the original and also indicating a movement, a crossing over, a ferrying across , thereby i ndicating a process of dislocation and a relocation in d ifferent spatial and temporal domains) open interesting ways of locating and answering questions related to colon ial and post colon ial phases in l iterary history. In the first section of this paper, I w i l l try to contextual ize the phase in the colon ial history of Cal cutta which was retrospectively cal led the Bengal Renaissance, h ighlighting the translational aspect of this period . I n the second section , I will discuss at some length the ways in which the colon ial encounter fac i l itated translations of genres, taking the example of the Bengali novel . I n the third section , I w i l l elaborate on the trans lational aspect of the print phenomena in n ineteenth-century Cal cutta and the ways in which print culture further faci l itated generic translations. The Bengal Renaissance The much discussed Bengal Renaissance has been de scribed as a phase of the beginning of modernity in the sociocultural --- history of I ndia. It was a period when the English educational cur- --- � C ·.;:::. C 37 riculum was successfully launched, and institutions for the dissem ination of English education were set up with the hope of creating a new class of Bengali intelligentsia. It was also a period of reform movements, new laws being promulgated to replace older ones, a phase of constant negotiation and exchange between the colonial masters and the natives. It was a phase when popular printing really took off in Calcutta, churning out a huge variety of texts and genres that in turn inaugurated a new reading culture and a public sphere in the city which boasted new marvels. Scholars who have tried to revisit this immensely productive, vibrant, and rich phase in the history of Bengal have also noted the difficulty of talking of the Bengal Renaissance as a unified and monolithic phenomenon , thereby escaping holistic definitions.2 lt seems to me that one of the defining features of the Bengal Renaissance which actually problematizes the way in which we understand this phase in colo nial history is the way in which translations played a very vital role in shaping sensibilities and, in the process , manufacturing knowl edge and intellectuals. The role of translation in defining the Ren aissance has not been studied with proper care. J n fact , one of the primary ways in which the cultural exchange in the colonial phase was facilitated was through the translation of European texts into Bengali in the nineteenth century. Often , these translations would help import new forms which would then be negotiated by native readers before they could be assimilated or rejected. These transla tions thus redefined the way in which literature would be under stood from this moment on . ltamar Even-Zahar, when discussing the polysystem theory, mentioned three instances where translations play and have played a vital role in the shaping of a literary culture. These are 1 ) when a literature is young or in the process of being established; 2) when a literature is peripheral or weak or both; and 3) wben there are turning points , crises , or literary vacuums in a culture.1 Even though the nature of the nineteenth-century transla- 2 Resea�h on the phase which was retrospectively called the Bengal Renaissance has been stupendous. Though scholars have held diverse opinions on the nature of this phase, however, they have all agreed on the productivity of this phase. Some studies on the Bengal Renaissance would include David Kopf, British - Drientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1773- 1835 IBerkley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1 969); R. C. Majumdar, Renascent Bengal!Calcuna: Asiatic Society, 1 972); Susobhan Sarkar, On the Bengal Rer,aissance !Calcutta: Ppyrus, 1 985); Sum it Sarkar. Writing Social �- History O)elhi: Oxford University Press, 1 997). -- 3 ltamar Even-Zahar. "The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem," in The Trans lation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti !London: Routledge, 2000). 1 92-1 97. -- ru' u.) 38 tions in Bengal cannot be understood in any of the abovementioned ways , these translations nonetheless played a vital role in shaping the culture of Bengal in particular and India in general. These trans lations gave rise to new genres and challenged notions of existing genres. In fact, Calcutta can be described in terms of a city found in translation. The sheer bulk of translated literature produced in the city from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth century in dicates the ways in which cultural translation and exchange formed the basis of the cultural plurality of the city as we know it even today. These translations cannot be appreciated without a brief overview of the way in which the introduction of English education transformed the sociocultural scene in Bengal in the nineteenth century. The controversy between the 'Orientalists' and the ' An glicists' over the utilization of the money that was set aside for ed ucation4 by the act of 1 8 1 3 was finally resolved in William Bentinck's tenure. By the Resolution of March 7, 1 835, it was re solved that the funds would "be henceforth employed in imparting to the Native population knowledge of English literature and science through the medium of the English language" (Spear 1 970, 1 27). Schools and colleges were set up by the British, and Persian gave way to English as the official language of the colonial state and the medium of the higher courts of law. Bentinck's administrative methodology thereby led to an induction of more and more Indians into the hierarchy, a possibility that was enabled by English educa tion. According to Gauri Yiswanathan, the introduction of English education can be seen as "an embattled response to historical and political pressures: to tensions between the English Parliament and the East India Company and the native elite classes" (Viswanathan 1 987, 24). The colonial practice of translation played a very sig nificant role in the way in which prevalent practices were negotiated and rearticulated in this phase of history. While the European trans lations of Indian texts prepared for a Western audience provided the educated I ndian with a whole range of Orientalist images , the translations from the European languages into the native tongue 4 For more on the education debates in colonial India see Lynn Zastoupil and Moir Martin, eds., The Great --.. Indian Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Drientalist- A nglicist Controversy, 1781-1843 (Surrey: � Curzon Press, 1 999) --.. C ·.p C 39 affords many more interesting instances of cultural translation , ne gotiation , cross-overs , and departures , particu larly with respect to a reconfiguration of generic boundaries. Translational Departures: Reconfiguring Generic Boundaries With the introduction of the colonial l iterary models came the initial desire to emulate them . We have records of the ways in wh ich the English poets who were studied within the new educa tional curriculum immensely inspired the first generation of English learners in Calcutta . These new learners were not only avid readers of English poetry but they were also attempting to write poetry l i ke the poems they were reading. So we have evidence of the ways in which poetry writing was encouraged in the H indu college, one of the earl iest institutions set up for the teaching of English. It is in teresting to note the translational practice at work in the choice of themes , recurring images, and the procolonial discourse at work in these early poems. Harachandra Ghosh's "Benaras" comes imme diately to mind . Th is poem was listed as one that was selected for an award at the Annual Prize distribution ceremony of the H indu Col lege .5 What strikes the reader is the encomiastic nature of the poem . Having l i sted the earl ier colonizers of India as dangerous, the poetic persona sighs with relief at the way in wh ich the country has been rescued by the English . The rest of the poem is in praise of the present rulers interweaved through a history of the natives. Such poetic compositions can perhaps best be read as works of translation - a translation of the anxiety of a young group of Eng l i sh learners who wanted to draw the attention of the ru lers and please them . Harachandra Ghosh 's poem and several other poems written in a similar vein cannot be understood without the colonial context and the introduction of the new educational system. How ever, poems of this genre cannot simply be understood, either, as a mere copy of any of the English poets who were being read as part of the new educational curricul u m . There was a desire to emulate, but local history and culture added new dimensions to these poems , maki ng these new works of art. �. ---ci!' 5 This poem is cited in R. K. Dasgupta, East -West Literary Relations !Calcutta: Papyrus, 1 995). 278. --- u.) 40 In fact, a study of the history of translation reveals the ways i n which orig inal texts are rewritten and also exposes the routes through which innovations are introduced into the literary f ield. The colonial context of these works inscribes the asymmetrical relationship between the European originals and their Indian trans lations. The proliferation of texts translated from European lan guages, especially English, in colonial India i ndicates the multiple layers of contact between the two cultures. A study of texts trans lated into Bengali from 1 800 to 1 900 reveals the copious work which was being done in translation around this time.6 Apart from literature, which is divided into fiction, poetry, drama, and miscel laneous works, there are translations of the B ible, biographies and exemplary lives, economics, general science, geography, history, law, medicine and child rearing, philosophy, political tracts, and religion and history of rel igion. With particular reference to literary genres one often notices a curious blurri ng of generic boundaries and i nteresting examples of cultural translation. The Arabian Nights was one of the most popular texts and was translated over and over again by different translators. Nilmani Basak translated the work as Arabya Upanyas in three parts. The term upanyas in Ben gali translates to the genre category that is called the novel in Eng lish. Moreover, the i nitial confusion and debate regarding the nomenclature of this genre is interesting to note. In different parts of India, writers and scholars debated what the correct Indian equiv alent of this genre might be. In some cases new words were coined for the new genre, while in others the English word was retained. Supriya Chaudhuri notes how the term upanyas was still new, and was used interchangeably with other more well known terms as late as 1 93 1 : I n an essay published in Prabasi ( 1 93 1 ) Rabindranath Tagore distinguished the social realism of Bankimchandra's novel Bishabriksha ( 'The Poisoned Tree' , 1 873) from historical romance, for which he used the te1m kahini (usu ally translated as 'tale' ) as contrasted with akhyan (chronicle, nairntive). While the term inology he was trying to establish (at a time when the choice of the term upanyas for ' novel' was sti l l fairly recent) never found favour, Ra- (") 6 See P. R. Sen, Western Influence in Bengali Literature (Calcutta: Academic Publishers. 1 966); see also Time Charts of Events and Publications 1 798 -1900, prepared by the Department of English, Jadavpur Uni --- versity, Kolkata. --- � C ·.;::, C 41 bindranath 's autobiographical account of the breathless anticipation with which instalments of Bishabriksha were awaited (as they appeared serially in the journal Bangadnrshan from its first issue in 1 872) memorably evokes an un precedented literary experience . (Chaudhuri 20 1 2, I 08) In fact, this "unprecedented literary experience" led to sev eral sociocultural transformations interestingly through a new lit erary genre. The innate tendency of genres to diffuse is best witnessed in times of cultural exchange. In such situations, genres become intermediaries between two cultures revealing not only its formal and technical features but also the sociocultural and political situation of its emergence. The emergence of the novel in nine teenth-century Calcutta offers an interesting case study of the trans lational aspects of the colonial encounter. The Novel: A Translated G enre? The novel in nineteenth-century Calcutta provides an in teresting melange. Perhaps the only possible way to understand a complex phenomenon like the novel is by examining the dynamics of translatability that it puts forth and the "dialogic" activity that it necessitates. The dialogic act enables translators to preserve the difference between the "self' and the "other." Translation attains a voice of its own that is neither an imitation of the source text nor a completely detached work. Here I am referencing Mikhail Bakhtin's postulation of translation as the "answering word." It seems to me that the way in which the novel was introduced in the cultural horizon of India in general and Calcutta in particular and the way it was interpreted , understood , and translated makes it understand able along Bakhtinian paradigms of the dialogic and the notion of the answering word. Translation, according to Bakhtin, results from an interaction between two languages and cultures situated differ ently in time and space. A translation extends the influence of a source text to another culture, and thus contributes to the open ended nature of the text. It often keeps alive the source text's influ ence among readers of the native tongue. These aspects allow us to view translation as an "answering word" in the Bakhtinian sense. Bakhtin argues that "every word is directed towards an answer and cannot escape the profound influence of the answering word ---al' that it anticipates" ( Bakhtin 1 994, 280). Translators not only corn- --- w 42 pose an "answering word" referring to the source text but also pro duce it so that this answering word will meet the anticipation of target readers. Translation is thus the product of a dialogic triangu lation between the source text, the translator, and the target text audience. This "dialogic" demands that translators comprehend both the source culture and the target culture as "the other." Thus translation is the outcome of a "dialogic event," that is, open-ended and a never- ending dialogue between the translators ' consciousness and the source and target cultures. Bakhtin talks of translation as a process of "active understanding" .7 Theories that consider transla tion as a secondary and derivative activity, advocate "passive un derstanding." Passive understanding is monologic because it allows only one singular perspective to exist. In fact, active understanding is what makes translation an "answering word." In appreciating the novel in Calcutta as a phenomenon in cultural translation, I will refer to the Bakhtinian notion of the "answering word" as "ac tive understanding," for the novel was neither a pastiche of the English model nor can it be understood without the backdrop of the colonial encounter. It was a process of negotiation and exchange, an active understanding and interpretation that led to the develop ment of the novel in Calcutta. Bankimchandra Chatterjee ( 1 838- 1 894) is regarded as the first novelist of note so far as the development of Bengali prose is concerned. An ardent admirer of Shakespeare, Scott and the Romantic poets , Chatterjee utilized the form of the novel to question the basic premise of western education in Bengal namely, that western education acts as a morally uplifting, beneficial reforming force in the social sphere. He adopts a revisionist stance with regards to western education in the novels that deal with it. Chatterjee's first novel, Rajmohan 's Wife ( 1 864) , remains his only novel in English.8 Between the introduction of a new form and its assimilation or rejection in any culture there is generally a lapse of 7 The terms "active understanding" and "passive understanding" are taken from Bakhtin's conceptualiza tions on aesthetic activity Bakhtin draws attention to a conceptual category called "Being-as-event," which presupposes an answerable participation IBakhtin 1 993, 1-77). In his words, "lt)he entire aesthetic world as a whole is but a moment of Being-as-event, brought rightfully into communion with Being-as-event ('") through an answerable consciousness - through an answerable deed by a participant" IBakhtin 1 993, 1 8). 8 This is in keeping with many writers of the nineteenth century who tried their hand at the English language ---- and then returned to their mother tongue. The obvious example that comes to mind is that of Michael Mad � husudan Dutt. ---- ·.;::, 43 � time and several social and cultural factors play a role in it. ln the West as well, the novel was not the outcome of the experimentation of one single author or of some set conditions. It was a long-drawn process of additions and alterations that ultimately resulted in such a hybrid but distinct form.9 In the case of India as well, in the early part of the nineteenth century, many writers produced various kinds of prose writings claiming to be novels. However, it took around two decades for the form to consolidate itself. Bankimchandra's works depict this space of negotiation, exchange, and translation almost like a palimpsest. The traces of the �d world had to be written on. This world of rearticulation is what I understand as translation. The Bakhtinian notion of "outsi deness" becomes significant here. According to Bakhtin, " I i In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who under stands to be located outside the object of their creative understand ing in time, in space , in culture" ( Bakhtin 1 994, 7). The novel writers in Calcutta were located outside in time space and culture and could develop an active and creative understanding of the new form that was made available to them again primarily through transllations. In his first English endeavor, Bankimchandra starts nego tiating two worlds-one that was known to his readers, and another that was unfamiliar. In Rajmohan 's Wife, "woman" is portrayed as the traditional wife. However, the foregrounding of a female char acter (although unnamed in the title and only referred to as "wife") is worth noting. It is her story, the story of a suffering but coura geous woman, which is rendered in a hybrid genre, drawing on the tradition of the adventure story and romance. Certainly, the way a strong, beautiful woman is wasted on a brutal, evil man is meant to mark a critical stance towards the submission of woman to social norms. Moreover, the central position of the female character in the novel also hints at the implied criticism of gendered roles and fe male identity, both strongly connected to women's marital status. The "claustrophobia of women in incompatible marriages" (Mukherjee 1 996, vi) is countered by the romance plot which is based on a specifically Indian discourse on love and passion, al- 9 See Paul J Hunter. Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (New ---- York: Nortnn, 1 990). ru ---- C,.) 44 luding to Radha and Krishna, 1 0 a story about romantic, but extra marital, love. This very hybridity of genres is of interest to us. Not only is the novel a quite audacious blend of genres, but it certainly also draws together different discourses on women. As Makarand Paranjape notes, "I c lreated from an amalgam of classical, medieval and European sources and totally unprecedented imaginative leaps into what might constitute a new female subjectivity 1 -. . 1. She, moreover, embodies the hopes of an entire society struggling for selfhood and dignity" ( Paranjape 2002, 1 58). The translational as pect of this new genre can be located in the way it questioned and negotiated earlier modes of existence. It needs to be noted here that certain components of the novel, particularly the story and the plot, are universally present in all forms of narratives. Within the Euro pean tradition, too, one finds the epic and the romance, which are considered to be precursors to the novel. In the Indian literary tra dition there were fantastically sizeable narratives like the Ra mayana and Mahabharata, the vast storehouse of kathas. Yet readers almost immediately recognized the differences between the novel and existing narrative traditions. In fact, this new form led to several shifts in representation and interpretation and challenged prevalent conventions. In Bakhtin's conceptual framework it can be regarded as an active interpretation and an answering word for native writers who were experimenting with this new form. It is here that I locate the translational aspects of this new genre. Read ers were attracted by the stories that the novels narrated and the real-life men and women it conjured. When the novel appeared in India, it knocked on the door of modernity as it were. However, the shift in paradigms was not as easy and straightforward as it might appear to us now. In fact, one can perceive the ways in which the novel as a new genre became the site of a dual struggle against the constraints of tradition on the one hand and the hegemonic tenden cies inherent in the process of colonialism on the other. The early novels in most Indian languages convincingly illustrate this point. Traditions had to be reclaimed and revitalized as part of modernity in order to establish their continuity, while at the same time the le- 10 In the story of Krishna, as told in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana (ancient Hindu religious (Y) texts). he spends much of his childhood in the company of young cow-herd girls. called Gopis in the village of Madhuvan. Radha is one of the gopis The Radha-Krishna amour is discussed in later texts like the Gita --- Govinda. Radha pines and waits for Krishna who is married. This love outside the defined and conventional institution of marriage has been rendered in a variety of ways in different parts of India. --- � C ·.;::; C 45 gitimacy of modernity depended on how it conformed to tradition. The negotiation between these two worlds is what one notices in the early experiments with the novel. What one perceives, perhaps, is a process of cultural translation at work-an entire discourse re garding human beings, nature, religion, and society being trans lated. As Shivaram Padikkal notes: Even when we employ - as we are often forced to-the terms of reference of Western novel criticism, we real ize the unique nature of a Western genre as it unfolds in the I ndian context . This is not to suggest that the I ndian novel is merely imitative or derivative . The reception of a literary form is certainly not such a simple process, being a complex historical transaction rather than the decision of an individual author. (Padikkal 1 993 , 222) Two such important locales of cultural transaction were perhaps the emergence of new subjectivities, particularly with ref erence to women and the sense of history. In trying to elaborate on the translational nature of the novel in Calcutta, I would read some of Bankimchandra Chatterjee's writing in this light. However, before discussing Bankim 's contribution to the development of the genre of the novel, let us briefly look at the translations that in a way paved the emergence of the Bengali novel. In 1 835, Bunyan's Pilgrim 's Progress was translated into Bengali by the Calcutta Tract and Christian Book Society; in 1 837, Raja Kali Krishna translated Rasselas into Bengali; in 1 849 , Romeo and Juliet, the first of the dramatist 's stories to be thus rendered was translated by one Gurudas H azra from Lamb 's Tales from Shake speare. Some imaginative essays bordering on fiction proper but with an allegorical significance were translated by Akshay Kumar Dutta. His Svapna Darshan was a rendering of Addison's Vision of Mirza in the Tatter, published in the issues of the journal Tattvabod hini Patrika , 1 849-1 850. 1 1 It is, however, in the latter half of the nineteenth century that we come across more energetic and suc cessful attempts. The Vernacular Literature Society, with Govern ment support, took a leading part in paving the way for Bengali fiction by undertaking to translate many stories from English liter ature. Robinson Crusoe was translated in 1 85 3 , Lamb's Tales (nine �- 1 1 For similar details see Priyaranjan Sen's Western Influence in Bengali Literature (Calcutta: Academic ---- Publishers, 1 966) al' ---- w 46 tales) in 1 856, 1 857, and in 1 85 8 . Novel writing in Bengal also re ceived an impetus from social reformers. 1 2 Jay Kissan Mookherji of Uttarpra declared a prize of five hundred rupees for a novel in Bengali or English on the "l s locial and domestic life of the rural population of the working classes of Bengal." 1 ' The Viceroy also offered a prize of five hundred rupees "for the best Bengali tale or novel illustrating the social and domestic life of the Hindu." 1 4 Sisir Kumar Das, in an essay titled "Assimilation of For eign Genres," quotes a few lines from a play spoken by a young woman of modest education to an uneducated woman, a maidser vant, representing two types of readers and the nature of the genre, the novel: A series of new publ ications , have appeared these days; they are known as novels. No other works have so much knowledge to offer. Previously, how wonderful it was to read the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Now as I have learnt to read the novels, I don't l ike even to touch them . l wish I could teach you, you would have known the delight of reading novels. (Das 2004, 2 1 ) The young reader in the above conversation i s a woman who is talking about both the pleasure and instructional value of the novel. Moreover, the newness and the attractive nature of the genre cannot be missed in the above description. The most exciting aspect of this conversation, however, is the depiction of women readers and the concept of private reading. In fact, the novel intro duced a new form of female subjectivity that was a curious mixture of the old and the new and was conscious of its translated nature. The coexistence and often jostling of space between the prevalent and new concepts and ideas can be witnessed in the novel. Bankimchandra Chatterjee 1 5 provides an interesting entry point. Historians of Bengali literature have explored the various 1 2 See Time Charts of Events and Publications 1798- 1900. Jadavpur University, Kolkata. 13 The Hindu Patriot. February 6. 1 87 1 14 The Hindu Patriot, April 24, 1 87 1 . 1 5 Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1 838-1 894) was a forceful thinker who embraced Western thought enthu siastically and applied it to examine Hinduism within the framework of Positivist and Utilitarian thinking. His fame largely rests on his fictional work. He is regarded as having introduced the form of the novel in India. His first attempt at the novel was in English. Rajmohan's Wife ( l 864) remains his only novel written in English. He was also a poet and a journalist. His later and mature novel Anandamath (The Abbey of (Y) Bliss. 1 882) became a favourite during the nationalist struggle. In fact. this novel was the source of the song "Vande Mataram" ("I worship my Motherland for she truly is my mother") which was set to music by --- Rabindranath Tagore and was taken up by the freedom fighters. It is now recognized as the National Song of India. --- :-§ ·.p 47 £; Western literary influences on Bankim's writings. The affinities be tween his first novel in Bengali , Durgeshnandini ( 1 865) , 1 0 and Scott's Ivanhoe ( 1 820) have been commented upon repeatedly. Bankim himself acknowledged that his story of the blind girl, Ra jani, was inspired by Bulwer-Lytton 's wst Days of Pompeii ( 1 834) and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White ( 1 860) . Both his roman tic historical themes and the later "social novels" concerned with ordinary men and women of his own days and the problems of the human condition in a specific cultural context have very obvious Western resonances as I iterary products. Our concern here is not to accuse Bankim of consciously or unconsciously modeling his writ ing on Western forms or styles , but to indicate the sensibilities which informed his world of imagination and intellect and thereby to locate the translational aspects involved in this process. There was at least one attempt to write a novel in Bengali before Bankim, the famous A/aler Gharer Dula! by Tekchand Thakur 1 7 • Bankim's writing and this earlier literary effort do not belong to the same world of emotional, aesthetic, or intellectual ambience. The differ ences derive not simply from one man's individual genius but the complex interaction between distinct cultural influences in a par ticular historical situation resulting in new patterns of sensibilities (Raychaudhuri, 2002, 1 27- 1 28 ) . Perhaps the most striking new characteristic of Bankim's novels is an intensely romantic mood expressed in a variety of forms and contexts. It is a romanticism unmistakably different from the delight in the miraculous and the wonderful that educated Bengalis had acquired from their exposure to Arabic and Persian tales. His romantic imagination was no doubt inspired by his pro found reading of European, and particularly English, literature. However, the discursive strategy that was employed was one of recovering local history within western forms of writing. Those who were familiar with English literature immediately realized the deeper affinity between Durgeshnandini and the European romance. 16 Durgeshnandininarrates a story of the love triangle between Jagat Singh. a Mughal general. Tilottama. the daugnter of a Bengali feudal lord. and Ayesha. the daughter of a rebel Pathan leader against whom Jagat Si�h was fighting. The story is set against the backdrop of the Pathan-Mughal conflicts that took place in West Bengal during the reign of Akbar. 17 Published in 1 857, this work is retrospectively regarded as one of the earliest novels in Bengali. It was written by Peary Chand Mitra ( 1 8 1 4-1 883). The writer used the pseudonym "Tekchand Thakur" for this novel, which describes the society of the nineteenth-century Calcutta and the bohemian lifestyle of the pro ---- tagonist Matilal. It is a landmark in Bengali literature because of its use of the colloquial in prose writing. ---- Cu 48 It was not just an external resemblance analyzable in terms of plot and structure but a resemblance in mood and spirit. Soon after the publication of Durgeshnandini, some critics charged Bankim of plagiarism, noticing similariti�s with Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe deals with an episode in twelfth-century England , a period of confusion and oppression when hostilities between the Saxons and Normans still lingered. Durgeshnandini is set against the back ground of the Pathan and Mughal conflicts in sixteenth-century Bengal. Despite this parallel, the plan and policy of the two writers are entirely different. The obvious similarities in plot and structure cannot be overlooked, but this does not negate the originality of Durgeshnandini. The novel in India was the result of a tension be tween Western fiction and native traditions. Though the historical novel introduced by Bankim drew its inspiration from the West, it was also a product born out of the emotional requirements of the nineteenth century. As Sudipta Kaviraj suggests, "the fundamental asymmetry between the European and the Bengali made a simple imitation of the European manner of doing history impossible. To discover the truth of historical objects and connections is the ironical privilege of the subaltern" ( Kaviraj I 995 , l 07). There is therefore in nineteenth-century Bengal, a double turning towards history. On the one hand it is a subject of empirical research, while on the other it is a site of imaginative freedom. Nowhere is the engagement with history more complex than in the fiction of Bankim. Thus , whether Bankim had read Ivanhoe before writing Durgeshnandini will remain a matter of debate among scholars studying cross-cul tural literary exchange and influence. But what is significant is the way in which through his acquaintance with English literature, Bankim created a new genre which not only became a site for rewriting history but also gave the Bengali writers a new form of writing that they had been struggling to create. This genre opened new imaginative domains and redefined human relations which have played a significant role in the shaping of Bengali culture in the nineteenth century. It seems to me that Bankim used historical material to create a space where history and romance mingled freely. More than his concern with a particular form was his exper imentation with a new aesthetics. In fact, the form of the historical (Y) novel was found particularly suitable by the western educated Ben --- galis as a means of critiquing the dominant ideology at the end of --- 2 C ·.:, C 49 the nineteenth century. Chatterjee used this form to question the malpractices of the contemporary society regarding.women's free dom and the institution of marriage. The concept of premarital love , a concept translated from English literature, was explored by many writers of the time. When the socially sanctioned marriageable age for girls was five or six and that of boys ten, premarital romance was absurd. The historical romance provided the scope for dealing with youthful and premarital life. In fact, the readers in Bengal be gan to deal w ith love from the literary end. That is to say, at first it was transferred to Bengali literature from English literature, and then taken over from literature to life. It is perhaps necessary to understand the translational aspect at work here. We are talking of a new form, which is read and translated ( in the sense of each reading/interpretation being a translation) into a completely different sociocultural and literary environment. The process, of course , in volves obvious transformations so far as the features of the genre are concerned. The translational departure in the case of Bankim was to use the framework of the historical romance to express powerful ideas in a covert form. Chatterjee as a representative of his generation , found the woman question one that required special attention. Proper education of women and their engagement outside the domestic sphere becomes a recurring theme in his novels. H is novels became a powerful tool for the propagation of his religious and social i deas. By deifying the Bengali woman into an aspect of the Motherland and by repeatedly reviving a sense of a forgotten past Chatterjee's literary works pioneered the Indian nationalist movement. According to Sudipta Kaviraj , "I h I is characters are people who are nearly always living their lives close to these regions of intersection, of liminality, where opposites come to play with each other. If there is a central theme in his novels, I suggest it is this enquiry, this concern about the nature of the liminal" ( Kaviraj 1 995 , 1 5) . Taking Kaviraj's notion one step further, I suggest that the "liminal" is largely a zone of translational departures. ---- o!' ---- c,.:, 50 Print G enres and Translation The translational departures of the kind discussed above are also witnessed in the ways in which the advent of print tech nology revolutionized practices of reading , introducing new and transforming existing genres. Printing in India dates back to the sixteenth century when the Portuguese set up the first printing press on the subcontinent. However, indigenous printing and publishing really took off in Bengal in the first half of the nineteenth century. Bengal emerges as the focus of study for various reasons. It was not only the seat of the first established vernacular press (The Ser ampore Press) 1 8 and the earliest printing and publishing industry in the country, but also the seed bed of Indian nationalism. In his largely informative book titled Indian Response to European Tech nology and Culture, Ahsan Jan Qaisar discusses at length the arrival of this new technology in India and the way it was received. It is amazing, says Qaisar, that the Chinese knowledge of wooden block printing did not create a ripple of reaction in India. The early reac tion to this new technology was varied-one of awe and fear, of wonder and, of course, full of the contamination myth according to which the printing press was an alien agent and, along with the missionary project, designed to pollute and convert the natives. However, one of the sections of society who resisted this new tech nology the most were the organized calligraphers and illuminators whose livelihood was threatened with the coming of the printing press. As Francesca Orsini (2009) rightl y comments, unlike in Eu rope, print did not take off immediately in the East and Far East, because the infrastructure needed for the flourishing of a print cul ture was not available. So , although the technique of woodblock printing had been developed by the eighth century at the latest, and that of metallic movable type no later than the twelfth century, sev eral centuries elapsed before it was commercially exploited in Ming China and seventeenth-century Korea and Japan . Thus in nine teenth-century Calcutta, commercial publishing in particular faced two daunting challenges: the low literacy rate and the strong pres ence of oral and aural cultures which it was difficult to replace corn- (Y) 18 The Serampore Press was established by William Carey in 1 800 in Serampore. in the Hooghly district of Bengal. Around 1818, the press started printing in the Bengal i language. For a detai led study of the beginnings of printing in Bengal in ...._ particular and India in general, see A. K. Priokar. The Printing Press in India.· Its Beginnings and Early Development I Mumbai: � Marathi Samshodhana Mandala, 1 958). ...._ ·.;::; 51 pletely with the printed book. Instead of looking on this as an ob stacle or hurdle which printing was finally able to overcome, I choose to read the early days of commercial printing in Calcutta as an instance of translational departure. There was an attempt to in crease the sale of printed books, but it was not done by outdoing or replacing earlier practices of the oral and the aural. Rather, popular commercial printing in Calcutta created new and translated genres which would incorporate and also negotiate the new space that the print medium had brought along with it. This negotiation was not easy and required a rearticulation of ideas and sentiments and a new semiotics of reception. A study of the emergence of the popular print phenomena in Calcutta in the nineteenth century affords in teresting examples of the translational phenomena at work. As has already been mentioned, the shift from a largely oral and aural cul ture to a print culture was not easy, nor was it one of complete re placement. Print technology in certain ways facilitated a carrying forward, a translation of the prevalent forms. Print created the space for the oral and the aural to exist alongside the printed medium. In other words, it translated the earlier forms into a new format. Let us consider some examples. While the elite presses located in the south of Calcutta 1 9 were primarily catering to the printing of the Bible and other official treatises, the popular printing extravaganza was located in the north of Calcutta in the area known as Bat-tala.20 The Bat-tala presses were run by the natives and were doing a brisk trade in the publication and sale of cheap literature . The output of these presses often exceeded those of the elite presses and was con sumed by both the elite and the nonelite. Wherein lay the popularity of Bat-tala literature? Social historians have commented on the con sumers of Bat-tala literature, identifying them as consisting mainly of office clerks who would commute via ferry from the neighboring villages to Calcutta and would return to their villages in the evening. These readers were looking for entertainment, and Bat tala had a lot to offer. The Bat-tala printers and artists would take 19 The area in the north of Calcutta, called the Black Town, is the area where the natives had settled. while the south of Calcutta, where the British had settled. was called the White Town. 10 The terra Bat-ta/a (literally Bat "'banyan tree," and ta/a '"beneath"') refers to the numerous presses that operated im the north of Calcutta in the nineteenth century. They could be compared to the bibliotheque bleue in e<l"ly modern France, and offered cheap texts which were adapted, abridged, or cannibalized with ...__ scant regard for scholarly decorum and put together for quick sale and wide circulation . ...__ w 52 contemporary polemical events, often spicing them up , and create very cheap twenty- to thirty-page booklets with plenty of illustra t ions. Often veering on the pornographic, Bat-tala almost became synonymous with the lowly and was forbidden to be read among the respectable. Bat-tala became a genre in i tself, coterminous with the common and the deviant. But a critical reading of Bat-tala lit erature would show that the pri nters and writers were social ob servers often criticizing the changing sociocultural scenario with utmost contempt and cynicism . Apparently conservative in content, Bat-tala also produced much social farce, which was one of the most popular genres. It therefore seems to me that Bat-tala was the popular sociocultural register that was translating a rapidly chang ing and transforming world for its readers. It is in the critical ob servation and often cannibalization of ancient texts and the critical rendition of contemporary sociocultural events that the translational departures of Bat-tala may be located. Operating from the periphery of a society that was undergoing rapid transformation, the Bat-tala writers and printers were keen observers trying to record this tran sitional phase, not as mere factual recorders, but as artists and aes theticians who were crucially aware of the way in which readi ng tastes were alteri ng with the advent of the new technology of pri nt and several sociocultural readjustments. It is clear that in Bat-tala and i ts cheap street l iterature lies one of those hidden spaces of ne gotiation and exchange that often goes unnoticed. Moreover, in translating the prepri nt world into the world of print, the Bat-tala printers were careful about the way the book appeared to its readers. The preponderance of images and p ictures in the Bat-tala printed books is an obvious i ndicator of the shift these popular printers were negotiating. For an audience accustomed to the oral and the aural, the visual would have an immediate appeal. Instead of the eye being guided along a page full of letters, the space for accom modating the image was created. Also , we cannot forget the fact that Bat-tala catered to a modestly literate audience. In this case, too , the p ictures served a purpose-it was pictures, rather than printed matter, that often guided a reader. This is one of the major ways in which the earlier forms crept into the Bat-tala genres, mak ing it not only a popular phenomenon but also a translational phe C0 nomenon. Furthermore, the language used in these pieces, rather ---- � than the standardized Sanskritized Bengali of the elite presses, was ---- C ·.;:::; "' C 53 very close to the colloquial vernacular. While the government was busy standardizing the Bengali language, trying to get rid of the Persian and Arabic influences, Bat-tala-produced texts were often full of Persian and Arabic words (Ghosh, 2006, 259). In defying standardization, Bat-tala pri n ted texts opened further possibilities of negotiation between the center and the periphery. It is interesting to note that in the early days a large bulk of Bat-tala printing comprised manuscripts that were bought from the neighborhood villages. James Long, one of the most avid readers of popular print in Calcutta, commented on the way in which the best advertisement for the book was a living agent-the bookseller himself. Hawkers were often employed to sell printed matter, and these hawkers would not only sell the books, but in return would also acquire manuscripts from households which they would then bring to the printers. The printers would use these manuscripts, often translate them (in the wider sense of the word) , embellish them with pictures and images, and print them again.2 1 The printed book here becomes the afterlife of the manuscript. Apart from this direct translational aspect, a study of some of the title pages of printed matter produced in Calcutta between 1 800 and 1 900 woul d show the broad use of the word "translation." Often, translations of texts from the European languages would be called a "new work" or modeled on some author's work. The notion of "transcreation" was perhaps a quality that these early printers, publishers, and writers were aware of. Moreover, in most instances the English and the Bengali appeared together on the title page in dicating a playful coexistence of the two languages in the early days of printing. Apart from indicating a clear translational feature, these title pages also point to the varied readership that the printers an ticipated. It also undoubtedl y makes us contemplate the growing literacy rate and the clear increase in the number of people who could read English. The title pages provide interesting insights into a culture in transition, a culture minimally inhabiting two linguistic domains. Sherry Simon's (20 1 2) notion of the "dual city" is perhaps best witnessed with respect to the transformations and transitions 2 1 See Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Street: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Cal cutta (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1 989); Anindita Ghosh, Power in Print(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, a· 2006); Stuart Blackburn. Print, Folklore and Nationalism in Colonial South India (Delhi: Permanent Black, ---ru 2003) --- <,.) 54 that print necessitated . Often, there are quotations from canonical English writers on the title page. Some writ ers are repeatedly quoted-Shakespeare and Dickens being two of the most popular. The sheer variety of the title pages is an indi cation of the different generic experimentations that nineteenth-century printers were practicing. While there were popular and cannibalized renderings of clas sical stories, moral tales, and educational tracts, these presses also published new genres such as the social Title page of a collection of poems farce, the novel, and the almanac. on the occasion of the new year. Interesting to note is a quotation from Young's Night-Thoughts. The social farce of nineteenth-century Calcutta is probably the best example of the translational depar tures that we have been discussing. It is in these farces that one notices a vivid rendering of a society that is on the threshold of change and also the apprehensions that accompany such change. Often in these farces, conven tional practices are pitted against new ways of life and the former upheld. Moreover, the farces did not stop there . With caustic remarks and hatred at a rapidly transforming society, these social farces often used un fortunate and scandalous contemporary events to make their point about the evils of the new age. Churned out Title page of a compilation of lsh warchandra Vidyasagar's Instruc primarily by the popular presses in Bat-tala , these tive Stories. It is interesting how the Bengali and English existed si farces were also full of hatred of the elite, the babu as multaneously on the title page. he was called, for his "translated" nature. He had not only learnt the master 's language, but he was also fol lowing a lifestyle modeled on the English . He had changed the way he dressed, ate, and conversed in his desire to be recognized by the masters . The popular presses at Bat-tala were inundated with a variety of rep resentations of the babu, including the visual. Most of these farces were accompanied by woodcut prints, which were sometimes also sold alone. The printers at Bat-tala followed the indigenous technique of the Ka lighat pat painters here. Themes, motifs, and concepts were translated into the new medium of the printed --- book at Bat-tala. Many scholars and book historians Title page of a social farce. --- 2 C ·.;:::, C 55 � have studied this phase in the colonial history of Calcutta, but the translational aspect of the popular print phenomenon has not re ceived due attention. I locate the translational departures of popular printing in nineteenth-century Calcutta in two primary aspects. I n the first place, the Bat-tala book market is, for me, the melting pot of a wide variety of genres. That is to say, unlike the more estab lished elite presses, which limited themselves to single , specific genres, at BaHala, where no stipulations or rules applied , anything could be printed. I ts readership had not been clearly defined and the printers and publishers at Bat-tala were testing the waters, as it were, in an attempt to determine popular reading tastes. It is in such circumstances that Bat-tala creates new combinations, new genre mixtures, which can be understood perhaps only in terms of trans lational departures . There was nothing "original" about Bat-tala genres-they were either retellings of ancient myths or rearticula tions of stories and incidents whose source can be located else where. However, it is this rearticulation that I am particularly interested in as therein lay the possibilities of innovation , addition, and, often , can nibalization. l n the second place, Bat-tala translates a whole set of visual aesthetics into print. I am here referring to the woodcut artists of Calcutta. As Ashit Paul comments, Beginning as illustrators for the new books, they soon came to publish their works as independent works of art. They drew inspiration from the Kalighat artists. The Kalighat artists had not only severed the connections the picture had had traditionally with the spoken word and the musical narrative, but had also I iberated it from its ties with ritual . 1 . . . I The works of the woodcut artists and en gravers had the same independence, and the same secular approach even though dealing primarily w ith religious and mythological themes. (Paul 1 983, 8) I n fact, the popular print phenomenon translated a whole set of re ligious iconography to a more secular and polemical domain. Re ligious and mythological representations were repeatedly used, but their secularized contexts and translated natures were not difficult to locate. Moreover, the new visual vocabulary was a translation of a variety of Western motifs. The popular printers and woodcut artists, developed the notion of perspective and distance in their il lustrations, which was not to be seen before the nineteenth century. �. I n the depiction of classical and mythological narratives, one often ----- finds European motifs and patterns being used. For example, iii' ----- w 56 though a representation of a nine teenth-century babu would typically portray him in his dhuti and kurta (tra ditional Bengali attire for men) he would be wearing English "pump" shoes or would be smoking a pipe. In the depiction of the interiors of a do mestic setting, European furniture and architecture would often be used. Mo tifs and themes from European art could even be discerned in Hindu Fig. 1-Scene from the childhood of Lord Krishna. mythological depictions. For example in figure I , which depicts a scene from Lord Krishna's childhood, one cannot fail to notice the Roman arches and columns used as a backdrop. Figure 2 and figure 3, both depict Lord Krishna with the gopinis. In figure 2 one notices the use of per spective, a foregrounding of Lord Kr ishna in the center surrounded by the gopinis creating a kind of balance in the depiction . Moreover, the two scenes in the corners in the back ground depicting episodes from Lord Fig 2-Krishna with gopis. Krishna's life also creates a unique balance, which was not found in ear lier woodcut prints. Figure 3 is again an episode from Lord Krishna's life, stealing clothes of the gopinis. This is one rare depiction of Krishna playing the flute standing. Conventionally he is depicted playing the flute sitting. This vertical central motif is balanced by two trees on either sides. It is clear that the central tree and the trees on the sides do not look similar. In fact, (Y) "' CJ ---- the side trees remind one of floral Ei marginal motifs which the woodcut Fig 3 -Another depiction of Krishna with gopis. ---- c a "' C 57 _fg artist may have seen in some European book. ( Paul, I 983 , 50-56). Such translational aspects of the popular print episode in Calcutta have generally gone unnoticed. Although woodcut print production declined rapidly with the arrival of lithography and oleography in popular art, this phase in the popular print history of Calcutta is one of experimentation and translation-a cultural translation which was facilitated by the colonial encounter. Conclusion In Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation, Umberto Eco questions the traditional way of viewing translation as fol lows: What I want to emphasize is that many concepts circulating i n translation studies (such as adequacy, equivalence, faithfulness) will be considered in the course of my lectures from the point of v iew of negotiation . Negotiation is a process by virtue of which , in order to get something, each party renounces somethi ng else, and at the end everybody feels satisfied since one cannot have everything. (Eco 2003 , 6). These "negotiations," in fact, defined the colonial period in Calcutta. We have seen how the Bengali novel in the nineteenth century was not just a product of the colonial encounter, but drew upon a multiplicity of literary traditions , indigenous as well as for eign. The fissures and uncertainties which accompanied such ne gotiations in a way transformed our understanding of literature, life, and society. As Supriya Chaudhuri remarks , "the 'realism' of the novel clearly offers native writers a unique opportunity for the self-representation of their class and people in a period of rapid transition" (Chaudhuri 20 1 2, 1 04). Jn the case of the print genres, too, there were similar negotiations which redefined visual aes thetics along with transforming traditional iconography and a ques tioning of social values and a rapidly transforming society. Stuart Hall, in an essay titled "When was 'The Post-Colonial' ? Thinking at the Limit," argues that The term post-colonial is not merely descriptive of this society rather than that, �- or of then and now. It re-reads colonization as part of an essentially transna- ....... ....... c..., 58 tional global process - and it produces a decentred, diasporic or global rewrit ing of earlier, nation-centered imperial grand narratives. 1 - . . I I t obliges us to re-read the binaries as forms of transculturation , of cultural translation, des tined to trouble the here/there binaries forever. ( Hall 1 996, 242-260) The colonial encounter in Bengali literature provided us with rich material for similar explorations and theoretical debates. While most analyses would agree on the translated nature of the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century, they often tend to overlook the fact that the process of translation cannot be simply understood as the effects of cultural imperialism. Rather, under standing the colonial encounter as a process of cultural translation enables us to look at the interactive, dialogic, two-way process in volving complex negotiation and exchange. The cultural traffic, the movement of languages, books, genres, and ideas indicate the larger process of cultural translation at work, including the sociocultural, economic, and political frameworks through which ideas are cir culated and received. In rethinking how cultures relate to one an other at moments of cultural encounter, I have tried to emphasize the crucial role that genres play in such a process. Instead of a stable mimetic theory of art, approaching the colonial encounter in Cal cutta through the negotiations in the spaces of the liminal helps us unsettle conventional notions of the rigidity of generic boundaries enabling a furthering of processes of translation. (Y) -....... � -....... C ·.;:::, C 59 References Bakhtin, M. M. ( 1 975) 1 994. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by MM. Bakhtin. Edited by M ichael Holquist. Translated by Caryl Emerson and M ichael Holquist. Austin : University of Texas Press, 1 994. - - . 1 993. Toward a Philosophy ofthe Act. Edited by M ichael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov. Translated by Vadi m Liapuno. Austin: University of Texas Press. Banerjee, Sumanta. 1 989. The Parlour and the Street: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Blackburn, Stuart. 2003. Print, Folklore and Nationalism in Colonial South India. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003. Chaudhuri, Supriya. 20 1 2 . "The Bengali Novel." In The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture, edited by Vasudha Dalmia and Rashmi Sadana, 1 0 1 -23. Cambridge: Cambridge U niversity Press, 20 1 2. Das, Sisir Kumar. 2004. "Assimilation of Foreign Genres." I n Genealogy: Literary Studies in India, 1 7-23 . Kolkata: Jadavpur University. Derrida, Jacques. 1 980. "The Law of Genre." Translated by Avital RoneI I . Critical Inquiry (On Narrative), 7 ( 1 ): 55-8 1 . Eco, Umberto. 2003. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. London: Phoenix. Even-Zohar, l tamar. 2000. "The Position of Translated Literature within the Liter ary Polysystem ." I n The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 1 92- 1 97. London: Routledge. Ghosh, Anindita. 2006. Power in Print. New Delhi : Oxford University Press. Hall, Stuart. 1 996. "When was 'The Post-Colonial '? Thinking at the Limit." In The Post-Colonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons, edited by l ain Chambers and Lidia Curti, 242-260. London/New York: Routledge. Hunter, Paul J. 1 990. Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts ofEighteenth-Century English Fiction. New York: Norton. Kaviraj, Sudipta. 1 995. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopad hyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. PadikkaJ, Shivarama. 1 993. " Inventing Modernity: The Emergence of the N ovel in I ndia." In interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India, ed ited by T. N iranjana et al. Calcutta: Seagul l . Paranjape, Makarand. 2002. "The Al legory of Rajmohan's Wife ( 1 864): National Culture and Colonialism in Asia's First English Novel." In Early Novels in India, edited by Meenakshi Mukherjee, 1 43-1 60. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Orsini, Francesca. 2009. Print and Pleasure: Popular literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India. Delhi: Permanent B lack. Paul, Ash it, ed. 1 983. Woodcut Prints ofNineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull Books. �. Priokar, A. K. 1 958. The Printing Press in India: Its Beginnings and Early Develop --- ment. M umbai: Marathi Samshodhana Mandala. --- w 60 Qaisar, Ahsan Jan. 1 982. The Indian Response to European Technology and Culture A . D. /498 -1 707. Delh i : OUP. Raychaudhuri, Tapan. Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions ofthe West in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New Delhi: Ox ford University Press, 2002. Sen, Priyaranjan. 1 966. Western Influence in Bengali Literalure. Calcutta: Aca demic Publ ishers. Spear, Percival. 1 970. A History ofIndia, vol . 2. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1 985. "Reading the Archives: The Rani of Sirmur." In Europe and Its Others: Proceedings ofthe Essex Conference on the Soci ology of Literature, edited by F. Barker et al., 1 28-1 5 1 . Colchester: Uni versity of Essex. - - . 1 987. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Methuen. - - . 2000. "The Politics of Translation." In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 397-4 1 6. London and New York: Routledge. Time Charts of Events and Publications 1 798-1 900, prepared by the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Viswanathan, Gauri. 1 987. "The Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India." In Oxford Literary Review 9 ( 1 -2): 2-26. -- - . 1 989. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York: Columbia University Press. Internet source: All images for the woodcut prints in nineteenth century Calcutta are available at the following web address ( accessed April 22, 20 1 3) : http://www.google.co.in/search?q = woodcut+prints+in+nineteenth+cen tury+ca1cutta&hl=en&tbm= isch&tbo=u&source= univ&sa=X&ei=VL50Ub nsH MX lrA fe6oDwDQ&ved=0CEgQsAQ&biw= I 366&bih=643 . Chandrani Chatterjee is Assistant Professor of English at U niversity of Pune, India. Her areas of interest include translation studies, comparative literature, gender studies, postcolonial and cultural studies and history of the book. She was Fulbright-Nehru Vis iting Lecturer, Fall, 201 3 at U niversity of Massachusetts, Amherst. (Y) --- --- � C ·.::, C 61 g

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Imperial and Anti-imperial Translation in Native American Literature E dwi n G entzler University of Massachusetts Amherst U.SA [email protected] Abstract: I n this paper I crace a brief history of translation o f Native American texts, looking at both imperiaJ and anti-imperiaJ practices and strategies. The opening section discusses a series of omissions and false substitutions by impe riaJistic translators, whose goals may have been directed more at conversion and domestication than translation proper. I then focus on ethnographic and ethnopo etic translation strategies practiced by anthropologists and literary translators that were less imperiaJ and more open to inclusion and diversity. FinaJly, I turn to Arnold Krupat's conception of "anti-imperiaJ translation" chat aJlows Native American terms, sounds, and structures to co-exist in the English language, thereby enlarging the both English and Native American cultures and pointing to a new way of thinking about translation in a (post)translation fashion. The American I ndian is the vengeful ghost lurking in the back of the troubled American mind. Which is why we lash out with such ferocity & passion, so muddied a heart, at the black-haired young peasants & soldiers who are the Viet Cong. That ghost will claim the next generation as its own." Gary Snyder (Rothenberg 1 972, 475) Preface: On Thanksgiving In light of my being from Massachusetts, I wish to first mention a ceremony held annually on Thanksgiving Day at Ply mouth Rock, just south of Boston, Massachusetts, the site where the William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed in 1 620. Every November, there is a large and well-attended recreation of the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, celebrating the day when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Native Americans for helping them through that first year. This celebration in "America's Hometown," attended by hundreds of thousands of people, lasts three days , with �- food festivals, concerts, waterfront activities, and live streaming -... web feeds. The counterceremony I wish to cite, however, is led by -... w 62 the Wampanoag Indians, and is called "Thanksgrieving." W hile Thanksgiving is not a Christian Holiday, it is a day that most Amer icans celebrate, and it has shifted from the white immigrants thank ing the Indians for their help during the difficult early years , to whites offering prayers to God, thanking Him for providing a boun tiful harvest. The ceremony held by the Wampanoag. however, is a bit different. It involves the people forming two concentric circles: an inner circle, which is quite tight and is comprised of all Indians; and an outer circle, where the non-Indians-mostly whites coming to observe and witness-stand at a respectful distance. The Native people hold hands, and, while there is some chanting, the Indians mostly just hold each others' hands and cry-and there is much crying. After a while, the Native Americans break the circle and walk down to the ocean's edge where the Pilgrims landed and throw objects into the water, with more tears and more holding on to each other. The white observers are not asked to come. At the end, the Indians quietly leave, and the observers are asked to stay in silence until the Indians have passed ( Ayvazian 20 1 1 , A6). Introduction This paper stems from my interest in what I have been calling "hidden" translation, exploring translational phenomena that take place out-of-sight, behind the scenes. sous ratour or under erasure (Gentzler 2008 , I 0- 1 3) . These translations often take place in very private spheres-in the communities of so-called "lesser known" languages, or "languages of limited diffusion." They take place in private meetings, in families, between fathers and sons or grandmothers and granddaughters. Often they involve trauma, re pressed memories that are hard to talk about in the first place, let alone in translation. Most frequently, they are oral, intimate, whis pered. The chanting, tears, and hand-holding that take place in the Thanksgrieving ceremony cited above serves as just one example of such an intimate, private space. Another space where hidden translations occur is in creative writing, passages adapted/recreated/ reinscribed in original work, blurring the boundaries between trans lation and creative writing, which I will discuss toward the end of -- this paper. There are often good reasons for keeping such translations out of sight, as invariably the ideas and knowledge communicated -- � C ·.;:::; C 63 do not fit with the domi nant language and culture, such as the im m igrant, enslaved, and indigenous languages in the United States, or the experimental, subversive, and nontraditional forms and genres comprising contemporary writing. In the U n ited States, the English-only policy is a powerful one, dat i ng back to the pre Revotutionary War period. Invariably, the discipline of translation studies tends to study texts and not oral tales, empirical printed matter rather than oral stories, memoi re, song, and dance. The dis cipline tends to focus on what gets translated and omits what does not get translated, thereby coming up with little or no explanation for the gaps, silences, repressions, and omissions that are also part of any given translation and any literary or cultural system of trans lated texts. Translation studies as a discipline is generally guilty of conformi ng to the most traditional definitions of translation; al though these may vary from culture to culture, unless the texts being studied are designated as translations by some normative defin ition, most translation studies scholars have avoided them. Many of the "texts" I study have probably not been classified as translations nor entered into any computer databases and made available to corpus studies scholars. How is such research carried out? Larger conceptual frames are needed, ones which extend beyond what is normally considered under the domain of translation studies. As Saussure has shown, one cannot study sameness without also studying difference. Most of my examples in this paper from the translation of Native Amer ican texts are chosen precisely because they illustrate how a focus on sameness covers up differences. English-only l inguistic policies, European political philosophy, capitalist economic policies, and Christian beliefs and m issionary causes aimed at colonization and assimilation have led to the eradication of indigenous cultures. Their wider adaptation by educational systems and govern mental programs, not to mention the ideological domi nance, makes it im possible to study Amerindian translation without the broader un derstanding of the pervasive i nfluence of English l iterary forms, European economic and philosophic structures, and Judea-Christian i deas across all Native American writing. ::, Surprisingly, postcolon i al scholars and translation studies �- scholars have done little work on indigenous Amerindian texts. ---- ::, Given the nature of Native American writing, it seems as if it might ru' ---- c,.:, 64 be perfectly suited for such postcolonial investigations. The subject matter of resistance to colonization, the use of non-Western forms of communication, the hybrid and heterogeneous nature of most texts, and the embedded secret codes are perfectly suited for post structuralist, postmodern, and postcolonial investigations. Certainly the subversions, parodies, plays on words, and performances lend themselves to deconstructive analysis. The concerns with opposi tion, oppression, marginality, and otherness are perfect for post colonial investigations. The social conflicts between tribals versus whites, manifest in everyday life as well as periods of war, the economic disparities, the power relations between tribal versus European languages, and the native forms for art and poetry versus European forms alJ might lend themselves to sociological, historical, and literary translational studies investigations, but they really have not. Apart from Eric Cheyfitz's The Poetics of Imperialism: Trans lation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan ( 1 997), the field is pretty wide open. Even scholars such as Mary Louise Pratt in her Imperial Eyes ( 1 992), which well documents the history of European colonization of the Amerindian tribes, does not really touch upon translation questions other than to talk about the erad ication of indigenous languages. There is so much else that could be discussed about the language issues in the contact zone, from translation into indigenous languages, to translation of the Indians into the European languages, to combinations thereof, to developing a linguafranca, to ethnocentric translation, nonethnocentric trans lation, ethnographic translation, adaptation, and transcultural trans lation. Even nontranslation could be subject to a translational analy sis . This paper hopes to begin such a discussion. Instead of translation studies scholars' investigations, 1 draw upon the work by scholars of Amerindian texts, in which translation is everywhere present. While many of these scholars Eric Cheyfitz, Arnold Krupat, Gerald Vizenor, David Treuer, and Winfried Simerling- are not well versed in translation studies dis course, their work is informed throughout by translational phe nomena: translation between languages, translation from oral to written, translation of marginal into central, cultural translation, adaptive translation, mistranslation, and silencing in translation. I n many ways, the entire corpus of Native American literature is --- already in translation, for, with very few exceptions, the oral histo- --- � C ·.;:::; C 65 Jg rians and storytellers have either passed away, or the remaining native speakers have all died. W hat is left is the presence of a lan guage, traditional forms or performance, and memories of events in a lost or hidden culture. Most remaining elements consist only of the traces. In The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Culture , Arnold Krupat coined the term "anti-imperial translation" (Krupat 1 996, 32) to refer to the way that contemporary Amerindian writers use fiction to translate their ideas and beliefs into English, which very much informs this paper. in his theory, there is a reversal of source and target texts: rather than translating from the native language into English, Krupat and his followers, while writing in English, maintain that they are translating English into the Native culture. Thus the Native American creative writing is viewed less as "original" writing and more as a "translation" of English into the Native, creatively remaking and rewriting American English to include spaces for Amerindian ideas and forms of expression. I find this to be a new and original idea for translation studies, and one worth pursuing. A quick note on term inology: there are great difficulties in writing about this topic because neither the translation studies dis course nor social studies discourse are adequate to the task. " Amer ican" and " Indian" are misnomers, European labels applied to the l and and people first encountered. Thus l use a variety of naming strategies, varying the terms " indigenous," "aboriginal," "lndian," "Amerindian," and " Native American," none of which are adequate. I also am not that happy with the term "postcolonial," as coloniza tion continues in many Indian reservat ions and lands , none of which, with the possible exception of certain Pueblo lands, might be considered homelands anymore, and dispossession is widespread throughout the United States.' I thus use both terms such as "post colonial" and "(post)colonial," as well as "anticolonial" and "anti imperi al ," to describe the ongoing situation. I am attracted to the concept of "posttranslation studies," as coined by Siri Nergaard and Stefano Arduini (20 1 1 , 8). I feel a strong need to move beyond empirically based corpora and source- or target-based approaches that limit seeing all those variable, exceptional, and creative texts �- ---- See article within this article by Winfried Siemerling, 87. ru' ---- w 66 and performances that border on translation, but are not called such by scholars. I am currently leaning toward (post)translation studies to indicate an expansion of the kjnds of texts considered and an expansion of the kinds of methodologies used to analyze the new translational phenomena, retaining many of the older methodologies for analyzing empirical phenomena, but adding new tools for assessing elements that extend beyond translation proper. The paper is divided into two parts: ( I ) "Imperial Transla tion," which includes sections on conversion, elimination, imperi alism, and domestication; and ( II) "Anti-imperial Translation," which includes sections on anthropological translation, total trans lation, disguise in translation, and anti-imperial translation. I. Imperial Translation 1. Conversion In my Thanksgiving example, above, does translation play a part in this story? It certainly does. Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe, a now extinct band belonging to the Wampanoag confederacy, served as the first interpreter for the Puritans. He had learned English because he had been kidnapped http://www.nativcnewstoday.com/20 I 3/03/01 /squanto-paw- tuxettisquantum-january- 1 - 1 585-november-30/ earlier in his life by one of John Smith's soldiers, taken to Spain, Tisquarrtum (January 1, 1 585 - November 30, 1622). also known as Squanto, was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after to be sold into slavery by the Eng their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. lish. Rescued by local friars, who He was a member of the Patuxet tribe, a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy. saw his value in terms of convert ing Indians to Christianity, Tisquantum made his way to London, and then back to the colonies, only to find that many Massachusetts tribes had already been decimated by infectious diseases brought by the white colonists. In the 1 620s, he settled with the Pilgrims, to whom he taught sur vival skills in the new world, including fishing and planting tech niques, as well as serving as a guide and translator, especially in communication with the Wampanoag sachems . The 1 630s and '40s saw a massive increase in immigration (Y) into New England and Massachusetts. Over twenty thousand new --- settlers arrived during this period, often referred to as the Great --- � ·.;:a 67 Migration, and new towns were formed west of Boston, including Hartford, Springfield, Northampton, and, a few years later, my hometown of A mherst, founded in 1 658, "purchased" for 200 wampum and a few small gifts . All of these new settlements en croached upon the land of the native Algonquin-speaking tribes, and tensions predictably escalated. In addition to the unjust en croachment upon the land, the English colonists were committed to their missionary work: in 1 646, the Massachusetts General Court ordered that "efforts to promote the diffusion of Christianity among aboriginal inhabitants be made with all diligence" (Samworth 20 1 1 ). In 1 649, the English Par- http://raunerl i brary.blogspoLcom/20 I I /09/el iot-bi ble .html liament enacted an "Ordinance for the Advancement of Civiliza tion and Christianity Among the Indians" that created The Society NEGONNE OOSUKKUHWHONK JIC O S E S, Ne .-.,w'!etan::uk for the Propagation of the Gospel -C E N E S I S· in New England, the first Protes tant missionary society. For the next ten years, Eliot dedicated himself to the task of translating the Bible, with the assistance of a Massachusetts Indian named Wassausmon, also known in En glish as John Sassamon, whose ability to speak and write English proved invaluable to Eliot. ( I will come back to Wassausmon later.) Thus , at first, the early English policy for converting the Natives was that of learning their languages and translating the Bible into those languages-an early national translation policy, as it were. However, it soon became apparent that that policy was not going to work; it was simply too difficult to learn the various indigenous languages. In his book Magnalia Christi Americana ( 1 702), Cotton Mather, for example, a prominent Puritan minister, author of hun dreds of books, sermons, and pamphlets, and well known for his role in the Salem witch trials, claimed to be utterly baffled by the A lgonquin language (Samworth 2006). With Cotton Mather and subsequent Puritan leaders, the two-way flow of Amerindian �. British communication ended. I would suggest that the mistrust and ------ misunderstandings that ensued over the next two centuries can ------ w 68 largely be attributed to the lack of effort by the colonists to learn and understand the languages and cultures of the indigenous peo ples. 2. Elimination The translation policy became one of nontranslation into non-English languages. The thanks exchanged at early Thanksgiv ings ceased, the holiday disappeared, hostilities began, and soon immigrant Europeans began their http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Spring04/war- killing, directly, and efficiently at fare.cfm?showSite=mobile first. My town of "Amherst," Massa chusetts, was named after Lord Jef frey Amherst, commander-in-chief of British forces in New England in the 1 700s, famous for winning battles in the French and I ndian War, but also infamous for committing the first germ warfare known to man when he ordered that blankets infected with smallpox be given to Native Ameri cans. Those who survived were forced to assimilate to the English language, customs, and laws, their lands were taken away, and their lan guages , religions, and native cultures repressed. Estimates vary, but by Sir Jeffrey Amherst. shown here in Joseph Blackburn's 1 758 painting, some estimates there were over ten suggested Bouquet infect the Indians with smallpox. (Mead Gallery, Amherst) million Native Americans when the Pilgrims and Puritans arrived; by 1 900 there were only 230,000 left. As of the 1 880s, the US gov ernment required all teachers in Native American schools to teach in English, and many Indian ceremonies were banned. The policy was quite successful: according to Ethnologue ( Lewis 2009), over half of the Native American languages have been lost, with only 1 54 remaining, spoken by just over 300,000 people. Seven are only spoken by one person. About 1 50,000 speak Dine, a Navajo lan guage ( Reyhner 200 I ). Jn The Name of the War: King Philip 's War and the Origins --- ofAmerican Identity, Jill Lapore ( 1 998) suggests that the defeat of � --- ·.;::, 69 the Indians in King Philip's War ( 1 675- 1 678), sometimes called Metacomet's War- Metacomet being the main leader of the Native American side, who was called King Philip by the British-the first war between Native Americans and the English colonists, marked the beginning of the new American identity, one built upon policies of extermination. As op http://raunerlibrary.blogspot.com/20 1 1 /09/eliot-bible.html posed to a former identity which considered the colonists as British settlers, as the war had largely been fought with American sol diers, resources , and supplies only, it lent the new Americans a sense of independence and au thority. The war was one of the bloodiest in American history, drawing in English settlements throughout New England and Indian tribes from a variety of regions . There were many casualties on both sides , and , proportionally, more English died in the war than in any other war in history. But also proportionally, six times as many Amerindians died as British set tlers. The eventual English victory secured New England for the British and opened up all of New England for British colonization and appropriation. As Lapore sug gests, the new American identity was based upon the elimination of Native American languages and cultures. As Emily Apter has pointed out in The Translation Zone (2006), translation policy and military policy are closely connected. Citing Carl von Clausewitz's dictum that war is a mere continuation of policy by other means , Apter claims that war is a logical extension of a policy of mis translation . She writes that "I w lar is, in other words , a condition of �- nontranslatability or translation failure at its most violent peak" ..._ ( Apter 2006, 1 6, italics in original). al' ..._ u.) 70 To return to the Wassausmon example, in addition to his work translating the Bible, some argue that he was one of the pri mary causes of King Phi l ip's War, showing how distrusted transla tors were. Wassausmon served as a translator and interpreter for both Metacomet and the Native Americans before returning to Pu ritan society, where he became a minister in the Plymouth colony. Because of his knowledge of language and culture, as wel l as his contacts among chiefs and educators, he was both respected and distrusted by al l parties. Wassausmon is best known today because of his assassination. ln 1 674, he warned Josia Winslow, then gov ernor of the Plymouth colony, that an attack was being organized by Metacomet. Just a short while later, his body was found at the bottom of a local pond, and the settlers were quick to accuse Meta comet of ordering the assassination. Three of Metacomet's men were arrested, found gui l ty at a hasti ly organized trial, and executed. A year later, some say as a result of the trial which Wampanoags say infringed upon their sovereignty, war broke out. The descendants of the Algonquian Wampanoags ( Wompanaak) are the very same Indians who are conducting the Thanksgrieving ceremony of today. 3. Imperialism A few translation studies scholars have written about trans lation and imperialism, including Eric Cheyfitz, author of The Po etics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan ( 1 997) and The ( Post)Colonial Construction of Indian Country: U.S. American Indian Literatures and the Federal Indian Law (2006); Stephen Jay Greenblatt, author of Marvelous Possessions ( 1 992), an analysis of travel , judicial, and literary doc uments on the discovery and appropriation of the New World, and Vicente Rafael, author of contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in the Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule ( 1 993), who focused on the analogous example of the Spanish translation and colonization process in The Phil ippines . Cheyfitz is one of the best authors detailing the history of imperial practices, and is not afraid to be very blunt about the atroc ities committed in the name of European mil i tary, social, and reli -- (Y) -- gious practices. Here is how he begins the Columbian Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United States since 1 945: � C ·.;::, C 71 European settlers built the post- 1 492 Americas on stolen I ndian land with stolen African and I ndian tabor. The very European name "Americas" marks the mo ment of the beginning of this institutional theft. The United States is no excep tion . Where the Spanish invaded and settled in Notth America, stolen Native land and tabor were part and parcel of the same v iolent movement to dominate Native territory and tabor through a system of encomiendas and repartimienlo I . . . I The Catholic Church joined the state in playing a significant role in this violence. (Cheyfitz 2006. vii) Cheyfitz 's first "chapter" in the Columbian Guide goes on for 1 24 small-print pages, over 85,000 words, a book in and of itself, doc umenting in detail the wars, enslavement, forced labor, extermina tions, language policies, nontranslation policies, and theft of land, rights, and indigenous religious and literary practices-in short, a chronicling of the colonial reconstruction of Indian culture. Trans lation and religious policies are at the heart of the imperial project in all Indian affairs. In The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Coloniza tion from The Tempest to Tarzan, Cheyfitz ( 1 997) lays out his ar gument that translation was a key factor, perhaps the most important factor, in the Anglo-American imperial policy, first as foreign policy toward the neighboring Indians, and later, after 1 824 and the creation of the Bureau of I ndian Affairs, as a domestic pol icy as the U S boundary shifted westward. For Cheyfitz, the poetics of imperialism refers to speech itself, the persuasive power of lan guage and rhetoric into which Native American ideas and expres sions were translated as fluidly as possible in European terms. Cheyfitz analyzes the elegant orators who speak for Native Amer icans-from Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest, through Edgar Rice Burroughs in Tarzan of the Apes ( 1 9 1 2), to later Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, the "great communicator" of the late twentieth century. Cheyfitz's point is that the portrayal of the Native American in translation has been a fiction rather than fact, and only by unpacking layers of fictional translations can one ex pose the rhetorical technologies that have supported ongoing Anglo-American imperialism to this day and the role of translation in the construction of power. �. Signaling a shift of translation policy from the initial Puri ---al' tan attempt to learn and translate into indigenous languages, Chey- --- w 72 fitz cites the Instructions given in 1 609 by the London Council to the Virginia Company, headed by Sir Thomas Gates , to develop a plan to educate the weroances ( Algonquian leaders) "in ! the Eng lish I language, and manners" so that the Indians would "easily obey you and become in t ime Civill and Christian" (quoted by Cheyfitz 1 997, 6). Cheyfitz continues: The problem of translation , the complex interactions between cultures and h is tories, is at once announced and annulled. This rewriting has significant repe r cussions i n the conflict between oral and written cultures under consideration here. And we can read these repercussions in the European travel narratives, where what were necessarily the difficulties , discords, i ndeed absences of translation, are displaced into fictive accords of communication , composed, except for a scattering of transliterated naive terms, wholly in European tongues. (Cheyfitz 1 997, 7) Tracing a pattern of disfiguring Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes (191 2) and demonizing in rewritings and Tarzan is a Translator. Raised speaking the language of the apes, translation, Cheyfi tz goes on to Tarzan teaches himself to read and write English by correlating pic analyze the discourse represent tures (fantasized implicitly in this fiction as a universal ur-language) and words in the books that his father transported from England to ing Native Americans i n both po Africa. Tarzan discovers these books as a boy among the apes, litical and l iterary texts. Tarzan, though he dies not learn to speak his father's tongue until the very end of the romance, after ha has become fluent in French, his first for example, i s seen as a transla spoken European language, which his mentor, O'Arnot, taught him. tor: raised speaking the language Tarzan's search for identity, then, is a linguistic search, in which he is literally translated from ape into man; in learning to read, what of the apes, he teaches h imself to Tarzan learns centrally is that "[hie was a M-A-N, they were A-P-E read and write Engli sh and S" (50), a distinction that the language of the apes cannot make, "for in the language of the anthropoids there was no word for man" {85). French. H i s search for identity is Translated through the power of books from ape into written English, both linguistic, from animal lan Tarzan, with the aid of his father's knife (the mastery of a written, or European, language and of an "advanced" technology are identical guage into European languages, in this romance), gains an imperial power over what appeared to be and physical, literally, from "sav his kin, precisely because they cannot follow Tarzan or can only fol low him partially in his translation: "So limited was their vocabulary age" ape into "civilized" man, a that Tarzan could never even talk with them of the many new truths, process through which he gains and the great 'fields of thought that his reading had opened up be fore his longing eyes, or make known ambitions which stirred his imperial power over his savage soul" (91 ). Tarzan cannot fully converse with the apes because writ ten English cannot be translated into their impoverished tongue, kin. The power of books , in this which Burroughs represents in that self-consciously metaphoric lan case the books Tarzan's father guage that "savages" typically speak in European discourse. And un able to converse fully with the apes, Tarzan can only dominate them. brought to the wild, is more pow The failure of dialogue, figured as genetic inability in the other, erful than the armies that follow, rather than as a problem of cultural difference, is the imperial alibi for domination. and the idealistic result conforms CV:, Eric Cheyfitz, The Poetics of Imperialism. Translation and Coloniza "' --- CJ to the civilizing ideological mis tion from The Tempest to Tarzan, (Expanded Edition, Philadelphia: sion of the colonizers. So, too, in University of Pennsylvania Press, 1 997), 1 5--1 6. -- � c:: a ·.;::, <n c:: 73 � Shakespeare's The Tempest is Caliban presented as having been born a savage-"born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick" ( IY.i. 1 88- 1 89)-who subsequently learns English but con tinues to be viewed as a monster and potential rapist despite his ed ucation . Cheyfitz sees Caliban as always in translation (Cheyfitz 1 997 , 1 65 and following) , between the gabble of the animal and the eloquence of English, perennially in conflict. Significantly, Cal iban 's war against Prospero is aimed at Prospero's books and the power of his magic. Through such figures as Tarzan and Caliban emerges Cheyfitz's theory of translation: T his theory of translation constitutes a theory of what is human. Put another way, we could say that in the Renaissance and until the founding of biology in the nineteenth century, theories of what is h uman are theories of translation , theories of cultare rather than nature. In Tarzan of the Apes, we read how a theory of evolution , a theory of nature, is the repressed form of a theory of translation that blurs the boundary between " human" and "ape" by a1ticulating the boundary as literal, this is , scriptural, rather than natural. In other words , we speculate that theories of evolution are always theories of translation . (Cheyfitz 1 997 , 1 67) Cheyfitz radically expands the notion of translation theory from its linguistic sense to a historical cultural theory of the human. Cheyfitz views Tarzan, the displaced European, as a translator, speaking both the language of the apes, and later French and Eng lish. Tarzan translates himself on several levels: from oral to written, from broken to fluent, and from impoverished to powerful. In the process, he gains power. The translation is not merely a linguistic one, but a mental and physical one as well, from animal to full fledged human. Caliban, the indigenous native, is also multiply transtated. His name, a mistranslation of some unknown Native American term for "cannibal," marks him in the eyes of the invading others , and in the eyes of himself, the figurative inscribed upon the body. As Caliban enters Prospero's world, the culture is an imported one: European ideas and values inscribed upon, translated into, the New World. Caliban is forced to learn the language of the oppressor, which only serves to further his enslavement and alienation. In the Native American world, therefore, translation operates not a foreign �- policy, but a domestic one, carried out from within, and it has ---- drastic material consequences . This all too physical aspect, Cheyfitz ---- c,,:, 74 argues, has been repressed by trans http://prettycleverfilms.wordpress.com/2012/03/0l /tar lation studies scholars, who focus con zan-of-the-apes- 1 9 1 8/ s iderably on the linguistic and cul tural, and less on the human and individual. In the Poetics of Imperi alism, Cheyfitz looks both at transla tion as a theory of communication, and at the consequences, socially and psychologically, of translation upon live individuals . And in the case of Native Americans, the consequences have been devastating. Despite learn ing the language of the colonizer, the Tarzan translator is never to be trusted, never quite obtaining the eloquence of the master, which remains in a pure/white form. In the end, Caliban, the other, the hybrid, the deformed, remains alone and isolated on the island, only his image remains in the imaginations http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/shakespeare/plays/the-tem of the colonizers. Anglo-American pest/ 1 982-photo-gal lery.aspx policies of Native American transla tion have served to either fictionalize or marginalize Native American lan guage, culture, and concepts, to the point that little is left. Populations have been eradicated, languages lost, and the few translations reduced to cliches, such as trickster characters refigured or Plains Indians hunting buffalo. Often the representations add layers of obfuscation, making it all but impossible to unpack the images and access any objective "truth." What remains are mere traces of Indian ex pressions in oral tales, literary texts, and memoires passed on in translation (Y) from generation to generation. --- Caliban --- � ·.p 75 4. Domestication Perhaps the most influential translation studies scholar of the past twenty years in North America has been Lawrence Venuti. Author of The Translator 's Invisibility ( 1 995) and editor of Rethink ing Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology ( 1 992) , Venuti criticizes the humanistic underpinnings of most literary translation in the United States and shows how it reinforces prevailing domes tic beliefs , forms , and ideologies. Venuti 's main thesis is that trans lation tends to be an invisible practice in the United States, where by invisible he means that translators tend to be self-effacing in their work, denying their own voice. Translations are judged to be successful when they read "fluently," giving the appearance that they have not been translated (Venuti 1 992 , 4). The problems with such a situation, according to Venuti , are twofold : fi rst , it marginalizes practicing translators , making them subservient to the author and defining thei r practice as deriv ative and secondary, ranking far below high quality creative writing and in-depth literary analysis; and secondly, and perhaps more im portantly, it erases the linguistic and cultural differences of the for eign text that the very act of translation purports to carry over into the receiving culture. By rewriting the text according to the pre vailing styles of the receiving culture, and by adapting images and metaphors of the foreign text to the target culture 's preferred sys tems of beliefs , translators are not only severely constrained i n terms of their options to carry out their task, but also forced to alter the foreign text to conform to the receiving culture's forms and ideas. Thi s kind of translation performs an act of domestication, making the foreign familiar, providing readers with the experience of recognizing their own culture in the foreign, and enacting, ac cording to Venuti , a kind a cultural imperialism, one which pre serves social h ierarchies, and maintains political and religious conceptions. This form of translation has characterized generations of translators of Native American texts. Let me give just one example, which has often been anthologized and serves as representative Henry Row Schoolcraft's early nineteenth-century translation of "Chant of the Fire-fly": �. ---- ---- <,.) 76 Ojibwa/Chippewa: Wau wau tay see ! Wau wau tay see ! E mow e shin Tshe bwau ne baun-e wee! Be eghuan-be eghuan-ewee! Wau wau tay see ! Wau wau tay see ! Was sa koon ain je gun Was sa koon ain je gun. (Schoolcraft's transcription, as cited by Day 1 95 1 , 27-28 ; Hymes 1 98 1 , 39; see also Treuer 2006, 1 7) For which Schoolcraft's literal translation is: Flitting-white-fire-insect ! waving-white-fire-bug! give me light before I go to bed ! give me light before I go to sleep! Come, little dancing white-fire-bug ! Come, little flitting white-fire-beast ! Light me with your bright white-flame in strument-your little candle. (Schoolcraft's literal translation , quoted by Day 1 95 1 , 27-28; Hymes 1 98 1 , 39) While Schoolcraft's literary translation is: Fire-fly, fire-fly ! bright little thing, Light me to bed, and my song I will sing. Give me your light, as you fly o'er my head, That I may merrily go to my bed. (Schoolcraft literary translation , quoted by Day 1 95 1 , 27-28; Hymes 1 98 1 , 39; see also Clements 1 996, 1 27-1 28) The Schoolcraft translation of "Fire-fly" well illustrates Venuti's portrayal of domestication in translation: adapting the complex compound nouns to quite simple English terms, eliminating repe tition, deleting the performative quality, adding new terms not pres (Y) ent in the original to make it more fluid and accessible, and, ---- � especially, trivializing the ideas and marvel at nature and turning it ---- ·.;:::; 77 into an infantile children's lyric. Here is what Hymes has to say about the Schoolcraft version: "Thanks to Schoolcraft's scholar ship, we can appreciate in depth how bad his translation is . Almost anyone sharing modern standards and taste I . . . I will prefer the lit eral translation as more satisfactorily poetic, both in what it avoids and in what it contains" ( Hymes 2004, 40) . Unfortunately, the Schoolcraft style of translation, as Venuti successfully argues, was prevalent in the United States in the past century, and, for example, greatly influenced poets such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (see his The Song of Hiawatha ( 1 855)) as well as other poets of his gen eration. It continued well into the twentieth century, often based more on empathy than on linguistic talent; intuited meaning rather than cross-cultural skills . Generations of translators relied on trans lation cribs and adapted Amerindian texts to English forms, expres sions , and, especially, Anglocentric worldviews . For decades, the use of domesticated words when no word exists in the receiving language and the racial discrimination in language were readily vis ible in such translations . II. Anti-imperial Translation 1 . Anthropological translation I n works such as Rethinking Translation ( 1 992) and The Translator's Invisibility ( 1 995), Lawrence Venuti suggested that in twentieth-century translations into North American English have tended to be fluent and domesticating. This may have been true for many literary translators, but not for all. For example, most anthro pological translations , especially of Native American texts, have tended toward the literal and foreignizing. Franz Boas, for example, a German Jew who came to the United States in the early twentieth century, was well versed in physics and geography, after which his geographic interests took him to Canada and the American North west, where he studied Inuit/Eskimo groups and recorded, tran scribed , and translated Amerindian work. Perhaps because of - growing resentment towards Jews in Europe, he took his first job in anthropology at Clark University in Worcester, MA, and stayed �- in the United States , moving to the Field Museum in Chicago and --- later to Columbia University in NYC, where he founded the first --- Qj' w 78 PhD program in anthropology. Boas and his students, including Ed ward Sapir, Paul Rivet, L. J. Frachtenberg, Melville Jacobs, and later followers such as Dell Hymes, pioneered the recording and preservation of Amerindian texts . Their approach combined lin guistics and cultural factors, paying particular attention to sounds and the perception of sounds, showing how different cultures per ceive sounds in various fashion. Boas and his students would live with the tribes being researched, conduct work in the native lan guage, and collaborate with native speakers. Their descriptions of texts were very scientific and based on empirical observations, but still included musical and cultural data (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File: Dance_Song_of_the_Thompson_River_lndians.ogg). Boas's group argued that one could only understand cultural traits by observing behaviors, beliefs, and signing practices in their local context. He and his students not only described the language and grammar, but also the myths, folktales, beliefs, and even recipes. The focus was not just on generalities and common behaviors, but also on relationships, difference of opinions, and in dividual agency within a language culture. Boas and his students were very active in terms of combating racism in research and prac tice, particularly against blacks in New York, and Native Americans in the Northwest. This method later led to the Sapir-Whorf hypoth esis, which holds that the structure of a language determines how one conceptualizes the world, and is widespread in translation stud ies, especially those who challenge meaning-based and functional theories of translation and theories that posit laws or universals of translation. This hypothesis of linguistic relativity challenged the sense of European and white Anglo-American superiority in terms of language and cognition and changed the way translators translated. Interests expanded to a new focus on music and image as well as linguistic meaning. New forms of movement and dance lent varia tions to tones and meaning. Certain songs were recorded in multiple versions, highlighting the importance of the performer and individ ual variation of the texts ( Krupat 1 989, 1 09). Their commitment to science led them to prefer the most literal versions. Here is an ex ample of the transcription of one of the Coyote tales from the Pa -- (Y) cific Northwest: -- � -� 79 Coyote was com ing. He came to G6t'a't. There he met a heavy surf. He was afraid that he might be drifted away and went up to the spruce trees. He stayed there a long time. Then he took some sand and threw it u pon that surf: "Th is shal l be a prairie and no surf. The future generations shall walk on this prairie." Thus Clatsop became a prairie. The surf became a prairie. ( Boas 1 894) Or another example: At Nia' xaqce a creek originated. He went and bu ilt a house at N ia' xaqce. He went out and stayed at the month of N ia'xaqce . Then he speared two silver side salmon , a steel -head sal mon , and a fall sal mon . Then he threw the salmon and the fal l salmon away, say ing: 'Th is creek is too smal l . . . " On the next day he went again and stood at the month of the creek . He d id not see anything until the flood tide set in. Then he became angry and went home. He defecated . He spoke and asked his excrements: " Why have these silve r -s ide salmon d isap peared?" H i s excrements said to him: "I told you , you w ith your bandy legs, when the first silver-side salmon are k i l led spits must be made, one for the head , one for the back, one for the roe , one for the body. The gills m ust be burnt." "Yes," said Coyote . ( Boas 1 894) These excerpts illustrate the anthropologists' preference for more literal strategies, aimed at keeping indigenous place names, pre serving syntactical structures, and maintaining an oral quality. In terms of the content, the deep attachment to, and even conversation with, nature is preserved, as are scatological references and exple tives, often taboo in literary circles at the time. Another anthropologist and Boas disciple, sociolinguist Dell Hymes, also worked on languages of the Pacific Northwest, and also focused on language and social relations, but his transla tions are less descriptive and literal, and instead incorporate more of the poetics and performative nature of the text. Here is an ex ample of the firefly poem in a version by Dell Hymes: Flitting insect of white fire ! Flitting insect of white fire ! Come, give me light before I sleep! Come, give me light before I sleep! Flitting insect of white fire ! Flitting insect of white fire ! ---- ii3"' ---- w 80 Light me with your bright instrument of flame . Light me with your bright instrument of flame. ( Hymes 1 98 1 , 4 1 ; Krupat 1 992, 25 ; see also Treuer 2006a, 2 1 ) In contrast to the domesticated version above by Henry Row Schoolcraft, in Hymes's version we see the preservation of the com pound nouns, including the repeated lines, retaining an oral perfor mative quality, similar syntactic structures, and literal adherence to the original terms with no additions to make it more fluid, accessi ble, or aesthetic. The translation demonstrates respect for the in digenous ideas, rhythms , repetitions, and structure of the verse . Hymes was one of the first anthropologists to point out that the eth nologists' literal descriptions and transcriptions, while often reli able , may not be taken as empirical factual accounts , and that literary translation, while often better than their literal counterparts, also at times distort and obscure . Again, what was needed in the field was a methodology to uncover both what was easily dis cernible as well as what was hidden by either ethnographic or lit erary translation in the process, however well-intentioned. 2. Total Translation While H ymes was open to restoring certain aesthetic mark ers in his translation style, it was invariably with many reservations, always checking against the original, and always in fear of going to far. One translator. who also consulted the ethnographic record but who also versed himself in Native American poetics and per formance , was Jerome Rothenberg, who coined a new term for his ethnographic and aesthetic approach as "total translation" ( Rothen berg 1 972, xxii) . In his introduction to Shaking the Pumpkin : Tra ditional Poetry of the Indian North Americans ( 1 993 ) , Rothenberg lays out his approach, which combines a number of translational methodologies. Rather than picking one approach (faithful versus free , literal versus literary, domesticating versus foreignizing), Rothenberg uses several at a time in his translations, combining f ethnography, cultural studies, poetry, art, and per ormance . While not restricting himself to traditional methodologies for translation, (Y) he also does not restrict himself to traditional definitions of a text. --- He opens himself up not just the aesthetics of the text, but also to --- � ·p 81 � the time and place of the performance, including landscape, audi ence, body movements, sounds, and responses, applying cultural translation in its broadest sense. Native American culture, according to Rothenberg, represents a vast array of languages, cultures, his tories, and modes of communication, not the least important of which include written, oral, and corporeal signs; rhythm and tone; music and dance; and visions and dreams. Rothenberg writes about his combined approach: As a poet I was able to experiment with more direct approaches to translation: ( I ) in collaboration with Seneca songmen, who acted at the very least as intermediary translators, & from whom I could get a clearer picture of how the poetry (songs, prayers, orations, visions, dreams, etc.) fitted into the l ife; & (2) through working with ethnomusicologist David McCallester on cooperati ve translations 1 - . . I I became interested in the possibility of "total translation" -a term I use for translation ( of oral poetry in particular) that takes into account any or all elements of the original beyond the words. (Rothenberg 1 972, xxii-xxi i i ) Here are two examples of Seneca poems translated by Jerome Rothenberg and Richard Johnny John: ( 12) THE SONGS I t he t r i B s s o n he r E T g sb ePn G H eg i sUa I E n h e o Mm N I r ePnPe H R UMP g KH E N KINs J I R A S i s h NG E M t h e c Sll p E i rn g iH u H a me i s E M I H IG n t E p G H HE h h e K H E EY e e v I H E EY e e y N • • . Now I'm dumping the whole bag oE songs in the middle, & each oE you can sing whichever ones you want . • • Rothenberg 1972. xxii ----- iii' ----- u.) 82 From the same volume, here is "Poem about a Wolf and Maybe Two Wolves": A POEM ABOUT A WOLF MAYBE 1WO WOLVES be comes running across the field where he comes running be comes running along the hill where he comes running Rothenberg 1 972, xxxi In the above two examples, readers get a quite different sense of Amerindian poetry than from the ethnologists of the previous gen eration . In the first poem, the poet/performer, copying the oral tra dition, dumps a bag of texts, words, poems in the middle of a circle and allows each of the audience to come up and forge his or her own poem. The format allows readers to participate in the con struction of the poem as their gaze shifts through the bag of words/letters and combinations emerge. In the second poem about one or two wolves, the translators mimic the oral howl of the animal graphically, circulating it within the text while at the same cY) time describing the wolves' movement as they run along the hills. --.... Equally fascinating in the texts themselves are the extensive foot- � --.... C ·.p C 83 g notes accompanying many of the poems and the large array of people with whom Rothenberg consulted: translators, linguists, ethnographers, and native speakers obviously, but also performers, dancers, musicologists, poets, and philosophers in the indigenous languages. The commentaries lend an aura of authenticity to the methodology, one which values the creativity as well as the lin guistic fidelity. There is still little consensus regarding the contribution of total translation. Some suggest that his translations tells us more about Rothenberg and the poetry of the age, influenced maybe more by concrete poetry, musical experimentation of the 1 960s, and perhaps the peyote smoked by that generation. Others suggest that Rothenberg made a significant contribution to the field, cap turing many aesthetic dimensions neglected over the years, and al lowing openings for future performances and creative interpretations that are very much in the spirit of the originals. Elsewhere I have talked about the importance of this generation of literary translators in the United States (Gentzler 1 996); here I merely want to suggest that Rothenberg's multifaceted theory of translation anticipated contemporary translation theories that are beginning to be more multi theoretical, multicultural, and performance oriented. 3. Disguise in translation She was a bear and teased me in mirrors as she did the children, and at the same time she said that tribal stories must be told and not recorded, told to l isteners but not readers, and she insisted that stories be heard through the ear and not the eye. (Yizenor 1 992 , 6) As a caution against translation theories that show prefer ence for ethnographic strategies and forms, or for those which use an invigorating and multifaceted approach such as Rothenberg's, despite consultations with any n umber of indigenous informers, one of the hardest things for a scholar or translator to decipher is when members of a tribe being studied behave truthfully, honestly, and naturally when in the presence of an outsider. In a paper titled "Covert and Overt Ideologies in the Translation of the Wycliff Bible into H uao Terero," Antonia Carcelen-Estrada (20 I 0) discusses the concept of disguise in translation. H uao Terero is the language ---- of the H uaorani people, an indigenous group living in the Amazon, al" ---- c,.:, 84 primarily in the jungles of eastern Ecuador. The Huaorani, invari ably called savages by outsiders, have proven to be highly intelligent in resisting colonization, and one of their strategies is to learn the norms of the invading group, be it Quechuas , Spaniards, Ecuado rians, rubber industrialists, evangelists, translators, or most recently oil companies, and write appropriate texts, or wear appropriate clothes (jaguar- tooth necklaces, etc.), thus conforming to the cliched image of their culture by .outsiders so that they can In this context it is not possible to give a comprehensive survey of all the various in disguise and protect their terests, cultural groups, and cultural systems interacting with the Huaorani people. Figure 1 , however, gives an idea of the complexity of the systemic interactions, and, own. Examples given by from a Western standpoint, represents a tentative hierarchy of those interacting cul Carcelen- Estrada range tural systems. from Bible translations, Center in which indigenous de Transnational or corporate powers (e.g Texaco and other oil companies) ity beliefs are hidden I Transnationli Missions (SIL) Anti-coipoiaie powers I within the translation; The national government ol Ecuador Ecological Organi zalrons Scienul� NGOs /': court testimony, in which ( vepresenting the national society as well) Other Minorities and CXllooos I witnesses fabricate and "-...._ \ Kichwa communi1ies acting as mediators� Yasuni Nalional Park play dress-up for the � \/ Wood hunters Tourism companies West; and ethnographic The Huaorani community (presented as an illusory unified whole) / performances, allowing Periphery anthropologists to trans Fig. 1-Systems in interaction with the Huaorani from a Western perspective late their culture into the Contrary to what one might conclude from Figure 1 , the relationship between the texts and images that re Huaorani and other groups is not merely a top-down power relationship. Rather searchers were looking there is a two-way flow; herein lies the hidden form of translational resistance tak ing the form of silence and invisibility. It is a particularity of the Huaorani to silently for in the first place. The resist outsider cultural impositions. This practice is consistent with indigenous poli power of the disguise al tics of difference elsewhere that seek recognition apart from constructs that project illusory homogenous national identities . Indigenous groups in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, lows the culture to resist and Guatemala, for example, claim to have survived culturally be keeping the secrets of their ancestors from reaching outsiders despite their seeming assimilation to actual translation and ap Western cultural standards. This cultural strategy of survival through silence has propriation by the West , been revealed to the world and become widely known through the writing of Rigob erta Menchu about the descendants of the Mayans. Menchu believes that the hard sacrificing certain ele ships her people endure must be overcome with the presence of their ancestors and ments of their culture to that by hiding their true identity, the people have resisted Westernization and oblit eration for five hundred years (Menchu 2005/1985, 220, 245). The deep cultural preserve others. Signifi transformations endured by the Huaorani have likewise taught them to keep their se cantly, the most inti crets to themselves while superficially appearing to be whatever the observer wants to make of them. Silence is the strongest Huaorani weapon to resist encroachment, mately preserved forms just as it has been for the descendants of the Mayans now fighting under the motto of Huaorani culture have "we are still here." to date outlasted all at Antonia Carcelen-Estrada, "Covert and Overt Ideologies in the Translation of the tempts to access and pur Bible into Huao Terero," in Translation. Resistance, Activism. ed. Maria Tymoczko (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. 2010). 77-78. --- loin them via translation. --- 2 C: ·.;:::; C: 85 In many ways, through disguise in translation, the Huaorani mock the invaders, be they industrial capitalists or born-again Christians, making fun of their futile attempts to comprehend and rearticulate their cultural space. Again, developing scholarly methodologies to be able to read texts against the grain, to see processes of adaptation and domestication by the scholars, and , as Carcelen-Estrada points out, self-adaptation to conform to the expectations of the researcher/ translator become paramount to the field . While Carcelen-Estrada's study concerns H uaorani in Ecuador, my guess is such practices of disguise might also readily be found throughout the Americas. 4. Toward post-imperial translation Disguise in translation, for whatever reason, tends to satirize the translator; deny, delay, and defer access to any so-called "origi nal," and extend beyond the boundaries of whatever is normally termed translation. As soon as it may be detected, it effaces itself only to reappear in another disguised form later. To return to Arnold Krupat in The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Culture ( 1 996) , his concept of anti-imperial translation defies conceptions of translation practiced by European-American translators, ethno graphers, scientists, and scholars in all its guises . Anti-imperial translation is a form of writing in English that allows Native Amer ican ideas, concepts, sounds, structures, and meanings to coexist. Translation is conceived less as a one-way process of bringing some thing across from one language into another and more of a two-way or muttidirectional flow that informs and changes both cultures. The new definition of translation changes the very definition of separate and distinct languages. Instead of saying that he is translating Native American culture into English, the argument is reversed: Krupat and his feUow writers, while writing in a language that appears to be "English," claim they are translating English into Native American languages. For Krupat, all languages are dynamically evolving in a multilingual fashion . Anti-imperial translation produces texts that look like novels and short stories in English, but they are not . For Krupat, they are indigenous, part of Native American literature; Eng lish , in this case, is the imperial, foreign, or other language. In anti imperial translation, Anglo-American forms and ideas are adapted and integrated into Native American culture. Winfried Siemerling, ---- who discusses Krupat's work in the New North American Studies ---- w 86 ( 2005), suggests that this form of translation involves a "doubling of both 'target ' and ' source' cultural practice" ( Siemerling 2005 , 63). Native American thoughts and prac- tices are doubled in their expression in Anti-imperial Translation, Native Writing, and native tongues and English. As English Postcolonial Theory: Thomas King, Gerald narrative forms and genres are incorpo Vizenor, Arnold Krupat rated into Native American culture, so too is English doubled, enriched by Win fried Siemerling (University of Waterloo) restoring lost traces and ideas that disap peared during the periods of extermina Adapted from The New North American Studies: Culture, Writing, and the Politics ofRe/Cognition, tion and extreme language assimilation. (New York and London: Roucledge, 2005), 62-3. The words , ideas, place names, prac tices, flora, fauna, peoples, genres, and The encounter between Native humor and myths have always been American with what Gerald Vizenor calls the "terminal creeds" historical and cultural antecedents before of "social science monologues" is also about the the Europeans an·ived, but have been lost need to balance closed interpretations chat are and covered up over time. Both cultures often associated with writing in general with thus expand and adapt into each other, principles derived from Native stories and oral iry. In many Native written texts, the simultane forming a kind of oral-written literary ity and encounter of these two modes of hybrid that, I contend, is'more indicative reference lead to inven tive trickster strategies of culture in the Americas than any for and performances. eignized translation imported into it (Gentzler 2008 , 38). While such encounters are generally a sub In Native American Fiction, ject of posccolonial studies, Vizenor, Thomas King, and the theorise Arnold Krupat all suggest David Treuer (2006a) goes even further, specific reservations with respect to the term suggesting that there has been an "postcolonial." Vizenor uses the term-if at all overemphasis on translating Native -in phrases like "postcolonial domination" American literature in order to uncover ( 1 989, 1 1 ), as if to drive home Anne McClin facts about the culture with translators tock's critique of the term as "prematurely cel adhering more to the literal expressions ebratory" ( 1 992, 88). King's article "Godzilla and meanings than the art, poetics, style, vs. Postcolonial" ( 1 990) goes further by dis and form. He suggests that Native cussing how the term actually (re)imposes the American fiction has yet to be studied temporaliry of European contact and thus " frames" Native cultures through problematic as literature (Treuer 2006a, 3). The texts recognition. Krupat notes in his essay " Post should not be viewed as scientific ethno colonialism, Ideology, and Native American Lit graphic documents, but instead should erature" that the term is tempting in the context be seen as literary texts, ones that read of contemporary Native American literatures; -- (Y) C) N ers can take pleasure in reading. He yet after having examined the glosses offered in .f: makes the distinction between reading Arif Dirlik's "The Postcolonial Aura" ( 1 994) - c a ·.;:, "' en 87 ,fg that locate postcolonialism indeed after the end books as culture and reading books that of colonialism, he finds it of l ittle use (Krupat suggest culture (Treuer 2006a, 5 ) . He 1 996, 30). In this sense of the term, as Krupat wants the reader to think less about what points out, with some notable exceptions "the Native American texts tell us about past material condition of contemporary Native 'so cieties' is not a postcolonial one ( 1 996, 3 1 ) . " and more about what they tell us about Nonetheless, h e concedes that Native American the future, the future of good writing fiction, albeit "produced in a condition of on that knows no ethnic or linguistic bor going colonialism," often "has the look of pose ders . Style, innovation, performance, colonial fiction" and also "performs ideological and original insight help create culture, work that parallels chat of postcolonial fiction and Native American writing should be elsewhere ( 1 996, 32)." seen within that inventive and creative I nstead of the "postcolonial," however, he framework. He looks at the work of, for proposes the category of "anti-imperial transla example, Loui se Erdrich, who writes tion," which is here directly linked to the func both about Native American and Ger tion of the oral tradition. A nti-imperial man immigrant cultures, and who has a translation, as Krupat suggests with reference to distinctly innovative Ameri can voice . a passage by Rudolph Pan nwitz (taken up also Her novel Love Medicine ( 1 984), while in Benjam in's "The Task of the Translator" about Oj ibwa life, and in which she uses ( 1 969) and Talal Asad's "The Concept of Cul a Native American form of the story tural Translation in British Social Anthropol ogy"( l 986)), creates perturbance in the target cycle, also contains many Western liter language and culture. In the case of Native writ ary techniques of plot, character, crisis, ing, this kind of cultural translation, although and resolution. What is interesting in Er it produces " texts that look l ike novels, short drich's work is the blended story and stories, poems, and autobiographies" ( Krupat multiple techniques as Ojibwa charac 1 996, 36) , produces them in an English pow ters search to find their way in the pres erfully affected by tongues that are, in this case, ent world, not the world of the past. not foreign but rather indigenous (either liter While Erdrich relies on inherited no ally other languages, or figuratively other cul tions of Indian life, she goes beyond tural practices): "The language they offer, in Asad's terms, derives at least in part from other them into the realm of creating new forms of practice, and to comprehend it might openi ngs for an individual and distinct just require, however briefly, that we attempt to life and identity in the future, creating, imagine other forms oflife" ( Krupat 1 996, 36). in Treuer 's view, a literary text that stands on its own merits. Krupat's category of "anti-imperial trans Treuer has also done the same lation" means transformation and doubling of both "target" and "source" cul rural practice. Al as Erdrich in his own creative writing. though the "target language" of many written H is The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Native texts may be English where anti-impe Love Story (2006b), for example , is a rialist cultural translation produces a critical fictional work that is a translation, and percurbance and ironic doubling the translation a translation that is a fictional work. The -- N � 88 main character, Dr. Apelles, a Native can simultaneously be seen to proceed in the American who works as a librarian and opposite direction, as an adaptation and inte translator of Native American texts , is gration of Western forms into Native practices. The process of "translation" and transformation very self-effacing in his ways, conform is here a two-way street: what for one audience ing to an orderly yet boring and lonely only looks like a transposition of Native culture life . Then he comes across an old man into a non-Native, "Western" medium is, in uscript that only he can translate. As he many ways, aJso a curative i ntegration of what begins this new work, he weaves a tale King caJls "the anomalies such as the arrival of that moves between and among a vari Europeans in North America or the advent of ety of forms of translation, including non-Native literature in this hemisphere" (King translating a lost Native American text 1 990, 1 2) into a Native frame of reference or, into English, remembering scenes from as Alessandro Porcelli puts it, an "extension and cont inuation" ( 1 994, 2 1 1 ) of Native verbaJ and his own past, trying to make sense of a social practice. This curative, reverse perspective love story of the present, narrating a sec comes to the fore in Thoma.� King's discussion ond love story within the fictional trans of how Native oral traditions and creation sto lation, and . all the while, erasing ries work (King 1 986, 2003). This problematic boundaries between translation and informs both Ki ng's consideration of the term original creative writing. Without giving "postcolonial" and his approach i n fictional away the ending, which contains a trick texts like Green Grass, Running 'W'ater ( 1 993) or of the imagination that transforms the One Good Story, That One ( 1 993) to the avail entire novel, in the process of carrying ability of oral and written traditions. out such multiple translations the main character begins to find his own voice , one that draws upon past and present, self and other, the power of love and human connections, and es pecially the creative power of translation over the written word. While there are many "traditional" insights into the oppression of the Native American and the oppression of translators, the use of translation to rework and rewrite not just the past, but the translating self. the disappearance of the translation as it nears completion, takes on a life of its own, with many new insights into the hidden nature of translation in all its aspect. As the translation re-places the original, readers are surprised to find themselves wondering what the original was, or if there ever was an original. Through the creative and fictional reworking of the text, the author discovers a language for himself-not the source or target languages, but a lan guage for talking about his own complex identity entwined in Na -- (Y) -- tive American and Anglo-American culture , caught between translation and writing original fiction, now doubly translated into � C ·.;:a C 89 Campaspe might ask about his life. He grew nervous, and he had never a no longer oppressed self. thought og himself as a nervous man. And like all nervous men he was anx This newly transformed nar ious to please, and the desire to please her made him feel trapped. His only way out - he could not talk of tie past and he could not talk of the present rator is now capable of because that told her very little - was to talk of his work as a translator. He love-and there is a power spoke of translating as though it had something to do with his life. And so it had become something between them. ful love story with a col "Can I see it?" league at the library where "I don't know. No. Maybe." "Shouldn't we order? Should we get the usual? Two margaritas," she Dr_ Apelles works-and em said to the waitress across the bar. powered to produce new and "It's not finished and it's boring anyway. It's only interesting to me. I don't want to bore you with it." original work. The novel su "But I want to. I want to hear it". perbly illustrates anti-imper "It seems like we always order the same thing. Just like that first time." "It's not that I wouldn't understand it." ial translation at its best: no No, no. No. It's a mess is al! and I don't know if you'd ever be able to longer a carrying across from read my handwriting." But it had become a thing fer them. one language to another, but "Two margaritas." And to her, "Long day." rather using translation cre " How's the translation? How is it?" "Growing. Always growing." atively to invade self, leading But it had become a thing foc her. to self-realization, and ex "How's the translation? I'll get her. Margarita? Two." And so it went. He could not tell her about himself. Not directly. So his pressing oneself in new and translation became the story he told her of himself, as a substitute for the original translational forms story of his life. that reshape culture from Treuer 2006b, 206. within . Conclusion One of the great hidden tools in cultural construction has always been translation_ A better understanding of how individuals under specific circumstances react to propagated belief systems , how they conform, how they resist, and how such nonconformity is expressed, can only open the field of possibilities for future ac tions and translation strategies . I believe that an increased interplay of languages in translation and an increased openness to new ideas via translations can only help construct a freer, more diverse and tolerant society. Some techniques may be simple: the "translation" of a term such as "Thanksgiving" into "Thanksgrieving," by the mere introduction of an additional phonetic sound alters signifi cantly the conceptual field and (re)introduces an Amerindian per spective into the frame, restoring a historical repercussion long missing from the tradition. Others may be more complicated, such as inventing new forms, as Erdrich and Treuer do, creating a mul -- �. tidirectional flow of ideas, forms , translations , and narrative strate gies in a truly posttranslation studies fashion. The goal is a rewriting -- ru Lu 90 for the future, broadening the imperial language, allowing private translations and interpretations to enter the public space, thereby opening avenues for healing, acceptance, and diversity. By way of conclusion, I end with a poem by Gary Snyder, one of the famous beat poets of the 1 960s and '70s in the United States , who studied literature and anthropology at Reed College in Oregon in the 1 950s and was good friends with fellow student Dell H ymes. Snyder, also known for his Japanese translations , studied the Amerindians of the Pacific Northwest, and lived and worked on the Warm Spring Indian Reservation in central Oregon after graduation and returned on several occasions. I suggest his creative work is infused with similar forms of anti-imperial translation, as he himself is in an inclusive and diverse Amerindian context. In the poem "For All," below, "Turtle Island" is a translation of the Native American term for the continent of North America. Postscript ''For AW' Ah to be al ive on a mid-September morn fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up, holding boots, pack on , sunshine, ice in the shal lows, northern rockies. Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters stones turn underfoot, smal l and hard as toes cold nose dripping singing inside creek music, heart music, smell of sun on gravel . I pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the soi l of Turtle Island, and to the beings who thereon dwell one ecosystem in diversity under the sun (Y) With joyful i nterpenetration for all . --- (Snyder 1 983, 1 1 3) --- � ·;::; 91 References Apter, Emi ly. 2006. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Prince ton: Princeton University Press. Asad, Talal. 1 986. "The Concept of C ultural Translation in British Social Anthropol ogy." In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, eds James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley, CA: University of Cali fornia Press, 1 4 1 - 1 64. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 1 989. The Empire Writes Back. Lon don: Routledge. Ayvazian, Andrea. 2 0 1 1 . "The Anguish of First Americans." The Daily Hampshire Gazette, November 1 2- 1 3, A6. Benjamin, Walter. 1 969. "The Task of the Translator: An Introduction to the Transla tion of Baudelaire's Tableaux Parisiens." In Illuminations, ed. Hanna Arendt ( trans. Harry Zohn). New York: Schocken, 69-82. Boas, Franz. 1 894. Chinook Texts. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bul letin no. 20. Accessed May 1 7, 20 1 2. http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/nw/chi nook/index.htm. Carcelen-Estrada, Antonia. 20 I 0. "Translation and the Emancipation of H ispanic America," in Translation, Resistance, Activism, edited by Maria Ty moczko, 65-88. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Cheyfitz, Eric. ( 1 99 1 ) 1 997. The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Coloniza lionfrom The Tempest to Tarzan. Expanded Edition. Phi ladelphia: Uni versity of Pennsylvania Press. -- - . ed. 2006. Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures ofthe United Stales since 1 945. New York: Columbia University Press. Clements, Will iam M. 1 996. Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts. Tuc son: University of Arizona Press. Day, Arthur Grove. 1 95 1 . The Sky Clears: Poetty ofthe American Indians. New York: Macmillan. Dirlik, Ari f. 1 994. "The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capital ism." Critical lnqui1y 20: 328-356. Erdrich, Lousie. ( 1 984) 1 993. Love Medicine. New York: Henry Holt. Gentzler, Edwin. 2008. Translation and Identity in the Americas: New Directions in Translation Theory. London: Routledge. - - -. 1 996. "Translation, Counter-culture, and The Fifties in the USA." In Trans lation, Power, Subversion, edited by Roman A lvarez and M . Carmen A frica Vidal, 1 1 6- 1 37. C levcdon: M ultilingual Matters. Gentzler, Edwin, and Maria Tyrnoczko. 2002. Introduction to Translation and Power, edited by Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler, x i-xxviii. Amherst: University of M assachusetts Press. Greenblatt, Stephen Jay. 1 992. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder ofthe New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. -- Hymes, Dell . ( 1 98 1 ) 2004. In Vain I Tried to Tell You: Essays in Native American -- Ethnopoelics. Omaha: University ol" Nebraska Press. w 92 K ing, Thomas. 1 986. Inventing the Indian: White Images. Native Oral Literature, andContemporary Native Writers. Dissertation, University of Utah. Ann A rbor, M l : University M icrofi lms I nternational. --- . 1 990. "Godzil la Vs. Post-colonial." World literature Written in English 30(2): 1 0-- 1 6. - - . 1 993. Green Grass, Running Water. Boston, MA: I loughton M i ffi in. - - . 1 993. One Good Story, That One. Toronto: Harper Collins. - - . 2003 . The Truth Abo111 Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: Ananasi. Krupat, Arnold. 1 992. "On the Translation ofNative American Song and Story: A Theorized 1- 1 istory." In On the Translation ofNative American Literatures, edited by Brian Swann, 3-32. Washington: Smithsonian I nstitution Press. --- . 1 996. The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Cul!ure. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press. -- - . ed. 2002. Red Matters: Native American Matters. Phi ladelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lapore, J i l l . 1 998. The Name ofthe War: King Philip s War and the Origins of American Identity. New York: Knopf. Lewis, M. Paul, ed. 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Onl ine version. Ac cessed November 1 8, 2 0 1 1 . http://,vww.ethnologue.eom/. Mather, Cotton. ( 1 702) 1 820. Magnolia Christi Americana. Bedford: Applewood Books. MeCl intock, Ann. 1 992. "The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ' Postcolonial ism' ." Social Text 3 1 (2): 84-98. Nergaard, Siri, and Stefano Arduini. 20 1 1 . "Translation: A New Paradigm," transla tion, inaugural issue, 8-1 7. Portelli, Alessandro. 1 994. The Text and the Voice: Wri1ing. Speaking, and Democracy in American Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1 992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. Lon don: Routledge. Rafael, Vicente. 1 993. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conver sion in the Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule. Durham: Duke University Press. Reyhner, Jon. 200 1 . "Cultural Survival vs. Forced Assimi lation: The Renewed War on Diversity." Cultural Survival Quarterly 25 (2). Accessed November 1 8, 2 0 1 1 . http://www.culturalsurvival .org/ourpubl ications/csq/article/cul tura 1-surv i val-vs-forced-ass i 111 i lation-renewed-war-d i vers ity. Rothenberg, Jerome, ed. and trans. 1 972. Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poe/Jy of the Indian North Americans. New York: Doubleday. Samworth, I lerbert. 2 0 1 1 . "John El iot and America's First Bible." Sola Scriptura Magazine. Accessed November 1 6, 2 0 1 1 . http://www.solagroup.org/arti cles/historyo fthebible/hotb_0005. htm I. Siermerling, Win fried. 2005. The New North American Studies: Culture, Writing, and the Politics ofRe/cognition. London: Routledge. Snyder, Gary. 1 983. "For A l l ." In Axe Handles, 1 1 3 . San Francisco: North Point (Y") Press. Spivak, Gayatri. 1 995 . "The Pol itics of Translation." In Outside in 1he Teaching ....... Machine, 1 79-200. London: Routledge. � ....... ·p 93 � Treuer, David. 2006a. Native American Fiction. St. Paul: Graywolf. - --. 2006b. The Translation ofDr. Apelles: A Love Story. St. Paul: Graywol[ Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002 . Translation and Power. Amherst: U niversity of Massachusetts Press. Venuti, Lawrence, ed. 1 992. Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London: Routledge. - - -. 1 995. The Translator s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge. Yizenor, Gerald. 1 992. Dead Voices. Norman: U niversity of Oklahoma Press. - --. ed. 1 989. Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Albuquerque, N M : U niversity of New Mexico Press. Edwin Gentzler is Professor of Comparative Literature and the Director of the Transla tion Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of Translation and Identity in the Americas (2008) and Contemporary Translation Theories ( 1 993). which was updated and revised in 2001 and has been translated into Italian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Arabic, and Persian. Gentzler coedited (with Maria Tymoczko) the anthology, Translation and Power (2002). His research interests include translation the ory, literary translation, and postcolonial theory. He serves as coeditor with Susan Bass nett of the Topics in Translation Series for Multilingual Matters, and is a member of the �. advisory board of several journals. Gentzler serves on translation's editorial board. ...__ or ...__ w 94

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AN INTERCULTURAL CRITICISM OF NEW TESTAMENT TRANSLATIONS J ea n- C l a u d e Loba- M ko l e ............... ................. . University of Pretoria South Africa [email protected] Abstract: The aim of rhis srudy is ro show s i m i larities and differences berween Greek and Swal1i l i texts of the New Tesrament , especially ar the lexical, morpho logical, syntactic, and semantic levels. It uses an i nrercultural approach char com pares G reek, La r i n , and Swa h i l i texts, and argues that rhere is a great deal of similarity berwecn the G reek and the Swahili languages ar the grammat ical level, except for the G reek deponent form, which has no formal equivalent in Swahi l i . O n e of rhe most stri king lexical fi ndi ngs concerns r h e m ismatch berween rhe G reek form of Jesus's name and i ts Larin or Swahili translations. Borh Latin and Swahili do not have formal articles, wh i le the G reek language uses them even before proper names. The original, authentic, and meaningful form of Jesus's name is the Hebrew or Aramaic ;:1i1VW , or :1V1l) ("he saves") . The La rin fesus and the Swah i l i Yesul Yezu stand as correspondent transl iterations of rhe mean ingless G reek 6 'Inaov�. In a Larin Church cu lture, the meaning of a proper name in itsel f may nor be rhar i m portant, bur in rhe Swa h i l i target culture a proper name is bound to be mea n ingful and i n formative through i ts own word i ng. Consequently, the Swa h i l i Yehoshua or Yeshua would be a more considerate rendering ofJesus's nan1e in view of th1.: target culture frame and chat of rhe most original bibl ical culture. I. Introduction The New Testament was written in "common" Greek, and "from the very first days of Christianity the NT has been translated into other languages, for the benefit of people not acquainted with the Hellenic language. This work of translation continues till today" (Caragounis 20 1 1 ) . A translation inevitably involves a lower or higher degree of equivalence and transgression between the target text and its source (Engler 2007 , 308). ln other words, there is noth ing that can be translated perfectly (i.e. a certain degree of mis match is unavoidable), and there is nothing that cannot be translated (") (i.e. a certain degree of "equivalence," "representation," or "ade --- quacy" is possible). --- � C ·p (/) C 95 This study uses an intercultural approach that will be de fined later on. The aim is to show similarities and differences be tween the Greek, Latin, and Swahili texts of the New Testament for the sake of a better understanding of some specific Swahili renderings. Due to space restrictions, only few examples have been taken at random to highlight similarities or differences at lexical, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels. These examples in volve some basic issues and therefore are important for a fair com parison between the languages and cultures concerned. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this paper illustrates certain linguistic patterns that substantiate how the Greek, Swahili, and Latin lan guages might operate differently, though they are ultimately able to communicate the same message through s imilar but not neces sarily corresponding categories. The awareness of such lexical, grammatical, and semantic similarities and dissimilarities can help a translator avoid imposing some particular features of a given language upon another one. For this study, the Greek texts are taken from the Greek New Testament edited by the United Bible Societies (2008), while the Swahili gloss texts come from a Greek-Swahili NT I nterlinear (2009). This Interlinear also includes the literal Swahili Union Ver sion Revised (SUVR) and the common language Biblia Habari Njerna ( BHN 2006). These two Swahili Bible versions appear to be the most widely read in Tanzania and Kenya, where the use of the standard Swahili is largely promoted. They also have the same publisher as the Greek-Swahili NT Interlinear (GSNTI), namely the Bible Societies of Tanzania and Kenya. Some cases of dissim ilarity between the three Swahili renderings will be pointed out as part of an internal dialogue within a same contemporary culture. This shows that an intercultural mediation does not take place only between external cultures. Furthermore, internal dialogues befit both a horizontal and a vertical interculturality since the same cul ture can produce many contemporary versions (horizontality) as well as several versions from different generations (verticality). A study of vertical interculturality will also be interact with Latin texts of the Vulgate (V UL). Mediations between external cultures and internal sub-cultures may certainly "reveal things that we did �. not know or which we had chosen to forget" ( Bringhurst 2007 , ---- 302). or- ---- u.) 96 This study consists of two major parts, namely, the presen tation of the underlying methodological framework and a consid eration of some translation issues. The overall findings are expected to contribute towards consolidating a more constructive dialogue not only among the distinct Greek, Latin and Swahili texts of the New Testament, but also among some different Swah i l i NT texts . II. Contextual and Methodological Frameworks 1 . Eugene Nida's Legacy in Bible Translation What is translation? There have been many theories and app l ications of translation with an emphasis either on literal rendi tions or meaning-based renderi ngs. [n the history of B ible transla tion , Eugene N ida (assisted by Charles Taber) seems to have been the first to elaborate a functional equivalence where ideally both original form and meaning have to be communicated so that the target audience can experience the same impact as if it were for the original aud ience. In this perspecti ve, translation consists of "reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the SL message, in terms of meaning and style" ( N ida and Taber 1 969, 1 2) . This functional approach remains the first mi lestone in the conceptualization of Bi ble translation work since translators of the Septuagint, Coptic New Testament or Vulgate did not produce such theory, even if they share a preference for common language translation . l n other words, common language translation did not start with N ida, nor will it end with him , yet his peculiar contribution resides in the theorization of this approach under the name func tional approach. Besides , N ida's translation method has been insti tutionalized by the Un ited B ible Societies and widely adopted by other Bible translation agencies. Continually nurtured and supported by N ida and translation teams , this approach has been spreading all over the world since the 1 960s. For example, N ida led the first translation seminar i n K inshasa in 1 965 and , along with the Bible Society of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, launched projects for availing common language B ible translations in the Lingala, Kongo, Tshi luba, Swah i l i , Luba, Uruund, and Songye languages. (V) In spite of their worldwide success , some common language trans --- lations did not rigorously convey Nida 's view of keeping the balance --- � C C 97 between the content and form, as they pushed more for meaning based translations at the expense of the form. A second important contribution from Nida was that of maintaining the translation focus on specific target audiences. His target audiences included both ordinary and scholarly communities, but each had to be provided with an appropriate product. With Nida, Bible translation becomes itself a missionary, ecumenical, and scholarly endeavor. With Nida, a specific focus is placed on the language accessible to the youth, women, and non-Christians , as they constitute the majority of ordinary people i n many countries. As for academic audience , Nida initiated or promoted projects that produced scholarly works such as the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgarten sia, the Greek New Testament, the journal The Bible Translator, and numerous translator 's guides. Unlike some of the great Bible translators such as the Septuagint translators (third century B .C.E.), U l fila (3 1 1 -383), Jerome (340-420) , Martin Luther ( 1 483- 1 546) , King James Bible translators (sixteenth-seventeenth century), Louis Second ( 1 8 1 0- 1 885), Samuel Ajayi Crowther ( 1 809- 1 89 1 ), and others who translated the Bible themselves but without a very elab orate theory of translation , Nida's significant contribution to Bible translation does not relate to the translation of a particu lar Bible. H e excel led, rather, in translation consultancy and theorization , wh ich led to many Bible products. Nida became a wel l known name in the fields of both translation studies and Bible translation, with positive, constructive , and even controversial influence (Gent zler 1 993 , 4; Mojola and Wendland 2003, I ; Porter 2009 , 1 1 7- 1 1 8; Stine 2005, 7 ; Stine 20 1 2, 38). Nonetheless, Nida remains in a binary model involving the source text ("Biblia Hebraica Stuttgar tentia" or the Greek New Testament) and the target text (the trans lated text in making) , with less emphasis on any church canonized translation. According to the intercultural approach, the latter is an integral part of triple frame of reference. This view on the Church culture is lacking not only in Nida's functional equivalence, but also in other competitive models such as Ernst Gutt's "Relevance Theory," Katarina Reiss, Hans J. Vermeer, Justa Holz-Mantarri, Christiane Nord's "Functionalist Theory," and Ernst Wendland's "Literary-Functional Equivalence" (See Mojola and Wendland �- 2003, 1 -25; Loba-Mkole 2008, 253-266). A concrete application ---- of a functionalist translation is provided by Berger and Nord ( 1 999) . Qj' ---- w 98 2. Intercultural Approach to Bible Translations An intercultural approach to biblical exegesis or to Bible translation studies can fil l in the gap that has been widening between these two disciplines. As Porter and Hess ( 1 999, 1 3) put it: The translation and understanding of the B ible, whether by rendering it in the vernacular or through careful study of the original languages in which it was written , i s an essential step in study and i nterpretation of the text. For this rea son , it is surprising that more studies are not devoted to the question i nvolved in the process and the final product . Intercultural mediation is a dialogical process that involves not only literary works but also artistic symbols and human beings who ensure the transmission of the biblical text from an original culture to a contemporary one, including the critically assessed heritage of a church culture ( See Loba-Mkole 2004a, 37-58; 2004b, 79- 1 1 5 ; 2005a, 58-80; 2005b, 29 1 -326; 2007, 39-68; 2008 , 253- 266; 20 1 2). Here , culture is to be understood not only as an artistic component of a society but mainly as a totality of a human experi ence in a given time and space . I t is never holistically apprehended at once and for all , but it al lows itself to be progressively accessed through languages and texts. The concept of cultural or cross-cul tural mediation in not new in translation studies, however intercul tural mediation as developed in this study needs some clarifica tion. "lntercultural" involves a relation between two or more cultures while "mediation" evokes the idea of a representation. In that sense , a translated Bible is a representation of two or more cultures: a source-text culture , a target-text culture , and a church culture (the latter is expected to be sensitive to both Christian and non-Christian audiences). Even if intercultural mediation is less known in biblical exegesis, it can be argued that an exegetical study is a representation of the source-text culture, a church culture , and a target audience culture. The peculiarities of intercultural me diations are stated below for the sake of a general overview; further details can emerge when this method is being applied in other works of Scripture translation or exegesis. It is worthwhile noting that intercultural mediation could also refer to a process, a product or a criticism (analysis, study) based on that approach. Research --- on this method-like the current paper-can fall under the category --- � ·.;:::; 99 of an intercultural criticism, analysis, or study, while a work that applies this method to interpret and/or translate the Scripture can be called an intercultural exegesis or intercultural translation ( Loba Mkole 2004a; 2004b; 2005a). Intercultural process involves the use of peculiar features of this method in order to deliver a relevant product or criticism. For example, an intercultural process was used in producing the New Testament in Lari and Beembe languages of Congo-Brazzaville, respectively in 2005 and 20 1 3. In both proj ects, the final product is a translated text negotiated between the Greek New Testament (representing an original biblical culture), the Yulgate (representing a church culture), and the Lari or Beembe language (representing a contemporary culture). At the level of contemporary culture, horizontal interculturality was applied in the sense that some of the present-day translations in French and Lingala were consulted. Models of intercultural exegesis have been offered by Ukpong ( l 996) , Matand ( 1 998) , Cilumba (200 1 ) , Manus (2003 ) and Loba-Mkole (20 I 0, 20 1 3) among others. Intercultural method is applicable to both exegesis and translation; hence its contribution to reducing the gap that some approaches have created between exegesis and translation. lntercultural mediation takes into account a triple frame of reference: the original biblical culture, church culture, and a con temporary target culture. Languages play an important role in the expression and understanding of those cultures. The original biblical culture is accessible through the languages in which the biblical texts were originally written ( Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). Sim ilarly, a church culture or a contemporary culture avails itself through its particular languages, such as Latin for the Roman Catholic Church culture or Swahili for an African contemporary target culture. In view of Ethnologue data , Swahili is spoken by approximately I 00 million people living in Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Yemen , Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, the United States of America, and possibly other parts of the world (Mulokozi 2008; Lewis, Simons and Fennig 20 1 3). QJ lntercultural mediation operates with a triple epistemolog ical privilege; that is, the epistemological privilege is granted not a· --- only to the contemporary audience (contra Ukpong 2002, 62; Tamez --- QJ w 100 2002a, J O; 2002b, 58), but also to all three sets of cultures involved. The unique epistemological privilege of canonicity is given to the original biblical cultures because they contain authoritative books for ruling in matters of faith and conduct. The unique privilege of elderliness is conferred to the church cultures because on the one hand they shape the original biblical cultures through the fixation of the biblical canons, and on the other they spiritually engender their target contemporary cultures through the evangelization min istry. The unique epistemological privilege of liveliness is bestowed upon the target contemporary cultures because they revitalize both the original biblical cultures and the church cultures. In other words, the target contemporary cultures are the only ones presently active and who are responsible for improving their own lives while con necting the past, the present, and the future. By definition, an epis temological task refers to intellectual and practical efforts which have to be deployed for the attainment of knowledge (See van Aarde 1 994, 584; Loba-Mkole 2005b, 298; Pym 2007 , 1 95). Ac cording to Arduini, translation epistemology is a rhizome where "knowledge is the point where the rhizome's roots cross and overlap and make paths" (Arduini 2004, 9). For intercultural mediation, the rhizome of knowledge is located at the junction of paths from the original biblical cultures, church cultures critically assessed, and the target contemporary cultures. After that junction, the journey has to continue on the road of the target contemporary cultures, leading to the future. lntercultural mediation embraces three epistemological val ues: a target culture worldview (what is valuable is that which pro motes life), a message from the historical Jesus (what is valuable is that which concurs with a message of the historical Jesus) , and a Christian culture value (what is valuable is that which is in conso nance with the Church's critically assessed culture). In terms of ethical values , intercultural mediation includes accuracy to the original culture (ethics of accurate representation) , loyalty to the current target culture (ethics of serv·ce) , and honesty toward a crit ically assessed church culture (ethics of transparency). Intercultural mediation integrates a triple cultural scope: current cultural locations of the mediator, horizontal cultures , and -- -- vertical cultures. Current cultural locations of the mediator consist of diverse situations in which the mediator lives. The horizontal � C ·.;::; C 101 � intercultural scope deals with the experiences between neighboring cultures and the target culture, while the vertical intercultural scope applies to the interplay between the present target culture and its past, as well as its future. As a matter of fact, each of the triple cul tural scope shapes the mind of the mediator, and their viewpoints need to be clearly spelled out to avoid confusions on the one hand and pave the way for genuine harmony on the other (See Akper 2006 , 1 - 1 1 ; August 2006, 1 2- 1 8 ; Jonker 2006, 1 9-28 ) . The originality of the intercultural biblical mediations re sides in its triple frame of reference, triple epistemological privilege, triple epistemological value, and triple cultural scope. Furthermore, it is impo11ant to bear in mind that an intercultural mediation re quires the practitioner to be creative in order to invent points of agreement between the cultures concerned. For van Binsbergen lntercultural communication is always transgressive, innovative, subject to bricolage. Genui ne differences [ . . . ] can only be reconciled in dialogue, love, seduction, trade, diplomacy, therapy, ritual, ethnography and intercultural phi losophy in an innovative way [ . . . ] that is not compel lingly imposed. (van B insbergen 2003, 5 1 6) Even without being exhaustive regarding each aspect of an intercultural mediation, the present paper envisions to promote intercultural approach to both exegesis and translation, viewed as two distinct yet integral parts of the same interpretive endeavor. I I I. Translation issues in Swahili Renderings of the Greek N ew Testament The Greek New Testament is a set of theological books. One may raise the question whether the Swahili language is able to express this set of theological ideas. Such a question assumes that the Greek language has more epistemological privilege than the Swahili language, which from intercultural perspective is not the case. The epistemological privilege of the Greek language of the New Testament is limited to the original biblical culture, which it shares with Hebrew and Aramaic, while the epistemological priv ilege of the Swahili language is limited to its contemporary target audience, which it shares with various local and international lan ------ guages. The Swahili language cannot take the place of the Greek a!' ------ w 102 language in the original biblic�I culture, nor can the Greek replace Swahili in the target culture. Each language is unique and irreplace able in its own symbolic world. Each expresses the theological ideas of the New Testament books in a unique way, yet with a great deal of similarity. None of the two languages is theological in itself, except when argued from an incarnation perspective whereby Jesus Christ is confessed as the Son of God who became human. But in this case every human language (including Greek and Swahili) is theological because Jesus shared his divine nature with all human conditions, except sin. Succinctly, the content or ideas of the New Testament books remain theological, but not the languages through which those ideas are expressed (Greek or Swahili). These lan guages are human though they have acquired theological status through the incarnation of the Son of God and by the virtue of com municating theological ideas. Nevertheless, this paper focuses on the similarity and dissimilarity of the Greek and Swahili languages with regard to the New Testament texts since the linguistic patterns of each of them constitute a significant vehicle for theological ideas. Language patterns seem to confirm that there is no language that has inbuilt theological words. Theological ideas are, rather, ex pressed through human languages like any type of human knowl edge even if each science can develop a specific terminology. 1 . Contrastive features with regard to idiomatic expressions Contrastive features will be examined based on the U BS Greek New Testament (GNT), the Vulgate (VUL) and the three Swahili versions: Swahili Union Version Revised (SUVR), Biblia Habari Njema ( B H N) and Greek-Swahili NT Interlinear (GSNT I). SUVR represents a formal sub-culture, while B H N and GSNT I stand for a common language sub-culture and a scholarly sub-cul ture, respectively. It is obvious that Greek idioms cannot be rendered literally into Swahili. For example GSNTI and SUVR render notiJaau ovv xarprov in Matthew 3 : 8 with "zaeni basi matunda" (produce then fruits) instead of ''fanyeni basi tunda" (make then fruit). In addition to the idiomatic rendering of JTDtriom:£ by "zaeni ," the Greek accusative singular xag:rcov is rendered in Swahili by the plural "matunda" (fruits), since naturalness in Swahili cannot tol ........ erate the literal ''fanyeni tunda" (make fruit). B H N reads "Onesheni � ........ ·.;:::. 103 kwa vitendo" (show by actions). Interestingly, the literal ''fanyeni tunda", avoided by the three Swahili versions, corresponds to the V U L rendering ''facite ergo fructum" (make therefore fruit). In ad dition, J'COlfj� EAErJ!lOOVVrJV in Matthew 6:2 is translated in SUVR with "utoapo sadaka" (as you give alms), while B H N translates it with "unaposaidia maskini" (as you help the poor) , and GSNT J has "ukitoa sadaka" (when you give alms). All three Swahili ver sions agree not to literally render the idiom :,wdcv iJ...c17µoavv17 with ''fanya sadaka" (do or make alms): SUVR and GSNT replace the verb "fanya" with "toa ," since the latter fits better with the word "sadaka" in this context. B H N chooses a Swahili idiomatic equivalent ("unaposaidia maskini"). V U L has "cum ergo facies elemosynam" (as you then make an aim). These examples show that the same Greek verb (:,wdcv + noun) can be rendered by dif ferent Swahili equivalents: "zaa" (produce) , "toa" (give) , and even "saidia" (help) when it is accompanied by EAcYJµoavv17v. V U L constantly uses the equivalent ''facere" even where the context sup ports an idiomatic meaning. 2. Contrastive features with regards to lexical items There is no perfect equivalence between certain Greek terms and Swahili because of the differences at the syntactical level or word order in a sentence. For example, the Greek lexicon includes a gender system (M/F/N) , where nouns are also categorized as being definite, indefinite, or neutral. The gender is often enhanced by the presence of an a,ticle, though an anarthrous use of a noun does not affect its gender. In contrast , the Swahili lexicography is characterized by noun class system which determines whether a noun belongs to the category of human beings, animals, nature, inanimate things, abstract things, etc. While the gender of a Greek noun defines the gender of the qualifying article and adjective, the class of a Swahili noun determines the form of the affix of the ad jective and verb. Furthermore, it has to be noted that even if Swahili does not have articles, it can express the definiteness by means of an elaborate demonstrative system. The Greek 'Ev G.QX'YJ (in + anarthrous "beginning") , 6 J...6 yo� (definite aiticle "the" + the noun "word") as well as the anarthrous 0co� (god) in John I : I have all been rendered respectively as a· ---- "katika mwanzo" (in beginning) or "hapo mwanzo" (there in be- nr ---- w 104 ginning), "neno" (word) and "mungu" (god). As is to be expected for a language that has no explicit articles, all the three Swahili versions render a Greek noun with or without the article in a same way ("mwanzo" for <iQX17, "neno" for 6 )..6yos, and "mungu" or "Mungu" for 0eos) . Nevertheless, GSNTI gives "mungu" in lower case as does GNT, while SUVR and BHN both give "Mungu" with upper case. However, they use a lower case where GNT has an upper case in John I 0:34: <9wi tare ("nyinyi ni miungu", you are gods). VUL capitalizes the equivalent of 6 )..6yos ("Verbum ," Word) and 0eos ("Deus") , but it uses a lower case for the capital letter of <9wi tare ("dii estis," you are gods) . The word 0eos is not a proper name, but a common noun which has both singular and plural forms. It should not be capitalized everywhere as if it were a proper name, as SUVR, BHN and V U L have done. Similarly, it should not be written with a lower case where GNT has an upper case (John J 0:34, contra SUVR, B H N, and V U L). The exegetical and translation debate around the absence of the article before dextf ("beginning") and 0eos ("God") in John 1 : I is almost irrelevant from the perspective of Swahili language syntax. Nonetheless, the absolute or relative meaning of aexti and 0eos can be determined from the context ( Wallace, I 996). But, the vocative case of the Greek article in Colossians 3: I 8-4: l , also known as "vocative span" ( Young 1 994, 253), is con veyed in Swahili by a personal pronoun as shown in the following (Colossians 3 : 1 8; 4: I ): Ai yuvaixcc:;, 'UJtO't<lOOW0£ wic:; avogaOtv Enyi wake, Tiini waume You wives, obey to the husbands Ol X'U ()lOL, .o 6(x.awv x.a\, 'tf]V i,061:ri1:a wic:; oou1-..mc:; JIDQEXW0£ Enyi mabwana, haki na adili watumishi watendeeni You masters, the just and the fair to the slaves do GSNTI uses "enyi" where SUVR has "nyinyi." BHN alter nates "nyinyi" and "nanyi," which is a shorter form of "na nyinyi" -- (and you), but the addition of "na" (and) seems to be superfluous. (") "Nyinyi" can be used for personal pronoun, second person plural, nominative and vocative cases, but "enyi" is strictly used for the -- � ·;::; 105 vocative, second person plural . I t is worth noting that "enyi" or "nyinyi" covers both Greek femin ine and mascul i ne forms because Swah i l i does not have a gender system. S ince Latin has no articles, VUL does not represent them, but the meaning of the Greek vocative is conveyed by the correspondent Latin vocative ("mulieres subditae estote," wives , be submissive; "domini quod iustum est et aequum servis praestate ," masters exhibit to your servants what is just and equal ) . A Swah i l i reader who is accustomed to interact with the New Testament through European l anguages such as Engl ish , French , and others may be surprised to see that the Greek uses ar ticles even before proper names (e.g. "6 'J ryao iJr;," the Jesus) while these l anguages use them only before common names . The Greek form "6 J ryaofJr;" has no meaning, whi le the H ebrew or Aramaic ";;iiw1l_7"or ":ww" means "he saves." In Bantu culture a personal name is mean ingfu l ; can a Bantu language like Swah i l i continue translating a mean ingless Greek form of the mean ingful Hebrew name of Jesus and others? From the perspectives of Semitic lan guages, the Swah i l i rendering of Jesus's name would not be " Yesu" (a mere S wah i l i transl iteration of the G reek form) , but rather "Yehoshua" or "Yeshua." Un fortunately, the GSNT[ , S U V R and B H N have all used "Yesu," wh ich is simi lar to the Latin transl iter ation "lesu" (V UL). Another lexical i ssue concerns the phrase "6 vlor; wiJ av0g dxnov" ( the son of the man). S U V R translates it as "Mwana wa Adamu" (son/daughter of Adam) , whereas B H N renders it "Mwana wa Mtu" (a Son/daughter of H uman Person) , G S NTI "mwana wa mtu" (son/daughter of human person) , and V U L "Filius hominis" (Son of man) . I n many occurrences , this phrase records Jesus's self-designation . On those grounds, V U L might be right in using the upper case only for "Filius" which begins the whole phrase but not for "hominis." In the Swah i l i l anguage, the expres sions "mwana wa mtu," "mwana wa adamu," whether in upper or lower case , refer unmistakably to any indefinite female or male hu man being. First, the word "mtu" (a human being) belongs to the noun class of human beings; secondly, the genitive marker "wa" (of) associates "mwana" (daughter or son) with "mtu" to indicate where she or he belongs. However, the NT phrase "mwana wa --ru mtu" refers to a male because it translates the GNT phrase of mas- -- <.,J 106 cul ine gender 6 vlor; wv dv0QWJWV . On that basis, the Swah i l i "mwana wa mtu" can be understood not as daughter of a human being, but more precisely as a son of a man . The phrase 6 vlor; wv dv0Q WJWV, l ike the case of 6 0cor; or 0cor;, is not a proper name but a common n ame wh ich has i ts pl ural form in vlo[ rwv dv0QWJTOJV (see Mark 3 :28) as wel l as an anarthrous form vlor; dv0QWJWV (John 5 :27; Revelation 1 : I 3 ; 1 4: 1 4) . Furthermore, the Swah i l i phrase "mwana wa mtu," whether it appl ies to a female, male, or both has an idiomatic meaning of "a human being." The strange double determinative (definite article + genitive) in the word 6 vlor; rov dv0Q WJWV (the son of the man) has led the majority of New Testament scholars to insist on the titular use of this expression , which is reflected in SUVR and B H N through cap italization . An argument based on articles w i l l not work in Swah i l i , though the latter can sti l l indicate definiteness with regard t o a word which is quali fied by an article in the source language (Loba M kole 2000, 563 ; 2003, 853; 20 1 0, 1 25- 1 27; Casey 2007 , 3 1 9) . I n the M asoretic text, "ben adam" 1$7□ �1 in Ezekiel occurs n inety-three times, whereas the Aramaic �Jt.V �7 only appears in Dan 7: 1 3 . The Septµagint has rendered both expressions with dv0QdJJWr;, which means a man , a human being. Nevertheless, a great number of bibl ical scholars consider the son of man i n Daniel as the most subl i me messianic conception that the Bible offers since he seems to be not a collective character, but a transcendent Messiah with heaven ly and divine features (Feui l let 1 975 , 478; K uzenzama 1 990 , 1 9 and 76; M ul holland 1 999, 1 87). Some extra biblical writings ( ] Enoch 46-7 1 ; 4 Ezra 1 3 :3) have been brought forward to support the expectation of the Messianic "Son of man" in J udaism . However, this interpretation goes far beyond l iterary evidence . The most persuasive view is that the Danielic son of man is a symbolic expression which refers not to an individual messianic figure, but to the people of I srae l . They are represented by a human figure that antici pates the ki ngdom of God while other k ingdoms have been compared to beasts ( Hampel 1 990, 32. 42, and 63) . This view is shared by some exegetes, such as Leivestad ( 1 972, 244; 1 982, 234), B ietenhard ( 1 982, 337) , Coppens ( I 983, I 1 1 ) , Haag ( 1 993 , 1 67) and Koch ( 1 993, 84) , among others . (Y) Phi lological research attributes three understandi ngs to �Jl.V --- �7 , namely the generic sense (every human being), the indefinite --- � · � 107 sense (someone), and the circumlocutional sense of the first person personal pronoun ( ] ). At all levels, it refers to a human being in the third or the first person (auto-reference). There are three types of auto-designation conveyed by the phrase "son of man": exclusive auto-designation (when the speaker refers to himself alone); the in clusive auto-designation (when the speaker refers to himself and to all other human beings); and the idiomatic auto-designation (when the speaker refers to himself and to a class of persons he associates with) ( Lindars 1 983, 23-24) . On linguistic grounds, the phrase 6 vios wiJ dv0QWJWV refers to a human being without implying any divine or messianic connotation. In the history of religions, there is no convincing evidence indicating that this expression bore a divine or messianic meaning that could account for its titular use. Nonetheless, Jesus of Nazareth is the only religious and historical leader who is recorded as someone who used this phrase to refer to himself, not for revealing his divine nature but to confirm his human nature. Moreover, no church con fesses Jesus's divinity through this expression. The Swahili phrase "mwana wa mtu" (GSNTI) is not a lit eral equivalent but an accurate rendering of the Greek 6 vios dv0QwJWv and 6 vios roiJ dv0Qwnov in the sense of a human being. The difference between the source and the target terms per tains to the fact the Greek phrase is a masculine gender referring to a male human being while the Swahili rendering is gender-inclusive. The Latin.filius hominis also has its own peculiarity. While "filius" is a masculine gender, "hominis" (homo) can be gender-inclusive like the Swahili "mtu," but generally it cannot refer to a female hu man being alone (as per the Greek dv0QWJWs) , whereas the Swahili "mtu" can do so. 3. Swahili Equivalents ofGreek Moods, Tenses, Voices, and Aspects The Swahili particle "na" is used to represent the Greek in dicative mood, present tense, active voice, as in the following ex ample (Matthew 3 : 1 1 ): iJ µii£ �amO;o) £V 'UClfftl ninawabatiza kwa maJI I you baptize 111 water �- ---- a!' ---- u.) 1 08 GSNT and SUVR have both the form "ninawabatiza" ( I baptize you), while BHN records "ninawabatizeni", where the ending "ni" emphasizes the plural form of the verb complement. This emphasis can be left out without affecting the plural form of the verb com plement "wa," which is a personal pronoun in second person plural. "Ninawabatiza" and "ninawatizeni" are both accurate renderings of the same "vµdr; f3ami�w." However, this example displays the remarkable agglutinative character of the Swahili language, where the personal pronoun subject "ni," the tense marker "na," the per sonal pronoun object "wa," and the verb stem "batiza" are expressed with a single word ("ni-na-wa-batiza"). V U L has "ego quidem vos baptizo" (l indeed baptize you) , adding an extra personal pronoun "ego" ( I) to the one included in the verb "baptizo" ( I baptize). Another particular feature of the Swahili verb pertains to the use of the particle "hu" (not translatable in English) at the be ginning of a verb in the present active indicative to show a habitual action (Matthew 8:9): Myw 'W'lrt</), IlOQEU0rrn, xal, rrDQEUEi:aL n inasema kwa huyo, Nenda, na huenda I say to this one, "Go," and he goes The GNTI, SUVR, and B H N use the particle "hu" as a marker of a habitual verb action , but a mere present form such as "anaenda" (s/he goes) can also convey the sense of a habit similar to V U L's "dico huic vade et vadit et alio veni et venit" ( I say to th is one go and he goes and to another come and he comes). The particle "ta" is used to represent a Greek future tense (e.g. Matthew 3: 1 1 ): uµd.<; �am(oa EV JtVEUµa'tL ay(<p xat Jt\J QL arnwabatiza kwa mtakatifu roho na moto he will you baptize In holy spirit and fire GSNTI, SUVR and BHN all have the same future tense marker "ta", which corresponds to the Latin "h" ("haptizaf2.it," he will baptize). The aspect of aorist indicative active in Greek can be ren (Y) dered by the Swahili particles "Ii" or "ka," which are markers of ....... J§ the past tense (e.g. Matthew l :2): ....... ·;::; 109 A�gaaµ £YEVVT]O£V '"COV 'Ioaax Abrahamu ali(m)zaa Isaka Abraham begat Isaac GS NTI , S U V R , and B H N all have the same "li" for the Greek in dicative aorist while VUL has the perfect "genuit" (begat) . However, in some cases the Greek aorist is rendered by the Swahili perfect tense like in Matthew 1 4: 1 5: nagf]A8ev saa tayari imepita the hour already has passed BHN differs from GNTI and SUVR by using a plural form "saa zimepita" (hours have passed), which is not in the Greek source text. But the Swahili singular form "saa imepita" and the plural form "saa zimgpita" can be used interchangeably. The Swahili perfect "imgpita" or "zimgpita" conveys the sense of a recent past, whereas the past tense "ifjpita" ( used as an equivalent of Greek indicative aorist) evokes a distant past . V U L has a pluperfect "hora praeteriit" (hour had passed). The use of the aorist in Greek is wide ranging and complex . I n Swahil i , the particle "li " is used to represent the indicative aorist active (e.g. M ark 1 4:22). E00LOV'"CWV ainu)v A.a�wv OQ'"COV eiJAoy�oai; £'XA.U0£V wakiwa wanakula alipochukua mkate al ipobarik i al i(u )mega eating they he took bread he blessed he broke xal, £()(J)X£V ainoii; xal, ELJI£V na ali(wa)pa na al isema and he gave them and said Unl ike GS NTI , SUYR and BH N use "ka" in some places to repre sent both the i ndicative aorist active and participle aorist active (e.g. Mark 1 4: 22): "walipokuwa wakila (SUVR) / wafjpokuwa wanakula ( B H N ) , "afitwaa mkate, akabariki, akaumega, akawapa, akasema" (as they were eating, he took bread , he blessed, he broke , �- he gave them, he said). The succession of verbs in this verse could ---- eventually explain the choice made by both SUVR and B H N for ---- w 1 10 the use of "ka" instead of "li." It is known that "the aorist participle usually denotes antecedent time to that of the controlling verb. But if the main verb is also aorist, this participle may indicate contem poraneous time" (Robertson 1 934, 1 1 1 2- 1 1 1 3 ; Wallace 1 996 , 6 1 4). The main verbs are in the aorist indicative (fxlaaEv -xai l!ow-xEv I . . . I -xai cbrev). Moreover, laf3cvv and Evlo y iJaac; are aorist par ticiples, suggesting that actions expressed by these participles took place before those of the main verbs ( Porter, Reed, and O' Donnell 20 1 0, 1 J O). In addition , ia0t6vrwv avrwv is a genitive absolute that provides background information. Y U L renders this genitive absolute with an ablative absolute "manducantibus illis" (as they/ these ones were eating), and it uses an indicative perfect ("accepit," "fregit") or a present participle ("bendicens") in the place of Greek aorist participle "accepit Jesus panem et benedicens fregit et dedit eis et ait" (Jesus took bread and blessing he broke and gave to them and said). The Greek present indicative participle is represented by the particle "ki" (e.g. Uy wv, "akisema ," "saying" by SUVR and GSNTI, or V U L with "dicens" in Matthew 5:2). B H N drops this present participle. In addition , when a participle is used as a noun , the particle "ye" serves to represent this noun participle (e.g. Luke 1 4: 1 1 ): 6 lJ'ljJWV tmnov xal 6 i:anHvwv eau,:ov yule anayejikweza mwenyewe na yule anayejishusha mwenyewe he who exalts himself and he who humbles himself SUVR differs from GSNTI and B H N in another form of nominal participle, namely "ajikwezaye ." In any case, "anayejik weza" in GSNTI and BH N-or "ajikwezaye" in SUYR-also func tions as a relative clause (he who exalts), thus corresponding to the rendering "qui exaltat" by Y U L. When the participle or relative pronoun marker "ye" is used in Swahili, it comes at the end of the verb, and the present tense marker "na" disappears. It must be noted that when the Greek article is used before an adjectival participle, it can be conveyed in Swahili by a demonstrative pronoun adjective (cf. "yule"). Likewise, the Greek article in vocative case can be represented by the Swahili personal pronoun referring to the ad dressee (compare the vocative span of Colossians 3: 1 8-4: I ). More --- over, SUVR, GSNTI, and BHN have introduced the reflexive particle --- J:! C ·.;::. C 111 g "Ji," which is absent in GNT as well as in V UL. Unlike the Greek and Latin languages, in Swahili the reflexive particle "Ji" is combined with "mwenyewe" (him/herself) to indicate that the action of the verb emphatically refers back to the subject involved. This particle is not used when the action of the verb refers to a complement of object (e.g: "yule anayekweza uzuri wake mwenyewe," the one who exalts his/her beauty him/herself). The reflexive particle ''ji" can also be used without "mwenyewe" in a context where the subject is a beneficiary or victim of his/her own action. This case corresponds to the Greek middle voice- for example ").vaaµEvoc;," "aliyeJi fungua" (person who loosened him/herself) (see Olson 1 99 I, 1 09). In Greek, a noun participle is usually accompanied by an article (6, rj , or r6, which are respectively masculine, feminine, and neuter), but in Swahili only the particle "ye" signals the presence of a nominal participle, since Swahili has neither article nor gender. As was suggested above, the particle "me" is used in Swahili to represent a Greek perfect active indicative tense (e.g. Matthew 3:2): 'YJYYlXEV ya.g flamAda TWV ou gavwv umekaribia maana ufalme wa mbinguni it has approached for the reign of the heavens The indicative perfect active in Mathew 3:2 is rendered by the same "umekaribia" in GSNTI, SUV R , and BHN, or its equivalent "adpropinquavit" (has approached) in V UL. The Greek indicative plupe1fect active in Swahili is repre sented by the particles " ... li-kuwa ... me-kwisha .... " (e.g. Mark 1 5 :7): EV Tfl OTCt0£l cp6vov :iT£l10ll]X£LOUV katika uas1 mauaji walikuwa wamekwisha fanya in the insurrection murder they had committed GSNTI uses the pluperfect "walikuwa wamekwishafanya," as does V UL with ''fecerant homicidium" (who had done homicide). SUVR has "waliosababisha" (who caused), which is a past participle or a relative clause, while BHN has "kwa kusababisha" (for causing), an infinitive form. The Greek indicative imperfect active is rendered in Swahili -- by the particles " ... li-kuwa ... na" (e.g. Matthew 8: 1 5 ): -- w 1 12 Otl]XOVH ain:cp alikuwa ana(m)tumikia yeye she was serving him GSNT [ uses the indicative imperfect active "alikuwa ana(m)tu mikia ," while V U L likewise uses "ministrabat eis" (she/he was serving them), though the two differ regarding the number of the object complement (him or them). SUVR prefers "akawatumikia" (she/he served them) and BH N "akamtumika" (she served him). Both prefer to use the particle "ka ," which marks a succession of actions but has the disadvantage of not accounting for different as pects or tenses of the verbs involved among which some might be in the indicative aorist. others in the imperfect, and so on. The Greek present subjunctive is rendered by the Swahili particle "e" at the end of the verb . The subjunctive mood is com monly used to convey a wish or an order (e.g. Matthew 5:45): OJW)£ ylvria0r uLo\, 1:01.J JUHQO£ uµwv iii muwk. watoto wa baba yenu so that you may become children of father your GSNTI has a straightforward subjunctive form "muwe," as does V U L with "sitis" (you may be), while SU V R and B H N use an aux iliary form of the verb "mpate" before the verb "kuwa" ("mpate kuwa ," you may become). l n the protasis of a conditional sentence, Swahili uses the particle "kama" (if) followed by a verb in the indicative mood where the stem is preceded by the particle "nge" ( GSNT I) or its variant "ngali" (SU V R and BH N). In the apodosis, Swahili also uses a verb in indicative with "nge" or "ngali" particle (e.g. John l l .2 1 ). This particle indicates that an undesirable action has taken place in the past. EL �£ (;)OE O'lJX O.V cmi:OaVEV 6 aoEAcp6£ mou kama u�kuwa hapa ha�kufa kaka yangu if you had been here he not had died the brother of mine While GSNT I, SUVR, and BH N stick to the indicative mood where (Y) the past aspect is suggested by the particle "nge ," V U L uses the --- conditional pluperfect "si fuisses hie frater meus non fuisset mor- --- � C '+:, C 1 1 3 Jg tuus" (if you could have been here, my brother would not have died). The Greek passive voice is represented by the Swahil i suffix "wa" (added at the end of the verb stem; e.g. Matthew 1 5 : 1 2): oi, <J.)ag Loaim fox.avoa11.Lo8rioav Mafarisayo wali kwazwa The Pharisees were scandali zed Both SUVR and B H N have "walichukizwa" (they were annoyed) with the same end ing suffi x "wa," l i ke GSNTI, to express the passive voice. V U L has a gerundive with the verb "esse" (to be) in the indicative present: "Pharisaei scandalizati sunt" ( Pharisees are scandal ized). The Greek also uses the m iddle voice, which is formed in the same way as the passive voice although i t has the sense of the active voice. However, it often underl ines an action intended for the benefit (or detriment) of the subject of the verb (e.g. Matthew I I :7): JtOQEUOµ£VWV wakiwa wanakwenda zao they departing for themselves S U VR uses the participle aorist "walipokwenda" (they having de parted ) whi le B H N has the participle imperfect "walipokuwa wanakwenda" (as they were departing). GSNTI sticks to the Greek participle present "wakiwa wanakwenda," and it adds the emphatic "zao" (for themselves) to indicate the sense conveyed by the middle voice. V U L has an ablative absolute "illis beuntibus" (as they/these ones were departi ng), where the emphasis is expressed by the demonstrative pronoun "illis ." The Greek uses deponent verbal forms, which are repre sented in the passive voice but have the meaning of an active voice. GSNTI uses a straightforward rendering in the active voice . For example, the passive deponent dnEXQi0ry in John I :2 1 has been rendered by the active "alijibu" (he/she answered) instead of the �. passive "alijibiwa" (he/she was answered). SUVR and BHN do ---- the same, even though they prefer the particle "ka" to "Ii" to render ---- L.) 1 14 an indicative aorist. VUL also has an indicative active, albeit in the present tense, "respondit" ( he answers) . The Greek deponent verbs do not necessari ly correspond to Latin deponent, semideponent , or gerundi ve verbs. For example, GNT has a present participle 6 naeaxaJ,.,wv (he who exhorts) in Rom 8: 1 2 , but V U L uses a de ponent or gerundive "qui exhortatur" ( he who exhorts). I n ancient Greek, some verbs were defective rather than deponent as far as voice is concerned (some did not have all tenses in both active and middle voices) ( Robertson I 934, 332); this is also the case with Latin . Summary of Basic Equivalence between NT Greek, Latin, and Swahili Greek/Latin Swahili Swahili Renderings Noun +/+ + Translatable Nominative, accusative, +/+ + Translatable ( Bound or Unbound) dative Vocative +/+ + Personal pronoun or "ee" before nouns Genitive +!+ + Possessive particle (e.g. "wa," "ya") Pronoun +/+ + Translatable Adjective +/+ + Translatable Article +/- Not translatable as definite or indefinite article Conjunction +/+ + Translatable Adverb +/+ + Translatable Preposition +/+ + Translatable Interjection +/+ + Translatable Verb +/+ + Translatable Active Voice +/+ + Translatable Middle Voice +/+ + Addition of a pers.pron. or "Ji" particle Passive voice +/+ + "wa" at the end of the verb --- Indicative present active +/+ + " na ,. --- 2 ·.;:::; 115 Greek/Latin Swahili Swahili Renderings I nd icative future active +!+ + "ta" I ndicative aorist active +/- + "ii" I ndicative present participle +!+ + "ki" Indicative aorist participle +/- + "po " Pa11iciple noun +!+ + "ye" Indicative Imperfect +//+ + "alikuwa . . . ana . . ." I ndicative perfect active +!+ + " me" Indicative Pluperfect +/+ + "aliku wa . . . amekwisha . . ." Subjunctive (exhortation) +!+ + "e" Subjunctive (or condition) +/+ + "kama" . . . ."nge" Imperative +/+ + "a" I nfin itive +/+ + "ku" at the beginning of the verb Deponent +!+ Active voice Verbal endings +!+ Person + N umber + tense are (person + n umber + tense expressed at the beginning of the markers are generally at verb ( " ni"-"u"-"a"-" tu"-"m u"- the end , except for Greek " wa"+ "na," "ta ," " Ii," etc) aor, imp, perf, and pluper) Gender (masc , fem . neut) +!+ Persons and things Bound morphemes (Verb +/+ + Subject Personal + Personal Pronoun Endings) Pronaouns+Verb+Objects +: l iteral presence of l i nguistic item; - l iteral absence of a l i nguistic item �- w 116 Conclusion The study of the New Testament both in its original language and translation can prove to be enriching, as similarities and differ ences between the two or more types of texts are being highlighted for the sake of a constructive dialogue. This dialogue is challenging but possible when the epistemological privileges are equally yet distinctively granted to original biblical cultures, church cultures, and contemporary target cultures . An overview of the Greek and Swahili New Testament texts with regard to their lexical, morpho logical, syntactic, and semantic similarities and differences has shown how both languages strive to communicate the same message with accuracy and naturalness , even if some mismatch is inevitable. The first striking difference is related to idioms: the Greek and Swahili languages have different idioms, which do not match in mean ing when translated literally. A second important difference between the Greek and the Swahili languages concerns the presence of articles in Greek and their absence in Swahili , though in some cases Swahili is able to convey definiteness by the means of an elaborate demonstrative system or even by personal pronouns in vocative case (cf. Colossians 3 : 1 8-4: I ). Thus, in Greek the presence of the definite article before nouns 0Eor;;, vior;; roiJ dv0ewnov . A6yor;;, and others is not explicitly marked in Swahili, yet their original meanings are well conveyed, taking into account the Semitic background of some of these familiar terms, especially in the case of via� wv av0e wnov . A third substantial difference between the Greek and Swahili words of the New Testament pertains to proper names such as Jesus and others. The Swahili " Yesu" is a meaningless transliteration of the Greek mean ingless 6 'JryaoiJr;;. But the mean ingful Hebrew or Aramaic ;;"!illllll or ":w1j]'' could be rendered in Swahili as " Yehoshua" or the shorter form " Yeshua" (both mean i ngful transliterations) and be given the same original mean ing. As for certain grammatical elements such as moods, tenses, voices, or aspects, the Swahili language has all the equ ivalents of the Greek of the New Testament moods, except for deponent verbs, though they may be conveyed in Swahili through active forms . In brief, a comparison between Greek, Latin, and Swahili linguistic patterns indicates that both Latin and Swahili do not have formal equivalence ('") of all Greek words, but they still find ways of conveying at least --- some aspect of these lexical and grammatical features (see the case --- � -� 117 � of articles , aorist aspect, deponent verbs , gender, verbal affixes and suffixes, agglutinative or nonagglutinative features). One of the most striking lexical findings concerns the mis match between the Greek form of Jesus's name and its Latin or Swahili translations. Neither Latin nor Swahili have formal articles , while Greek even uses them before proper names. The original , authentic, and meaningful form of Jesus's name is the Hebrew or Aramaic 7;-iiww or �WW (he saves). The Latin "Jesus" and the Swahili " Yesu"l" Yezu" stand as correspondent transliterations of the mean ingless Greek 6 'Jrwovr;. In Latin church culture, the meaning of a proper name in and of itself may not be that important, but in the Swahili target culture a proper name is bound to be meaningful and informative through its own wording. Consequently, the Swahili " Yehoshua" or " Yeshua" would be a more considerate rendering of Jesus's name in view of the target culture frame and that of the most original biblical culture. �- ---- ru' ---- w 118 References Agano .Jipya Kigiriki - Kiswahili Baina Mistari. 2009. Paratext Version, edited by Peter M. Renju & Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Nairobi; Bible Society of Kenya; Dodoma: Bible Society of'Tanzania. Akper, lornenge Godwin. 2006. "From Multiculturality to l ntcrculturality? 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"Der Mensehensohn - ho huios tou anthropou. Sprachl iche und Religionsgeschichtl ichc Untcrsuchungcn zu eincm Begriff der synop tischen Evangel ien I ." A ufvtieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt 1 1 .25 ( I ): 265-350. Bringhurst, Robert. 2007. "Arc you now or have you ever been? A one-way conver sation with the border guards or language." Religious Studies Review 33 (4): 302-304. Caragounis, C. Chrys. 20 I I . "Greek Language and NT." Word and life. Accessed December 8, 20 1 1 . http://www.chrys- caragoun i s.com/Popu lar. Sc i enti fie .Studies/Greek_I .anguage_and_NT. pd f Casey, Maurice. 2007. The Solulion oflhe "Son of Man ·· Problem. London- New York: T & T Clark. Cilumba-C imbumba, Antoine 200 I . Wunder. Claube und Leben bei .Johannes. Eine exegetisch-hermeneutische Studie am Beispiel van Joh 3 im Hinblick auf die lnkullurationsaufgabe. Bonn: Borengasser. Coppens, Joseph. 1 983. Fils d 'homme vetero et intertestamentaire. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Engler, Steven. 2007. "Economies of transgression . Translation in Religious Stud ies." Religious Studies Review 33 (4): 306-308. Feuil let, Andre. 1 97 5 . Etudes d 'exegese et de theologie Biblique. Ancien Testament. Paris: Gabalda. -- CV) Gentzler, Edwin. 1 993 . Contemporary Translation Theories. London: Routledge. -- Haag, Ernst. 1 993 . "Der Menschcnsohn und die Heiligen (des) l-lochstcn. Eine litcr arform- und traditionsgeschichtliche Studie zu Daniel 7." In The Book of -2 ·.:;, 119 g Daniel in the Light ofNew Findings, edited by Adam Simon Van der Woude, 1 37- 1 86. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Hampel, Volker. 1 990. Menschensohn und historischer Jesus. Ein Riitselwort a/s Schlussel zum messianischen Selbstverfiindnis Jesu. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neu k i rchener. Jonker, Louis. 2006. "From M ulticulturality to l ntercultural ity. Can l ntercultural Biblical Hermeneutics be of any Assistance?" Scriptura 9 1 ( I ): 1 9-30. Koch, K ia.use. 1 993. "Messias und Menschensohn: Die zweistulige Messianologie der jiingeren Apokalyptik". Jahrbuch fur Biblishe Theologie 8 : 73-1 02. Kuzenzama, K. P. M ided. 1 990. Le titrejohannique du Fils de ! 'Homme. Essais lex icographique. K inshasa: Facultes Catholiques de Kinshasa. Leivestad, Ragner. 1 972. "Exit the Apokaliptic Son of Man." New Testament Stud ies 1 8: 243-267. ---. 1 982. "Jesus-Messias-Menschensohn: Die j Udischen Heilandserwartungen zur Zeit der ersten romischen Kaiser und die F rage nach dem messianis chen Selbstbewusstsein Jesu." A zifstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt 1 1 .2 1 ( 1 ): 220- 264. Lewis, Paul, Simons, F. Gary and Fennig, D. Charles (eds). 20 1 3 . Ethnologue: Lan guages ofthe World, Sixteenth Edition. Dallas: S I L International. Online Version. Accessed J uly 28, 20 1 3 . http://www.ethnologue.com. Lindars, Bernard. 1 983. Jesus Son of Man. A Fresh Examination ofthe Son ofMan Sayings in the Gospels in the L ight of Recent Research. London: SPCK. Loba-M kole, Jean-Claude. 2000. "The Kiswahili Mwana Wa Mtu and the Greek Ho Huios Tau Anthropou." In The Bible in Africa. Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends, edited by Gerald 0. West and M usa Dube, 557-566. Leiden Boston-Koln: Bri l l . - --. 2003. "Son o f man and Exegetical Myths." Hervormde Teologiese Studies 53 (3): 837-858. ---. 2004a. "Bible Translation and I ntercultural Hermeneutics." In Biblical Texts and African A udiences, edited by Ernest Wendland and Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, 3 7-58. Nairobi: Acton. ---. 2004b. "Exegesis and Translation of Mark for an Audio-visual Culture." Journal ofBiblical Text Research 24: 76-1 1 5 . - - . 2005a. "Notes on the Holy Spirit for a Kongo Study Bible." I n Interacting With Scriptures in Africa, edited by Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole and Ernst Wendland, 56-80. Nairobi: Acton. - - . 2005b. "The Social Setting of Jesus' Exaltation in Luke-Acts (Lk 22:29 and Ac 7:56)." Hervomde Teologiese Studies 61 ( I and 2): 29 1 -326. - - . 2007. "From lnculturation Theology to I ntercultural Exegesis." In Cultural Readings ofthe Bible in Africa, edited by Andre Kabasele Mukeng, Jean Claude Loba-M kole, and Dieudonne Aroga Bessong, 39-68. Yaounde: C le. ---. 2008. "History and Theory of Scripture Translations." Hervomde Teolo giese Studies 1 6 ( 1 ): 253-266. ---. 20 I 0. "The New Testament and l ntercultural Exegesis in A frica." In Paul Foster, New Testament Studies, 1 1 5-1 32. London: SAGE. ---. 20 1 2 . Triple Heritage. Gospels in lntercultural Mediations. Second edi ---- tion. Nairobi: WordAlive. ru ---- w 120 - - . 20 1 3 . "lnterculturality in Peace Building ( Rm 1 4: 1 9)." forthcoming in Re flecting on Romans. Essays in Honour ofAndrie du Toil s 80th Birthday, edited by Jacobus Steyn Gert. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Manus, Chris Ukachukwu. 2003 . lntercultural Hermeneutics in Afica. Methods and Approaches. Nairobi: Acton. M aland, Jean-Bosco. 1 998. "L' Hermeneutique de l ' i nculturation dans Ac 1 5 et Ga 2, 1 1 - 1 4." In lnculturation de la vie consacree en Afrique a I 'aube du troisieme millenaire. Actes du cinquieme co/Loque international, edited by Joachim Kalonga., 1 44- 1 67. Kinshasa: Carmel Afriquc. M ojola, A loo, and Ernst Wendland. 2003. "Scripture translation in the era or trans lation studies." In Bible Translation. Frames of Reference, edited by Tim Wi lt, 1 -2 5 . Manchester- Northampon: St. Jerome. M ulhol land, M. Dewey. 1 999. Mark �- Stor)I of.Jesus, Messiah For all Nations. Ore gon: Wipf & Stock. Mulokozi, M . M . 2008. Kiswahili as National and International Language. Dar es Salaam : I nstitute of K iswahili Rcaserch/ University or Dar cs Salaam. Ac cessed February 27, 2008. http://www.helsinki. fi/hum/aakkl/documents/kiswahili .pd r. Nida, Eugene A., and C.Robert Taber. 1 969. The Theory and Practice of Transla tion. Leiden: Brill. Olson, S. 1 loward. 1 99 1 . Jifunze kiyunani. Dodoma: Central Tanganyi ka Press. Porter. E. Stanley. 2009. "Assessing Translation Theory. Beyond Literal and Dy nam ic Equivalence." In Translating the New Testamenl. Text, Translation, Theology, edited by Stanley E. Porter and M ark J . Boda, 1 1 7- 1 45. Grand Rapids, M I : Eerdmans. Porter, E. Stanley and S. Richard Hess. 2009. "I ntroduction. Problems and Prospects of Translating the B ible." In Transla!ing the Bible. Problems and Prospects, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Richard. S. Hess, 1 3-1 6. SheITT eld: Shemeld Academic Press. Porter, E. Stanley, Jef-Trey T. Reed, and Matthew B. O'Donnell. 20 I 0. Fundamen/als ofNew Testament Greek. Grand Rapids, M l and Cambridge, UK : Ecrd mans. Pym, Anthony. 2007. "On the H istorical Epistemologies of Bible Translating." In A History ofBible Translation, edited by Philip Noss, 1 95-2 1 5 . Rome: Edi zioni di Storia e Letteratura. Robertson, Archibald Thomas. 1 934. A Grammar ofthe Greek New Testament in the Light ofHistorical Research. Nashvi lle, TN: B. & H. Publishing Group. Stine, Phi l ip. 2005. Let the Words Be Writ/en. The Lasting Influence a/Eugene Nida. Leiden: Brill. Stine, Philip. 20 1 2 . "Eugene A. N ida. Theoretician of' Translation." lnternalional Bulletin of Missionar)I Research 36 ( I ): 38-39. Tamez, Elsa. 2002a. "Reading the B ible under a Sky without Stars." In The Bible in a World Context. An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, ed ited by Walter Dietrich and U lrich Luz, 3- 1 5 . Grand Rapids, M l and Cambridge, .....__ U K : Eerdmans. Tamez, Elsa. 2002b. "A Star I l lum inates the Darkness." In The Bible in a World � .....__ C ·.;:::, C 121 � Context. An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, edited by Walter Di etrich and Ulrich Luz, 53-58. Grand Rapids, Ml and Cambridge, U K : Eerdmans. The Greek New Testament. 2008. Fourth Edition, edited by Barbara Aland, Matthew Black et al., Stuttgart: United Bible Societies. Ukpong, J ustin. 1 998. "The Parable of the Shrewd Manager ( Luke 1 6: 1 - 1 3): An Essay in l nculturation Hermeneutics." Semeia 73, I 89-2 1 0. - - . 2002. "The Story of Jesus' Birth ( Luke 1 -2). An African Reading." In The Bible in a World Contexl. An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, ed ited by Walter Dietrich and U lrich Luz, 59-70. Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, U K: Eerdmans. van Aarde, Andries. 1 994. "The Epistemic Status of the New Testament and the Emancipatory Living of the H istorical Jesus in Engaged Hermeneutics." Neotestamentica 28 (2): 575- 96. van B insbergen, Wim. 2003. lntercultural Encounters. African and Anthropological Lessons towards a Philosophy of fnlerculturality. Munster: Lit. Wallace, B. Daniel . 1 996. Greek Grammar beyond the Basics. An Exegetical Syntax ofthe New Testament. Grand Rapids, M l : Zondervan. Young, Richard A. 1 994. Intermediate New Testament Greek. A Linguistic and Ex egetical Approach. Nashville, TN : Broadman and Holman. Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole (OP) is Professor Extraordinary at the University of Pretoria, a Research Fellow at Stellenbosch U niversity, a Visiting Professor at Hekima College (Nairobi), and a Bible Translation Consultant with the Bible Society of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He holds a PhD in T heology (University of Leuven). His (co)publica tions include: Triple Heritage: Gospels in lntercultural Mediations (WordAlive, 201 2); New Testament Interpretations in Africa (SAGE, 2007); Cultural Readings of the Bible g ::::, in Africa (Cle, 2007); Interacting with Scriptures in A frica (Acton, 2005); Biblical Texts en and A frican Audiences (Acton, 20Q4). His current research focuses on an intercultural approach to New Testament texts and Bible translations. - N � 122

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A Media Ecology of the King James Version Paul Soukup Santa Clara University, U.SA [email protected] Abstract: The media ecology approach to communication study proposes the analysis of the environments of communication-technological, h istorical, lin guistic, psychological, and so on-in an attempt to better understand how some times hidden aspects of communication work together to affect the understanding, impact, and use of communication and communication prod ucts. As with any environment, the interaction of the elements offers new op portunities; an unstable or changing environment provides a particularly fruitful laboratory to understand communication. This essay applies the media ecology methodology to the translations project of the King James Version of the English Bible, first published in 1 6 1 1 , during a tumultuous period of change in com mun ication media and social relations. It examines eleven of the contexts of that translation project-Gutenberg's invention, the book trade, the scholarly world, the practices of translation, l ibraries, politics, language, rhetoric, the media, the ology, and reception. Each of these involves some aspect of communication and the social practices that developed along with it. In addition to its relevance to communication study, the method also offers a set of tools for translation studies, which in habit a world similar to that of com munication. As far as material objects go, a personal or family Bible differs from most. Even though it is an i mportant spiritual text, it is also an object of mass pro duction with a vast circulation . At odds w ith the status of a sacred text, a B ible originates from nowhere special, essentially having the same qualities as any other mass-produced textbook or magazine . (Woodward 2007 , 1 1 ) Of course, the content, not the properties of the object matter, but as an object, the Bible was not always the mass-produced object familiar to contemporary culture. It existed and exists in oral mem ory; written upon skins (vellum) or papyrus rol ls; bound in carefully � :::, illuminated and preserved manuscripts; and among the first products � - a ---- :::, of the printing press. And it existed and exists in ancient Hebrew ru ---- "' s 150 c,:, and Greek . Apart from its material condition, the Bible provides both a record of theology (that is, faith reflecting on its meaning) and a source for further theology. As a combination of spiritual and material , the.Bible offers a glimpse into media ecology, partic ularly at the moment that transformed the Bible into a mass-pro duced object: the translation into a vernacular destined for publi cation as an "authorized" version for a national church. Media ecology refers to an approach to communication study that "looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception , understanding, feeling, and value." It ex amines "environments: their structure, content, and impact on peo ple." Building on the biological metaphor of the ecosystem, media ecology regards communication media themselves as parts of a larger system, which they in tum affect. Such an ecosystem specifies what people and their communication do and can do. "In the case of media environments (e.g., books, radio, film , television , etc.), the specifications are more often implicit and informal, half con cealed by our assumption that what we are dealing with is not an environment but merely a machine" (Postman 2009). Media ecology aims to illuminate the environments and to help people understand how the ecology works and how communication structures human lives. As a communication phenomenon , the Bible in this sense holds interest for study and opens communication study to alterna tive means of examining the object. Rather than addressing envi ronments per se, communication theory or communication study historically begins with messages and audiences. Rhetoric, as Ar istotle proposes, deals with finding the available means of persua sion (Aristotle, 1 .2). He lists three main headings: ethos, pathos, and logos-characteristics of the speaker, of the audience, and of the message. The three find their way into more contemporary communication study, with ethos and logos often collapsed into studies of persuasion or media technology, and pathos firmly fixed as audience studies, especially studies of message reception or the measurement of the effects of messages upon audiences. Each of the three (ethos, pathos, logos) does offer a way to understand the ecology of communication intertwined with Chris M tian theology-the translation and dissemination of its texts. Almost --.... from its beginnings, Christianity depended on translation: the Ara- � --.... 151 g maic stories of Jesus quickly spread in the Greek-speaking Jewish Diaspora (who themselves used the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) . Then , as Christianity spread both farther west and farther east, its adherents and missionaries rendered the sacred texts from Greek into Latin, Coptic, Syriac, or other lan guages with, as Jaroslav Pelikan ( 1 974, 4 1 ) points out, doctrinal significance found in word choices and linguistic differences. These texts, and the debates flowing from them , offer yet another oppor tunity to think about how communication and theology interact. And while they do suggest places to examine persuasion and audi ence effects, they also even more strongly suggest the fruitfulness of a media ecology approach that expands the scope of communi cation studies. Translation and any particular translation-like any other aspect of communication-does not exist in a vacuum, lying open to examination separate from a wider context. As the media ecology metaphor suggests, each communication act or artifact exists in an ongoing and living set of relationships both with other communi cation acts, tools, or products and with things that coexist with them in the human environment. As the biological metaphor of media ecology makes clear, all of these interact: change one and all the others adjust. The introduction of a new means of commu nication will affect everything else. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century context of the King James Bible offers precisely this situation of a changing environ ment, where communication technologies and social practices in teract to create a new balance. H ere a revised English translation of the Bible emerged in the midst of major shifts in communication practices, which in turn fed the ferment of religious debate. And the theological world took advantage of the affordances provided by the new communication infrastructure. The most immediate of these communication tools is, of course, the printing press. But the "printing press" entails a much larger world of social practices. People had to find ways to use the printing press before it could have an effect on everyday life, religious practice, and theological understanding. Those uses fit into a number of contexts. A media ecology of the King James Bible involves at least eleven contexts: those of Gutenberg's invention, of the book trade, a· ---ai' of the scholarly world, of the practices of translation , of libraries, --- w 152 of politics, of language , of rhetoric, of the media, of theology, and of reception . Each of these involves some aspect of communication and the social practices that developed along with it. Culture scholar Roger Silverstone's remark about the analysis of television as a communication technology applies here as well as to television, "It involves a consideration . of technology as being a part of. and not separated from, the social institutions that produce and consume it" (Silverstone 1 994, 80) . The King James Bible, coming as it does in 1 6 1 1 , in the relative early maturity of the printing press, offers a privileged look at the social institutions surrounding this mass medium of the pre-Enlightenment era. The G utenberg Context Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the West in the middle of the fifteenth century; in 1 455 he printed the 42-line Latin Bible. Though popularly identified with that edition of the Bible, the Gutenberg press issued many other texts. ln so doing, the invention dramatically transformed learning and life in Europe, if in no other manner than by making books widely available . Before Gutenberg, copyists produced books in multiple copies but even the best scriptoria could only produce a limited number of books each year ( Bobrick 200 I , 82). Increasing the speed of making copies meant not only that more copies of a given book circulated, but also that a greater variety of books cir culated. The time saved in copying meant that those produci ng books could print more things, that is, a greater selection of things (Eisenstein 1 979, 1 69). And at this time, there was no shortage of things to print. Historian Benson Bobrick notes that Gutenberg's invention "was launched on a rising tide" of demand for material. In the century before him, the wealthy, who could afford manu scripts and the education to read them, drove the market . "Books of all sorts-cookbooks, medical manuals, educational treatises, tales of courtly love, and so on-appeared, variously illustrated and in a number of different calligraphic styles" ( Bobrick 200 1 , 82) . After the printing press , mass market forces take over as de mand shifts from the wealthy to a wider group of readers. The making of multiple copies from a single master set in (Y) type also meant that workers could more easily find errors and --- correct them - an important aspect of quality control and one that --- � ·.;:::; 153 helped establish the reputation of printers. On the other hand, mak ing multiple copies from a single master also meant that when errors occurred they became widely circulated, as several well known instances attest, even in the first editions of the King James Bible (the "he" and the "she" Bibles, after an error in gender in the book of Ruth; or the "wicked Bible" after an edition that omitted "not" in the commandment regarding adultery). The timing of the invention of the Gutenberg press also meant that it became a tool for the Renaissance and served the Hu manist rediscovery of Greek and other language texts from the East. Among other things, the early printers issued the texts of Greek philosophy, drama, and poetry; commentaries on language and learning; dictionaries; and, of course, the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, along with translations into vernacular languages. The Gutenberg context meant that the King James version transla tors had not only the original language editions before them but also several English-language translations to consult. The Book Trade Context Printers built on an existing network of a book trade, a trade that existed at least since the stationers in thirteenth-century Paris who sold and traded manuscript copies. The sixteenth-century printers increased that trade dramatically, with more editions and copies for the market. Clearly, printers published texts in order to sell them, something they did both locally and through traveling sellers. Italy alone produced I 0,000 printed works in the fifteenth century; the printers of Venice some 27,000 editions in the sixteenth century (Nuovo 20 I 0). These ranged from devotional works to ed ucational texts to poetry and popular stories, anything to satisfy the tastes of the buyers. During the course of the sixteenth century, the proportion of books printed in Latin to those printed in the ver nacular shifted, with a decided preference for vernacular material ( Nuovo 20 1 0). Similar things occurred in other cities and regions, with centers of printing well known in Venice, Paris, Mainz, Stras bourg, Nuremberg, Zurich, Augsburg, Cologne, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Basel, and Geneva ( Hoffmann 1 999). Even today scholars still recognize the names of the leading sixteenth-century printers Aldus Manutius, Johann Froben, William Caxton, and ci' ----- Robert Estienne. oJ' ----- w 154 The Renaissance printers combined business and scholar ship, though in different degrees. Some focused more on quickly issuing editions to capture the market; only later did printers rec ognize that their sales depended on the quality of their books. Print ing also grew with governments' fostering the print trade, through various licensing schemes; traders organized book fairs to promote the exchange of books and create a kind of European market . The book fairs also benefitted from the Reformation , with works by key reformers like Martin Luther selling widely-according to Dickens, quoted in Eisenstein ( 1 979, 303), "between 1 5 1 7 and I 520, Luther 's thirty publications probably sold well over 300 ,000 copies." The competing religious groups quickly took to printing to spread their respective ideas, something that increased the book trade itself ( Eisenstein 1 979, 407). Of course, the printers' output ranged far beyond the religious or the Scriptural or even the classical languages. The mix of texts led to a vibrant business, with printers setting up in every major city and selling books even in remote areas through the services of book peddlers ( Eisenstein 1 979, 376). Depending on the country, the printing and book trade busi ness also depended on government patronage, permission , or li censing. In England , the crown could seize illegal copies and destroy the presses that produced them. During the century prior to the King James or Authorized Version, English translations of the Bible took place mostly outside of England and depended on smugglers to reach their intended audience. The sixteenth-century book trade became a huge business, spurred on by profits, of course, but also by religious conviction when it came to the Bible, and by imaginative ways to deliver finished or partly finished texts to the market. The history of the translations includes the accounts of nu merous smugglers, secret agents , spies. and scholars . Later, with a change of monarch and an authorized version, printers and the printing business had a strong commercial moti vation to promote that version. Literary scholar David No11on com ments: In spite of the later perception of the KJB 's superiority, this publ ishing triumph owed nothing to its merits (or l the l Geneva I B ible I 's demerits) as a scholarly (Y) or l iterary rendering of the originals: economics and pol itics were the key fac --- tors. I t was in the very substantial commercial interest of the K ing's Printer, --- � ·.;;:;; 155 f; who had a monopoly on the text, and the Cambridge University Press, which also claimed the right to print the text, that the KJB should succeed. (David Norton 2000, 90) Like the text, the relatively new communication medium of printing succeeded less on its own merits than on those of the industry it joined. In the end, this context and the competition among printers and traders led to an environment that increased the availability of books, improved the quality of those printed, promoted sales, and lined up alliances with state and trade. This provides a good exam ple of Silverstone's idea that communication technology, like any successful technology, must become part of social institutions for it to succeed. For the printing press and the printing of vernacular Bible translations, the social institutions included business, both legal and illegal. The Scholarly Context Having readily accessible texts in sufficient numbers led to an explosion of study and of language skills. Some of the printers mentioned already produced dictionaries and lexicons. Henri Esti enne 1 1 "carried on the pioneering lexicographical work that his fa ther had begun in the Thesaurus linguae latinae of 1 53 1 and the Latin-French and French-Latin dictionaries of 1 538 and I S39-40 , with his own monumental Thesaurus linguae graecae in 1 S72-73" ( Hoffmann 1 999, 390). These dictionaries provided one foundation for general and translation education. Another foundation appeared in the educational system itself. No longer did students have to travel to find a text; in fact, the sixteenth-century printers increased the availability of school texts . Hoffmann recounts the innovation of the Parisian printer Thomas Brumen, "three-quarters of whose production consisted of interfoliated and double-spaced quarto edi tions in which the student copied the translation between lines and their teacher's literary and grammatical commentaries in the mar gins and extra leaves" ( Hoffmann 1 999, 386). The printers aided scholarship in two other ways, one of which would have great significance. The lesser contribution came �- first from Aldus Manutius, who introduced Greek fonts; a Venetian ---- type-cutter, Francesco Griffo, "surmounted the technical problems or ---- w 156 associated with designing Greek fonts which included all the nec essary diacritics" (Hoffmann 1 999, 387). Even more valuable was the practice of producing corrected critical editions of the Greek and Latin texts. Erasmus led the way. "The publication of an emended Greek text of the New Testament with a parallel Latin translation in 1 5 1 6 established Erasmus as the premier evangelical humanist" ( Boyle 1 999, 44). Not only did he provide a text, but he corrected it in subsequent editions. Despite his criticism of the slop piness of early printers , Hoffman explains a key point: Printing in fact boasted an undeniable advantage over manuscripts: if one proof read early enough , one could reset type, whereas a scribe enjoyed fewer options with regard to a pen stroke already indelibly committed the page. In other words, although the initial typesetting could easily prove inferior to scribal work , movable type afforded the opportunity to achieve a level of correction unattainable even in the best scriptorium. (Hoffman 1 999, 388) Such scholarly collaboration between Humanists like Eras mus and his successors and the best printers (particularly Manutius, Froben, and Estienne) led to the establishment of accurate texts. Hoffman gives the example of Estienne, whose careful work led to the situation that h is editions remained standard references centuries afterwards. He intro duced innovations such as verse numbering still in practice today, and for his I 550 edition of the Greek New Testament, he collated no fewer than fifteen man uscripts-demonstrating just how far the qual ity of printed editions had come i n the hundred years since Gutenberg 's 42-line Bible. ( Hoffman 1 999, 390) But as in any social practice, the collaboration between scholars and printers amplified the importance of the communica tion technology and spilled over into other areas as well. The avail ability of the materials to study language and texts went hand in hand with the expectation-indeed the demand, at least by Eras mus-that theologians know the Scriptures. Marjorie O' Rourke Boyle explains: Although grammatical knowledge did not make a theologian , neither did its (Y) ignorance. Erasmus corrected the scholastic neglect and abuse of grammar by --- requ iring a classical tri l ingual education and by commending its util ity. The --- � ·.::; 157 comprehension of the mysteries of Scripture often depended on knowing the nature of the thing designated . Knowledge was double: of thi ngs and of words. ( Boyle 1 999 , 46) The renaissance of texts and of classical l anguages also in fl uenced the great ed ucational i nstitutions, which promoted the study of these new material s . Such educational reform in the six teenth century prepared the way for a l ater generation of B ible translators , giving them the social practices of educat ion , textual emendation , and ongoi ng correction that has come to define learn ing. By the time K i ng James cal led for work on the B ible translation to commence, he cou ld draw transl ators from Oxford and Cam bridge and entrust the work to these universities. The Translation Context The scholarly context of " B ibl ical h uman ism , which re ceived a new i mpetus after typefonts cou ld be cast" (Eisenste i n 1 979, 33 1 ) and o f critical editions, opened t h e way for translations. Key elements came together: the increased study of classical l an guages , the avai labi l i ty of corrected texts, interl inear editions, a w i l l ingness to revise existing translations (as seen , for example, in Erasmus's work on the Yulgate), and a market for comparing trans lations . By the early sixteenth century, scholars had two critical edi tions in the works of Erasmus and of Cardinal X imenes. In addition, they had wider access to a number of vernacular language transla tions . I n the period of the Reformation many groups published translations of the B ible, since they encouraged B ible readi n g among the people, most o f whom did not read Lat i n . I n the Engl ish-speaking world, translations o r partial trans lations had existed for centuries , w ith texts first prepared in Old English. By the fourteenth century the Engl ish-speaking world had the translation of Wycliffe in manuscript form , and in the sixteenth century W i l l iam Tyndale began work on a complete Engl ish trans lation (English New Testament printed l 526) . Others soon fol lowed: the Coverdale B ible ( 1 535), the Matthew B ible ( 1 537), the Great B ible ( 1 539) , the Geneva B ible ( 1 560) , the B ishops ' B ible ( 1 568) , the R heims New Testament ( 1 582) , and the Douai ful l B ible ( 1 6 1 0) . In addition , revisions and new editions appeared regularly, --o:r �. with or without crown approval ( Metzger 200 I , 5 6-67) . -- w 158 The translators and revisers working on the King James Version drew on all these translations and more. Bobrick points out some of the translation resources: They pored over all previous Engl ish versions; consulted the Complutensian Polyglot of 1 5 1 7 ; the A ntwerp Polyglot of 1 572 (wh ich i ncluded a fresh inter linear Latin translation of the Hebrew by Arias Montanus); the Tremellius-Ju n i us B ible of 1 579 (which contained a Lati n translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Syriac); Sebastian Munster's Latin translation of the Old Testament; Theodore Beza's Latin translation of the New; Latin translations of the whole B ible by Sanctus Pagninus, Leo Juda, and Castalio; the Zurich B i ble; Luther's B ible; the French translations of Lefevre ( l 534) and Olivetan ( l 535); the Span ish translations of Cassiodoro de Reyna and Cypriano de Valera ( 1 602); and G iovann i D iodati 's Ital ian B ible ( 1 607) . ( Bobrick 200 1 , 238) The translators themselves clearly understood that they acted in a long tradition of Bible translation. In the preface, "The Translators to the Reader," of the 1 6 1 1 edition, one section, "The Translating of the Scripture into the Vulgar Tongues," provides a brief history of translation from Jerome to at least the fourteenth century. The media context for the King James Version translators consists, then, of a variety of printed books in the original biblical languages, Latin, and the key languages of Europe and of an inter personal network of scholars and translators. Indirectly, the com munication ecology also includes the expectation that people should have the Bible in translation and that some, at least, should develop the language skills for translation . Libraries Libraries provide another element in the media ecology of the King James Version. While libraries had long existed in monas teries and cathedral schools, they had limited and noncirculating collections. Printing and the book trade led not only to an increase of books but to an increase of private libraries. Printers, scholars, and noble families kept collections of books, thus making reference easier. James I, who authorized the translation, was a true bibl ioph ile. He built up a considerable private l ibrary in the classics; ---- � owned a host of theological works (including those by Calvin, which he read ---- 159 in Latin); was especially well read in the French poets, such as Ronsard , Du Bellay, and Marot; and of course had many writings in English and Scots . (Bobrick 200 I , 206) Such collections add another dimension to the communi cation background of the King James Version: the habit of having books in many languages available increases the likelihood or the expectation of people's knowing those languages and being pre pared to translate them. Private libraries also made it more likely that the translators themselves had access to a fairly broad spectrum of sources, in a number of languages. The Political Context The existing English translations raised a number of theo logical and political issues, another circumstance that constitutes the larger environment of the King James Version. These extend beyond the specific communication contexts, but they do affect the communication. Some of the areas of contact illustrate how media ecology works. The religious and political elite recognized that the Bible formed a teaching tool and that it communicated particular expec tations to the people. King James himself objected to glosses in the Geneva Bible that implied a limitation on the power of the monarch. He also recognized the problem of keeping both the es tablished church group and the Puritan group aligned with the monarchy and the church. At the Hampton Court conference in 1 604, most of the decisions supported the Anglican group. Some commentators suggest that one reason James commanded a revised translation was to offer something to the Puritan group. When John Rainolds (or Reynolds), the Puritan head of Corpus Christi College, asked for a new translation, the King quickly agreed. This "group process" model suggests that a political communication influenced the King's actions. Another political factor also played a role: the fact that the King "authorized" the revision meant that the translators could both work freely and draw on royal support. This has at least two consequences for the work. On the one hand, in contrast to the six teenth century, the translators did not need to work outside of Eng ---- land, in places free from persecution or other external constraints Qj' ---- w 160 (Ellingworth 2007 , I 08) . On the other hand, the royal authorization of the work implied a possible interference or at least a subtle in fluence on the work. James already had reservations about the Geneva Bible-when Rainolds requested a new translation, the King replied that he "could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is the worst" ( Bruce 1 978, 96) . The translation/revision teams working under royal com mand would have understood the political limits to their charge. The guidelines for their work included instructions about lexical items and about the use of marginal notes, including 3. The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be trans lated congregation , &c . . . 6. No marginal notes at al l to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution , so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text. (Campbell 20 1 0 , 36-37) In addition to royal politics, ecclesiastical politics played a role. The Anglican and Puritan groups differed theologically and each used a Bible to support their positions. The more radical re formers, those influenced by Calvin and Knox, rejected church hi erarchy and translated key terms differently: "elder" rather than "priest" for the Greek presbyteros; "overseer/manager" rather than "bishop" for episcopos; "assembly" rather than "church" for ekklesia; and so on (Ellingworth 2007 , 1 09). The choice both sup ported an ecclesiology and presumed one. "The decision to retain 'bishop' (instead of 'elder' or ' senior ' ) reflects a decision to favor episcopacy rather than presbyterianism as a model of church gov ernment; as disagreement about the forn1 of government was a gaping fault line between the church hierarchy and the Puritan mi nority, this decision was critically important" (Campbell 20 1 0 , 82) . The Roman Catholics, in their Douai-Rheims translation, often chose Latinate terms, opting to maintain a continuity with accepted theological usages (Norton 2000, 45-47) . Each transmitted its po sition in the word choices of their translations. Here, ecclesiastical politics guided linguistic choices in the King James Version. A final aspect of the political context emerges only after the translators completed their work. Done at royal command and ..__ funded by the crown, the translators produced an "authorized ver- � ..__ ·.;::; 161 � sion," commanded to the churches and commended to the people. But it took time for the Authorized Version to gain favor. "It is one thing to be the Bible of the official Church, another to be the Bible of the people. In 1 6 1 1 the people had their Bible, the Geneva, and the KJB was simply the Church's third attempt to produce its own Bible" (Norton 2000, 90). Within forty years the situation changed. "The last regular edition of the Geneva Bible was published in 1 644. Thereafter, to buy a Bible meant to buy a King James Bible" (Norton 2000, 90). Norton acknowledges that the eventual triumph of the King James Version arose not from any sense of its superi ority, but from "economics and politics." The "authorized" certifi cation made it attractive and profitable to printers. Linguistic Context The translators' wrestling with word choices in their work something of concern for English Bible translators from Tyndale in the I 520s to Gregory Martin working on the Catholic Rheims New Testament published in 1 582 (Norton 2000, 4 1 -45)-serves an a reminder that the English language itself was still developing and evolving as a language in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unlike many languages , English has freely adopted (and adapted) words from other languages (Crystal 20 I 0), leading to its huge vo cabulary today. Largely German and Celtic, English received an in flux of French words at the Norman conquest in I 066, with the upper classes bringing their French across the English Channel. The tradition of Latin in academic, learned, legal, and administrative circles added yet another set of often specialized vocabulary. Trade across the English Channel brought renewed contact with German and Dutch peoples and words. Regional dialects added more varia tion. William Caxton, the first English printer, "was keenly aware of the impact of his work on English diction, then in considerable flux, and in his own translations tried not to overemphasize unusual words (or 'curious terms ,' as he called them) while not wanting his language to seem too plain" ( Bobrick 200 1 , 83). The Bible translators could choose from a variety of words and themselves introduced both words and phrasing. The English penchant for importing words and the resemblance of Anglo Saxon's stress rhythms to Hebrew patterns in some ways made the ---o:r translators' work easier. Bobrick comments on both as he discusses --- w 162 the work of Tyndale. First, the Anglo-Saxon patterns enabled Tyndale to draw on traditions of native expression to give the Hebrew an English feel. H is fidelity to the original also gave rise to the quintessential "noun + of + noun" construction of English bibl ical prose. I nstead of "Moses' book" we have "the book of Moses"; instead of "a strong man ," "a man of strength." This extended to the way superlatives were expressed: instead of "the holiest place" or "the best song," Hebrew had "the holy of holies" and "the song of songs." This imparted to English a certain rhythmic sonority it had not formerly possessed . (Bobrick 200 I , 1 1 9) He continues, addressing the easy ability to bring new words into English: Tyndale also boldly adopted a number of Hebrew words and compounds, such as "scapegoat," "passover," and "mercy seat," which English has kept, as well as various Hebraic turns of phrase among them, "to die the death," "the Lord's anointed," "the gate of heaven," "a man after h is own heart," "the l i ving God," "sick unto death ," "flowing w ith milk and honey," "to fall by the sword," "as the Lord liveth ," "a stranger in a strange land," "to bring the head down to the grave," and "apple of h i s eye." It is said that he also introduced into English the adjective "beautiful." ( Bobrick 200 1 , 1 1 9) Later translators, both the King James Version team and the Douai-Rheirns team , did the same, though not all their choices successfully entered the language. Many of Martin's terms in the Rheims New Testament (especially the Latin ate ones) come into English through the King James Version, which took them over. However, other terms like "exinanited" were not accepted into English (Norton 2000, 46). The freedom and the necessity with which the translators imported words comes as a heritage of Elizabethan England. Ebel notes that an earlier generation had to import a vocabulary. B ut it i s useful to recall here that at the outset of English printing, and well into the early years of Elizabeth's reign , translators were apologetic and uneasy about their " inadequate" language; that their embarTassment was justified by the real poverty of the English vocabulary ; and that in the course of the century, as vocabulary and idiom seeped into English from the continental vernaculars (partly by means of translations) , English actually experienced a resplendent triumph . ( Ebel 1 969, 596) -� 163 Motivated by a desire to make learning available in English and not restricted to universities and Latin speakers (Ebel 1 969 , 598), Elizabethan translators extended Tyndale's and the Reformers' desire to make the Bible available in common English to a desire to make everything available in English. But it required a linguistic flexibility. "Florio prefaces his translation of Montaigne with a list of neologisms which includes 'conscientious, endeare , tarnish, comporte , efface, facilitate, ammusing, debauching, regret, effort, emotion"' (Ebel 1 969, 596 note 1 7) . That practice of listing new words in prefaces appears in tables at the end of Tyndale's work as well as at the end of Martin's Rheims New Testament ( Norton 2000, 45). Rhetorical Context The religious, political, and linguistics contexts of language choice hight ight yet another part of the media ecology of the King James Version: the rhetorical context. "Rhetoric" here refers to the sixteenth-century usage , indicating the decoration of language , belles lettres, the arrangement of words, the use of imagery, and other stylistic things, rather than to the classical Greek and Latin understanding of rhetoric as the finding of available arguments or the use of probable proofs. Every language has its canons of style. For a translator, a key question emerges as to how to render such aspects of language as well as the verbal meaning of a given text. This challenge for Bible translators dates back at least to Jerome's work on the Yulgate: how much of the style of the H ebrew or Gre�k should become a part of the translation (into Latin, in Jerome's case), particularly when "style" itself differs from one language to another? That is, a given tum of phrase or word arrangement (or alliteration, assonance, etc.) may prove elegant and meaningful in one language but not in the other. A given word arrangement, alliteration, or assonance may prove impossible to recreate in another language . Bible trans lators face a choice between translating words in the word order of Greek or Hebrew or translating the high (or low) style into Latin or English, even though that means that they have to abandon the "literal" approach. Jerome , who translated both classical Greek texts as well as the Bible, followed different principles at different --a· times. "In his letter to Pammachius, he says that while translating -- cii' w 164 literary works he followed the classical idea of a 'free translation,' with one exception, the Bible. He saw 'mystery even in the word order of the Bible "' (Jinbachian 2007 , 33). At the same time , Jerome was not slavish, recognizing with Cicero , Horace , and Boethius that a word-for-word correspondence could betray the original text (Jinbachian 2007, 32). As justification for this, he cites the Scriptures themselves: The Apostles and the Evangelists in q uoting from the Old Testament sources have tried to communicate the meaning rather than the literal words, and that they have not cared greatly to preserve exact phrases and sentence construc tions, so long as they could clearly present the substance of their subj ect to men's understanding I...I In dealing with the Bible one must consider the substance and not the literal words. ( Jinbachian 2007 , 33) The situation takes on greater complexity with the variety of material in the Bible. "The contrasting forms of the Bible made it necessary to render it 'word-for-word' ( verbum e verbo) where it was a legal document, and to translate 'sense-for-sense' (sensus de sensu) where it was a literary work" (Jinbachian 2007 , 34; see also Burke , 2007 , 88-89) . This marked a change from the Old Latin (that is, pre-Jerome) translations, which "is largely 'word-for-word,' probably because that was understood to have been the Septuagint approach, and because it was, after all, the word of God being translated" ( Burke 2007, 84). Later generations of translators would further distinguish, for example , between formal correspondence translation and dy namic equivalence translation, resembling in some ways these two approaches, though drawing on contemporary social science (an thropology, ethnology) , as Pym points out in regards to the work of Eugene Nida ( Pym 2007, 202). While informative, Pym's sub stantive criticism of these approaches as following a "representa tional epistemology"-that there exists a meaningful source text with an existence independent of language such that its meaning can be separated and reinserted into another language-raises more questions than it settles about the role of rhetoric. It does, however, support the wider media ecology approach, which indicates that all factors play a role. While not taking sides, media ecology does (Y) affirm that the translation choice itself is meaningful. The commu --- nication event or experience consists of all aspects of the ecology. --- � C ·.:, C 165 The rhetorical choices taken by the various translators leave their marks . Tyndale's identification of Hebrew poetic structure with that of Middle English led him to translate the Psalms, for ex ample, with a more literal dependency on the Hebrew texts ( Bobrick 200 I , 1 1 9). The use of the Psalms in the daily prayer of the church in turn established a preference for this style of poetic translation, which itself influences the later development of English stylistics . The King James Version similarly cultivates a growing preference for Elizabethan expression and vocabulary among subsequent gen erations of English speakers, long after Elizabethan and Jacobean English had passed from popular usage. The Media The King James Version, like the earlier English versions since Tyndale's, appears as a printed book rather than as a manuscript or other form of communication. That matters for media ecology. The book form itself also involves any number of communicative choices: the page size, the type face(s), decorative capitals, the use of images, the quality of the paper, the quality of the editing, the use of white space (that is, the arrangement of type on the page, with or without marginal notes), the binding, and so on. Each of these contributed to the look and to the cost of the book. And each of these things communicates something about the book itself. For example, the Great Bible, intended as a pulpit Bible, had a size too large for personal use. The King James Version appeared first as a pulpit Bible "of great volume" or size and only later in smaller sizes for individual use. Bobrick describes the first editions: The text itself, printed Gothic type and fol io format ( 1 6 inches by I O½ inches), was laid out in double columns enclosed within rules. Ornamental capitals adorned the beginnings of chapters, but the chapter summaries , head i ngs, and marginal notes were set in roman type. Also in roman were those words not in the original but inserted to make the meaning clear. ( Bobrick 200 1 , 253) This latter usage led to the unintended consequence in later editions of people misinterpreting the change of typeface to signal importance rather than addition. During the early years of its publication, though, the King James Version appeared as one among several other Bible transla a· ---iii' tions , with the most popular alternative the Geneva Bible favored --- C,.) 166 by the Puritans. Anglican Bishops commended the King James Version to the people, using phrases referring to the book's ap pearance. Norton comments on an interesting consequence of this . "It may have gone without saying that Bibles 'of the largest volume' and Bibles without notes meant the KJB, but such phrases do sug gest that people found it difficult to distinguish the KJ B from the Geneva Bible as a version, but relatively easy to distinguish it as an artefact" ( Norton 2000, 92). The physical appearance of the text acted as a carrier of meaning or identity. The printer and the translators may have deliberately used the physical appearance to signal other things as well. "In keeping with the idea that the new version was but a revision of the old, there were emblems of con tinuity; for example, some of the general ornamentation of the title page had been borrowed from the Geneva Bible, while the Bishops' Bible supplied a figure or two as well" (Bobrick 200 1 , 253). The Theological Context The King James Version was produced during a period of intense theological dispute, starting with the Reformation debates about Catholic practices in the early sixteenth century and contin uing throughout Europe and England. Those debates became in creasingly public with controversialists on every side publishing tracts and books , which became best sellers for both private and public reading. "Under the aegis of patrons like the Earl of Leicester, corps of translators labored to convert useful and edifying works of every kind into the mother tongue. The missionary zeal of lay evangelists, who objected to withholding Gospel truths from any man, was completely compatible with the new movement" (Eisen stein 1 979, 360). Not only did the Reformers want the Scriptures translated, they wanted to highlight passages that supported their positions. Thus, as noted already, they and their Catholic opponents debated over how to translate words - for example, was ecclesia better rendered "church" or "assembly"? But they also fought a war over marginal notes , with the Geneva Bible, among others , taking a strident tone against the papacy. The same theological ur gency marked out the parties in England, the Puritans arguing for a position more compatible with that of Continental reformers and (Y) the Anglicans remaining closer to Roman positions . The theological ..___ competition most likely improved the overall translation enterprise � ..___ 167 as more and more individuals undertook translation. W hatever the particulars, this heated theological atmosphere spurred translators on. King James, as we have seen , approved the translation/revision project for theological as well as political reasons. The translations became part of a virtuous theological circle, since those trained in theology undertook more education in Scrip ture. Moreover, since even the untrained could read the Bible, more people engaged in the reflection on faith that defines theology itself. The Reception of the King James Version Communication study often concerns itself with audiences and with audience reaction to and interpretation of messages Aristotle's pathos . Lacking survey research for the seventeenth century publication of the King James Version , we must turn to proxy measures in the publication history and contemporary dis cussion. Even here, the evidence remains slim. From the perspective of four hundred years, we see the success of the King James Version. H owever, this did not happen immediately. Norton comments: It is one thing to be the Bible of the official Church, another to be the B i ble of the people . l n 1 6 1 1 the people had their B ible, the Geneva, and the KJB was simply the Church's third attempt to produce its own B ible. To become the Bible of the people it had to dom inate the field of B ible production and to be the form of words habitually used when a text is quoted, for that is the hallmark of acceptance and the key to specific literary appreciation . (Norton 2000, 90) The eventual successful reception of the Authorized Version depended on its authorization. The King's printer 's exclusive con tract (along with that of Cambridge University) made it very much in the commercial interests of these presses for the Authorized Ver sion to succeed. In effect , they stopped printing the Geneva Bible "for 'private lucre, not by vi1tue of any public restraint, l and so l they were usually imported from beyond the seas "' ( Norton 2000, 9 1 ) , usually through Amsterdam. "The ultimate success of the new Bible would owe much to the enthusiasm of James. Published by royal authority, it 'swept forward with a majestic stream of edi tions' -in folio, quarto, and octavo-which eventually left all its rivals behind" ( Bobrick 200 I , 253 ) . But it took time. And it had -- �. time, with editions regularly coming off the presses. -- ai' w 168 Popular opinion about the King James Version is difficult to determine. Norton offers an interesting observation: "If there was instant acclaim for the KJB, all evidence of it has been lost, whereas evidence of dissatisfaction has survived" (Norton 2000, 90). The latter evidence consists of critiques by contemporaries like Hugh Broughton and Ambrose Ussher. Broughton, a scholar omitted from the translation teams-some say because of his diffi cult personality-published a Censure of the late translation for our churches. In it, he writes "l had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses" than to recommend the King James Bible. He goes on to criticize everything from word choices to the translation of proper names. Given his personality and perhaps resentment at his exclusion, it is hard to know how much to credit his critique. Ussher, writing around 1 620, sought to revise the translation. "He offers a large number of new interpretations not to be found in any other translations, and I . . . I he implies that he is offering a more el egant translation. Unlike the translators so far discussed, he suggests that elegance of style is to be found in the originals and preserved in the translation" (Norton 2000, 94). As Norton noted, little else remains in the record. The eventual success of the King James Version comes partly from its monopoly position and, as a consequence of that, from its familiarity in the language of the church. As people heard it and prayed with it, its phrases and cadences helped shaped the l i nguistic practices of English speakers throughout the world. But that took time and appears more varied than many suppose. David Crystal, the eminent English Iinguist and historian of the language, specifically addresses the question of the influence of the King James Version on the language, noting that "if there is an influence on our present-day written language, it has to appear in grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, or the broader patterns of usage that we impressionistically refer to as matters of ' idiom' or 'style'" (Crystal 20 I0, 4). He discounts any influence on grammar, spelling, and punctuation as these do not show any appreciable influence of the King James Version. Conducting a careful review of the text, Crystal concludes that he finds "only 257" stylistic influences, though he acknowl (Y) edges that these far outnumber the idiomatic influences of the next --- ranking sources, the plays of Shakespeare (Crystal 20 1 0, 258). --- ]? 169 However, this inheritance as wel l as that of vocabulary comes from the set of translations that the K i ng James Version team drew on . The greater i nfluence , Crystal thinks, comes from an infl uence on spoken and written Engl ish - the result of people's hearing and read ing the text in church or in school . Here he credits the King James Version as creating preferences for rhetorical expressions ( bathos , ch iasmus, hyperbole, i rony, oxymoron , person ification , and satire), language play, phonetic properties (iambic rhythms, alliteration, assonance , euphony, monosy llabicity, and rhyme), and brevity of expression (Crystal 20 l 0, 26 l ) . From a publ ishing perspective and from a communication perspective, the K ing James Version eventually had a most im pressive reception . Other measures of i nfl uence find a substantial infl uence, but one perhaps measured more in perceived infl uence than grammatical or graphological characteristics . The media ecology of the K i ng James Version gives some idea of the complex interaction of commun ication and other factors that affected the translation . As w ith any human project, thi ngs did not have to turn out as they did, but the new communication tech nology and its associated social practices al lowed them to take the path that they took. Without these communication technologies , that path wou ld not have opened in the same way and the K ing James Version's production and subsequent h istory would not have been the same . �- --- --- u.) 170 References Aristotle, The art ofrhetoric. Translated by H. C. Lawson-Tancred. London and New York, Penguin, 1 99 1 . Bobrick, Benson. 200 I . Wide as the Wafers: The Story of the English Bible and !he Revolution It Inspired. New York: Simon & Schuster. Boyle, M ar:jorie O' Rourke. 1 999. "Evangelism and Erasmus." I n The Cambridge Histo1y of Lilerary Criticism, Vol. 3, The Renaissance, edited by G. P. Norton, 44-52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruce, F. F. 1 978. His/o,y of!he Bible in English: From the Earlies/ Versions. New York: Oxford University Press. Burke, David G. 2007. "The First Versions: The Septuagint, the Targums, and the Latin." I n A Histoty a/Bible Trans/a/ion, edited by Philip A. Noss, 59- 89. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Let:teratura. Campbell, Gordon. 20 1 0. Bible: The Story ofthe King James Version, / 6 1 1-2011. Ox ford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, David. 20 I 0. Begot: The King James Bible and 1he English Language. Ox ford: Oxford University Press. Ebel, J. G. 1 969. "Translation and cultural nationalism in the reign of Elizabeth." Journal ofthe HisLory of Ideas 30: 593- 602. Eisenstein Elizabeth L. 1 979. The Printing Press as an Agenl ofChange: Communi cations and Cultural Transformalions in Early-Modern Europe. Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 979. Ellingworth, Paul. 2007 . "From Martin Luther to the English." I n A History ofBible Translation, edited by Phi lip A. Noss, I 05-39. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Folger Shakespeare Li brary. "The Road to Hampton Court." Accessed June 20, 20 1 1 . http://www.mani foldgreatness.org/index.php/bef'ore/the-road-to hampton-eourt/. Hoffinann, G. 1 999. "Renaissance Printing and the Book Trade." In The Cambridge History ofLiterw:v Criticism, Vol . 3, The Renaissance, edited by Glyn P. Norton, 348-9 1 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. J inbachian, Manuel. 2007. "I ntroduction : The Septuagint to the Vernaculars." In A History of Bible Translation, edited by Phi l ip A. Noss, 29- 57. Rome: Edi zioni di Storia e Letteratura. Maltby, J udith, and Helen Moore. 20 1 1 . "Origins of the Project." In Manifold Greatness: The Making ofthe King James Bible, edited by Helen Moore and Jul ian Reid, 4 1 -59. Oxford: Bodleian Library. McCullough, Peter, and Valentine Cunni ngham. 20 1 1 . "A lterlives of the K ing James B ible, 1 6 1 1 - 1 769". I n Manifold Greatness: The Making ofthe King James Bible, edited by l lelen Moore and Julian Reid, 1 39- 1 6 1 . Ox CV) ford: Bodleian Library. Metzger, Bruce M . 200 1 . The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions. ........ Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. � ........ ·.;::; 171 £; Norton, David. 2000. A History ofthe English Bible as Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. N uovo, A. 20 1 0. ''The Book Trade in the I talian Renaissance: Structure and Regula tion." 46th Annual Erasmus Lecture, given at the University of Toronto October 2 1 , 20 I 0. Accessed February 1 3, 2 0 1 1 . http://www.medieval ists.net/20 1 0/ 1 1 I 1 4/the-book-lrade-in-the-italian-renaissance-structure and-regulation/. Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1 974. The Christian tradition: a history ofthe development of doctrine. Vol. 2 : The spirit o_f Eastern Christendom (600-1 700). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Postman, Neil . 2009. "What Is Media Ecology?" Accessed November 2, 20 1 1 . http://www. med ia-eco logy.org/media_ecology/index .htm I. Pym, Anthony. 2007. "On the Historical Epistemologies of Bible Translating." I n A History ofBible Translation, edited by Philip A. Noss, 1 96---2 1 5. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Silverstone, Roger. 1 994. Television and Everyday Life. London and New York: Routledge. Woodward, I an . 2007. Understanding Material Culture. Los Angeles: Sage Publica tions. Paul A. Soukup, S.J., explores the connections between communication, theology, media ecology, and other disciplines. From his i nterest in orality and11iteracy studies, he and Thomas J. Farrell have edited five volumes of the collected works of Walter J. Ong, S.J., and, most recently, O f Ong & Media Ecology (201 2). a collection 'of essays applying Ong to media ecology. He has worked with the American Bible Society's new media Bible translation project, editing Fidelity and Translation: Communicating the Bible in New Media, with Robert Hodgson (1 999). A graduate of the U niversity ofTexas in Austin (PhD, 1 985), Soukup now teaches in the Communication Department at Santa a· Clara University. Soukup serves on translation's editorial board. .....__ .....__ c...., 172

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translation speaks to Robert J.C. Young translation editor Siri Nergaard met with Robert J. C. Young i n New Your City o n September 1 4th 201 2 at the Nida Research Symposium. During the conversation Young expresses how, as a scholar of postcolonial studies, he became interested in translation and how he discovered that " translation in some sense is what postcolonial studies is all about. " After a discussion on the centrality of power in translation, the conversation shifts to empowerment and how, in the colonial context and elsewhere, this involves a three-stage process that includes the exper� ence of being translated, then of de-translation, and finally of retranslation of the self. Young explains how he intends " cultural translation, " a process in which he is particularly inter ested, especially in the sense of a specific practice. With examples from both Freud and Fanon, he explains how we can reconstruct such a practice-a practice that encloses a theory -through a kind of archaeology of how it has been performed in earlier idioms. ( I ssue 1 of translation contains Young's article " Frantz Fanon and the enigma of cultural trans lation"); (Robert Young's lecture at the 201 3 Nida Research Symposium was devoted to how Freud can be considered a theoretician of translation and how his psychoanalysis can be seen as a form of translation. The lecture can be accessed at the NSTS website: http://nsts.fusp.it/events/conferences-and-symposia). The discussion then deals with the question of whether it is necessary to limit the definition and use of the concept of translation, the authors who have meant the most to Young, and the theme of national languages and multilingualism. The interview with Young was recorded and can be viewed at the journal's website: http://translation.fusp. it/interviews NERGMRD: Since we are i nterviewing you for o u r journal called translation, the first question I would like to ask-and we a re very pleased to learn that you have been tor a quite long while now working and focusing more and more on translation-is why? How did you get into the question of translation ? YOUNG: Well, that's a n i nteresting question. I suppose in practical terms the fi rst time I cried to chink about translation in a postcolonial frame was when I was invited to give a talk at Mona Baker's MA i n Translation Studies at Manchester. There was a developing in terest i n translation i n my own field, postcolonial studies, with respect to translation studies, so I started getting people i n trans lation studies contacting me to ask about it. That led me to focus on an area of post-colonial studies that actually had al ready been developed quite considerably. Translation, after all, in some sense is what postcolonial studies is all about because it is about the (Y) degree to which h istorically colon ialism performed acts of trans lation, if we can speak metaphorically. --- --- � C C 173 What it added to that idea of cultural contact and transformation was of course the relation of power, which maybe had not been so prominent in translation studies i tself, although people l i ke Lawrence Venuti, from a slightly different angle, but in some sense already not entirely foreign to the postcolonial, had been developing i deas about the question of power in translation. So along with that was the role that translation actually performed h istorically as part of the colonial project or whatever you might l ike to call it. And chat agai n brings up the question of power, because the people who performed the acts of translation were generally the o nes who were empowered, and the translations chat they produced usuall y reflected their own concerns and needs, though of course chat's not unique co them, that happens today. Every translation in a way is l i ke that, but in the postcolo nial context it means that i t's possible to chart the transforma tions that translations produce in terms of translating one culture to another. An obvious example would be the translation of law in India, which began in the eighteenth century: the need of the British to establish information about how law operated in India i n Eng l ish rather than in either Persian or Sanskrit, because the re sources, particularly the Sanskrit, were inaccessible to chem. And yet when they translated, they did not j ust translate faithfully, they actually transformed the law in the act of translation. That transformation is particularly what I am i nterested in . The process which follows from that becomes the colonial question: how do I, as a colon ized person, or as a person who is in a situ ation being dominated by another power more generally-how do I retranslate myselP.-if my culture has been translated by a dominant foreign culture and I have been transformed into a dif ferent kind of being. The anticolon ial question, we could say, was precisely "How do I retranslate myself?" Boch Gandhi and Fanon argue, in di fferent ways, that before liberation could be successful, the people, the colonized people, needed to perform acts of translation personally in order to achieve independence. So there has been a long history of interaction of translation within the procedures of colonial and decolonizing acts. NERGMRD: It is interesting that you insist on the aspect of power, and I think the power question is an example of how much translation studies had learned from postcolonial studies so much that Edwin Gentzler and Maria - Tymoczko published a book called Translation and Power. They proposed that there is, or should be, or is on the way, a "turn " in translation studies al � :::, and that is the turn of power. That is interesting and I think that is a good � example of that dialogue. Another thing I would just ask you a little more a· ---al' :::, about is how do colon ized peoples retranslate themselves? There are --- s N w 174 also examples of the suba ltern who finds another way to translate him or herself, that is not as a dominated-but turn ing the terms arou nd so the question of power becomes more complex because it is not " I am dominated and you are the dominator" but I turn the terms around and maybe empower myself in retranslating myself. YOUNG: And that idea of empowering through translation is a very i n teresting one. Of course the very word "empower" is a relatively new word in many languages. We can l i nk it dramatically to the term "translate" in this context. Probably in that process there is going to be somethi ng of a procedure of de-translation in order to effect retranslation. You have got probably a three-way / three part scheme there, in terms of being translated, then de-trans lating yourself in order to retranslate yourself and that is, I would say, the procedure chat needs to be followed in the colonial con text. It is a procedure chat we can think of operating or using i n all sorts o f other contexts too--intellectually for example, as well as pol i tically. How do we de-translate ourselves out of certain i deological assumptions that we've been brought up with i n order to perform new aces o f translation ? NERGMRD: To describe this process, is that when you can use the term "cul tural translation" 7 YO UNG: Well, chat could be a way of describing what cultural transla tion performs and chat is something I have been particularly in terested i n. le is a difficult phrase, because translation is a hugely complex issue and culture is equally problematic, perhaps more problematic than translation. So, for example, the idea of cultural translation came from anth ropology; anthropologists i nvented that term, but actually they do not use it any more-it has been appropriated into cultural studies. And it tends to be used in a relatively loose way com pared to the way people use the term translation in translation studies. One of my int erests is to th ink more about chat concept of cultural translation and to develop ideas of how we can think about it as a more specific practice. It is not going to be obviously just a si ngle practice, but what does it really mean and what use is the word, either cultural or partic ularly translation, what is it doing there? Do people mean j ust change, or is there something more significant goi ng on? That is someth ing I have been i nterested i n recen tly. NERGAARD: And do you have some hypothesis-some clearer idea of where a deeper understanding of the concept of cultu ral translation might lead us7 a M YO UNG: What I have been tryi ng to do recently is to look for examples --- N of where people have in some sense written or theorized about --- � C 0 ·;:o "' 1,1 C 175 fg cultural translation, probably not even usi ng the term because it is a relatively new term. I n creasi ngly it seems to me that i t is something that there has been written about quite extensively in the twentieth century without actually been given that label. To take one example from Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents: of course he did not use the word "civilization," he used the word Kultur, a term that was not used i n English translation because i n the 1 920s the word "culture" in Engl ish already had a specific meaning relating to Engl ish-German rivalries, so it was not a neutral term. But i f we th ink abour that book as Culture and Its Discontents, you can see that Freud was actually talking about the effect of culture on individuals, i n a way he was talking about the process of cultural translation that we all undergo, and mak ing a rather bleak argument about it, but producing, it seems to me, a theory of it. So there are ways l ike that that we can usefully think about cultural translation as it has been performed in ear l ier idioms. N ERGAARD: Very interesting. Are there other authors who develop a theory of cultural translation, in you r opinion ? You have written on Fa non for the journal, and in his work, you see the concept of cultural translation, too. YOUNG: Yes, Fanon is very interesting. I have kept my eye open, but I have not actually found him using the word translation, and i n fact it i s an i nteresting gap i n h is work. But h e does use the word "muration" quite a lot, and when he uses the word muta tion, he is talking about chat process of transformation chat I was describing earlier. Obviously, i n some sense it is Fanon I was thi nking about when I was talking about that three-stage process of transformation. I n his famous essay "On Linguistic Aspects of Translation," Jakobson also uses that term as a syn onym for translation, although he calls it "transmutation," i n his third category. I chink it i s not unrealistic, i t is not stretching a point too far, to carry that transmuracion as a concept i nto Fanon and see chat as a form of translation, i n some sense; not in a literal translation, "translation proper," but in a wider sense. I chink Farron really makes translation central co h is whole argu ment. Throughout his l i fe, it's a guiding thread. NERGAARD: As you said, it is not translation in the literal sense. As you know, there is a debate regarding these different uses and definitions of trans lation and Harish Trivedi, for instance, argues that we should not speak - about cultural translation because then everything is translation. It seems that you are a bit on both sides. al "' :::, - � YOUNG: I n-between. --- 0 :::, --- OJ s N w 176 N ERGAARD: In one sense you say-Yes, that's a problem, if we use it in this loose way it loses significance, but on the other hand you reformu late it or you redefine it through your reading of authors who invoke a form of cultural translation, maybe even without calling it translation. Maybe that is the kind of solution you find, or do you feel you are in-between these two? YOUNG: Well, yes, f sympathize with the arguments that Trivedi makes and many other people who are working within the practice of translation in terms oflinguistic translation. I mean I can certainly see their point and i t is a reasonable one. On the other hand, they do not have a kind of legal copyright over translation. I n fact, i fyou look at the h istory of the word, the practice o f I i nguisric translation is not the earliest way in which the term translation i tself was used. In different languages, translation as a concept also i nvolves different words that have different h istories so that is very varied as well. What you might call the metaphorical use of the word translation, or what seems to us now to be the non l iteral use of the word translation, is as old as translation i tself So i t is a lost cause in the first place to try and limit i t to language only; and secondly, since i t has never been limited to language only, it seems to have survived perfectly well. At the end of the day it still works for what people want i t to mean i n a precise way. As the word translation i tself suggests, all meani ng is metaphorical. Therefore when th i nking about translation, which has the advantage of being a specific practice, ifyou feel you have lost your bearings, you can always go back to that. But it can be used as a way of thinking about other ki nds of translation. Equally, doing that works back into translation i tself, because when you start thinking about cultures, for example, which of course i n any modern contemporary description are heterogeneous and not bounded, you start wondering about translation and the de gree to which it assumes separate languages char are bounded, where you need some act of moving one to the other. That may be the case now because it has been constructed in that way, say in Europe, though even i n Europe actually it is not entirely the case. For example, French and Italian are not totally separate lan guages i n practice, as you know, particularly if you go to the bor ders of France or I taly or Switzerland. Sim ilarly in India, for ex ample, where languages have a different kind of relation, or Arabic would be a good example- Arabic is officially one language, but actually in a way it is many languages. So should we assume that translation is about the transformation of these entirely separate languages, or should we start to rethi n k that and think about the (") 0 d ifferences between interlingual and intrali ngual in Jakobson's terms? Of course it is useful to separate languages, but maybe --- N they are not so strictly demarcated as we rend to assume. --- � c:: 0 ·.;:::; !le <n 177 g N E RGAARD: Yes, maybe because we a re very conditioned by national lan guages, languages as national languages. YO UNG: Yes, exactly. When you think about any national language it is already languages. Take Icalian--of course in a written form it is usually one language, but spoken I talian is actually many lan guages, and that is true for most languages i n fact. N ERGAARD : I personally agree completely and we need to delve m uch more deeply into culture to learn more about how it works and then come back to practice and translating in order to u nderstand what it is. We have to go not directly from one language to the other or only focusing on the practice. YOUNG: Right. NERGAARD: When we understand what is happening in cultu re, then we u n derstand what is happening directly in the practice. YOUNG: Yes, because it is culture that has produced our concept of what a language is, so we cannot j ust operate with those terms without thinking about them-they are not just given thi ngs. N ERGAARD: We have been speaking about authors who do not speak explic itly about translation, except for Jakobson. But among authors who do discuss translation, who has been i mportant for you ? YOUNG: F o r m e I suppose most o f the classic texts o n translation I find very i n teresting- Benjamin, obviously, j ust as for everybody i n the world it seems sometimes, i s totally fascinating because he is so enigmatic-his "The Task of the Translator" is such an odd essay. I n particular the metaphors he uses are so tantalizing be cause i n certain respects they do not seem to be the correct metaphors for translation at all, so that is very engaging. The de gree to which Heidegger turns i nto issues of translation in phi losophy, issues about etymology that have been so differently, b ut i n a very related way, developed by Derrida, are particularly i nteresting to me. But of course, as soon as p h ilosophers start to talk about translation, they im mediately move i nto the register of language, because (aside from Derrida) they want to find a language which can i n some sense speak "truth" of some kind and that is always a problem for philosophers-they keep going i nto that but translation makes it problematic. At the same time � they also want to extend the idea of translation, so they want to al ::J 'c'?.. also say translation happens not j ust between languages, but it �- actually happens within languages-i t happens actually with --- 0 ::J every kind of conceptualization. So they too are always extending ---"' o!' s w 178 the concept of translation into, not cultural translation, but you might say conceptual translation, or conceptualization as a form of translation, so that I find fascinating too. And then l am also particularly interested in ideas of polylin gualism, linguistic multiplicity, and the theorists who have ap proached that issue, because I think again few of us actually think or operate-and certainly few societies- in one language. And again there is an assumption that societies are monolingual and that translation is about translating into the language of another society in some sense. But o ne of the things you see very quickly if you work in the field of the postcolonial is that certainly every postcolonial society that J can think of, as well as the metropol itan societies that embody that postcoloniality-they are all mul tilingual. We do not really recognize the degree to which in fact we live in a very mul tilingual environment all the time. We do not j ust hear one language; any day of the week we hear many languages and different people have different relations to those. So that again complicates this relation of fixed single languages. NERGAARD: Thank you very m uch. YO UNG: Pleasure. Robert J.C. Young, FBA, is Julius Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York U niversity. He has published White Mythologies. Writing History and the West ( 1 990); Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Culture, Theory and Race (1 995); Postcolo nialism: An Historical Introduction (2001 ); Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (2003); and The Idea of English Ethnicity (2008). He is Editor of the bimonthly Inter M 5 ventions.· International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, and was also a founding editor of the Oxford Literary Review. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. --- N Young is a member of translation's advisory board. E-mail: rjy2@nyu .edu --- � C 0 ·;:::; _,!? Cl) C 179 g; = = translation / fall / 201 3

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Introduction Sandro Mezzadra and Naoki Sakai ................................. University of Bologna, Italy [email protected] Cornell University, U.S.A. [email protected] Over the last decades the encounter with cultural and postcolonial studies has deeply influenced the development of translation stud- ies.1 The study of the conditions of translation, and more radically of what Antonio Gramsci would call “translatability,” has led to an emphasis on the issue of power and deep asymmetries between lan- guages, and social and “cultural” groups. The “politics of transla- tion” has emerged as a fundamental topic, even for the more technical debates within translation studies, while the concept of translation itself has been politicized and used as a theoretical tool in discussions of nationality, citizenship, multiculturalism, and glob- alization. The relations between translation, violence, and war, to give just one example, have been productively at play in these theoretical developments (cf. Apter 2006; Rafael 2012). Translation can be pro- ductive or destructive, by inscribing, erasing or redrawing borders; it is a process, political par excellence, which creates social relations and establishes new modes of discrimination. Far from being con- ceived of as the “other” of violence, translation has emerged as a deeply ambivalent concept and practice. Put simply, translation al- ways cuts both ways: at once a mechanism of domination and lib- eration, clarification and obfuscation, commerce and exploitation, opening up to the “other” and appropriation. Translation, to further explicate its constitutive relation with the concept and institute of the border, produces both bridges and walls (see Mezzadra & Neil- son 2013). To insist on this requires, however, some critical remarks on the ways in which translation has been traditionally conceived of. This will clear the way for a better understanding of the stakes translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 On “Translation and the Postcolonial,” see the recent special issue of Intrverntions. International Jour- nal of Postcolonial Studies, 15 (2013): 3, edited by Francesca Orsini and Neelam Srivastava. Among the founding postcolonial texts on translation, we limit ourselves to mentioning Spivak 1993, considered its importance for the topic of this issue of Translation. 9 of current discussions surrounding the politics of translation and the politicization of the concept of translation. 1. Translation beyond communication Often, translation has been apprehended within an implicit framework of the communication model. Just as a verbal interaction between individuals is typically and schematically construed ac- cording to the model of communication in which a message sup- posedly travels from a speaker’s consciousness to a listener’s con- sciousness, the action of translation is represented in a similar schema of communication in which a message is transferred from one language to another. Whereas the verbal communication occurs between two individual minds through the common medium of the same language, presumably translation is distinct from verbal com- munication in general precisely because the common medium is absent in the case of translation. Instead, two languages are involved in translation so that a message cannot be deciphered in terms of a common code. It is expected that translation takes place where, due to language difference, there is no immediate comprehension. In this view of translation as a communication, the trope of border works powerfully to make and determine a particular incident of social and political transaction as translation. From the outset, whenever translation takes place, a border between one language and another is given as a gap or distance that separates one group of people from another and differentiates one language from another. Let us call this particular image or representation of translation ac- cording to the model of communication “the modern regime of translation.” But, the status of discontinuity or incommensurability that prompts translation is far from self-evident in this representation of translation between the preestablished unities of languages. Ac- cordingly, we are led to further investigate the workings of the communication model in our understanding of translation. We are thus skeptical of the model of communication that underlies the view of translation readily accepted in some translation studies today. First of all, as the tropes of war, battle, or violence capture some aspects of translation very well, translation cannot be translation / spring / 2014 simply regarded as an act of overcoming a gap or of bridging a dis- tance between languages. Neither can it be merely an operation of diplomacy and conciliation between national polities, distinct ethnic 10 groups, religious communities, or political orders. The relation be- tween translation and borders is again crucial here. There is a need to repeat that translation can inscribe, erase, and distort borders; it may well give rise to a border where there has been none before; it may well multiply a border into many registers; it may erase some borders and institute new ones. Similar to the maneuver of occupa- tion at war, translation deterritorializes and reterritorializes languages and probable sites of discommunication. It shows most persuasively the unstable, transformative, and political nature of border, of the differentiation of the inside from the outside, and of the multiplicity of belonging and nonbelonging. In short, a border is not something already accomplished, something engraved in stone, so to say, but in constant motion and metamorphosis. It is rather in the register of action than of substance, rather a verb than a noun. It is a poietic act of inscribing continuity at the singular point of discontinuity. Viewed from the peculiar angle of this constitutive relation with processes of bordering, new and in a way unexpected political implications of translation come to light. 2. Modernity in translation The role of translation in the epistemic structure of modern colonialism and the formation of the modern state and national sov- ereignty, as well as in the operations of global capitalism, has there- fore been underscored by several scholars, while often the same scholars have emphasized the need to rework the concept and prac- tice of translation as a cornerstone of a new politics of liberation. The very unity of the concept and practice of translation has con- sequently been challenged and productively exploded. This is the very site where, as Gavin Walker insists, the politicality of transla- tion ought to be explored. What we called above “the modern regime of translation” has been contested, and it has been acknowl- edged that different, even antagonistic, regimes of translation were prevalent in previous eras and in many regions in the world. What must be investigated is a specific structure of homolingual address that characterizes “the modern regime of translation”(see Sakai 1997).2 The different regimes may also be “homolingual,” but the translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 2 The modern regime of translation does not immediately imply that it is “homolingual,” as the opposition between “homolingual” and “heterolingual” is primarily concerned with the two contrasting attitudes of 11 modern regime of translation institutes a particular and strict econ- omy of homogeneity and heterogeneity through translational trans- actions. It is important to note that the “identities” we take for granted in the world today—ethnic, national, cultural, and civiliza- tional identities—are premised upon “homolingual” addresses in the modern regime of translation. Some genealogical remarks are needed here. What must be emphasized with respect to the formation of the modern state and nationality is the particular role played by the modern regime of translation by means of which the unities of national languages were projected and manufactured. The so-called modern era, which witnessed the emergence of national languages—German, French, English, and so forth in Western Europe, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in Northeastern Asia, and many others in other parts of the world—is fundamentally different from previous eras in the iden- tification of language.3 .......................... the interlocutors: the homolingual attitude assumes that, within the same language—the sameness of which is in dispute—transparent communication is somewhat guaranteed, whereas the heterolingual at- titude sees the failure of communication in every utterance, so that every interlocutor is essentially and potentially a foreigner. See Sakai, 1997. The “modern regime of translation” indicates a different classification of translational institutions. Histor- ically there have been many modes of translation, some of which do not clearly distinguish one language to translate from and another to translate into. In the present-day world, “Spanglish” is a good example of such a mode, which is widely used in North America to link many different groups and individuals. “Spang- lish” cannot be accommodated within the “modern regime of translation” precisely because it is neither English nor Spanish. Seen from a slightly different perspective, it is both English and Spanish. What is re- markable about this mode of translation is that, instead of clearly demarcating one language unity from another, it confuses the two, preventing one unity of language from becoming distinct from another. Pre- cisely because it cannot be accommodated in the modern regime of translation it is not regarded as a “le- gitimate” form of language. There used to be many modes of translation like “Spanglish” in Northeast Asia, and as a result it was ex- tremely difficult to develop the sense of a distinct national language. Our suspicion is that, prior to the de- velopment of national languages, medieval Europe was not so different from Northeast Asia in this respect. In the eighteenth century, the Japanese established a new mode of translation, as a result of which they discovered the Japanese language for the first time. When it was discovered, however, the scholars of the Japanese classics did not say the Japanese language existed in the present. Instead, they said that there used to be a Japanese language in antiquity, but it became so contaminated by the Chinese that it was dead by the eighteenth century in their present world. Thus the Japanese language was discovered as stillborn. It is astonishing yet true that people in the Japanese archipelago did not know that the language they spoke in their everyday life had unique phonetics and syntax totally distinct from classical Chinese, the then universal language of Northeast Asia (Sakai, 1991). 3 The terms “modernity” and “premodernity” are deployed in this article so as to demonstrate that social translation / spring / 2014 formations in many parts of the world have transformed in a remarkably uniform manner in the last several centuries. Even though the eras of premodernity and modernity are used to guide our explication concerning the particular values, methods, and procedures of translation—the modern regime of translation—it is not assumed that these eras can be determined with a strict chronology. Our presumption is that the contrast of premodernity and modernity clearly indicates the historical tendency from a wide variety of social for- 12 In the eras prior to the one we understand as modernity, there was no political entity—empire, kingdom, city–state—whose subject population was monolingually unified. In the premodern eras, there were only multilingual societies, where belonging to a polity was never equated to the possession of an ability to speak a single language. Of course, the multiplicity of languages did not mean an egalitarian recognition of different languages. Language use was always associated with social rank, so that different lan- guages were hierarchically ordered and regarded as markers of the social station an individual speaker or interlocutor occupied, but in the eras of premodernity it was impossible to find the legitimacy of government based on an official monolingualism or of a nativist heritage by which the identity of the individual was determined in the last instance by whether or not he or she was a native speaker of the official language. The very idea of the native speaker, which plays the decisive role in the identity politics of national recognition in modern cultural politics, was invented in the transitional phases from the premodern eras to the modern era. It is evident that what is crucial in this diagnosis of moder- nity and its politics of language is a presumption that language is countable—that is, that language is some being in the world which can be subsumed under the grammatical category of the countable.4 Here the countability consists in separating one language from an- other (externality) on the one hand, and juxtaposing these separated units within a common genre (commensurability) on the other. The transition from the premodern eras to the modern era seems to have given rise to two essential conditions to render the monolingualism .......................... mations in premodernity to a comparative uniformity of the modern international world. The chronological pattern of development in one area is so vastly different from that of another area that the historical de- velopment in Western Europe, for instance, cannot be said to replicate itself in East Asia and the rest of the world. In this respect, we believe that the developmentalist history of modernization, in which the modernity of Western Europe is expected to be reproduced in other, less developed areas in later eras, is incapable of apprehending the historical situation of the present, in which the stability of the West can no longer be taken for granted. Nevertheless, we also believe that there are a number of tendencies along which each area is transformed. What is suggested by the contrast between premodernity and modernity is this tendency or direction from one polarity (premodernity) to another polarity (modernity). 4 To elucidate whether or not language is a being-in-the-world requires a lengthy discussion, which cannot translation / spring / 2014 be undertaken here. Tentatively, we must be satisfied to say that, as far as it is a representation, language is a being-in-the-world. It is well known that the grammatical category of the countable is limited to some linguistic formations. Many languages in Northeast Asia, for instance, do not have this category as an es- sential rule of syntax. Nevertheless, the concept of the countable is equally important to these Northeast Asian languages, roughly classified as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and so forth. 13 of national language available. To separate one language from an- other is to locate a language outside another and thereby establish an externality of one language to another.5 Of course, this process of separation is generally called “translation,” which is again a process of inscribing a border. As one can see, the externality of one language and another is neces- sarily accompanied by a certain practice of “bordering” (Mezzadra & Neilson 2013). The language unit thus separated, however, is not unique beyond comparison in each case—language A is separated from language B, and language B is separated from language C. Despite different operations of separation, the languages thus isolated—A, B, C, D, and so on—form one common genre; they are commen- surate among themselves so that, from the outset, they are posited as comparable units in the common genre. In this respect, transla- tion is also a procedure of comparison. To use the terminology of Aristotelian logic, each language is a species in the general class of languages, with the separation of one language from another, mark- ing the instance of “species difference or specific difference (di- aphora)”; this thus accommodates languages within the classical conceptual economy of species and genus. It goes without saying that the operation that measures this “species difference” is nothing but a historically specific form of translation, and this particular regime of translation conforms to the design of the modern inter- national world. Translation may be carried out in many different forms, but modernity does not allow for forms of translation that do not accord with the modern international world. Let us call this particular assemblage of the methods, criteria, and protocols regu- lating the conduct of translation, as distinct from other forms, “the modern regime of translation.” It is important to note that the explication of modernity of- fered here is not descriptive of the empirically valid reality of the modern international world. It is essentially prescriptive. The regime of translation is said to project and produce the supposed .......................... translation / spring / 2014 5 It is precisely because of its rejection of externality that “Spanglish,” for instance, is not recognized as a proper and legitimate language (see note 3, above). Here one must not confuse externality with the idiom of “exteriority” or “outside” referred to by Maurice Blanchot and Michel Foucault, since externality is nothing but an erasure and displacement of “exterior- ity.” 14 unity of a national language, the externality of one language to an- other, and the idea of the international space in which ethnic and national languages supposedly coexist and are compared. The op- eration of national translation, of translation conducted in terms of the modern regime of translation, asserts and institutes these com- ponents—the unity of a national language, the external relationship of one language to another, and the presupposition of the interna- tional space—not on a descriptive but a prescriptive basis. What this theoretical elucidation reveals is the prescriptive design of the international world. The unity of a national language, for example, is not an empirically ascertainable objectivity; rather it is what Immanuel Kant called “the regulative idea,” which does not concern itself with the possibility of experience. It is no more than a rule according to which a search in the series of empirical data is prescribed. What it guarantees is not the empirically verifi- able truth. Therefore, the regulative idea gives only an object in idea; it only means “a schema for which no object, not even a hy- pothetical one, is directly given” (Immanuel Kant 550 [A 670; B 698]). Therefore, what takes place performatively in accordance with the modern regime of translation might also be called “the schematism of cofiguration.” Schematism means a working of schema, so, in this case, it represents a working of two schemata projecting two different language unities between which a message is transferred. The unity of language cannot be given in experience be- cause it is nothing but a regulative idea; it enables us to comprehend other related data about languages “in an indirect manner, in their systematic unity, by means of their relation to this idea” (Kant 550 [A 670; B 698]). It is not possible to know whether a particular lan- guage as a unity exists or not. The reverse is true: by subscribing to the idea of the unity of language, it becomes possible for us to sys- tematically organize knowledge about languages in a modern, sci- entific manner. And the occasion on which the schemata of national languages are projected is the process of translation, prescribed by the protocols of the modern regime of translation. translation / spring / 2014 3. Bordering the international world In this respect, the regime of translation, which helped to institute national languages and sustain the view of the international 15 world as a forum for a juxtaposition of distinct ethnic or national languages, is distinctly modern. In the premodern eras, as we con- tended above, the population was not unified through the common language imposed by the state; rather it was fragmented into many different kinship lineages, classes, ranks, and regions. Until the eighteenth century in Western Europe and until the nineteenth cen- tury in East and South Asia, Eastern and Northern Europe, and Rus- sia, there hardly existed the idea of integrating the entire population under the norm of one ethnic or national language. Consequently some universal languages—Latin, Classical Chinese, Arabic, San- skrit, Classical Greek, and so forth—prevailed across regions, king- doms, fiefdoms, and various graduated zones of power and suzerainty. The elite minority was skilled at one of these universal languages while the vast majority of commoners lived in a multi- plicity of local dialects and pidgins. Two points must be noted with regard to the modernity of the international world. The first is the historical particularity of the concept of nationality. The word “nationality” signifies the re- lationship between an individual and a territorial national sovereign state. However, it is important to note that this relationship is me- diated by the “nation.” The institution of a territorial state sover- eignty came into existence in the system of the Jus Publicum Europaeum in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the process of its “nationalization” took off quite later even in Western Europe.6 As the relationship between an individual and a territorial national sovereign state, the concept of “nationality” means a for- mula of identification according to which a particular individual subjects him or herself to the sovereignty of the state. It is a specif- ically modern form of communal belonging for an individual and, to our knowledge, was not to be found anywhere in the world before the eighteenth century. Nationality connotes an individual’s exclu- sive belonging to the state, but this feeling of belonging is primarily expressed in one’s sympathy with other individuals belonging to the same state. And this community of shared sympathy is called a “nation.” Even when the word is used in the sense of ethnicity or race, it necessarily implies an exclusivity of belonging. The concept translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 6 For a brilliant analysis and description of modern state sovereignty and the Jus Publicum Europaeum, see Schmitt, 2006. 16 of nationality is erected upon the assumption of a one-to-one cor- respondence between an individual and a nation, and indirectly be- tween an individual and a state sovereignty. The second point that must be stressed is how the unity of language is appropriated into the assumption of one-to-one corre- spondence between an individual and a particular state sovereignty. It is through the concept of the native speaker that one-to-one cor- respondence between an individual and a particular nation is most unambiguously expressed. With the native speaker, the possession of a language is equated to the innate identity of the individual’s destiny. It is a truism that a language is something one acquires after birth, but against all counterevidence, the concept of the native speaker reconstitutes an individual’s belonging to the nation in terms of his or her innate and almost biological heritage. This is how the concept of nationality is most often asserted in ethnic terms, and the ethnic identity of an individual is recognized in ref- erence to his or her native language. In the new international configuration of modernity, there is no room for universal languages that transcend nationalities and ethnicities. It is no accident that all the universal languages—except perhaps for Arabic—gradually declined as national languages were established to symbolize the cultural homogeneity of the national community (while at the same time, due to colonialism, some lan- guages were spread across continents, gaining a status that was nev- ertheless completely different from previous universal languages).7 Regardless of whether or not a language is actually spoken by the vast majority of the nation in the territory of the national state, the national language is held as a norm with its use as a prescriptive marker of nationality. The institution of national language thereby acquired an incredible force of command with which to nationalize the population. For a long time, however, as if to reiterate ultranationalist mythology, it has been assumed that national language is a transhis- .......................... 7 It goes beyond the scope of this introduction to discuss the problems connected with this colonial spread translation / spring / 2014 of such languages as Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Russian, and Japanese. Postcolonial scholars have long focused on such problems and on the related challenges for translators of literary works char- acterized by the presence of a multiplicity of languages. In the present global conjuncture further problems are posited by the status of English as the universal language of exchange and communication as well as by the emergence of competing universal languages (e.g., Spanish and Mandarin Chinese). 17 torical entity and can be traced back to the ancient origin of the na- tion. But as soon as the historical vicissitudes of national or ethnic languages are in question, one can no longer evade a series of prob- lems—how the modern national language came into being in the first place, how a language could be conceived of as an internally coherent entity distinguished from other languages in an analogy to the territorial integrity of the modern territorial state, and ulti- mately in what modality the national language can be understood to be a unity unambiguously distinguished from other national lan- guages. Once again we must go back to translation, a process of border—or bordering, to use the terminology of Mezzadra and Neilson once again—in which a distinction is inscribed and rein- scribed between a language and another, a quite violent process of negotiation in which two figures of a language to translate from and another language to translate into (schemata of cofiguration) are projected to regulate the conduct of translation. Let us note that the distinction of one language from another is primordially figured out in this process of translation, without reference to which the very externality of one language to another could not be established. 4. Citizenship and translation By staging an encounter between scholars who work on the politics of translation and those involved in the politicization of the concept of translation, this special issue of Translation at- tempts to take stock of the theoretical developments and achieve- ments in the field. At the same time, it aims to lay the basis for future conversations and new directions of research. It needs to be repeated that the politicization of the concept of translation in recent years has run parallel to the discovery of its deep ambivalence. As Rada Iveković writes in her contribution to this issue, “translation does not guarantee freedom of any kind, and […] it can be as much a politics of conquest, capture, exploration–and–exploitation and colonialism, whether inner or outer.” “But politics of translation,” she adds, “may be invented.” It is in working through this deep ambivalence that some of the main concepts and topics at stake in contemporary political debates can be productively reframed. No translation / spring / 2014 doubt, what is unambiguously declared—and this is a guiding motto of this special issue of Translation—is that translation is not a matter confined solely to the domain of linguistics. 18 Take citizenship, for instance. There have been several at- tempts to rethink the concept of citizenship through translation in order to open it up and delink it from the national norm. Étienne Balibar comes to mind here, among others. In his contribution to this issue, Balibar dwells very effectively on the opposition as well as the tricky entanglement of the “paradigm of war” and the “par- adigm of translation” in the construction of the “other” of the citizen, which means of the “foreigner” and the “stranger.” At stake in his essay is the emergence of the very opposition (of the borders) between “us” and “them” upon which modern citizenship is predi- cated. While it is rather obvious to think of “war” as the most cat- astrophic modality of the relation between “us” and “them,” the role of translation as a “transcendental” condition of possibility for the existence of reified political identities can easily pass unno- ticed. The essay by Boris Buden is particularly relevant here. It draws a convincing parallel between the scene of translation and the seminal scene of the “state of nature” in European modern po- litical philosophy. Thinking of an original “state of language,” within which the “first translation” produces the emergence of dis- tinct languages and linguistic communities, works on both sides. On the one hand it sheds light once again on the deep political im- plications of the very concept and practice of translation—“All Contract,” Thomas Hobbes symptomatically writes in Leviathan (1981, 194), “is mutuall translation, or change of Right.” On the other hand, it opens up a peculiar angle on the development, and even on the technical apparatus, of the modern regime of translation we discussed above (starting with the important instance of the German Romantic tradition, emphasized by Buden). Simply put, this regime of translation does not merely reinforce the distinctive- ness of national languages upon which the bordering of citizenship is predicated. Rather, it contributes to their production—as well as to the production of the “other” of citizenship. A whole set of questions arises here—ranging from debates on multiculturalism (as well as on its multiple current crises) to the contemporary transformations of border and migration “manage- translation / spring / 2014 ment” regimes. When considering such issues, it is clear that the role of translation cannot be confined to the one we have just high- lighted. It is clear, in other words, that here and now, not in some 19 remote future utopia, “vernacular” practices of translation are work- ing the boundary between “distinct” and reified linguistic commu- nities, building platforms that enable the daily crossing of fortified borders and are fostering new experiences of identity and “other- ness.”8 It is definitely possible and productive to envisage a kind of clash between the ordered regime of translation staged by borders and the translational practices connected to the production of sub- jectivity, which meshes with migration as a social movement. What Naoki Sakai has called “heterolingual” address nicely captures these subversive aspects of practices of translation, which point to the emergence of a “multitude of foreigners” (Sakai–Solomon 2006). “There is no absolute translation,” Rada Iveković writes in her contribution. This impossibility (notwithstanding the many at- tempts to deny it) opens up a wide and heterogeneous field of social conflict and political experimentation. While what we can call “homolingual citizenship” oscillates between the extreme of war and a benevolent “integration” within an already constituted and bordered assemblage in dealing with the “other,” the heterolingual practices of translation outside the modern regime of translation disrupt this very polarity and keep open both the space of citizenship and the production of subjectivity that inhabit it. This is the reason why a particularly important task today is an exploration of spaces of citizenship below and beyond the nation–state—from cities to regions.9 As far as the production of subjectivity is concerned, the relevance of translation in the forg- ing of the modern Western subject has often been highlighted in recent years. Both Rada Iveković and Jon Solomon refer to it in their contributions to this issue. It is therefore crucial to insist on the fact that to point to an opposition and a conflict between radically different regimes of translation is to open up a field of investigation .......................... 8 For a rich discussion of these topics, and more generally of cultural translation, see the essays collected by Ghislaine Glasson-Deschaumes for the special issue of Révue Transeuropéenne, 22 (2002), entitled “Traduire entre les cultures.” 9 On “cities in translation” see, for instance, the fascinating book by Sherry Simon (2011). As far as “regions” are concerned, translation has, for instance, been key to the attempt to rethink the European space by Éti- translation / spring / 2014 enne Balibar (2009). But we may also recall Gayatri Spivak’s reflections on a “critical regionalism,” which led her to speak of a “practice of othering ourselves into many Asia-s,” making Asia “a position without identity” (Spivak 2008, 235 and 240). Interestingly, she draws inspiration from José Martí’s essay “Our America” and from W. E. B. Du Bois’s Pan-Africanism (217–223), engaging in what could be termed an ex- ercise in transregional translation. 20 where the very constitution of the subject, itself crisscrossed by lines of antagonism, is always at stake. While it is rooted, as we stressed above, within concrete practices of translation, our use of the “heterolingual” address here also works more broadly, shedding light on practices and dynamics well beyond the translational and even linguistic field. The concept of the institution itself deserves to be reassessed from this angle; it must open up towards the imagination of a continuous labor of translation between its stabilizing function and the multifarious so- cial practices that the institution targets and that at the same time make its existence possible. 5. Translating capital As Brett Neilson’s contribution to this issue demonstrates in particular, one of the multifarious ways in which the concept of translation has been politicized in recent years lies in its use as a tool for the critique of political economy, or, in other words, for critical understanding of the operations of contemporary (global) capital. In highlighting the growing relevance of “machine transla- tion” in our time, Neilson focuses on two crucial aspects of these operations: so-called “knowledge management,” and logistics. More generally, Neilson is keen to register “the link between translation and the production of value,” referring to the parallel drawn by Marx in the Grundrisse “between translation and the role of money in facilitating circulation and making possible the universal ex- change of commodities.” This is a crucially important point dis- cussed by several scholars in recent years. By placing the problem of translation within the “political economy of the sign,” several years ago Lydia Liu, for instance, mapped some intriguing connec- tions “between the exchange of commodity and that of the sign in Marx” (Liu 2000, 23; see also Spivak 1985, 83). The crucial point here, as both Neilson and Liu recognize, is the commensurability and equivalence—between languages, sys- tems of signs, and values of commodities. From this point of view, it becomes possible to use what was previously discussed as the “homolingual” address to critically grasp the modalities with which translation / spring / 2014 capital translates the heterogeneous contexts, ways of human activity and life, modalities of labor it encounters in its “development” into the homogeneous language of value (Mezzadra 2010). How does 21 capitalism repeatedly sanction this specific regime of translation, according to which it is an act whereby to establish an equivalence between different languages on the one hand, and a linguistic dif- ference represented as a gap to be bridged by translation on the other? The international space of commensurability on the one hand and the externality of one language to another on the other? How is the formula of equivalence prepared in the modern interna- tional world as a space of commensurability? We think these ques- tions are becoming increasingly urgent today. One of the ways in which they emerge, as Neilson shows, is the challenge of achieving “interoperability” between systems in the governance of supply chains through logistical protocols. An- other way in which it surfaces is, as Gavin Walker succinctly ob- serves in his contribution to this volume, the refusal of the political in translation, of the potentiality in translation of contestation, by the “flattening of the uneven and hazardous practice of translation” into simplistic forms of commensurability. Thus, the question of equivalence brings us back to the topic of the politics in and of translation. “To insist on the historical,” Walker argues, “is also an insistence on the instability of this two [of the contrasting figures in the regime of translation], an emphasis on the point that this two is in no way a coherent or natural arrangement but rather itself a historical product of the encounter of translation.” What Gavin Walker uncovers in this politics of translation is exactly what Marx called the historically practical character of relation “in which the very terms of its relation itself is subject to a fluid motion, a flux of radical singularity.” 6. Framing the world There is a need to emphasize this link between capital and translation within the more general discussion that surrounds the multiple roles played by translation in the historical and conceptual constitution of modernity. In particular, it is looking at the global scope that has characterized it since its inception, which means looking at colonialism and imperialism as constitutive aspects of modernity, that it “cannot be considered unless in reference to trans- translation / spring / 2014 lation” (Sakai 2000, 797). In his contribution to this issue, Jon Solomon proposes to critically consider “the various forms of social domination and exploitation that have accompanied modernity” 22 from the triple perspective of capitalist accumulation (which pro- duces “the subjects of political economy”), translational accumu- lation (which produces “the subjects of civilizational and anthropological difference”), and erudite accumulation (which pro- duces “normalized bodies of knowledge”). Needless to say, what counts more is the interweaving between these three regimes of ac- cumulation. Translation, in particular, is deeply implicated in cap- italist accumulation, as just mentioned, and apparently it has prominent roles to play in the production of “normalized bodies of knowledge” through what Solomon calls “erudite accumulation.” The combination of these three angles allows light to be shed on the constitution of “the West” through the encounter with its multiple “others”; this necessarily required multiple exercises in translation, linguistic as well as conceptual. Both the spatial parti- tions that organized the global geography of modernity (from the “global lines” described by Carl Schmitt in The Nomos of the Earth to the “areas” of area studies) and the cognitive partitions, upon which modern knowledge and rationality are predicated, bear the traces of these translational exercises. While it is still necessary to investigate these traces and the reproduction of “Eurocentrism” in the present, there is also a need to carefully analyze current global developments and trends in order to grasp elements of continuity and discontinuity. 7. Translation, universalism, and the common Among other things, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 has exposed the shattering of old spatial hierarchies, the reshuffling of geographies of development, and the emergence of new region- alisms and patterns of multilateralism that are among the most im- portant tendencies of contemporary capitalist globalization. For the first time since the beginning of “modernity,” the hegemony of “the West” within the world system appears unstable and challenged. Constructed as “particular” and “ubiquitous” at the same time through the “homolingual address” (Sakai 1997, 154–155), “the West” can definitely reproduce itself, even in a situation in which Western hegemony destabilizes. But again, it is urgent to map the translation / spring / 2014 practices of translation emerging in the current geographical turmoil that point to different frames of encounter, transnational and transcontinental entanglement. In her contribution to this issue, 23 Lydia Liu’s reconstruction of the development of “Afro-Asian” writers’ solidarity after the 1955 Bandung conference is especially important from the point of view of the construction of the historical archives of such practices in the past. A new theory and practice of translation can help us to imagine new spatial and political constel- lations that emerge out of the current spatial turmoil, and also test and challenge the stability of the “international world,” and the Eu- rocentricity upon which the internationality of the modern world was initially erected. Considering the prominent role played by translation both in the production of national languages and in the “regulation” of the intercourses between them, it is not surprising that the modern regime of translation, as we insisted above, was also pivotal to the shaping of the modern world as an international world, i.e. as a world organized around the (legal and political) norm of the “na- tionality.” The Chinese translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law (1836) by the American missionary W. A. P. Martin and his Mandarin collaborators, published in 1864, is a good case in point, and Lydia Liu discusses it in her essay (see also Liu 2006, chapter 4). Wang Hui also shows very effectively in his recent The Politics of Imagining Asia (2011, 233–242) the ways in which this particular translation traveled very quickly to Japan and became an important tool for the disruption of the “tribute system” that pre- vailed in the region of today’s East Asia, particularly along China’s borders. The Japanese elite was already aware before the Meiji Restoration that the tribute system was incompatible with the in- ternational world. The Japanese takeover of the Ryukyu archipel- ago, with the establishment of the Okinawa prefecture in 1879, and the occupations of Taiwan and Korea are part and parcel of the process through which the national norm and the aesthetics of na- tionality—with its imperial implications—were imposed on the population of the regions. The “translation” of Western international law prompted this process, legitimizing it “on the basis of a new kind of knowledge and new rules of legitimacy” (Wang 2011, 241). It is important not to overlook that in the process of modernization, translation / spring / 2014 while the Japanese state effectively undermined the tribute system in East Asia and subsequently appropriated Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea externally on the international stage, the Japanese national 24 language was formed internally or domestically. It goes without saying that the Japanese national language was invented through the regime of translation (Sakai 1991). New borders were drawn in this process, both on maps and in minds. The role of translation in law deserves careful study both in past history (think for instance of the Japanese adoption of the French and, later, German model of civil law, and the British model of commercial law in the late nineteenth century through transla- tion10) and in the present (think for instance of the global transfer of the American standard of “rule of law”11). In her contribution to this issue, Lydia Liu points to a rather different instance with her analysis of the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). In reconstructing the multilingual making of that his- torical document, Liu shows how the contribution of a multiplicity of languages, as well as the translations, clashes, and even misun- derstandings between them, potentially opened the Declaration to “the radical multiplicity and translingual plurality of the philoso- phies and cultures of the world, first in its moment of genesis and .......................... 10 A massive importation of European institutions to Japan was already underway in the 1870s and ran parallel to the development of the study of foreign languages. In the first two decades after the Meiji Restoration, the most studied European languages were English, French, and some Russian. Initially, no one studied German. But in the late 1880s and 1890s Germany became an important country for the Japan- ese. The Japanese State began adopting German examples in such a variety of fields as constitutional, civil, and criminal law and jurisprudence, industrial engineering and natural sciences, medicine, and the army. It is important to note that the modern Japanese language itself was created in these processes of introducing and translating European institutions into Japan. 11 There is a growing literature on the role of translation in law, both with reference to specific historical instances and more generally within the framework of theoretical debates. From this latter point of view see, for instance, Hasegawa 2009 and Ost 2009. For a critical analysis of the global transfer of the American standard of “rule of law,” see Mattei and Nader 2009. To follow up on the Japanese example, in the first few years of the Meiji period (1868–1910) many Euro-American legal and political texts were translated into Japanese because a knowledge of European institutions was absolutely necessary for the new Japan- ese State administrators to ensure the Japanese State be recognized as a legitimate sovereignty in the in- ternational world. For them international recognition was absolutely necessary, for this was the only way to escape colonization. It was during this period that the Napoleonic civil code was first introduced to Japan, and a radically different institution of family—the modern family—was introduced to replace the previous institution of family. “Translate the Napoleonic Civil Code as soon as possible!” was the order Etô Shimpei, the first Minister of Justice, issued to his staff at the new Meiji Government in 1871. But there was no systematic civil code in the first few decades of Meiji. Many ordinances were sporadically issued by the state so as to establish new civil rules and procedures, but there was no systematic civil law until 1898, when the systematic civil code, modeled after German civil law (which is to say after the circu- translation / spring / 2014 lating drafts of what would become the German Civil Law Code of 1900), was first legislated. German civil law theory was particularly influential in Japan until the First World War and shaped the interpretation of the civil code in its first two decades. After the war the main trend was toward a “re-Japanization” of civil law, balanced by the need to accommodate international—i.e., Western—standards. US influences be- came particularly important at that time (see Schröder and Morinaga 2005). 25 then in subsequent translations.” It is necessary to keep in mind, as Liu herself does, that this moment of “openness” was foreclosed by the hegemony of the United States of America, which largely monopolized the interpretations and uses of the document. Never- theless the multiple temporalities and the dense fabric of cultural and political encounters hidden behind the text of the Declaration point to a conflict between different regimes of translation which deserves further investigation. It is important to remember in this regard that African American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois played an important role in the process that led to the constitution of the UN and to the draft- ing of the Declaration (see Anderson 2003). More generally, Du Bois (as well as the late Malcolm X) interpreted “human rights” in a particularly radical way. One of the earliest African American po- litical texts, David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1830), may be quoted here in order to highlight the back- ground of this peculiar interpretation. “There is a great work for you to do,” Walker wrote to his “coloured” fellows, “as trifling as some of you may think of it. You have to prove to the Americans and the world, that we are MEN, and not brutes, as we have been represented, and by millions treated” (Walker 2003, 32). Put simply, it was this experience of a “failed recognition,” this violent negation of humanity, common to colonized and enslaved peoples (men and women, of course), that allowed Du Bois to see in the claim for human rights something more than a merely juridical or political device. The “human” itself could not be taken for granted; rather, it was something to be (re)constructed as a fundamental “ontolog- ical” stake in politics. Once we consider it from this standpoint, Lydia Liu’s dis- cussion of the roles played by translation in the multilingual making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acquires new, and more general, meanings. It effectively points to the potentialities of the very concept of translation in the contemporary discussions sur- rounding the topics of universalism, universality, and the common. In brief, we think there is a need to even go beyond the notion of alternative and competing universalisms, which risks ending up re- translation / spring / 2014 producing the familiar picture of “equivalent” (universal) lan- guages, with translation playing the role of arbitrator and mediator among them, thereby restoring the modern regime of translation for 26 national translation rather than undermining it. The point is, instead, to insist that the universal itself (as the example of the “human” in the African American experience shows) has to be produced, and to focus on the necessary roles of translation in this aleatory process of production. These roles cannot but be profoundly ambivalent, and this ambivalence (discussed in this introduction from the point of view provided by the distinction between “homolingual” and “heterolingual” addresses) shapes universalism as such. Keeping universalism open (open in translation to multiplicity and hetero- geneity) means keeping it accessible to the common process of its production, as a basis for the invention of new processes of libera- tion. It is here that the “hazardous and contingent possibility of the common,” to quote once more from Gavin Walker’s contribution to this issue of translation, emerges as a fragile but necessary key to the collective invention of “a new mode of life desperately needed in the global present.” translation / spring / 2014 27 References Anderson, Carol. 2003. Eyes off the Prize. The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Apter, Emily. 2006. The Translation Zone. A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Balibar, Étienne. 2009. “Europe as Borderland.” Environment and Planning D: Soci- ety and Space, 27 (2): 190–215. Hasegawa, Kō. 2009. “Incorporating Foreign Legal Ideas through Translation.” In Theorizing the Global Legal Order, edited by A. Halpin et al., 85–106. Ox- ford: Hart Publishing. Hobbes, Thomas. 1981. Leviathan. Edited by C. B. Macpherson. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Kant, Immanuel. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St Martin’s Press. Liu, Lydia H. 2000. “The Question of Meaning Value in the Political Economy of the Sign.” In Tokens of Exchange. The Problem of Translation in Global Cir- culations, edited by Lydia H. Liu, 13–41. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. ———. 2006. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Mak- ing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mattei, Ugo, and Laura Nader. 2009. Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal. Ox- ford: Blackwell. Mezzadra, Sandro. 2010. “Living in Transition. Toward a Heterolingual Theory of the Multitude.” In The Politics of Culture. Around the Work of Naoki Sakai, edited by R. F. Calichman and J. N. Kim, 121–137. New York: Routledge. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC–London: Duke University Press. Ost, François. 2009. Le droit comme traduction, Le droit comme traduction. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Rafael, Vicente L. 2012. “Targeting Translation. Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language.” Social Text, 30 (4): 55–80. Sakai, Naoki. 1991. Voices of the Past: the Status of Language in Eighteenth Century Japanese Discourse. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ———. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis–London: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2000. “‘You Asians’: On the Historical Role of the West and Asia Binary.” South Atlantic Quarterly, 99 (4): 789–817. Sakai, Naoki, and Jon Solomon. 2006. “Introduction: Addressing the Multitude of Foreigners, Echoing Foucault.” In Biopolitics, Colonial Difference, edited translation / spring / 2014 by Sakai and Solomon, 1–35. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Schmitt, Carl. 2006. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Pub- licum Europaeum. Translated by G. L. Ulman. Candor, NY: Telos Press Publishing. 28 Schöder, Jan, and Yoshiko Morinaga. 2005. “Zum Einfluss des BGB auf das Japanis- che Zivilrecht.” Rechtstransfer durch Zivilgesetzbücher, issue edited by Elisabeth Berger, 2005 (29): 38–44. Simon, Sherry. 2011. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. New York: Routledge. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1985. “Scattered Reflections on the Question of Value.” Diacritics, 15 (4): 73–93. ———. 1993. “The Politics of Translation.” In Outside in the Teaching Machine, 200–225. New York: Routledge. ———. 2008. Other Asias. Oxford: Blackwell. Walker, David. 2003. Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Edited by Peter P. Hinks. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Wang Hui. 2011. The Politics of Imagining Asia. Edited by Thomas Huters. Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press. Sandro Mezzadra teaches political theory at the University of Bologna and is adjunct fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Western Sydney. In the last decade his work has particularly centered on the relations between globaliza- tion, migration, and citizenship as well as on postcolonial theory and criticism. He is an active participant in the “post-workerist” debate. Among his works: Diritto di fuga. Mi- grazioni, cittadinanza, globalizzazione (2006) and La condizione postcoloniale (2008). With Brett Neilson he is the author of Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (2013). Naoki Sakai teaches in the departments of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies and is a member of the graduate field of History at Cornell University. He has published in a number of languages in the fields of comparative literature, intellectual history, translation studies, the studies of racism and nationalism, and the histories of semiotic and literary multitude—speech, writing, corporeal expressions, calligraphic regimes, translation / spring / 2014 and phonographic traditions. His publications include: Translation and Subjectivity ; Voices of the Past. He has edited a number of volumes including: The Translation, Biopolitics, Colonial Difference (with Jon Solomon) Vol. 4, Traces: A Multilingual Series of Cultural Theory and Translation (2006). 29

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The Regime of Translation and the Figure of Politics .................................... McGill University in Montréal, Canada Gavin Walker [email protected] Abstract: What is a “politics” of translation? How does translation—a general theoretical term that indicates a social process of articulation or disarticulation through which some phenomena in a given social field appear as a “two”—relate to politics as such, that is the practice of politics? Frequently, a phrase such as “the politics of translation” presupposes that “translation” is a complex and multiva- lent term to be unpacked, but “politics” is, in this style of composition, often treated as if it were self-evident, as if it were possible to simply affix the term “politics” to various concepts in order to politicize them. But I want to disrupt this easy notion of politics and politicization by suggesting that we must seek another means of entry into the relationship of politics and translation than sim- ply a facile imbrication of two presuppositions. What I will be primarily con- cerned with here is the clarification of the question of the two—duality, two “sides,” complementarity, comparison, division, scission, antagonism, perhaps even the figure of the “dialectic.” The question of translation, and particularly the status of the two in translation, has important consequences for the thinking of politics, even the politics of politics, a metapolitics or archipolitics. I will at- tempt to elaborate these consequences at length in order to disrupt two comple- mentary misunderstandings: the notion of politics as ubiquitous or constant, and the notion of translation as a simple transposition or transference between two already established positions or fields. ______________ In recent years, the question of translation has been deep- ened and extended by numerous important interventions in theory. This concept—and I want to insist on the full plenitude of transla- tion as a concept—is not, however, merely a theoretical question. Translation is also a means of naming or marking a real arrange- ment of forces that organizes real social relations. In this sense, Naoki Sakai has alerted us to an important conceptual distinction translation / spring / 2014 within the work of this concept: the distinction between translation itself and what he calls “the regime of translation.” I want to try to develop this distinction, so crucial to Sakai’s work, in a specific di- 30 rection: the direction of politics proper. What is a “politics” of trans- lation? How does translation—a general theoretical term that indi- cates a social process of articulation or disarticulation through which some phenomena in a given social field appear as a “two”— relate to politics as such, that is the practice of politics? Frequently, a phrase such as “the politics of translation” presupposes that “translation” is a complex and multivalent term to be unpacked, but “politics” is, in this style of composition, often treated as if it were self-evident, as if it were possible to simply affix the term “politics” to various concepts in order to politicize them. But I want to disrupt this easy notion of politics and politicization by suggest- ing that we must seek another means of entry into the relationship of politics and translation than simply a facile imbrication of two presuppositions. We should be equally careful here to avoid a dis- ciplinary separation of registers that would simply equate “politics” with presumed political acts—practical/concrete acts—and “trans- lation” with “culture” in a metonymic style of substitution. Instead, I want to enter into this relation by treating these two terms, these two concepts, in a divergent manner: what is at stake in the concept of politics? What is at stake in the concept of translation? And above all, what is at stake for an act of theoretical articulation be- tween them? What I will be primarily concerned with here is the clarification of the question of the two—duality, two “sides,” com- plementarity, comparison, division, scission, antagonism, perhaps even the figure of the “dialectic.” The question of translation, and particularly the status of the two in translation, has important con- sequences for the thinking of politics, even the politics of politics, a metapolitics or archipolitics. We will attempt here to elaborate these consequences at length in order to disrupt two complementary misunderstandings: the notion of politics as ubiquitous or constant, and the notion of translation as a simple transposition or transfer- ence between two already established positions or fields. There are essentially two dominant registers of inherited knowledge in which the figure of the two has been extensively de- veloped: politics and psychoanalysis. We can think of figures of politics such as the distinction between friend and enemy (Schmitt), translation / spring / 2014 the primacy of partisanship (Gramsci), the choice of one line or an- other (Lenin), the geopolitics of the right wing (one putative “civ- ilization” or another), the geopolitics of the left (the revolutionary 31 camp or the capitalist camp), questions of historiography (the tran- sition from one mode of production to another and the articulation between them), and, of course, questions of psychoanalysis. In the case of psychoanalysis, the figure of the two is perhaps most widely developed: we can immediately recall such instances as the two of analyst and analysand in the clinical scenario, the field of love (“the scene of the Two” in Badiou’s terms), but also the two of the split— the splitting of the drive between its self-negating effects and its compulsive repetition, the splitting of the subject between the enun- ciation and the enunciated, the splitting of the law between its pre- tension to eternality and its unstable institution in every scenario of domination. But what is the two on the most abstract or concep- tual level? (Perhaps this is in fact the most truly “practical” level, in the sense that the concept is precisely what allows for the fullest development of what is constrained in the “real” social field). Here, we must return to the broad question of how to explain three terms or fields: translation, politics, and the politics or politicality of trans- lation. Let us then begin with translation. Translation: The Regime of the Two The typical presentation of the concept of translation is not, in fact, referential to “translation” at all but rather to the represen- tation of translation, what Naoki Sakai has called the “regime of translation.” In order to set the scene for an articulation between the concept of politics and the concept of translation, we must first expand and delineate what is actually referred to by this term “translation” and the ways in which a clear understanding of this term is covered over, hidden, or obscured by its confusion with its own representation. In the commonsensical usage of this word, we often assume a simple and formal transposition of content from one signifying system to another. The individual terms, linguistic struc- ture, and field of meanings are meant to pass through and detach from one system of signification and reattach themselves, trans- ferred into another system, to a new home. More broadly, we are no longer simply accustomed to translation as a concept linked solely to national language, yet national language nevertheless re- translation / spring / 2014 mains the general historical concept implied in the term translation: one putatively unitary language system’s set of codings are disar- ticulated and reassembled in the terms of another putatively unitary 32 system. English is “translated” into Japanese, French is “translated” into Russian, and so forth. Beyond this basic sense, however, we are now used to another use of this term—the whole field of dis- cussions of “cultural translation,” for example. These discussions, however, often reproduce the worst tropes related to the representation of translation—the image of translation as communication, translation as simple transfer, trans- lation as a “bridge” between two self-identical elements, translation as a “filter” or screen (see Sakai 2009). All of these concepts of translation essentially imagine that translation is nothing more than an act of articulation between two already existing entities. Hence, “Western” products are “culturally translated” in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and so forth, or vice versa, essentially leaving the concept of “cultural translation” as a mere substitution for something like the local inflection of ostensibly “foreign” elements. Here, there- fore, there is no reflection on the process of the formation of the local and the foreign as modes of classification; instead, they are simply treated as the presupposed boundaries or edges of terms that are posited as “two sides” of a relation, a relation that could be con- nected in multiple ways, to be sure, but always a relation of one thing and another. It is exactly this representation of translation that sup- presses or conceals the more basic question of translation as such: Strictly speaking, it is not because two different language unities are given that we have to translate (or interpret) one text into another; it is because translation articulates lan- guages so that we may postulate the two unities of the translating and the translated languages as if they were autonomous and closed entities through a certain represen- tation of translation. (Sakai 1997, 2) In other words, translation is an open and inconclusive act of articulation in the space of radical incommensurability, in the space of indeterminacy prior to coalescence into the form of rela- tion. Translation is represented as if this zone of indecidability was not the primary scene of engagement, but rather the outcome of its own processual motion. But the basic problem is that translation describes what Gramsci called a “historical act,” an act with polit- translation / spring / 2014 ical and historical contents. However, the representation of trans- lation represses this aspect of history, and therefore, the aspect of politics, which is always involved in the necessity of reducing cir- 33 cumstances to one line and another. We will return to this aspect when we take up the question of politics proper. If we reduce trans- lation to its representation, we undertake an act of dehistoricization, by which the originary differential, the acting and poietic dimen- sion of translation, is repressed and reduced to an ahistorical con- stant, a relation already established between two elements that are themselves not called into question. The paradox presented by this gap or rupture between the work of translation and its representation is that it is only through translation that we can enter into this gap itself, exposing us to a theoretical dynamics in which translation appears as a structure that works on itself. But how does this operate? And what kind of prob- lem does this disclose, not only for translation but also for trans- latability? What makes it possible to represent the initial difference as an already determined dif- ference between one language unity and another is the work of translation itself. This is why we always have to remind ourselves that the untranslatable, or what can never be appropriated by the economy of translational communication, cannot exist prior to the enunciation of translation. It is translation that gives birth to the untranslatable. Thus the untranslatable is as much a testimony to the sociality of the translator, whose figure exposes the presence of a nonaggregate community between the addresser and the addressee, as to the translatable itself. However, the essential sociality of the un- translatable is ignored in the homolingual address, and with the repression of this in- sight, the homolingual address ends up equating translation to communication. (Sakai 1997, 14) Here Sakai introduces the concept of “homolingual ad- dress,” a term that plays a crucial role in explicating the specifically theoretical physics of this question. The homolingual address pre- supposes that not only the language community (or let us say more broadly social community) of the addresser but also that of the ad- dressee is unitary, or perhaps, more specifically, univocal, and that it can be expressed in a relation of integrity or totality. In this schema, the unity of the community of the addresser and that of the addressee do not have to be the same. In fact, they can be radically divergent from each other. But they must each be presupposed as two unities. That is, the surrounding economies of address and re- ceipt must be understood or imagined as two islands, two self-con- translation / spring / 2014 tained and self-identical spaces without excess or escape. These two spaces would each constitute an interior and an exterior, a hard ker- nel of solidity inside and a fluid, indeterminate space outside. But 34 this structure of presupposition is itself based on another intervening set of determinations, a schema—and here we should emphasize the centrality of the Kantian thinking of the concept of schema for Sakai’s work, in which important and original theoretical results are generated around this figure of thought—through which social circumstances are represented as if they corresponded to this prior image of isolated, unitary, and identical communities. But what happens in such a schematic? What is elevated and what is repressed from view? In turn, what is accidentally or fortuitously disclosed to us by means of another dynamics that would inhere in such relations? First and foremost, a complex tem- porality is installed here. Translation, as we have been arguing, is above all a historical act, in the Gramscian sense. What Gramsci suggests by this formulation is that the concept of the act—the prac- tice—that is crucial to us never occurs merely at the level of a con- ceptual dynamics or an empty, contentless purity. The act for Gramsci is always historical, always immersed in a context, a genre, a category of statements, movements, alliances, spontaneous and emergent political allegiances, forms of intelligibility, and so forth. In this sense, translation—the act of articulation in a social space of incommensurability—is always historical insofar as it never merely occurs as an interval, but rather creates the conditions for an interval or gap to assert itself. But where this gap should be lo- cated, how it should be formed, and what conditions inform its emergence, are all questions linked to the specific historical and po- litical dynamics of the particular circumstantial conjuncture within which the act of translation is undertaken. In this sense, translation is an instance of the historical present, a historicity suffused with an openness and sense of intervention, while translation’s represen- tation is saturated by a conception of the past as closure, the past as fixity, in which two sides are structurally presumed. What plays the essential role here is the prefix, in the strict sense: the always-already determined nature of supposition: By erasing the temporality of translation with which the oscillation or indeterminacy of personality in translation is closely associated and which can be thought in an anal- translation / spring / 2014 ogy to the aporetic temporality of “I think”, we displace translation with the represen- tation of translation. […] The representation of translation transforms difference in repetition into species difference (diaphora) between two specific identities. (Sakai 1997, 15) 35 Here, a new and crucial point is presented: we see how translation as a historical act is conflated with or covered over by the representation of translation, or the regime of translation, but we also see how this conflation creates a specific modality of the presentation of difference as such. As Sakai points out, here differ- ence in repetition—translation as a historical act, an act of articu- lation that is incessantly repeated but always in divergent conjunctures with divergent compositional elements and out- comes—is instead transformed into a sort of specific difference, in the schematic sense of genus, species, and individual. It is in this sense that the representation of translation, in which the open his- toricity of articulation is foreclosed as a mere encounter between two presupposed “sides,” comes to be not an expression of a dif- ference that must be bridged, but rather a difference that takes place always-already within the economy of commensurability. Two sides are presupposed, two unities are preposited. These two unities come to be capable of an encounter, of being represented as two fields between which translation passes, because they already are pre- sumed as unities within a field of commensurability, in which an encounter is possible at all. But this, as Sakai demonstrates through- out his body of work, is precisely the theoretical mode by which translation as an act of articulation in the space of incommensura- bility, is repressed or hidden. In this sense, the regime of translation is the repression of the historical, despite its appeal to history – the supposed “natural” basis of national linguistic community and so forth – an appeal that might be linked here also to the psychoana- lytic concept of “drive,” a force of pulsion towards an object of de- sire that nevertheless must undermine its own satisfaction or fulfillment. This entire theoretical structure is what Sakai calls “the schema of cofiguration,” “the discursive apparatus that makes it possible to represent translation” (Sakai 1997, 15). This apparatus or mechanism is immersed in discourse, that is to say, in history. The schema of cofiguration is a mechanism that is itself profoundly historical, a product of the historical process, but one that allows through a certain evasion of the implications of this historicity. This translation / spring / 2014 schema in essence names or marks the gap between the historicity of translation and the historicity of its own representation, a repre- sentation that acts as if translation could from the outset be a pre- 36 supposition rather than a rupture or contingent act in the incom- mensurable and irreconcilable field of historical flux. This is again why the historicity of translation that is repressed by the regime of translation finds its resolution in practice, in the historical act: “the practice of translation remains radically heterogeneous to the rep- resentation of translation” (Sakai 1997, 15). As an act of social ar- ticulation, in which a previously existing set of terms and relations emerges and develops, translation is always first and foremost prac- tical. It involves an intervention, or what we might call a forcing (following Alain Badiou), the production of an economy of ele- ments and relations between them that the prior conjuncture could not theoretically anticipate in its own logical structure. This open- ness of practice and historical contingency must always be “radi- cally heterogeneous” to the regime of translation, the schema of cofiguration in which two sides are posited from the outset as if their own conditions of production were mere teleological out- comes of necessity, and not themselves subject to the same histor- ical flux that enabled even the discursive apparatus through which they could be apprehended at all. This is why, in the question of translation, we must pay ex- tremely close attention to the position of the translator, the site in which the entire process remains open to a certain flux, even within the representation of translation, which desperately attempts to re- press the historicity of the image of “two sides”: At best she can be a subject in transit, first because the translator cannot be an “indi- vidual” in the sense of individuum in order to perform translation, and second because she is a singular that marks an elusive point of discontinuity in the social, whereas translation is the practice of creating continuity at that singular point of discontinuity. Translation is an instance of continuity in discontinuity and a poietic social practice that institutes a relation at the site of incommensurability. (Sakai 1997, 13) Here the concept of the singular needs to be unpacked at length, and in reference to a series of theoretical problems linked to the question of the subject. Sakai locates the concept of singularity in the figure of the translator, what he calls the subject in transit, that is, the “point of discontinuity” in the representation of translation translation / spring / 2014 as a smooth transposition of meaning between one signifying sys- tem and another. The singular here is thus a marker of interruption, an emblem of a split, a break, or a rupture. Equally, however, the 37 singular is also that mechanism through which continuity attempts to renew or renovate itself, needing to always be articulated through concrete instances and thereby attain a social solidity. As a conse- quence, singularity is that form in which both continuity and dis- continuity find a foothold or grounding, a paradox or dynamic tension that furnishes the point of rupture in the regime of transla- tion. It is in this sense that singularity is the site of connection be- tween the historical practice of translation and the representation of translation that hides or shields it from view. Equally, however, singularity is also the point around which our investigation of pol- itics must circulate. Politics: The Torsion of the Two Just as the concept of translation is in fact a divided con- cept, suspended between the regime of translation (the work of its representation) and translation as such, so too is the concept of pol- itics divided between at least two dominant instances. Translation itself is a marker of instability, a point or site within the social mo- tion at which there is an active process of institution, the formation of a relation out of the field of radical incommensurability. But the regime of translation is a repression of this radical singularity, one that instead relies on an ahistorical insistence on the ubiquity of the two. Here is where a theoretical relation can be drawn between translation and politics. But let us first investigate the concept of politics as such, before we enter into the relational concept of a pol- itics of translation. The two dominant instances through which the concept of politics is broadly understood can be conceived in terms of ubiquity and rarity. What do these two relations signify? Our global moment is one in which politics appears to be everywhere: in our personal lives, in our increasing capacities to participate in supposedly po- litical processes (polls, questionnaires, the interactive space of on- line news, the massification of opinion via social media, and so forth). Our tendency today, therefore, is to imagine that politics is something ubiquitous: always available, easily accessible, a ques- tion of simply “choosing” or “thinking” within a field of immedi- translation / spring / 2014 acy, a direct plane of outcomes that lies within our proximate horizon. But is this thesis not in fact the death of politics as such? What specificity could we even accord to politics if every social– 38 historical instance were considered “political”? The concept of ubiquity presupposes that everything is political, that politics suf- fuses our situation. In a sense, this concept of politics is one that conceives of it as a continuity, as a constantly present field of in- stances that emerge in and through everything. But what if instead we were to say that politics is rare? In other words, what if we were to state that politics is not what is included throughout the social– historical world, but rather what is excluded? The argument for the rarity of politics is one that suggests something quite different from the thesis of ubiquity. Here, instead, politics would be conceived as a specific, concrete, historical, and practical figure, something with specific moments of institution, something that emerges in and through a specific conjuncture, rather than a presupposed immanent and universally accessible field. Such a concept of politics could be said to have a certain genealogy of recent and contemporary thinkers associated to it: Foucault, who rejected the ubiquity of politics, and instead spoke of the possibility of politicization, the “making-political” of social instances through practical interventions; Badiou, who insists on the event, which punctures the seemingly smooth and closed situ- ation by introducing new and inventive contradictions, grounding a political sequence and thus retroactively convoking a political subject through a fidelity; Rancière, in whose work we find an em- phasis on the strong intervention of an egalitarian proposal that sus- pends the representations possible in the dominant order, an opposition that he names the antagonism between “politics” and “police.” In essence, all these thinkers oppose the basic thesis that “everything is political,” insisting instead that, strictly speaking, if everything is political, then in truth nothing is political, because politics here would be indistinguishable from the situation of its emergence, eliminating entirely any element of contestation or nov- elty. If everything were political, the very act of politicization would be meaningless. There would be no need for political analyses or political interventions that above all introduce an element of exte- riority into the situation, exposing it to new limits, boundaries, and combinations rather than simply accepting the status quo as a set translation / spring / 2014 of rigid givens. In this sense, contestation itself would merely be enclosed within an economy of inclusion, such that any force of the outside would itself already be presupposed as internal to the all- 39 encompassing, entirely immanent situation. Here, of course, there would be no need to speak of politics as such, because if politics is anything, it is precisely the rare moment when the existing social and historical arrangement is called into question by means of novel and inventive acts of contestation, the creation of new antagonisms that previously could not be represented in the conjuncture. In thinking this concept of politics, let us take an example from Rancière, who offers an apt formulation: “Politics exists when the figure of a specific subject is constituted, a supernumerary sub- ject in relation to the calculated number of groups, places, and func- tions in a society” (Rancière 2004, 51). Here a series of terms emerge that are crucial for our analysis. First, as Rancière points out, the question of politics is always linked to the question of the subject. But there is an important proviso, in that the subject – that is, the subject of a political process – is not considered here to be a given, something that would be presupposed. Rather, the typical or commonsensical order of the process is inverted: the subject is un- derstood as an effect of politics rather than its guarantor, justifica- tion, or legitimating force. It must also be said that here the subject is specific, that is, the product of specific circumstances, trends, and forces. But what Rancière also emphasizes here that is most crucial for our analysis is his emphasis that this subject is always supernumerary. What does he indicate with this concept? There is here a thought of countability or calculability: as we know, a given social formation is composed of groups, interests, communities, forms of relation, and types of social linkages. For this given soci- ety, the social body itself apprehends these elements; certain groups are recognized, acknowledged, and counted, or accounted for in the body of society as a whole, by means of statistical interventions, censuses, and surveys. In other words, these groups and communi- ties constitute a specific number rather than an infinite series. This must be the case because for a group to count as one it must be ac- knowledged as such. But what Rancière points us toward here is a concept of politics that exceeds or that cannot be encompassed by this calcu- lability, this preestablished count through which society constitutes translation / spring / 2014 itself in a given situation. Instead, he claims, politics proceeds when a supernumerary—some element, statement, concept, action, in- vention, creation—that is not calculable within the given hierar- 40 chies, taxonomies, and arrangements presents itself within a social formation. This figure of politics would be precisely an excess el- ement escaping calculation that, by presenting itself within an order of the count, suspends that order by its very existence, calling into question the very foundations of the forms of ordering making up the social status quo. Elsewhere, Rancière provides us with a sug- gestive historical episode that might clarify the process by which this rare conception of politics erupts, inserting into the conjuncture an entirely new mode of contestation that, strictly speaking, was absent prior to its enunciation, prior to the historical act of politics: The difference that political disorder inscribes in the police order can thus, at first glance, be expressed as the difference between subjectification and identification. It inscribes a subject name as being different from any identified part of the community. This point may be illustrated by a historic episode, a speech scene that is one of the first political occurrences of the modern proletarian subject. It concerns an exemplary dialogue occasioned by the trial of the revolutionary Auguste Blanqui in 1832. Asked by the magistrate to give his profession, Blanqui simply replies: “Proletarian.” The magistrate immediately objects to this: “That is not a profession,” thereby setting him- self up for the accused’s immediate response: “It is the profession of thirty million Frenchmen who live off their labour and who are deprived of political rights.” (Rancière 1999, 37) In essence, the crucial point of this historical moment is ex- pressed in terms of a “subject name” that is “different from any identified part of the community.” What is already included or counted within the existing situation is a compositional part of that situation, something “identified” (sighted or cited) within the set of available relations produced by the status quo, the arrangement of forces at work. Thus, when Blanqui refers to himself before the magistrate as a “proletarian,” he presents the subject-name of some- thing paradoxically foundational to the existing order, but in a neg- ative or absent sense. The figure of the proletariat appears as the negative ground of the status quo, the element that must be included insofar as it is a core element of the situation (“the profession of thirty million Frenchmen who live off their labour and who are de- prived of political rights”), but that must be excluded as calculable within the existing social and political arrangements, because to do translation / spring / 2014 so would expose the instability, the contingency and accidental na- ture of the dominant discursive apparatuses for the ordering of so- ciety (the figure of the citizen, legal personhood, state recognition). 41 All of these elements are themselves historical products, but prod- ucts whose contingent and historical origins must be erased or cov- ered over in order to function as putatively “natural” givens in the maintenance of the social order. It is here that Rancière points out that politics is exactly what emerges at the point when this erasure of historicity is exercised, when the element that is excluded in rep- resentation presents itself. Here, we might profitably take up another complimentary discussion, this time in the work of Alain Badiou, who has exten- sively developed the generic conceptual schema behind such an un- derstanding of politics by drawing a clear distinction between representation and presentation, and the position of an evental rup- ture in the supposedly “normal” course of the situation, a circum- stance linked in his thought to the figure of the State. The ultimate effect of an evental caesura, and of an intervention from which the intro- duction into circulation of a supernumerary name proceeds, would thus be that the truth of a situation, with this caesura as its principle, forces the situation to accommodate it: to extend itself to the point at which this truth – primitively no more than a part, a rep- resentation – attains belonging, thereby becoming a presentation. The trajectory of the faithful generic procedure and its passage to infinity transform the ontological status of a truth: they do so by changing the situation “by force”; anonymous excrescence in the beginning, the truth will end up being normalized. However, it would remain sub- tracted from knowledge if the language of the situation was not radically transformed. (Badiou 2005, 342) Here Badiou, in a dense and concentrated formulation, points out something crucial for this discussion of the supernumer- ary “subject-name” in the question of politics: the role of force. In essence, when Rancière relates the story of Blanqui’s trial, what he points out is that something derived from the situation but not co- extensive with it erupts into being and “forces the situation to ac- commodate it.” More specifically than merely its supernumerary character, it is this forcing that expresses the nature of politics. A political process does not merely present something absent from the situation that nevertheless must play a role within it; rather, it forcibly punctures the situation by means of an insistence. What is “counted” in the situation is given a place within it. But what is su- translation / spring / 2014 pernumerary, what exceeds calculability in the optic of a putatively constant and stable scenario, never attains a clear “place” within the logic of the situation into which it intervenes. This is because, 42 as a forcing, such a supernumerary intervention always compels the situation to modify its equilibrium in order to persist. What we might then say is that, if politics is the rare and evental forcing of a modification of the situation by means of the intervention of a supernumerary element, then the representation of politics as a calculable, easily accessible, and immediate field obscures and represses politics as such. This we could call “the regime of the political,” the mode of inquiry that reduces the in- stance of politics proper—a forceful and hazardous intervention that institutes a novel modality of the situation—to a mere set of choices already presented within the field of commensurability. Let us expand more on this point. What is commensurable is capable of a relation, capable of being included in a preestablished or presupposed set of potential relations. What is incommensurable is a radical difference, a dif- ference that cannot be “explained” or resolved, even into a rela- tional concept of “difference” itself. Concepts of difference that we frequently encounter in theoretical analysis—cultural difference, linguistic difference, sexual difference, national difference, etc.— are not, strictly speaking, incommensurable. One putative cultural space is contrasted with another, instituting a relation of “differ- ence”; one presupposed linguistic community is placed into relation with another, establishing a system of ordering “differences” be- tween the two zones; physical elements, social behaviors, cultural practices, and so forth are formed into categories of belonging, thereafter establishing modalities of detecting supposed “abnormal- ities” and forming a regime of differences with types of relations, modes of contrast, means of comparison, and so on. But all these “differences” are forms of specific difference, differences that are gradations of contrast within a conceptual species. In other words, rather than being markers of difference as such, these are all rela- tions included within a regime of homogeneity, one in which the heterogeneous is ordered on the interior of a bordered space of uni- vocality. When politics is thought as the simple oscillation between already-established positions within the field of commensurability, translation / spring / 2014 what is desperately repressed is the historicity of politics as such, politics as an historical act. Paradoxically, however, it is always history that is appealed to in the service of this erasure: the situation 43 is treated as a necessary outcome of a circumscribed history, a lan- guage is retrospectively made a unity through appeals to national history, a social circumstance is made “natural” by means of retro- jecting a historical development onto a contingent process. But in this way, the historical possibility of politics, the fact that politics has no guarantee or legitimating force, is covered over and re-pre- sented as a set of necessities. The radical historicity of politics is contained precisely in its excess over the historical narrative, the inability of appeals to history to exhaustively account for the his- torical materiality of the institution of a new mode of social exis- tence, or to account (or “count”) for the historicity of singularity (see Haver 1986). If politics then, is a fidelity to a concept of his- toricity as incompletion, it is never an incompletion that would lead to abstention or withdrawal. Such a concept of politics, by empha- sizing the incompletion of the historical process and the radical incommensurability of interventions supernumerary to the conjunc- ture, is instead a theory of partisanship. And this concept of the partisan is always a thought of the two. From the outset, politics has its own concept of “two”—the situation and the intervention, the field of the countable and the supernumerary, for instance. It might be argued that such a conception of politics can never be re- ducible to the two precisely because it is supernumerary and there- fore exceeds all forms of the count. But this would be to misunderstand the status of the two, a decisive concept that we now must clarify in knitting together the questions of politics and trans- lation. The Politics of Translation: The Distribution of Force Having considered two separate concepts—the relation be- tween translation and its representation (the “regime” of translation) and the relation between two conceptions of politics (ubiquity and rarity)—I want to consider the possibilities for thinking the politics of translation through an articulation of these two fields of inquiry. First and foremost, let us revisit the basic problem: the representa- tion of translation is a regime in which two sides are made to ap- pear. It is not the case that these two sides are “already there”— translation / spring / 2014 translation is an act in which this division or separation is enacted. This division or separation occurs for at least two reasons. On the one hand, it expresses the forms of political subjectivation that are 44 given by means of social relations and that express social forms of power and subordination. On the other hand, the intervention into this regime—which cannot be simply or easily overcome, as it es- sentially expresses the social-historical forms through which sig- nifications such as language itself are inherited—cannot consist in refusing the act of division or separation either. To do so would simply mean valorizing a flattened concept of immanence, in which the copresence of all phenomena was treated as one indistinguish- able plane. The political consequences of this are stark: the status quo is thus treated as the immanent expression of the existing field of elements, which only have to be differentially arranged to enact a political intervention. Everything is interior to this schema, it ends in proposing a certain univocality of politics and of thought, in which an actual break remains impossible. In other words, if our reaction to the concept of translation as a schema, as a modality of analysis, remains at the level of sim- ply refuting the parceling out of phenomena into “two,” we will be unable to sustain a genuine politics of translation. A politics of translation must not take the immanentist route, which presumes that the response to the simplistic binaries of modernity is to pro- pose instead one unitary field in which everything is arrayed for experience. This would be to deny the politicality of politics proper, which consists precisely in following through the consequences of what cannot be included within a unitary field of experience. In other words, if we are to create a politics of translation that is not merely an acting correlate to the regime of translation, in which we are consistently given “two sides” of a false choice, we must at- tempt to inhabit this relation of the Two in a divergent manner, to see how this separation might function differently. If we were to say that politics is rare, while the regime of politics is ubiquitous, we might also say that, although the discursive apparatus of the regime of translation makes us think otherwise, in fact translation is rare. Let us now take up this question of the two, the question of how to think this problem without simply valorizing the false bi- nary structure of the schema of cofiguration. In the case of transla- translation / spring / 2014 tion, the representation of this concept always relies on the image of the structure of communication—one successful and unitary se- quence is “translated” (here transposed, recoded, reframed) into an- 45 other. In this representation, therefore, a figure of the two is always being generated: two sides, two languages, two systems of enunci- ation. This sense of equivalence—the insistence that translation is a smooth transfer of meaning from one “side” to the other—is given by means of the regime of translation itself, in which the structure of presupposition is always relied on as a primary driving force. Language itself is presupposed as coextensive with national com- munity or with an instituted and given community of belonging, thus rendering all instances of translation into modes of communi- cation or transfer between these already-presupposed entities. In this sense, to insist on the historical act or practice of translation is also an insistence on the instability of this two, an emphasis on the point that this two is in no way a coherent or natural arrangement but rather itself a historical product of the encounter of translation, which is then retrospectively attributed to its origins, and then once again conjured up in order to derive itself from its own presuppo- sitions. This peculiar and circular logic of origin is a general phe- nomenon of capitalist society, one that we must insist is in no way limited to the questions here under consideration (see Walker 2011, and 2012). But for our purposes, what is distinctive and crucial here is to try to think of how we can understand this figure of the two—of division, scission, torsion, and so forth—without repro- ducing the other two, the binary structure of cofiguration presented to us in the regime of translation. If the two of the regime of translation is a two that is lo- cated, as we have discussed, within the presupposed terrain of com- mensurability, we might profitably ask: is this cofigurative pairing really a Two at all? Is it not the case that the secret of the regime of translation is in fact its flattening of the uneven and hazardous prac- tice of translation, in which neither “side” preexists the process, it- self never a simple teleological instance? If this is all true, should we not refer to the regime of translation not as a Two but as a One? In fact, what the regime of translation and the regime of the political share, in flattening their respective practices into simplistic forms of commensurability, is a refusal of contestation, of the truth of the two, the truth of division and rupture, that another direction is pos- translation / spring / 2014 sible, and one must choose. One must choose because politics, while contained in the supernumerary eruption that suspends the dominant order by introducing or presenting a structuring principle 46 that is nevertheless absent, consists also in upholding the conse- quences of this eruption (see Walker 2013). In the guise of the two, what is really presented to us in the regime of translation and in the regime of the political is a concept of the one, of a field without real scission, a space of preordained “difference” within which everything has already been decided, placed into a regime of rela- tion that excludes critical contestation. In considering this duality of the two, suspended between the historical practice of translation and its representation, we might proceed here by entering into the thinking of the concept of the di- alectic, this embattled and even “scandalous” term, a term over which fierce contestations in the theoretical field have been fought. The question of the relation between the analysis of translation and the thought-form of the dialectic is fraught and complex. How can we think these two instances of relation or non-relation together? What is at stake in doing so? First and foremost, before we enter fully into the elaboration of this question, I want to state from the outset my basic thesis: the politics of translation remain fundamen- tally linked to the dialectic precisely because the dialectic is the es- sential form through which the critical force of antagonism and contestation is preserved. But what is it, in the form of dialectical thought, that remains linked to this split of translation and its rep- resentation? Marx reminds us: The dialectic in its rational form is a scandal and an abomination to the bourgeoisie and its doctrinaire spokesmen, because it includes in its positive understanding of what ex- ists a simultaneous recognition of its negation, of its inevitable destruction; because it regards every historically developed form as being in a fluid state, in motion, and there- fore grasps its transient aspect as well; and because it does not let itself be impressed by anything, being in its very essence critical and revolutionary. (Marx 1996, 20) The dialectical torsion between elements is an expression, not of simple commensurability, but of the historically practical character of relations, in which the very terms of the relation itself are subject to a fluid motion, a flux of radical singularity, in which the terms—and the putative division between them—torsionally invert into each other, each in turn containing the seeds of the prior translation / spring / 2014 results and cyclically passing between forms of solidity. The di- alectic is in essence a refusal of the simplistic commensurable stra- tum of specific difference, a refusal that posits a new and restless 47 Two, ceaselessly changing in history and practice, against a mere binary treated as two sides of a given field. This “rational form” here is of course the Hegelian “rational,” the figure of intelligibility, not the concept of rationality linked to the questions of “rational choice,” homo economicus, and so forth. What is this “rational” figure in the field of translation? It is precisely politics. Politics is the form through which the potentiality of translation—the histor- ical act of making, creation, relation in the space of incommensu- rability—realizes itself in the social life world. In this sense, the politics of translation is an entirely literal phrase: translation, rather than its representation, realizes itself in and through politics, un- derstood here as the field of contestation, raised to a principle: the principle of the supernumerary historical intervention that cannot be merely reduced to an outcome of the existing situation. The politicality of the split between the historical practice of translation, the pure articulation in the space of the incommen- surable, and the representation of translation as communication or exchange between two given sides is a conflict between two images of duality: the regime of translation or schema of cofiguration es- sentially produces a false image of the two in order to neutralize the real of the Two, the radicality of intervention that the Two expresses. This latter duality is not the simple exchange between one “side” and another, but a two that expresses the split between the state of the situation, in which difference is flattened into commensurability, and the eruptive intervention of singularity that presents the void core of the situation, that exposes its regime of cofiguration. To apprehend the singular is frequently nothing but a reduc- tion to a genealogical or taxonomical structure, a process through which the singular is itself erased as singular, precisely in an act of attempting to “locate” it, to “site” (or cite) it. The structure of the citation, the historicization, whereby the singular comes to be a sta- bilized meaning, a stable signification, places the singular into an economy of signification, one that then saturates the original in- stance with a full density of meaning. When we cite a quotation we do more than simply “locate” a text: we refer a series of words, con- cepts, and statements to a group of significations—places, names, translation / spring / 2014 publishing houses, networks of knowledge, linkages of power, pa- tronage, intellectual heritage and genealogy, modes of analysis, par- tisan groupings within the production of knowledge, etc.—thereby 48 overwriting the cited text with a deeply sedimented, ingrained his- tory. This interjection of the historical into the text constitutes one of the key elements through which the singular tends to always van- ish, emergent but interrupted, in the process of its own elaboration. In turn, just as a statement once cited transforms from an irruptive interjection into a genealogical referent, so too a politics that pres- ents itself as a natural outgrowth of a set of givens or field of histor- ical necessities erases the element of politics proper—antagonism, contestation, the singular exposure of the void of the situation.1 One of the peculiar aspects of the question of translation, one crucially pointed out by Sakai, is that translation names both the negative system of capture in which social phenomena are bracketed into simple dualisms (the schema of cofiguration or regime of translation), but also names the affirmative politics through which this gap itself is negotiated or intervened into, in practice, in strategy. Translation always implies strategy. We know that there is a politicality of translation—but the real question is, if this politicality is merely the expression in the political field of the double bind of the regime of translation, how can we develop a specifically affirmative politics of translation? Here part of the es- sential question is the distance, separation or split between the one shore of translation and the other. Can we learn something essential here from the question of politics more broadly? In the political sphere the problem is exactly that you must take a distance from a relationship of antagonism in order to develop your forces on your own terrain. What does this tactical consideration mean for the pol- itics of translation? The representation of translation makes the social space of incommensurable and radical heterogeneity into a simple relation of two already-determined sides. But this two, as we have noted, in fact functions in a univocal manner, suspending the radical differ- ence of the two under the homogenizing force of the one, the field in which specific difference is already included in its count of the situation. In contrast to this false pairing, politics consists in the ac- tive and forceful production of a two where previously there was translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 On the thought of singularity, see Lazarus, especially 1996 and 2013. I intend to extensively discuss the unique and original work of Lazarus on another occasion. 49 only one: the act of division here is of a decisively different char- acter than that of the regime of translation, in which division is only a simulacrum of difference. Politics, in this sense, precisely consists in the radical act of making two sides appear—two antagonistic classes, two lines, two positions—and in refusing the two (the schema of cofiguration) produced by the situation itself and in which we find nothing but a field of mutually reinforcing complic- ities. Let us take the example of class—the quintessential social cat- egory of capitalist society—in thinking the possibility of a politics of translation: The simple class contradiction is a permanent structural fact, economically locatable (weak correlation), while the class struggle is a process of particular conditions, entirely political in essence, which is not deducible from the simple weak correlation. To con- fuse the class contradiction with the class struggle, to practice the correlative indistinc- tion of the contradiction, is the philosophical tendency of economism, workerism, the Marxism of drowsiness and the classroom. (Badiou 2009, 24) In the same way that the “simple class contradiction” is a structural fact of the situation under which it exists (world capitalism), so too the “regime of translation” which establishes the civilizational- colonial division of labor is a structural fact of the “international world,” the world constructed from the unit of the nation–state. What this means in practice is that a politics of translation cannot begin from the mere “structural fact” of translation—the fact that significations and social relations are parceled out and distributed according to the schema of separation and classification as discrete and holistic entities—but must begin instead from the active nega- tion of this fact. Such a politics would not refuse the concept “trans- lation,” but would attempt to enter into it from another direction, another mode of possibility, a way to “apprehend singularity with- out making it disappear” (Badiou 2005, 30), without making it dis- appear under the weight of its own name. Just as politics can never confuse the class contradiction— the mere fact of the situation—with the class struggle, the active and inventive intervention that cannot be accounted for in the terms of the situation, so too a politics of translation must never conflate translation / spring / 2014 the representation of translation with the rare and singular en- counter of translation. A politics of translation would consist in the apprehension of singularity, an apprehension that would hold it in 50 tension, refuse to subsume it under the weight of its own surround- ing economy, but that would sustain its visibility in the midst of a regime of representation dedicated to rendering it invisible. In a time when the mutually reinforcing civilizational narcissisms of area studies and the representations of the international world are being constantly presented in the schema of cofiguration, the po- litical and historical work of translation remains a decisive task. Elaborating new political modes of relation, actively creating new linkages and solidarities beyond the simplistic communicative model that we are given by the regime of translation in which we are immersed is a task that reminds us of the center of a politics of translation: a new and open search for the possibilities of the com- mon, but an uncanny common, a common that disturbs our sense of inherited belonging and that suspends our fantasies of natural affiliations. Only through a careful consideration of the politics of translation can we hope to produce this hazardous and contingent possibility of the common, a new mode of life desperately needed in the global present. translation / spring / 2014 51 References Badiou, Alain. 2005. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. London: Con- tinuum. Badiou, Alain. 2005. Metapolitics. Translated by Jason Barker. London: Verso. Badiou, Alain. 2009. Theory of the Subject. Translated by Bruno Bosteels. London: Continuum. Haver, William. 1996. The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lazarus, Sylvain. 1996. Anthropologie du nom. Paris: Seuil. ———. 2013. L’Intelligence de la politique. Paris: Al Dante. Marx, Karl. 1996. “Afterword to the Second German Edition.” Volume 1 of Capital, volume 35 of Marx–Engels Collected Works. New York: International Pub- lishers. Rancière, Jacques. 1999. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Translated by Julie Rose. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press. ———. 2009. “Translation and the Schematism of Bordering.” Translated by Gavin Walker and Naoki Sakai. Presentation at Gesellschaft übersetzen: Eine Kommentatorenkonferenz, October 29–31, 2009, Universität Konstanz, Ger- many. Walker, Gavin. 2011. “Primitive Accumulation and the Formation of Difference: On Marx and Schmitt.” Rethinking Marxism 23 (3): 384-404. ———. 2012. “Citizen-Subject and the National Question: On the Logic of Capital in Balibar.” Postmodern Culture 22 (3). Project MUSE. Web. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>. ———. 2013. “The Body of Politics: On the Concept of the Party.” Theory & Event 16 (4). Project MUSE. Web. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>. Gavin Walker is Assistant Professor of History and East Asian Studies at McGill Uni- versity in Montréal, Québec. He has been a Mellon Graduate Fellow in the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University and a visiting researcher at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan. He works on modern Japanese intellectual history, Marxist theory and historiography, and contemporary critical theory. Recent publications include “The Ab- sent Body of Labour Power: Uno K z ’s Logic of Capital” in Historical Materialism 21 translation / spring / 2014 (4) and “The Body of Politics: On the Concept of the Party” in Theory & Event 16 (4). He is currently completing his book, entitled The Sublime Perversion of Capital: Marxist Theory and the Politics of History in Modern Japan. 52

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Translation and national sovereignty. The fragility and bias of theory 1 Rada Iveković ................................. [email protected] Abstract: The author starts by describing her own relationship to language and translation, which is the result of her growing up between languages and among several. She proceeds to explain why she uses elements of “Indian” philosophies to highlight her point about language and translation, just as she uses elements of “continental” philosophy, with the advantage that exposing “our” problems to that “elsewhere” sheds unexpected light on them. She then explains difficulties in language, translation, and understanding as a result of the division between “theory” and “practice,” and gives examples (such as those from ancient Indian languages and writings) of cultures where that division was avoided. The divide takes sharper contours in the relation between the “west” and the “rest.” As- sumptions of superiority are based on the tacit cognitive precondition of separating theory from practice by an insurmountable wall. Historically located polities have each a general corresponding cognitive order and translation regime. Which means that whole genealogies of knowledge have remained invisible to European lan- guages, untranslated, apparently untranslatable to the hegemonic gaze. The con- clusion points to the disaster of national subjectivation in Yugoslavia, in the post-Yugoslav states, and elsewhere. ______________ Translation always raises the question of its politics. I will try to argue for the inevitability of an inter-con-textual and political approach to translation, quite beyond the textual one. I start from the observation that any “origin” is located, therefore oriented, therefore interested, and therefore concealing a politics; that knowledge is historically informed and that so is there- fore translation. Language and translation are not neutral: translata- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 This paper was partly written while i was Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, from February to June 2013. I thank ARI and in particular professor Prasen- jit Duara, ARI’s director, for their input and for giving me the opportunity to carry out this work in excellent conditions. 53 bility, not only as a possibility, but also as a fundamental mecha- nism, is already there in any language capacity, even before we can name the language. Both have associated themselves since moder- nity with the constitution of the nation. Translation is both on the side of a metaphor as well as, lit- erally, of language(s) and of the material production of worlds, in both cases as political. They involve a declared or hidden politics of translation. Languages traverse each other, bear one another, and rub against each other, even beyond our awareness. They are not mutually excluding. No child is born monolingual. Monolingualism is inculcated in and through a national horizon and the definition of a national language. In this sense a world of translation—trans- lational—is still a transnational world. Because languages are com- municating vessels decanting into each other, content is never transferred from a source language into a target language without rest or excess. Translation cannot be reduced to a binary, and it ac- tually precedes the definition or establishment of national and lin- guistic difference. It happens not between but within languages. It is a complex relationship fleeing in various directions, including all the way through languages, and it transforms the translator as well. The writings of protagonists translate to themselves and to others, but above all, to later generations, their lives, imaginaries and historical conditions. Understanding them from outside their context, from a later generation, or from another translation regime requires some ability of brokering between parallel, circulating, and intersecting histories, where everything is moving and changing meaning: translation takes place on uncertain ground, according to uncertain principles, without guarantee, and gives vacillating, un- certain results. Translation is inevitable, although its politics is un- predictable. The question of learning from others’ experience, or from experience tout court arises. How do we translate from one regime of sentences (Wittgenstein, Lyotard), or from one world, into another? But how do we translate from one translation regime to another? An example: the impossibility and difficulty to translate “caste” (as well as many other terms): the concept of caste is a nor- translation / spring / 2014 mative concept of Western sociology for India. How does it trans- late into India, and back to and from India? It is a “travelling” concept, lost between theories and undermining the construction 54 of hegemonic knowledge, which is oblivious of translation regimes or of the politics of translation. The question concerns a minimum rhetorical rule: since we can only speak of language from within language itself, don’t the rules about language also apply to the would-be metalanguage? Lost in languages I was born into Serbo–Croatian which, rather than a clearly and once-and-for-all standardized language, was a constellation consisting of a number of different language feelings, stylistic val- ues, competing standardizations, carrying of course various accents, some syntactical variations, and multiple vocabulary choices. By the accidents of life, i was exposed early on to a series of variants of that language (once going under that common name, though no more). These corresponded to different places in Yugoslavia. The language feeling was regional and local rather than national, be- cause the national/state framework itself was fragmented by ac- cents, syntax, scripts, writing, and various rival standardizations. The language could be “more Croat” or “more Serb,” with a grada- tion and no absolute distinguishing principles. I could read the two scripts before going to school. Across that nébuleuse of multiple possible ways of speaking and writing that were however heavily disputed by politicians and by some language-policing linguists, and that were used to express other political disagreements, i, like everyone else, could find my way at large throughout the country, understand and be understood. Speaking was no issue at all. Pub- lishing was, however, depending on the linguistic politics of your editors, of the journal, the publisher, or the local academy. I was constantly negotiating with editing rereaders—bearers of a great variety of language views and believers in different standardization conventions—about my articles and books. We called them “lec- tors.” Some of them were my great enemies, in general those who were staunch advocates of a strong official codification of separate national languages (whether Serb or Croat). You could tell from their editing (submitted to us before publication for proofreading) not only their linguistic and translation politics most of the time, translation / spring / 2014 but their politics tout court (Iveković 2007a). The result is that i have published, depending on how i man- aged to negotiate my personal language and how my own relation 55 to it evolved, in a great variety of forms of Serbo–Croatian, com- pletely “inconsistently” over time. It was never like French, which you can write in only one way. Not everyone was as fickle as i was, and most probably adopted the language of his or her social context at the time of writing. But i moved a lot between Belgrade and Za- greb and lived in both. You could write according to various codes and in several ways of which each meant a political statement if you stuck to it. That language contained a contested, competing, and disputed inner multiplicity. Yet i couldn’t help but be utterly in- consistent, not out of carelessness, but on the contrary out of a con- stant concern for language, meaning, and translation. Such inconsistency was paradoxically dictated by my continuous con- stancy regarding language. The very spirit and most important fea- ture of that language was that it had plural and inconclusive standardizations as well as plentiful options, and the official rules for writing (pravopis, which included spelling and some additional sets of usages) also changed constantly, sometimes due to political disputes disguised as linguistic disputes. Being consistent either meant being dogmatic about form and sticking to only one way of writing, or being inconsistent with the form but consistent with the spirit of this language that was always in transformation. Great writ- ers such as Miroslav Krleža and Ivo Andrić had written in different modes of the language—ekavski and ijekavski—which have only recently become (and only superficially and, in the final analysis, wrongly, irrespective of language history) identified respectively with Serbian and Croatian. People who had not been exposed, like myself, to various vernaculars and manners of speaking and writing, could stick to one form, although even there official rules changed all the time.2 Since i started publishing predominantly in foreign lan- guages, the fate of my writing is exactly the same: it is corrected, .......................... 2 A number of spellings and writing rules were made official for all during the lifetime of Yugoslavia, and alternative proposals were occasionally issued by nationalist institutions. One spelling (pravopis) was the Novosadski pravopis, or “The Novi Sad writing agreement,” of 1954 (and the revised 1962 version), which focused on similarities, which i had decided to stick to when i started publishing, not so much because it translation / spring / 2014 was midway between Serbian and Croatian, but rather because i thought it would be good to stick to one as the rules kept changing all the time. It was contested by linguistic nationalists. Another attempt in 1967, the Deklaracija o nazivu i položaju hrvatskog književnog jezika, or “Declaration on the name and condition of the Croatian literary language,” insisted on dissimilarities and announced a first nationalist turn a few years later (1971). 56 depending on the sensibility of the reader or reviewer, because it is perceived to be inadequate in terms of an ideal form of the lan- guage. Many were those who refuted that multiplicity, who held monolithic, sovereignist, national politics of language and transla- tion. That language was many languages at once, or in one, always itself in the process of translation. It was both one and many. The comparisons were to me linguistically delectable, ruminating on language was exciting and sometimes frustrating. The one-and- multiple language was fluctuating in its definitions, grammars, spelling, writing codes, and even names, which were occasionally changed and decreed by academies, uncertain to some, loved and disputed by many. All styles were cultivated, from the extreme purism of each “national” language to rather syncretic approaches where “languages” and their accents or vocabularies were mixed.3 Croatian was much more language sensitive at first sight in its national language politics and also more concerned about written form, but it turned out later that Serbian as a national lan- guage (somewhat more at ease with oral expression) was no less dogmatic, including in its apparent carelessness about form. What was later (after the war in the 1990s) called Bosnian was more flex- ible, less standardized, and fluctuating between the two other forms. Yugoslavia was this peculiar country composed of six re- publics, two “autonomous regions,” two scripts, and half a dozen main languages, of which several were Slavic, and where Serbo– Croatian was the most widespread, spoken in four of the federal states (Bosnia–Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia) and taught at school in all. Serbo–Croatian was thus imposed on every- one and was also the lingua franca. All instructions on Yugoslav goods were in all Yugoslav languages, including minority lan- guages. These are now all considered and named as four different national languages, linked to the idea of each national state, and more could appear at any time, with theoretically possible, though .......................... 3 Naoki Sakai (2013): “I do not think that difference at stake in this instance can be subsumed under the concept of species difference.” It is worth emphasizing the fact that the determination of the species dif- translation / spring / 2014 ference is offered as a solution to the initial problem of us being at a loss, in response to the perplexity we come across in such a locale.” “[I]t is imperative to keep in mind that it is not because some person or people are different—in the sense of species difference—from me or us that we are at a loss. On the contrary, it is because we are at a loss or unable to make sense in the first place that we attempt to deter- mine this encounter with difference within the logical economy of species and genus.” 57 now less likely, further partitions. The other two Slavic languages were Slovenian and Macedonian, to a great extent understandable with a little good will at least to neighbors, speakers of Serbo–Croa- tian, who, however, did not learn them at school. Important minor- ity languages were Albanian, Hungarian, Italian, and Romani, and many other languages also circulated. The distinction between Macedonian and neighboring Bulgarian responds to the same pat- tern, and is a matter of convention, a convention governed by the political stand on the nation. In Yugoslavia and successor states, the language of Macedonia was and is Macedonian. But that may change for those Macedonians who now opt for Bulgarian citizen- ship (and get it) because it gives them an easy entrance into Europe. There is no doubt about the hegemony of Serbo–Croatian, which, by the end of Yugoslavia, caused a lot of bitterness in particular with the Slovenes (the small difference) and the Albanians (the big- ger language difference). In Yugoslavia, the languages flanked Yu- goslavia’s constitutive “nations” and “nationalities.” 4 Only where languages are distinguished can the unity of one language be established, says Naoki Sakai (2013). Languages and nations tend to construct each other reciprocally in an endless process (Iveković 2008). I have always doubted the existence of the language i was born into. “Lectors” often made you believe that your own language was violating some “pure” form. Competing and coexisting stan- dardizations did so too. When i started university in Zagreb, i enrolled at a “general linguistics and oriental studies” department where i read “Indian studies,” to a great extent from a linguistic and philological per- spective, quite old-fashioned. I came to philosophy through “In- dian” philosophy, “in the reverse” as it were if compared to a usual European trajectory. The nonaligned political orientation of the country that came to introduce such and similar studies after the 1961 Belgrade first summit of leaders of the Non-Aligned coun- tries, in view of its nonaligned and third-world friendships and pri- .......................... translation / spring / 2014 4 “Nations” and “nationalities” (narodi i narodnosti) were supposed to be constitutive and equal, and most had a federal republic that went by their name, while more-mixed-than-the-others Bosnia-Herzegovina was a conundrum of its own. “Nationalities” (national minorities) had a more complex status: they were supposed to be constitutive in their main national body as nations, in another Yugoslav republic or abroad, as was the case for Albanians in Kosovo or Hungarians in Vojvodina. 58 orities, still relied to a great extent on an Orientalist reading, notwithstanding the decolonization wind blowing in the 1960s that had reached our shores with, especially, much empathy for the Al- gerian war of liberation. We studied Sanskrit, Pāli, and Hindi, among Indian languages, and read secondary literature not only in our language5 but also in German, French, and English, while i soon read Max Weber on Asia in Italian, because that seemed to be the only available edition, or translation. I started translating ancient texts from Sanskrit and Pāli into Serbo–Croatian,6 besides translating contemporary philosophy from European languages. The technical problem of transcription and transliteration presented itself immediately with Indian sources, and came to feed our engagement with scripts, language, writing of foreign names and words (disputes among several options sup- ported diversely by the script). Sanskrit has a declension of eight cases, while Serbo–Croatian has seven. How do you decline a San- skrit noun in Serbo–Croatian? How—and where—do you add suf- fixes from the Serbo–Croatian declension to Sanskrit nouns? There were many different usages and clashes over them. Sanskrit has the sonant “r,” which operates like a syllable-forming vowel, that we also have in our language. But English and French language tran- scription conventions require “ri”: should we do the same, or should we write simply “r” as we do in our language in words like “prst”? In that case we should write (and we did) “sanskrt.” Consider ṛ (“r” with a dot underneath) as is done in some transcriptions? Should we write, as the English transliteration does, ś and sh, or, as the French one does, ç and ṣ? Or should we write, in analogy with our ć and č (two distinct sounds that foreigners usually do not differ- entiate in our names), ś and š, something that speakers of Serbo– Croatian understand immediately by analogy? We used to do the .......................... 5 “Our [language],” naški, has become a most widespread and neutral appellation of the common language without naming it, since the partition of Yugoslavia, with nonnationalists. It indistinctly denotes Bosnian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Croatian, or any future split-off language that may come. The Indian–Pakistani anal- ogy would be de and de i. NB: i deliberately have no use for the word “dialect,” which has no meaning outside a national vertical hierarchy of languages. Languages and dialects are of course the same, as much as nations and ethnicities, fixed constructs within a regime of rigid “identities.” translation / spring / 2014 6 At that time, the correct and official appellation of that language in Croatia, where i studied and started writing (though my first book came out in Sarajevo), was “Croato–Serbian,” simply called “Croatian” in popular parlance, just as “Serbian” was shorthand for “Serbo–Croatian” in the Serbian context. In order to avoid further complication, i do not use the form “Croato–Serbian” when writing in English or French, where it is in fact unknown. 59 latter, and immediately created problems for ourselves with any quotation or reference we introduced from Western Indology, and with local nonacademic usages. The language problems from Sanskrit transposed into Serbo–Croatian were a direct continuation of the language dynamics and complications we had with our own language. Sanskrit and Pāli became for me inner problems of Serbo–Croatian, and of the same kind. And again, i had to deal with more or less understanding rereading and editing. The problems raised by the alternative script, Cyrillic, can be added to these. Cyrillic makes foreign words and, above all, names, unrecognizable, and by the same token it also erases some of the historic depth and traces from the written word. Other subterfuges are needed when writing or publishing in Cyrillic, and they, too, are diversely (non)standardized. So my experience with mediating Indian culture in Yugoslavia and dealing with Indian languages only continued my experience with the now nameless language, one-and-multiple. Since very early infancy, too, and again without any merit, i was deeply exposed to other languages—French and Italian at first as my parents were living in Belgium and Italy. I spoke Serbo–Croa- tian, French, and Italian with different people surrounding me. Those languages never left me, although they went and returned with ab- sences or vacations, and Italian was somewhat neglected. I then went to a French school in Germany, where i spoke French and lis- tened to German. Later at school in Belgrade, from grade 5, i took English as a foreign language. From there on, other European lan- guages came through reading or listening. They also came through the other languages and thanks to them, sometimes weighing against each other. They came particularly thanks to Serbo–Croatian into which i tended to translate the new words and to compare them. The welcome diversity of those languages somehow mirrored my own multiplicity, rather than their “national” limitations. It was only nat- ural for me to continue between languages, understood both as medium and mediator. I believe that the diversity, profusion, exten- sion, complexity, burgeoning, and abundance those languages gave me through their simultaneity and intertwining were suitable pat- translation / spring / 2014 terns structuring my thinking and work, somehow never in straight lines. I could not be disciplined. When writing in French or English, i continued the same passionate relationship to language that i had 60 with Serbo–Croatian, brokering styles and writing conventions with more or less success. The world has changed vertiginously since i was born into Serbo–Croatian. Not only have i been brought to learn other lan- guages, but i have also come to construct with others intersecting spaces of many languages with which i dealt at various levels. It is not my merit. Estranged at a mature age from my first language, es- pecially for publishing and work, since the dismantlement of Yu- goslavia, i am in the—regular—situation of constantly hesitating between languages and always being beside a language, or at a crossroads of several languages. Stumbling, faltering, forgetting, double and even treble consciousness help us overcome the double- talk rhetoric, the frozen language (langue de bois), the officialese of the pensée unique. It is a condition of epistemological diversity and of ontological uncertainty, but it is also some kind of normalcy and way of life. I now write in the language i was asked for a paper, which is mainly French or English, and only rarely Serbo–Croat. The dilemma is devastating not regarding articles, but when it comes to fictional writing: here, no language suits me any more. But why the hesitation, since displacement is the rule? Un- certainty is critical and part of the technology of becoming in dis- placement. It is part of a translated world. It may not be the easiest thing to live and it doesn’t guarantee any progressive politics, but we are lucky it is there and lucky to be able to mold a world without absolute translation (Iveković 2007a, 21–26; 2007b). Stumbling ushers us into the wasteland, the terrain vague, that will give the hors champ, the off camera, the tiers instruit (Serres 1991), the dis- tance necessary for writing, translating and working. Uncertainty comes as the necessary third “language” or other, the third element, an operator and broker. Brahmā’s Net Brahmā’s net is the name Buddhists give to ideology.7 Avijjā, ignorance about both the origin and the functioning of the world, keeps us within that net. In a very early linguistic turn translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 7 Brahmā-jāla: Brahmā’s net is also “the all-embracing net of views,” a hegemonic point of view that, in the eyes of the Buddhist, would be Brahmanistic. There is a speech attributed to the Buddha, Brahmajāla Suttam (Dīgha-nikāya 1, 1), which deconstructs under that name different doctrines, including unorthodox ones, existing at that time. Višṇu, Śiva, Brahm are the Trimūrti, the “troika.” Like all three, Brahm is a 61 in Indian philosophy (6th–7th century BCE), Buddhists discovered that language couldn’t say it all, being itself part of that whole. There is no metalanguage different from language. The “beginning” being unknown, Buddhists cultivated cognitive uncertainty and self-decentering. Let me, however, clarify that i do not take Buddhism as a model to follow, nor do i preach it. I only take it as arguably the clearest example, possibly with Daoism, of a series of ancient “Asian” epistemes having certain characteristics highlighted here through the example of Buddhism. Some of these features are: not cultivating the putative split between subject and object (which is really a capturing apparatus of hegemony), between theory and prac- tice, or between sovereignty and exception—amongst others. This does not mean that Buddhism, much as any other philosophy, cannot be used and misused to enhance nationalistic politics—as it has been in many examples, particularly Japan, or recently more locally in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, if these things can be measured. So Bud- dhism doesn’t give any guarantee for an equitable translation regime, nor should it be idealized. No philosophy carries within it- self the guarantee of its infallibility.8 I use elements of “Indian” philosophies to highlight my point just as i use elements of “continental” philosophy, with the ad- vantage that exposing our problems to that “elsewhere” sheds un- expected light on them. Untranslatability is a paradox: there are untranslatables (Bar- bara Cassin 2004; Lyotard 1983; Balibar 2009); there are also con- ditions of (un)translatability. What is untranslatable according to one translation regime, may be translatable in another. There is no ab- solute translation. There are degrees between untranslatables and translatables (Iveković 2002a, 121–145; also at Iveković 2002b), in- dicative of a multitude of options. There are levels and registers of translation, which all point to the circulation of (non)intended mean- .......................... masculine figure and, although without rites, he is also the anthropomorphic personification of the Brah- manist universalist ideal brahman (n.), the absolute. I distinguish between Brahmanic and Brahmanist, the latter involving ideology and a universalist project. translation / spring / 2014 8 I would like to thank Naoki Sakai for pointing out to me the danger that talking about Buddhism may lead to some kind of its idealization: this is not the intention here, nor am i pleading for any kind of indi- genism. We should also meditate on the fact that this is very difficult to get through under the ordinary hegemonic translation regime. I am not dealing with the existing political instrumentalizations of Buddhism, but with the Buddhist conceptual apparatus. 62 ing and implications, with possible incalculable gaps between the two. Because we have the option between an infinite number of translations (including impossibility and unwillingness), and an equally infinite number of methods, we either translate in sheer ig- norance of our subject-position as translators/mediators, or we must have a politics of translation and know or ignore that we do. Lyotard’s Le Différend (1983) was a turning point in con- tinental philosophies as these opened to the possibility (not the guarantee) of other epistemes in principle. Since any utterance re- leases myriad possible worlds,9 as Lyotard would have it after Wittgenstein; and since a concatenation of sentences is inevitable although there is no guarantee or predictable indication—theoreti- cally—concerning their contents and “sentence regime,”10 we must count with the coexistence (and confusion) not only of sentence regimes, but of “translation regimes” as well. We might be under a sentence regime unwittingly, or apolitically, but we can also form a politics of translation by choosing this or that translation code. There are translation regimes even when there is no “translation” as such, since there is no zero degree of language, of translation, or of the human condition, including in extralinguistic matters. But then, for humans, as Buddhist philosophy knows, there is no ex- tralinguistic condition, except outside Brahmā’s net, a very unlikely although possibly desirable ambition, as in nirvāṇa. Some transla- tion from one condition to another is always at work. The difficulty of theory There is some problem with the concept of theory. One could indeed invoke Kant here, but here is a simpler approach. The problem comes from the paradox of the concept of theory’s origi- nation in the West, yet its propagation everywhere as a normative idea in science especially with modernity, and from its vertical hi- erarchy. Theory is a must. It is a contentious notion dividing the West from the rest (see Sakai 2010a; 2010b; 2011a; 2011b; 2011c; Mignolo 2011; 2012), assigning ideological advantages to the West in keeping the monopoly of theory. .......................... translation / spring / 2014 9 One and the same utterance may open up many diverse universes, as “open the window,” which may be a command or a prayer, may imply that it is cold, that it is hot, that there is an earthquake, that there is a bat in the room, that Romeo is waiting outside etc. 10 Sentence régimes, régimes de phrases: performative, imperative, interrogative etc. 63 How to translate from one episteme to the other without es- sentializing them?11 We may temporarily forego the philosophical self-critical breakthrough achieved in principle regarding the lin- gering, but eventually receding, superciliousness of Western thought, ridden with immunity. In principle, for “Western” philoso- phers, self-critique is self-understood. They have even theorized this self-critique as the achievement of Western modernity, and claimed that theirs is the only self-critical episteme. Non-Western scholars have repeated this, though it may be questionable whether anyone is non-Western at all by now (Chakrabarty 2012). The prob- lem remains. Assumptions of superiority are based on the tacit cog- nitive precondition of separating theory from practice by an insurmountable wall, an abyssal line. This division has a normative function. It grounds the ideology of western superiority but presents this as neutrality. Assumptions of preeminence sharply separate subject from object, theory from practice, “civilized” from “uncivilized,” “us” from “others.” Such divisions are characteristic of modern Western knowledge inasmuch as it is colonial, its coloniality being concomi- tant and coextensive with the historical construction of capitalism. Such bipolar structuring of knowledge serves a predatory purpose, the purpose of appropriative sciences at the service of nations and states. Academic disciplines and status–knowledge, which differ from language to language, are constructed in collusion with hege- monic colonial knowledge, which is still to a great extent operative in spite of the post-Cold War devolution into a network of biopo- litical control through various outsourcings of state prerogatives. Disciplines are circularly based on the nation, and reproduce it. Historically located polities each have a general corresponding cognitive order and translation regime, with variations, intercon- nections, interferences and overlaps. On the other hand, there is in general no separating subject and object, body and soul, theory and practice in most of ancient Asian philosophical systems or other extra-European knowledge translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 11 In the next three paragraphs, i draw on my as yet (2013) unpublished paper “The immunity paradigm’s contradictory / complementary facets” from the conference Except Asia: Agamben’s Work in Transcultural Perspective, Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, June 25–27, 2013. 64 configurations. Something of this cognitive condition is still avail- able culturally although refuted by modern sciences, coming through in various new assemblages—(post)modernity, and “West- ern” hegemony not withstanding. What has been the condition of Western understanding of the relationship sovereignty–subjectivity, namely the separation between subject and object or theory and practice, has been neither the condition of the making of politics in the “rest” nor that of sovereignty, and has not been understood as being at the root of the becoming of political subjects in the “rest.” Which means that whole genealogies of knowledge have been kept invisible to European languages, untranslated, indeed apparently untranslatable to the hegemonic gaze. But untranslatability (like absolute translatability) is also a politics. In another conceptual and translation regime, experience and “practice” can outweigh ontological consideration, theory, the latter being in any case only an attribution, a random predication onto some reified object. The implications of śūnya-vāda (the teach- ing of naught in Buddhism) are even more radical: This “theory” (śūnya-vāda) is really here an antitheory invalidating in advance, by an implacable logic, any economic reason, material interests, selfish vital interests, any speculation trusting language and reason or daring ontological qualifications and metaphysical judgments. But both the Brahmanists, who resorted to the absolute, who believed in unconditional given knowledge (Veda), as well as the philosophically nuanced Buddhists, refused building separately such concepts as “subject” or “object.” This is the advaita, nondu- alism, in both, which however doesn’t amount to monotheism. It is a disposition that is decisive even today, and present in art, liter- ature, aesthetics, much of philosophy, in some political dispensa- tions, in forms of life, and in general culture. The historical distinction subject–object known to the West and disseminated all over the world for modernity-useful purposes, is part of an appro- priating conceptual and language apparatus that always has the ten- dency to reappear. It is part of a pursuit limited and burdened by the vital interest, situated within the horizon of “lower” knowl- edge.12 translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 12 Buddhist philosophers introduced the somewhat problematic but philosophically rich distinction between ordinary and higher knowledge. The two are intertwined and the former leads to the latter, which allows 65 The preoccupation with subject and subjectivation, specific to “Europe” and the “West,” stems from monotheism. It emerges as a Mediterranean particularity, and becomes all-pervasive, through colonial history. But there were originally no comparable monotheisms in Asia (except for a late Islam). Something of the mahāyānian Buddhist philosophy can be extrapolated to most philosophies of Asia: The subject–object relationship together with the realm of politics is part of the experiential, conventional truth, limited by language and within “Brahmā’s net.” We perceive the world as plurality through the appropriational mode. Reluctant theory and unreflected theory. Théorie malgré elle If we agree that “theory” is a normative, somewhat para- doxical concept, difficult to sustain and to prove since subsequent ones will correct any theory, and if we agree that it is a normative concept originating, again, in the conceptual “West,” we then must admit that “theory” is a fragile concept. If there is no neutral theory, the normativity in a theory will be its political bias depending on its ideological, geographical, cul- tural, class, gender etc. interests. It will have an origin in a specific concern that can be defined as political and vital, with a tendency to be universalized if possible and neutralized in order to pass un- noticed. Sundar Sarukkai (2013)13 mentions examples that identify ideological biases of theories, particularly in the area of history and of philosophy of science, and also their critique. We couldn’t agree more with him, principally as he argues “that non-Western philoso- phies might actually contribute more usefully to the understanding of the complex scientific description of reality compared to the tools available in dominant western traditions” (Sarukkai 2013, 6). Indeed, there is a blatant incapacity of philosophy and of history of science to translate from one cultural register to another. I would call this failure political, a politics with a deep historic con- dition. I must quote Sarukkai extensively, before suggesting some comments and complements to his excellent work. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... for an unphilosophical jump to esoteric knowledge in popular Buddhism and elsewhere, later. But it also allows important philosophical speculation. 13 I would like to thank Sundar Sarukkai for letting me engage with his important paper here. 66 What is striking about these [Western or after the Western pattern] discussions is that there is no mention of the non-European traditions in all these debates about H[istory of] S[cience] and P[hilosophy of] S[cience]. Even in the invocations of “tradition” and the “ever-changing fabric of human culture” there is no mention of the possible histories of the non-West which might be of interest to this debate. (Sarukkai 2013, 3) Sarukkai displaces his argument on the political terrain without announcing it. He switches from the HS and PS level to the political. Indeed, silencing a discourse is a political act, besides being a cognitive one. The two registers (scientific and political) come in the same wording, but have different implications. Yet as Sarukkai expects an answer from history of science and philosophy of science, he withdraws from the political register again (although a broader reading would have both history of science and philoso- phy of science as political, but this is not Sarukkai’s option.) Elsharky14 makes the important observation that it was the creation of the new disci- pline of history of science that begins to propagate a global ideology of science based on universal values. This effort, beginning before WW I, began to use a new ideology of internationalism in order to reshape the idea of science. Using notions such as Sci- entific Revolution, this discipline departed from the earlier syncretic model in order to frame the new global science which became synonymous with western science. (Sarukkai 2013, 5) Here, Sarukkai acknowledges a political and ideological dimension to history of science and philosophy of science, and he would be right in expecting an answer in political terms. But he stops short. He fails to acknowledge the national character and framework of the discipline of history of science—part and parcel of the international and colonial configuration of “Western sci- ence.” History, be it of science, was born as the foremost national discipline. If, as enough work in H[istory of] S[cience] clearly shows, colonialism and imperialism influence the very creation of the larger historical and philosophical themes associated with modern science then why is there still appreciable resistance to a critical engage- ment with other scientific traditions in the world? Ignoring them only continues this translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 14 Referenced by Sarukkai as M. Elshakry, “When Science Became Western: Historiographical Reflections,” Isis 101, 2010. See also Jack Goody (2007). 67 process of colonialism and imperialism and this is more dangerous since it is now done implicitly. (Sarukkai 2013, 5) But the “other scientific traditions in the world” are also national, since the nation has prevailed as an organizational princi- ple even retrospectively, when we say “Indian philosophy” or “Greek philosophy,” meaning antiquity. We are now clearly on po- litical terrain. But where does the identified “resistance to critical engagement with other scientific traditions” occur? Presumably, again in history and philosophy of science only, which are also pointed to by the author as coming from the Western cognitive hegemony. Why not seek alliances where doors are open, in (some) political philosophy? Why not break out of a limiting discipline, discourse, and translation regime? Sarukkai further remarks that philosophy of science ignores Indian logic because the latter doesn’t distinguish between the em- pirical and the formal (Sarukkai 2013, 7), or indeed between theory and practice. This observation is fine, but the problem is now defin- ing “Indian logic” as if it were a fact given once and for all, as some kind of retroactively operating national logic. If we wish to over- come historical unfairness due to the national construction of knowledge and its transmission, the solution cannot be to claim fairness for one nation or “national” science, “ours,” but only to critique that general national blueprint of knowledge construction. In the Indian case, the extensive work on Indian metallurgy, chemistry and mathemat- ics—to give a few examples—have conclusively proved the presence of an active the- oretical and practical engagement with activities that seem to be similar to other such activities in early Greek and later Europe. However, this does not mean that there was a universal way of doing and creating science. (Sarukkai 2013, 7, italics mine) Again—the comparison is national for all examples, and the nations fixed and defined as preexisting the translation opera- tion. More importantly, Sarukkai doesn’t link whatever he notes in the just quoted paragraphs with the absence of divide between the- ory and practice in “Indian” philosophy (reproached by “Western” views to “Indian” thought). Surprisingly, he invokes it without clar- translation / spring / 2014 ifying the relation between “theory” and “practice,” without defin- ing them or tracing their genealogy. But the divide between theory and practice (a marked hierarchy too) is originally a typically mod- 68 ern Western one. Why would it oblige Sarukkai to conform in any way, if he contests the latter’s logic? There is a skewed mainstream history of science which does not take into account non-Western contributions in the creation of science (ironical considering the work in H[istory of] S[cience] which questions this view!). We need to take this ideology of the mainstream history of science seriously for the harm it has created to non-Western societies—the harm extends from their students to government policies and indeed has had a great impact on these cultures. An exclusivist history of science that keeps the possibility of the scientific imagination within a constructed Greek and European history does great violence not only to other non-Western cultures but also to the very spirit of the scien- tific quest. (Sarukkai 2013, 8) It is the national configuration of knowledge that needs to be overcome. One step further is needed. Why not combat Western history and philosophy of science with the help of “Western” and “non-Western” political philosophy and other disciplines of the kind that take into account those other epistemologies? Why not draw a broader picture involving a critique of the logic of the epis- teme? If we do that, we will also find that an episteme is coexten- sive, coexistent, and enmeshed with a mode of production, forms of life, a political regime, a construct of culture and language, and that we need to look for a broader context. As Solomon writes, “One of the qualities that distinguishes the West as a paradigm of the modern apparatus of area is the institutionalization of transla- tion-as-cultural transference through the disciplinary control of bodies of knowledge” (Solomon 2013). [T]he social formation that we have come to know as ‘the West’ is precisely that form of community that reserves for itself, among all other forms of human community, the key position in the speciation of the human, the place where the epistemological project is articulated to the politico-ontological one. Seen in this light, the West aspires to be the sole community that is self-aware, through scientific knowledge, of humanity’s ac- tive participation in its own speciation. Yet it is not simply by virtue of a proprietary claim over knowledge that the West has been able to form itself as the pole or center or model of human population management in general. In order to occupy this position, it has been necessary to construct out of the contingency of historical encounter (colo- nialism) a political system for effective population management (effective from the point of view of capitalist accumulation). (Solomon 2013, n. p.) translation / spring / 2014 I argue that the separation reproduced by Sarukkai between hard sciences on the one hand as well as the social sciences and po- 69 litical philosophy on the other coincides with the problematic dis- tinction between theory and practice mechanically taken over from positivism and from some unsophisticated forms of Marxism. It is itself “Western” in origin and manner, but, what is more important, it belongs to appropriative knowledge. It has also become quite uni- versal by now. History of science still draw[s] on philosophical concepts that are also available in alternate philosophical traditions. There is no reason to believe that these philosophical ideas are irrelevant to these contemporary concerns of philosophy of science. (Sarukkai 2013, 8) I agree. Connective history of science will by necessity have to deal with and incorporate al- ternate worldviews and philosophical concepts. (Sarukkai 2013, 8) I agree, but additional efforts are needed to achieve this and get out of the system. Connective history of science is a move towards a “global history of local science.” (Sarukkai 2013, 9) Agreed, but it is also a move towards a “global history of science” tout court, since the local–global distinction reproduces the other divides that are at the basis of objectal, and eventually predatory knowledge—particularly congenial to globalized capi- talism. Such knowledge was alien to and discarded by ancient “Asian” philosophical systems. Although this has been revised as modernity made its way, refusing objectal, appropriative knowledge instrumental to production has nevertheless persisted as an alter- native scientific temper in “India” and generally in Asia as well as elsewhere. But Sarukkai only insists that Indians did have all the rationality needed for modern industry, and that their knowledge was merely stolen by the British through distinguishing between “theory” and “practice.” That is surely only part of the story. When the British encountered many Indian inventions in science and technology, they translation / spring / 2014 made use of them in order to establish their own industries but refused to acknowledge that these processes were part of scientific rationality. Claims that these Indian inven- tions were more a product of “doing” rather than “knowing,” specifically a theoretical 70 mode of knowing, made it easy for them to reject the claim of science to almost all in- tellectual contributions from India.” (Sarukkai 2013, 9) How can we project India back, a later and national forma- tion, onto ancient science? The fact that Western philosophy has always done exactly that with ancient Greek thought does not jus- tify the mimetic gesture. That would keep us within the system in- stead of showing ways out. We need some other “scientific” and, eventually, political imagination. A useful investigation here, in line with Sarukkai’s attempt, would be to probe into the parallel, inter- twined, interrelated structures of knowledge, power and produc- tion. About the normativity of science and theory: “One of the primary ways by which the title of science is denied to non-Western intellectual traditions is through the invocation of terms such as logic, scientific method, evidence, prediction and so on” (Sarukkai 2013, 9). While discovering the normativity of hegemonic forms of knowledge, Sundar Sarukkai fails to investigate the relationship be- tween knowledge, production and political system, and thus de- prives himself of the help that political thought could bring, including a consideration of the terms of translation. He remains riveted to a world with fixed identities, which reduces translation to a sterile bipolar exercise that ignores the fluidity of relations. Sarukkai further significantly argues that western mathe- matics are irreparably linked to Platonism, unlike Indian mathe- matics. This makes it impossible for the former to recognize the latter. From seeing the trees, Sarukkai doesn’t see the forest! His claim about Platonism is extremely important: It implies the body- and-soul, theory-and-practice divisions. It will become systemic and institutionalized through monotheism (Christianity) among oth- ers, and hence, in modernity, through the grounding of state sover- eignty and all this implies. Platonism will pervade all spheres of life, labor, and culture, not only mathematics, so that understanding and deconstructing it will require social sciences, one step further from the history and philosophy of science because these too need translation / spring / 2014 to be questioned (not that social sciences are in any way a guaran- tee). It is the whole framework, the regime of translation that re- quires interrogation. 71 What is really so mysterious (a word used by Einstein in this context) about the use of mathematics? The major reason for this mystery is Platonism. If mathematical entities exist in a nonspatiotemporal world then how do we spatiotemporal beings have knowl- edge of them? For these scientists, who viewed mathematics along such a nonempirical axis, the use of mathematics was surprising. Its “natural match” with physical concepts was a source of mystery only if we first begin with a clear disjunction between math- ematics and the world.15 (Sarukkai 2005, 11) Very well: a clear disjunction between subject and object, theory and practice, body and soul, man and woman could also be stated in the same line. The disjunction between mathematics and the world corresponds to that between body and soul of the Chris- tian episteme. It has been the main apparatus of capturing the ma- terial world by the vested interests of dominant classes, and thus of hegemony. Sarukkai proceeds: It is precisely this point which Indian mathematics would challenge. Mathematics is essential to this world; it arises from this world and through human action. The puzzle of applicability will take on a completely different form if we begin with the assumption that mathematics is enworlded and embodied. Interestingly, this is a position that has now gained some ground through the framework of cognitive studies but in a pre- dictable replay these approaches also make no mention of such approaches in non- Western traditions. (Sarukkai 2005, 11) The disjunction of mathematics with the world also implies that of theory with practice, of soul with body, of man with woman, as it entails hierarchical normative relations. One could be more ambitious than Sarukkai, while supporting his critique, and claim that it is not only mathematics but the whole episteme which is af- fected by such disjunctions; and that these do not appear, or not to the same extent, in extra-European epistemes—that is, in non hege- monic epistemes (except for the universal divide, diversely imple- mented, between men and women). There is a historic reason for this: these extra-European epistemes, far from being more right- eous, have not been able to impose themselves as hegemonic, con- sidering the colonial leaning and attraction for power involved in any knowledge. No answer can come solely from traditional phi- losophy of science or history of science here, but rather through a translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 15 The author’s reference here is Sarukkai, 2005. 72 more comprehensive approach and critique of translation regimes, by way of political philosophy, or through an all-encompassing ap- proach that will question the whole hegemonic episteme and con- crete national epistemes too, their genealogy and apparatus. Sarukkai convincingly argues that contributions of “Indian philosophies and sciences” to science in general have been occulted and obscured, impoverishing the history of science of important parts of its heritage. He also gives examples of how varied and rich “Indian physics” or metaphysics (considerations of matter, sub- stance, nature, elements, quality, inherence, motion, etc.) have been ignored, how different schools of “Indian logic” have been uncared for, while similar views from “Greek” philosophy have become the only reference and terminus even though “Indian” examples could have been offered. This additionally left out of sight original “In- dian” contributions. Sarukkai therefore proposes the method of a connective history of science which would take into account the philosophical context of the different historic configurations where all contributions to “global science” would be acknowledged, help- ing the advancement of both science and its history. But without an extra step, he will remain within the system he pledges to cri- tique. Sarukkai has the enormous merit of identifying the non-Pla- tonism in “Indian” sciences, which has earned it nonrecognition on the side of “Western” universalized knowledge. Another important characteristic may be mentioned con- comitantly here that added to “Indian” philosophies being rejected by the “Western” ones, and that has been mediated especially through Buddhism: the purposeful nonrecognition of any kind of subject (or any kind of subject/object divide) on the “Indian” side, and thus the not grounding of any kind of (state) sovereignty at the other end of the scale (Iveković, 2014). While i share Sarukkai’s observations about the configuration of “Indian” philosophies and while i think that they can be enlarged and applied to other areas of knowledge, i would also suggest that it would be more than nec- essary to define or discard terms such as “Indian,” “Indian science” etc. in the way of deconstructing the national scaffolding, if we wish to overcome the given national and transnational framework translation / spring / 2014 and inner logic we critique. 73 For a critical (Anti)Theory of Translation: competing transla- tion politics Theories are built by subjects and sovereigns, and when successfully hegemonic, also in support of sovereignties. Sover- eigns need to have a monolithic national language that is also the language of command and of maintaining the system. Theories are linked to conjuncture, to places, to specific and interested readings of history, to fending for the dominant regime of thinking, of lan- guages, of translation, and, once they prevail, for mainstream. Today it is global capitalism. The reluctant “theories” we are nev- ertheless practicing as processes, for better or for worse, can at best attempt to deconstruct the national framework of knowledge as well as of its transmission (theory), through inventing new politics of liberation and new imaginaires of translation. It must be understood that translation does not guarantee freedom of any kind, and that it can be as much a politics of conquest, capture, exploration-and- exploitation,16 and colonialism, whether inner17 or outer. But poli- tics of translation may be invented. Since they will necessarily be forever amendable, such politics of translation may rather not re- spond to the high name of theory. They will be checked by transla- tion practices in view of their resistance to new enclosures within an “unsurpassable” capitalist horizon. Theory tends to correspond within knowledge, in a figure of co-figuration,18 to the sovereignty of the political sphere. It tends to be absolutized, to produce transcendence and an absolute other. It has also been historically self-attributed, self-complacent, and reserved by the West to itself. This construction originally comes from the monotheistic Mediterranean context where god as the supreme subject (sovereign) is the necessary condition to the projection of the human (epi)subject: no god, no subject. The theory has its modern developments and versions. One of the sub- ject’s declensions will be the nation. Theory is a kind of (barely) .......................... 16 One and the same word, exploração appropriately denoting “exploitation” and not “exploring” in Por- tuguese. translation / spring / 2014 17 By inner colonialism i mean the treatment of such groups as women, Roma, migrants, minorities, or whoever the excluded beyond the abyssal lines (Boaventura de Sousa Santos) or subordinated of one time are. See de Sousa Santos (2000) and de Sousa Santos (2007). 18 Sakai’s important term in a slightly different application. See N. Sakai (1997). 74 secularized cognitive variant of divine transcendence.19 “Scientific knowledge” has been intertwined with and in- separable from theology. Theory will sustain the sovereign (whether godly or human) and its emanation, the subject, as well as their separation from life experience. The subject (and, in its/his stead, derivatively, the epi-subject), custodian of Revelation (San- skrit: śruti), kicks a “beginning” as if it were absolute. The multiple genealogies, origins, and inheritances of theory, however carefully hidden and silenced, resurface again and again, disputing its high and unique status. In fact, what is hidden is the whole apparatus of theory-established hierarchies and exclusion—that is, the mecha- nism of its sovereignist claim (see Solomon 2013). Theory’s tools are language and narration, just as in less theoretical matters. In South Asian ancient philosophies in Sanskrit, this corresponds to the hammered—but really constructed and ideological—difference between śruti and smṛti. Theory will also distribute names and set grades, in which its function—as well as that of language through master-narra- tives—is not very different from that of foundational myths (smṛti). The Greek divide and constructed abyssal gap between logos and muthos (taken over into the Christian religion in corresponding form, and parallel to the developing split between theory and prac- tice) reinforces and maintains the coloniality of knowledge and power: all “others,” whether inner or outer, have systematically been reduced to muthos and nontheory (mere “practice”), as irra- tional and incapable of science. This separation, downgrading, ex- ception, is also an exemption from sovereignty. “Others” were deemed bereft of autonomy out of their own limitation: other con- tinents, women, and any other group, form of life, or translation regime under that label. Theory, as much as god, designates the other. There are certainly ways, and historic experiences, of not complying with such a diktat, that amount to “other possibilities of the spirit.” François Jullien says that such “other possibilities” are translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 19 See François Jullien (2012, 107): “[L]es ‘Grecs’ ont-ils jamais existé? N’ont-ils pas été forgés par nos Humanités?” A similar point is made in Prasenjit Duara (forthcoming). I would like to thank Duara for al- lowing me to read chapters of his work in progress. 75 not always played out, and he goes on unveiling them by “compar- ing” Greek, Christian, and Chinese thinking histories: they become particularly visible when various civilizational options are rubbed against each other. We mentioned some, stemming from what would ultimately be known as (ancient) “Indian” philosophies, while Jullien has been showing it for the Chinese worldviews. Chi- nese or “Indian” philosophies did not delve the insuperable gap between logos and muthos, or theory and practice. No grand nar- ratives were therefore constructed in China, according to Jullien: China had no need to posit god, and the word is not foundational there (see Jullien 2012, 68, 69, 70, and 98).20 Jullien pleads in favor of reading a system of thought “from outside,” through “contrasting parallels” (which is not a dichotomic hierarchical comparison of the classical Western type, and does not presuppose prior categorization), through letting go, letting play parallels, through yielding, through detachment from one’s own/unique culture. The contrastivity, letting the effects of a gap work, will shed light on avenues of thought that have not been ful- filled (Jullien 2012, 65 and following). He calls the contrasting of Chinese and Western thought “entering a way of thinking” (entrer dans une pensée). Such an entry is not afforded through a narrative or a subject behind it. It is operated from a declension or inclination of the reader, of the translator, of the one who approaches a “way of thinking,” who is changed in the process: the translator is trans- lated as she discovers the unthought (l’impensé) lying at the base of thought. It would be difficult to translate this into Sakai’s trans- lation theory, but, like the latter, the former doesn’t believe in neu- tral translation or a neutral ground between contrasted elements. In both, this entails concrete political responsibility from case to case. Discarding one’s armature of thinking, deconstructing and dislo- cating the national construction and fixed framework of knowledge (see Iveković 2007b; 2009–2010) is a necessary precondition and way of doing this. Contrasting without establishing categories and hierarchies, without heeding disciplines (molded by national cultures and insti- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 20 Although an “Asian” disposition, this does not fully correspond to Brahmanic (consider the Veda, Ma- habharata, and Ramayana) or Hindu thought (see Rada Iveković 1992). 76 tutions), may be particularly helpful in highlighting unexpected possibilities, unfulfilled options, or eschewed results. Given that disciplines denote borders of theoretical territories, ignoring them sometimes allows passing beside, below, above, or through dividing lines. This might be a possible way indeed in systems where there is no dominant narrative or vertical epistemological hierarchy, no historic construction of sovereignty and of the concept of a subject (Iveković 2013), such as is sometimes the case in Asia or elsewhere in once colonized continents, or where there has been some consti- tutive (even merely) structural resistance to monolithic national narratives. Times of crises put an accent on the subject’s wavering (Europe today), but can prompt these other thinking options where the concept of a subject was purposely avoided. The great writer and philosopher Radomir Konstantinović wrote about the tension resulting from the inner cleavage of the cit- izen and of the communist, important figures of the subject in twen- tieth-century Yugoslavia (but metaphorically, also elsewhere), ending in the failure of both (Konstantinović 1981).21 Konstantinović’s pessimistic message concerning Western modernity in general was that the political subjectivation of the cit- izen may end in nationalism/Nazism.22 He exemplifies it with the Serbian case. His optimistic message comes with, in principle, open possibilities (the blank of the borderline spirit of the crisis, palanka) and through the split subject. Paradoxically, this is best shown in art, writing, and trans- lation, as in the self-fulfilled prophecy of the novel or drama that can only signal the impossibility of a novel (as the form par excel- lence of national citizenship) or of drama: in the same way in which the only possible subjectivation from perhaps the end of the 1960s is—the impossibility of constituting a subject. Did Yugoslavia not implode because of that impossibility, having no middle class and no nation, supposed to be only a secu- larized administrative, common post-national frame? No drama was to oppress its nonsubject citizens, who were to be spared the .......................... translation / spring / 2014 21 See also French excerpts in Konstantinović (2001a), Konstantinović (2001b), and Konstantinović (2001c). Other French excerpts can also be found in Becket and Konstantinović (2000), and Iveković (1998). 22 Konstantinović talked about modernity as such, irrespective of whether capitalist or socialist: the pattern, for him, was the same, and socialism was a form of modernity. 77 need to engage in politics (my generation), because everything had been taken care of by our revolutionary fathers in the Second World War through resistance to the Nazis? Revolution was “museified,” drama excluded. Radomir Konstantinović tried to think the non- subjectified subject of our times,23 the one incapable of, or refusing translation as exchange and fluidity; the one allowing only for ab- solute translation (see Iveković 2011), entrenching borders, social relations and inequalities.24 Naoki Sakai however deems that nation is not a fatality or a necessity, and that it could have been avoided. What forms in Asia could have helped such an alternative? It is difficult to imagine other options, he insists, from within the prevailing one. We could have had another world, with no nationalities and no nation states. In particular, it was not the destiny of Asia, which took a very long time to adapt to the international world. According to Sakai, na- tionality was not given, being “a restricted and distorted derivative of transnationality.” Like language being the result of translation (and not vice-versa), so is nationality the outcome of transnation- ality that precedes it. “A bordering turn must be accompanied the- oretically by a translational turn: bordering and translation are both problematics projected by the same theoretical perspective” (Sakai 2013). Writing of the scandals with the cartoons of prophet Mo- hammad, Judith Butler analyses the ways in which, according to different frameworks (Christian or Muslim), we may diversely un- derstand the term “blasphemy”: “the translation has to take place within divergent frames of moral evaluation. […] in some ways the conflict that emerged in the wake of the publication of the Danish cartoons is one between competing moral frameworks, understand- ing ‘blasphemy’ as a tense and overdetermined site for the conver- gence of differing schemes of moral value” (Butler 2009, 103–104). .......................... 23 See not only Konstantinović (1981), but also downloadable texts by and on him in Serbo-Croatian, in- cluding Konstantinović (n.d.). The site from which these texts can be downloaded () is an archive of impor- translation / spring / 2014 tant Yugoslav intellectual and political works and is run by Branimir Stojanović Trša. On Konstantinović, see also Sarajevske Sveske, an on-line Serbo–Croat journal. See also Klaus Theweleit (1977 and 1988), and Iveković (2009). 24 On bordering as a process, see Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2003) and (2013). See also Sakai in general, but (2013) in particular. 78 There are thus competing translation codes or regimes, much as Balibar identifies competing universalisms.25 They may go hand in hand. Wendy Brown has it that cri- tique (and theory?) have been identified with secularism. As we know from Balibar (see especially 2012), secularism or cosmopoli- tanism and religion compete on the same terrain. It is all a matter of translation. It is on that contested terrain that various political options for translation can unfold. Alas, there is “normally” no imaginative power or political imagination enabling us to think a world without nations, nationalities and borders, or translating them: in order to do so, we must step without that frame through our mind’s eye. This is a contribution towards an attempt to start thinking one. The question of political translation becomes a concrete one at times of crisis and reshuffling. We are currently in one such age, and trans- lation may well be one of the tools. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 25 Étienne Balibar, from “Les universels” (1997) through “Sub specie universitatis” (2006), develops the observation of competing universalisms, then, logically, with his paper “Cosmopolitanism and Secularism: Controversial Legacies and Prospective Interrogations” (2011), that of competing national sovereignties and competing religions or secularisms. This matter is taken up once again in Balibar (2012). 79 References Balibar, Étienne. 1997. “Les Universels,” in La Crainte des masses. Paris: Galilée. 421–454. ———. 2006. “Sub specie universitatis.” Topoi 25: 3–16. doi:10.1007/s11245-006- 0001-6. ———. 2009. “Several issues in the work of Jan Assman.” Transeuropéennes 22. 199-202. ———. 2011. “Cosmopolitanism and Secularism: Controversial Legacies and Prospective Interrogations.” Grey Room 44: 6–25. ———. 2012. Saeculum. Culture, religion, idéologie. Paris: Galilée. Beckett, Samuel and Radomir Konstantinović. 2000. «–Ne rien céder à la traduction/Yield nothing to translation–», Transeuropéennes, n° 22. 187– 199, letters by Beckett tr. by Cathy Lenihan from French, essay by Kon- stantinović tr. by Nataša Ilić from Serbian. (From Konstantinović, Radomir. 2000. Beket prijatelj. Belgrade: Otkorvenje, 38-40; 78-93. http://www.uciteljneznalica.org/upload/ebook/Konstantinović%20Radomir;%20Beket %20prijatelj;%20;%20Otkrovenje;%202000.pdf. Buden, Boris. 2013. “Translating Beyond Europe.” eine kommunalität, die nicht sprechen kann: europa in übersetzung 6. http://eipcp.net/transversal/ 0613/Buden/en. Butler, Judith. 2009. “The Sensibility of Critique: Response to Asad and Mahmood,” in Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Saba Mahmood, Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech. Berkley: The Townsend Cen- ter for the Humanities. 101-136. Cassin, Barbara, ed. 2004. Le Vocabulaire européen des philosophies. Dictionnaire des intraduisibles. Paris: Seuil–Le Robert. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2012. “From Civilization to Globalization: The ‘West’ as a Shift- ing Signifier in Indian Modernity.” Shanghai Museum. http://www.tandfon- line.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14649373.2012.636877. de Sousa Santos, B. 2000. Para um novo senso comum (vol. 1): A crítica da razão in- dolente. Contra o desperdício da experiência. São Paulo: Cortez. ———. 2007. “Beyond abyssal thinking. From global lines to ecologies of knowl- edges.” Eurozine. http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-29-santos- en.html Duara, Prasenjit. Forthcoming. Transcendence in a secular world: Asian Traditions and Sustainable Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goody, Jack. 2007. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Iveković, Rada. 1992. Orients: critique de la raison postmoderne. Paris: Blandin. ———. 1998. “Radomir Konstantinović, La philosophie du bourg, La mort de Descartes.” La République des lettres. Available at http://www.republique- translation / spring / 2014 des-lettres.fr/855-radomir-konstantinovic.php. ———. 2002a. “De la traduction permanente (nous sommes en traduction)/On Per- manent Translation (We are in Translation).” Transeuropéennes 22. 121– 145. 80 ———. 2002b. “De la traduction permanente (nous sommes en traduction)/On Per- manent Translation (We are in Translation).” eipcp-translate, Under trans- lation. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0606/ivekovic/en. ———. 2007a. “Born in Babel.” eipcp-transversal, gespräche zur übersetzung. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0908/ivekovic-buden/en. ———. 2008. “Translating Borders. Limits of nationalism, transnationalism, trans- lationalism.” eipcp-translate, borders, nations, translations. http://eipcp.net/ transversal/0608/ivekovic/en. ———. 2009. Autopsie of the Balkans. A Psychopolitical Essay. Available in French at http://radaivekovicunblogfr.unblog.fr/2009/10/30/autopsie-des-balkans- essai-de-psychopolitique-livre/. ———. 2011. “Resisting Absolute Translation. For a politics of culture.” Incroci di sguardi. Interculturalità, relativismo e globalizzazione, special issue of In- croci edited by Antonella Pocecco and Nicoletta Vasta. 36–47. ———. 2013. “Sovereignties, Buddhisms, post-1989: an epistemological conundrum in rising Asia.” ARI Working Papers Series. Singapore: National University of Singapore. http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/docs/wps/wps13_206.pdf. ———. 2014. L’éloquence tempérée du Bouddha. Souverainetés et dépossession de soi. Paris: Klincksieck, Paris. Iveković, Rada, ed. 2007b. Translating violence. Special issue of eipcp-transversal. http://eipcp.net/transversal/1107. ———. 2009–2010. Que veut dire traduire? Special issue of Asylon(s) 7. http://www.reseau-terra.eu/rubrique171.html. Julien, François. 2012. Entrer dans une pensée, ou Des possibles de l’esprit. Galli- mard: Paris. Konstantinović, Radomir. 1981 [1969]. Filozofija palanke. Belgrade: Nolit. ———. 2001a. “Le Style du bourg.” Transeuropéennes 21. 129–139. ———. 2001b. “Sur le nazisme serbe.” Lignes 6. 53-74. ———. 2001c. “La Mort de Descartes et la désolation du bourg.” Transeuropéennes 21: 174–178. ———. n.d. Dekartova smrt. http://www.uciteljneznalica.org/list-arhive-autora-2.htm. Lyotard, Jean-François, 1983. Le Différend. Paris: Minuit. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2008. “Border as Method, or, The Multiplication of Labor.” eipcp-translate, Borders, nation, translation. http://eipcp.net/ transversal/0608/mezzadraneilson/en. ———. 2013. Border as Method, or, The Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mignolo, Walter. 2011. “Géopolitique de la connaissance, colonialité du pouvoir et différence coloniale.” Multitudes 6. http://multitudes.samizdat.net/Geopoli- tique-de-la-connaissance.html. ———. 2012. “Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing. On (De)Coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience.” eipcp-transversal, unsettling knowledges. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112/mignolo/en. translation / spring / 2014 Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nation- alism. Minneapolis–London: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2010a. “Theory and Asian Humanity: on the question of humanitas and an- thropos.” Postcolonial Studies 13 (4): 441–464. 81 ———. 2010b. “Translation as a filter.” Transeuropéennes. http://www.transeu- ropeennes.eu/en/articles/200/Translation_as_a_filter/Sakai. ———. 2011a. “Theory and the West: On the Question of Humanitas and Anthro- pos.” Transeuropéennes. http://www.transeuropeennes.eu/en/arti- cles/316/Theory_and_the_West/Sakai. ———. 2011b.“Le genre, enjeu politique et langage du nationalisme post-colonial japonais.” Cahiers du genre 50 (1): 41–64. ———. 2011c. “The Body of the Nation : the Pastorate, the Emperor System and the Society of Sympathy of Japan’s Intellectual Modernization.” In Biopolitics, Ethics and Subjectivation, edited by A. Brossat, J. C. H. Liu, Y-H. Chu, and R. Iveković. Paris: L’Harmattan. 91–120. ———. 2013. “The Microphysics of Comparison. Towards the Dislocation of the West.” In eipcp-translate, eine kommunalität, die nicht sprechen kann: eu- ropa in übersetzung, http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/sakai1/en/#_ednref1. Sarajevske Sveske. http://sveske.ba/. Sarukkai, Sundar. 2005. “Revisiting the ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness’ of mathemat- ics.” Current Science 88 (3). 415–423. ———. 2013. “Philosophical Implications of Connective History of Science,” paper at the workshop “The Bright Dark Ages: Comparative and Connective Per- spectives,” organized by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, February. 27–28. Solomon, Jon. 2013. “Another European Crisis?! Myth, translation, and the apparatus of area.” eipcp-transversal, a communality that cannot speak: europe in translation, June. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/solomon/en. Theweleit, Klaus. 1977. Männerphantasien. Volume 1. Basel: Verlag Roter Stern/Stroemfeld. ———. 1978. Männerphantasien. Volume 2. Basel: Verlag Roter Stern/Stroemfeld. Rada Iveković lives and works in Paris. She is a philosopher. Articles: “The Watershed of Modernity,” http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JSKSdg2Ag Taxgvg9V67F/full; “Politiques de la philosophie à partir de la modernité” (in English and French), www.transeuropeennes.eu/fr/articles/113; “For whom the whistle blows: Welcome to the immunity frontier,”; www.africanrhetoric.org/pdf/O%20AYOR %203_1%20Ivekovic.pdf; “Gender and nation” (audio recording in French), http://www. translation / spring / 2014 mondialisations.org/php/public/art.php?id=36101&lan=FR; L’éloquence tempérée du Bouddha. Souverainetés et dépossession de soi (2014); http://eipcp.net /bio/ivekovic. 82

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At the Borders of Europe From Cosmopolitanism to Cosmopolitics Étienne Balibar ........................... Kingston University, London, UK [email protected] Abstract: The essay addresses uses of “cosmopolitanism” and “cosmopolitics” in the current global political conjuncture, from a European point of view. Against the assumption (by Jürgen Habermas in particular) that Europe could become the typical cosmopolitan continent through a natural continuation of its uni- versalist traditions, it argues that the universal exists only in the form of con- flicting universalities. Eurocentrism therefore deserves not only a refutation, but a genuine deconstruction. Expanding on previous contributions, I focus on the historical transformation or the “border” as a quasi-transcendental condition for the constitution of the political, which is paradoxically reflected in its center. The “central” character of the “periphery” acquires a new visibility in the con- temporary period. A “phenomenology of the border” becomes a prerequisite for an analysis of the citizen. I examine tentatively three moments: first, the antithesis of war and translation as contradictory overlapping models of the Political, which I call “polemological” and “philological” respectively; second, the equivocality of the category of the stranger, who tends to become reduced to the enemy in the crisis of the nation-state; third, the cosmopolitical difficulty of Europe to deal with its double otherness, regarding other Europeans and non-Europeans who are targeted by complementary forms of xenophobia. ______________ In this essay, I want to address questions of common inter- est about the use and relevance of such notions as “cosmopoli- tanism” and “cosmopolitics” in the current global political conjuncture, and I will do so mainly from a European point of view. This might seem a contradiction in terms, since the overcoming of a certain Eurocentrism forms one of the preconditions for the de- velopment of a cosmopolitical discourse. I have two reasons for doing so, both linked to a certain practice of critical theorizing. The first is that—in spite of some very interesting refer- translation / spring / 2014 ences to the idea of cosmopolitanism, or its transformation, in so- called postcolonial discourse—the continuous reference to cosmopolitanism today seems largely a product of the self-con- 83 sciousness of Europeans seeking to understand, if not to promote, Europe’s autonomous contribution to the regulation of conflicts in the new Global order. Habermas’s “return to Kant” (and others as well, from which I do not except myself) is typical in this respect. It is as if, after becoming the first imperial “center” of modern his- tory, Europe could become the typical cosmopolitan continent through a natural continuation, or perhaps a dialectical reversal, building its new political figure in this perspective. This implicit claim, shared by many of us, has to be compared with realities, and examined as a discursive formation. The second reason refers to an even more general perspec- tives of “politics of the universal,” which would take into account the conflictual character of universality as such, or the fact that the universal historically exists only in the form of conflicting univer- salities, both inseparable and incompatible. Universalities become conflictual because they are built on the absolutization of antithetic values, but also because they are enunciated in different places by different actors in the concrete process of world history. From this point of view, “Eurocentrism” has a paradoxical, if not unique, po- sition: it is the discourse whose pretense at incarnating universalism in the name of reason, or culture, or legal principles, is most likely to become increasingly challenged and refuted, as the history of the European and “new European” conquest of the world becomes re- examined from a critical point of view. But it is also a symbolic or conceptual pattern which is likely to remain untouched while re- jected or reversed or to become transferred to other imagined com- munities. As a consequence, Eurocentrism deserves not only a rejection or a refutation, but a genuine deconstruction—that is, a critique which dissolves and transforms it from the inside, in order to produce a self-understanding of its premises and functions. In this sense, a deconstruction of Eurocentrism performed by the Eu- ropeans themselves—with the help of many others—is not only a precondition for the undertaking of any postimperial “cosmopoli- tics,” it is part of its construction itself. A distinction of cosmopolitan discourse (or theory) and practical cosmopolitics seems now to have gained a very wide ac- translation / spring / 2014 ceptance, and, while I make use of it, I certainly claim no particular originality. It apparently results from three interrelated considera- tions. First, from the idea of reversing utopia into practice, or re- 84 turning from the elaboration of a cosmopolitan idea (which could serve as a regulatory model for the development of institutions) to the programs, instruments, objectives, of a politics whose actors, be they states or other social individualities, immediately operate and become interrelated at the world level. Note that such an idea can be associated with the consideration of globalized processes in the field of economy, strategy, communications, in opposite ways. It can be argued that the overcoming of the utopian moment of cos- mopolitanism arises as a consequence of the globalizing phenom- ena themselves. The material conditions would now exist for cosmopolitanism to pass from utopia into reality, if not “science.” There would even exist already something like an “actually existing cosmopolitanism,” to recall the title of one of the sections in Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins’s influential anthology (1998), which could become politicized or provide a cosmopolitics or Weltinnen- politik with its practical and affective support. But it can be argued also that globalization destroys the possibility of a cosmopolitan utopia, or deprives it of any nonideological function, because cos- mopolitanism was only possible as an idealized counterpart for the fact that, however global or transnational its objectives might be, which is particularly the case of socialist internationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, actual politics remained rooted in local, and particularly national, communities (see Balibar 2006a). This ideal projects a solution or final settlement for the actual con- flicts, and for that reason would grant a foundational value to the prospect or project of peace, in particular the establishment of peace through the implementation of law. This leads us to another powerful reason for the substitution of a practical notion of cosmopolitics for the classical ideal of cos- mopolitanism, which has to do with the broadly shared idea that the proper realm of politics is conflict. What Globalization has mainly achieved is a generalization of conflicts of multiple forms, reviving old ones (for example, between religious and secular forces) and perpetuating recent ones, displaying them all at the level of the whole world: and so the ultimate horizon of politics in the global age, with no predictable end, would be the fighting of con- translation / spring / 2014 flicts or the attempt at regulating them, but never putting an end to them. Such an idea is common to many authors today, albeit with important nuances: it is there in Ulrich Beck’s thesis that the “cos- 85 mopolitical gaze” presupposes that “war is peace” or their respec- tive realms are no longer fully discernible (Beck 2006). It is there also in Chantal Mouffe’s representation of an “agonistic pluralism” that informs the macropolarities of the progressively emerging post- national political sphere (see Moufffe 2000). And it is there in Eti- enne Tassin, who along Arendtian lines, but also drawing the consequences from a postmodernist critique of the notions of po- litical consensus and collective identities, seeks to articulate differ- ent concepts of resistance to the destruction of the “common world” which results from the uncontrolled processes of capitalist global- ization (see Tassin 2003). But again there is a wide range of dis- cursive positions here, including a certain equivocity of the use of the category “conflict.” At one end we have conflict understood as a specific form of political practice, in a tradition that could be Marxist but also Weberian and, indeed, Schmittian; at the other, we have the idea of conflict as matter or object of political intervention, which takes the form of regulation or, to use the now fashionable terminology, “governance.” The core of contemporary politics, which pushes it to the level of “cosmopolitics,” would be to find how to keep regulating or governing conflict, that is ultimately es- tablish consensus and hegemonies, beyond the declining monopoly of the nation–state in its violent or legal capacity to create peace and order within certain territorial boundaries. Such is clearly the prospect evoked in the work of David Held, with its opposition be- tween a growing state of injustices, disorders, and inequalities cre- ated by Globalization as a counterpart for the universalization of exchanges and communications, and a global “social-democratic governance,” whose quasi-legal instrument would be a “planetary contract” among states and social actors (see Held 2013). But it is also the horizon of Mary Kaldor’s (2013) idea of the “Global Civil Society” and its politicization as “an answer to war,” although in a more nuanced and empirical style. And finally this leads us to the third interrelated motive that I believe underlies the current insistence on “cosmopolitics” as the concrete form of cosmopolitanism or an alternative to its utopian character, which lies in the primacy of the issue of insecurity or— translation / spring / 2014 to put it again in Ulrich Beck’s terms—“risk society” at the global level. This is an additional element because the issue here is not simply to confront alternative replies to the same insecurity, or to 86 the same dominant form of insecurity (be it terrorism, war, eco- nomic instability, mass poverty, the destruction of the environment, and so forth), but more fundamentally, in a sort of generalized Hobbesian problematic, to define and hierarchize the different forms of “insecurity” which are perceived and expressed by actors and power structures in today’s world. It is this second degree in the political contest on insecurity that, far from remaining purely theoretical, directly impacts the antithetic positions on the function of international institutions, inherited from the ancient cosmopoli- tan ideal, as was plainly illustrated by the controversy between George Bush and Kofi Annan in 2003 at the opening of the United Nations’ General Assembly, just before the invasion of Iraq. Again, I claim no originality in my discussion of these themes. My specific contribution, which I have been trying to elab- orate in a more or less explicit manner in the last two decades, has progressively focused on the historical transformation or the “bor- der” (or the “frontier”) as a concrete institution which, far from forming simply an external condition for the constitution of the po- litical, empirically associated with the hegemony of the territorial nation–state, represents an internal, quasi-transcendental condition of possibility for the definition of the citizen and the community of citizens, or the combination of inclusion and exclusion which de- termines what Arendt called the “intermediary space,” or Zwischen- raum, of political action and contestation, where the right to have rights becomes formulated. In this sense, the border is only seem- ingly an external limit: in reality it is always already interiorized or displaced towards the center of the political space. This could be considered since the origins—even before the emergence of the modern Nation–State—a “cosmopolitical” element, which pro- foundly transformed the meaning and institution of borders but did not invent them. The question then becomes how to understand why this paradoxically “central” character of the “periphery” ac- quires a new visibility and a more controversial status in the con- temporary period, in any case in Europe. The same kind of issue is currently being discussed and investigated in depth, especially in Italy, by Sandro Mezzadra and Enrica Rigo from a more juridical translation / spring / 2014 and constitutional point of view (see Rigo 2006). But I also try to develop what I call a “phenomenology of the border” as prerequi- site of an analysis of the globalized citizen, which combines sub- 87 jective experiences with objective structural transformations in a highly unstable, overdetermined manner. It is this kind of phenom- enology that I would like to evoke now, by sketching three devel- opments: first, on the antithesis of war and translation, or polemological and philological models of the border; second, on the equivocity of the category of the stranger and the tendency to reduce it to a figure of the enemy through the development of bor- der wars against migrants; and third, on what I call the “double oth- erness” affecting the status and representation of foreigners in today’s Europe, to reach a final interrogation on the paradoxical identity of what we might call the “subject of cosmopolitics,” as a figure determined locally as well as globally. But before that, I must return, as briefly as possible, to some considerations concerning Europe, “Eurocentrism,” and the cosmopolitical issue. It will be easier and also politically revealing, I believe, to refer here to some well-known propositions by Jürgen Habermas and the way they have progressively evolved under the impact of the recent “war on terror.” This is not only a way to pay a well de- served tribute to a great living philosopher, whose questions and interventions continuously inform our reflection even when we dis- agree with his premises or depart from his conclusions, but also a way to illustrate this self-critical, internal relationship to the “Eu- ropean” definition of cosmopolitanism that I mentioned at the be- ginning. It did not remain unnoticed that Habermas’s positions concerning cosmopolitanism had significantly changed in the last period, before and after 9/11 and the subsequent new wave of US military interventions in the world, especially the unilateral inva- sion of Iraq in 2003 without a warrant from the Security Council. Many of his declarations and contributions have been internation- ally widespread, including the declaration from May 2003 reacting to the statement by European States supporting the US invasion, which was also endorsed by Jacques Derrida, with the title “After the War: Europe’s Renaissance,” in which he hailed the simultane- ous anti-war demonstrations in various European countries as a mo- ment of emergence of the long-awaited European public sphere (see translation / spring / 2014 Habermas and Derrida 2003). This was later developed in the ac- knowledgement of a “split” within the Western liberal–democratic alliance, arising from the antitotalitarian commitment in the post- 88 World War II period, which separated the unilateralist power poli- tics of the US from the orientation of the European “core states” (Kerneuropa) which was supposed to act in the direction of the con- stitution of a “global domestic politics without a global govern- ment” (Weltinnenpolitik ohne Welregierung) in the Kantian spirit (see Habermas 2006). This involved not only a limitation of na- tional claims to absolute sovereignty, but the equivalent of a “con- stitutionalization of international law,” subjecting and transforming the national politics of states through the self-imposed recognition of the primacy of universal legal and moral rules forming a politics of human rights. More recently, Habermas has expressed disappointment and skepticism with respect to this cosmopolitan function attributed to Europe, or its historical avant-garde, but he has maintained the commitment to the same general objective (see Habermas 2009). This amounted to granting a practical reality and effectivity, in a critical situation which would appear as a turning point in Modern history, to the more speculative idea already explained at length in Habermas’s “post national constellation” essays from the previous decade: the constitution of a supranational European ensemble, lim- iting the sovereignty of its member–states without giving rise to a new imperial superstate, was presented there as a form of “transi- tion” between the old power politics of states based on their iden- tification as substantial historical communities, in other terms the hegemony of nationalism, and the coming of the new cosmopolitan order where the relationship of individuals to their communities and allegiances is subjected to the formal and ethical recognition of universal legal norms. The argument bears analogies with the manner in which, in Kant’s practical philosophy, the respect for the moral law or categorical imperative is supposed to impose a con- straint on the “pathological” affective element of individual per- sonality, or in Kant’s own terms, to permanently “humiliate” its power. Accordingly, we would have the unmistakable sign of a shift from nationalism to the dominance of a pure “patriotism of the con- stitution” (Verfassungspatriotismus), intrinsically governing the de- velopment of the European Union, and conferring upon it a translation / spring / 2014 meaning and an influence widely superseding its local function. Now, it would be too easy to dismiss Habermas’s views as utopian and grossly overestimating the cosmopolitan content and 89 capacities of the European construction, and to call for a sobering return to the facts, showing that the Weltpolitik of the European Union, or perhaps we should say, rather, its lack of a Global project of its own in the last period, has patently refuted any illusion of a progressive function, especially with respect to the creation of a Global order and a system of international law genuinely independ- ent from power interests. I believe that a more interesting series of remarks can be proposed. With a nasty spirit, I was always tempted to draw a formal analogy between the way Habermas presented the European construction as an intermediary step between nationalism and the coming cosmopolitical juridical order and the way, after the adoption of the idea of “socialism in one country” around which the world revolutionary movement should gather and redefine its strategy, the construction of the Soviet Union and the Socialist camp was presented as a “transitional phase” in the long process of political transition from capitalism to communism. This is only a formal analogy indeed, but that testifies to the extent to which teleological models of historical progress arising ultimately from the Enlightenment permeate both the cosmopolitan and the inter- nationalist discourses, or dominate their concepts of history in a manner that is relatively independent from the divisions between rival political ideologies. It testifies also to the extent to which such discourses are inseparable from a deep Eurocentric representation of history, even when they claim to be critical of something like a “European nationalism,” or “pan-European ideology.” But there is more to be said, and namely that such a paradox also affects discourses which, in the same circumstances, tried to be more critical with respect to the achievements of the European construction. I am thinking of the way in which, in their book on “cosmopolitical Europe,” Ulrich Beck and Edgar Grande (2004) described the European construction as a “reflective moment” or the emergence of a “politics of politics” in which the feedback ef- fect of globalization and its specific problems associated with “global risks” would progressively transform the very idea of a na- tional interest and allow Europe to correct its own Eurocentrism and lack of cosmopolitanism. Accordingly, the intermediary posi- translation / spring / 2014 tion in which Europe finds itself would dialectically foster its own internal transformation and allow it to play a crucial role in the transformation of the global distribution and definition of power. 90 And, if I may invoke my own elaborations here, I am even thinking of the manner in which, borrowing the dialectical image of the “vanishing mediator,” I tried to explain in 2003 that Europe as a society, a new moment in the history of political forms, could only exist on the condition of becoming the instrument of a resistance to the polarizations of the War on Terror as well as a multilateral competition between Grossräume or geopolitical rival entities, which is centered on a combination of state power and cultural ex- ceptionalism. It should “decenter” its self-consciousness and ac- knowledge the extent to which it had become itself transformed and reshaped by the aftereffects of its violent interaction with the world, particularly through the postcolonial transformation of its population and culture (see Balibar 2003a). However “dialectical” this presentation of Europe may appear (as a potential vanishing mediator in contemporary politics, which could transform others on the condition of becoming transformed itself by the others), it clearly contained an element of European messianism which I shared with many others. It is perhaps owing to my self-critical reflection on the ex- tent to which the messianic idea of Europe as the “vanishing medi- ator” in fact reproduces or pushes to the extreme the Eurocentric scheme inherent in other contemporary uses of the cosmopolitan ideal that I can put into question what I believe is one of the deep philosophical structures underlying the combination of universal- ism and Eurocentrism in the cosmopolitan tradition: namely, the idea that the transformation of the local, particular, national citizen into a “citizen of the world” through a relativization of member- ships and borders requires a singular mediation (or even a media- tor), which turns the empirical interest against itself, performing the negation of particularity from the inside. There is no doubt to my mind that the cosmopolitical discourse in its classical form, as it was elaborated philosophically in Kant and others—including Marx, in his own way—formed a conceptual system organized around the transcendental dualism of the empirical individual and the universal person, or the “generic individual” (as Hegel, Feuer- bach, and the young Marx would reformulate it), namely the indi- translation / spring / 2014 vidual who carries within themselves a representation of the species, therefore also a commitment to the superior interest of the human community as such. The universal subject can be a “univer- 91 sal class,” or a “universal political project” called post national con- stellation. In any case the mediation has to be performed by a mem- bership or a community endowed with the character of a self-negating subject, which means a community (of citizens) with- out a “communitarian” collective identity, or not reducible to it, therefore without exclusionary effects, and with a revolutionary po- tential of universalization. Such is the case of “cosmopolitan Eu- rope” in the discourses that I was quoting. What I am suggesting is, in fact, a reversal of this pattern (which perhaps in the end will prove to be again one of its metonymic reformulations). At the same time I am admitting that the incapacity of Europe to emerge as a cosmopolitical mediation is not to be separated from its only too obvious current stalemate as a political project. There is something intrinsically contradictory in the idea of framing a postnational Europe which is a public space of conflicts, regulations, and civic participation, although it does not take the form of constructing a superstate—perhaps especially if it does not take that form. In a moment I will try to indicate that this intrinsic contradiction can be linked to the fact that the Euro- pean construction as such emphasizes all the elements of otherness inherent in the representation of Europe as a whole, or simply as an ensemble. But this requires a detour through the consideration of the role of borders, from which I hope to gain a metamorphosis in the self-perception of Europe, in which its definition never sim- ply comes from its own history, but returns to it from outside, from the consequences of its externalization. This is a point of view that seems more likely to become adopted in what constitutes the pe- ripheries of Europe in the broad sense: cultural and political zones of interpenetration with the rest of the world—Britain or Turkey or Spain, say, rather than France or Germany, where Habermas im- plicitly localized the European “core states.” But in reality, owing to the consequences of colonialism, and later postcolonial migra- tions and hybridization of cultures, it is also a possibility open for the whole of Europe that should be discussed in common, passing from one country to the other and one language to the other. translation / spring / 2014 Let me now concentrate on what I called a “phenomeno- logical approach” of the border as institution—and in a sense an institution of institutions, whose fundamental characteristics appear 92 historically when it determines specific political practices, setting their quasi-transcendental conditions, as it were. In the the past, an- alyzing the repressive functions performed by the border especially with respect to some strangers, but also some nationals, I coined the formula “a nondemocratic condition of democracy” (Balibar 2003b). I now want to emphasize the ambivalent characteristics of this condition, which represents both closeness and aperture, or their permanent dialectical interplay. Thus, a phenomenology of the border is a very complex undertaking. It is now becoming one of the major objects of reflection and points of interdisciplinary co- operation for anthropologists, historians, geographers, political the- orists, and so on. Even philosophers may have something to say from within their intellectual tradition and disciplinary logic (see Balibar, Mezzadra, and Samaddar 2012, and Mezzadra and Neilson 2013). To take the institution of the border as privileged vantage point in the discussion on cosmopolitics and its tensions does not produce the same effect as adopting, say, the point of view of cul- ture, or territory, or urban society—although there clearly are rec- iprocities between these different paradigms. In previous essays I suggested, following a suggestion from Kant’s early Latin disser- tation on the “regions of space,” that borders are never purely local or bilateral institutions, reducible to a simple history of conflicts and agreements between neighboring powers and groups, which would concern only them, but are always already “global”—that is, a way of dividing the world itself into places, a way of config- uring the world or making it “representable” (as the history of maps and mapping techniques testifies). Hence the development of a “mapping imaginary” which has as much anthropological impor- tance as the imagination of historical time and is not to be separated from it. I should add that borders are, therefore, constitutive of the transindividual relationship to the world, or “being in the world” when it is predicated on a plurality of subjects. This might already explain why the imagination of borders has a privileged relation- ship with utopias, albeit in a very contradictory manner. Either it works through the assumption of their closure, when utopian soci- eties are imagined as isolated from the world, or it works through translation / spring / 2014 the anticipation of their suppression, their withering away giving rise to a “borderless world” for the whole of mankind. But the bor- ders are not only structures of the imagination; they are a very real 93 institution, albeit not with a fixed function and status. And as con- ditions for the construction of a collective experience, they are char- acterized by their intrinsic ambivalence. Here I generalize a reflection on the category of the for- eigner and “foreignness” that I find in particular in Bonnie Honig’s excellent book (2001), to which I will return. This ambivalence be- gins with the fact that borders are both internal and external, or subjective and objective. They are imposed by state policies, ju- ridical constraints, and controls over human mobility and commu- nication, but they are also deeply rooted in collective identifications and a common sense of belonging. We may continue with the fact that borders are at work within opposite paradigms of the political, particularly what I call the paradigm of war and the paradigm of translation, with antithetic models for the construction of the “stranger,” or the institution of difference between the “us” and the “them,” which are both exclusive and nonexclusive. As a conse- quence, while recognizing the importance of the border in the de- velopment of utopian discourses, I prefer to consider that the border as such is a heteroropia or a “heterotopic” place in Foucault’s sense—that is, both a place of exception where the conditions of normality and everyday life are “normally suspended,” so to speak; and a place where the antinomies of the political are manifested and become an object of politics itself. It is borders, the drawing and the enforcing of borders, their interpretations and negotiations that “make” or “create” peoples, languages, races, and genealo- gies… Let me try to indicate three moments of this heterotopic phe- nomenon of borders from the point of view of their current transformations, especially across and beyond Europe. The emer- gence of “European borders” which need to be constantly displaced or redrawn is indeed one of the main concerns underlying this very sketchy theorization. The first element I want to emphasize is the fact that bor- ders and frontiers are simultaneously defined as functions of war- fare (or the interruption of warfare in the form of territorial settlements and an equilibrium of power codified by international law), and as functions of translation, or linguistic exchange: I call translation / spring / 2014 this second aspect a philological model of the construction of the political space—particularly the nation in modern history—where the appropriation of a collective identity and its equivalence with 94 others mainly rests on establishing a correspondence as tight and effective as possible between linguistic communities and political communities. They must have the same boundaries, which are en- forced and developed through education, literature, journalism, and communication (as Benedict Anderson famously demonstrated in his study of “imagined communities” and the becoming hegemonic of the national form of the state—see Anderson 1983). The con- struction of borders through war and the suspension of war, and their interiorization through the community of language and the possibility of translation (namely the activity that takes place when one stands on the border itself, either very briefly or for a long pe- riod, sometimes coinciding with the whole life), are clearly anti- thetic, but it does not mean that the two models are completely external to one another. On the contrary they are bound to contin- uously interfere and merge. In a sense, or in specific circumstances, war arises about translation and translation remains a war—because it involves a confrontation with the conflictual difference, or the ir- reducible “differend” with the other (in Lyotard’s terminology) that can be displaced but not abolished, returning under the very ap- pearance of consensus and communication. This reciprocity of war and translation within the establishment of lasting cultural power structures or hegemonies has been particularly emphasized by post- colonial studies which concern both the old peripheries and the old “centers,” where so called “universal” or “international” languages have been created and institutionalized, and more recently by critics of the idea of a “world literature” (see, for example, Apter 2005). This is one of the major themes in Chakrabarty’s work, Provincial- izing Europe (2000), where he insists on the conflict between an- tagonistic ways of “translating” life worlds, or the experience of the world, into labor (that is, abstraction in the merchant and capi- talistic sense), and history (that is, majoritarian and minoritarian traditions and belonging). Perhaps we could suggest that what char- acterizes our experience of the globalized world, both virtually common and divided among incompatible representations of the sense of history, is a new intensity of this overlapping or undecid- ability of the relationship between war and translation. This would translation / spring / 2014 come also, on the side of war, from the fact that war has become immersed in a much more general economy of global violence, which is not less but more murderous, and in fact includes perma- 95 nent aspects of extermination. Ethnocide or culture wars are part of this economy. The pattern of a “global civil war” that is looming in such diverse interpretations as those proposed by Hans Magnus Enzens- berger, Negri and Hardt, or Agamben, is useful here but it is also misleading because it tends to quickly reduce to unity the enormous heterogeneity of the violent processes overlapping in this global economy, ranging from so-called “new wars” which involve state and nonstate actors, and subvert international law, to the seemingly natural catastrophes which foremost affect the populations targeted by mass impoverishment and made “superfluous” from the point of view of the capitalist rationality. On the other side the labor of translation which permanently confronts the antinomy of equiva- lence and difference, is a way of acknowledging the irreducible na- ture of the untranslatable elements: through its confrontation with this “impossible” task it produces a universal community of lan- guages, or a “pure language,” as Benjamin explained in somewhat messianic terms in his famous essay on “The task of the translator” (on this point, see Balibar 2006b). With the process of globalization, especially as it is seen “from below”—that is, not from the global Republic of Letters, but from the working populations themselves, this labor has also become much more complex and conflictual. In a postcolonial world the hierarchy of idioms, therefore of possibil- ities of translation towards the same “languages of reference,” which serve as general equivalent for all the others, is becoming less and less indisputable and unilateral; it is therefore continuously enforced in a brutally simplified manner through the monolinguistic discipline of internet communication. The association of linguistic hierarchies with borders and collective identities appears much more clearly as a structure of national and transnational power: there is as much violence and latent political conflict, as much ques- tioning of established sovereignties, in the possibility for Algerian citizens to simultaneously use their three historical languages (in- cluding Arabic, French, and Amazigh), as there is for Urdu, Turkish, Arab, and African languages to become recognized as equal parts of the “conversation” among the populations of multinational and translation / spring / 2014 multicultural Europe, therefore granted the same educational and administrative status as the “genuinely European” national or re- gional languages (some of which have for centuries been ex-pro- 96 priated—that is, they no longer “belong” to the populations of Eu- ropean descent). I suspect that similar problems could be raised with respect to Spanish and Asian languages in the North American realm. This brings me to the second aspect of a phenomenology of borders as preliminary to the cosmopolitical issue. Zygmunt Bauman, who is certainly one of the great anthropologists of the cultural side of “globalization” today, emphasized that “all societies produce strangers, but each kind of society produces its own kind of strangers, and produces them in its own inimitable way” (Bau- man 1997). I take this phrase to mark an important step in a story of sociological and philosophical reflections on the figure of the stranger and the foreigner (the duality of categories already marking the difficulty in assessing the priority of the interior or the exterior, the juridical or the cultural aspect), which derive from the famous essays by Simmel and Alfred Schutz, and continues today with Gilroy, Babha, Honig, Spivak. Whether it was the existence of bor- ders that created the stranger, imposing an institutional mark of oth- erness on the complexity of cultural and local differences, or the preexisting difference among nations and genealogies that led to the institution of borders and the closure of territories, is a question that was never completely solved. It would seem that the establish- ment of the new borders of Europe, and the way they are enforced against the self-determination and the right of circulation of migrant and refugee populations, with the continuous relocation of these police demarcations, sheds a brutal light on this issue because of its discretionary character, as embodied in the Schengen rules. In previous essays, I intentionally gave a provocative di- mension to this discussion by suggesting that the introduction of a notion of European citizenship based on national memberships within the European Union produces something like a European apartheid, a reverse side of the emerging of a European community of citizens, by incorporating anybody who is already a national cit- izen in any of the member states, and excluding anybody, however permanently settled and economically or culturally integrated, who comes from extra-Communitarian spaces. The exclusionary aspect translation / spring / 2014 arises from the simple fact that differences of nationality, distin- guishing the national and the foreigner, which formerly applied in the same manner to all aliens within each nation state, now institute 97 a discrimination: some foreigners (“fellow Europeans”) have be- come less than foreigners, in terms of rights and social status (they are no longer exactly strangers), while other foreigners, the “extra- Communitarians,” and especially immigrant workers and refugees from the South, are now more than foreigners, as it were—they are the absolute aliens subjected to institutional and cultural racism. To this general idea, Alessandro Dal Lago and Sandro Mezzadra (2002), Didier Bigo (2005), and other sociologists or politologists who work on the “normalized state of exception” to which migrants are increasingly subjected in order to uphold the distinction between legal and illegal categories of immigrants, have added another ele- ment: the violent police operations (including the establishment of camps) performed by some European states on behalf of the whole community (with the help of neighboring client States, such as Libya or Morocco), amount to a kind of permanent border war against migrants (see, also, Balibar 2003c). The extent to which this policy is an intentional one can be disputed, but what I draw from their analysis is especially the growing indiscernibility of the concepts of police and war (also present in other forms of sovereign violence in today’s world): hence the tendency towards a reduction of the foreigner, or the “real stranger,” to a notion of virtual enemy, which pertains to a power permanently running behind a lost sov- ereignty, or the possibility of controlling populations and territories in a completely independent manner (see Brown 2010). Reducing the figure of the stranger to that of the enemy is one of the clearest signs of the crisis of the nation–state, or the his- torical national form of the state, as was already signaled by Han- nah Arendt (1951). It shows that the crisis of the nation–state, focusing on its borders but also continuously dislocating these bor- ders, does not coincide with a linear process of withering away. On the contrary, it makes the nation–state, or any combination of na- tion–states, return to a relatively lawless mode of exercising power, which strongly suggests a comparison with the early modern mo- ments in the construction of the monopoly of violence that Marx interpreted as “primitive accumulation.” They probably have to do with a new phase of primitive accumulation of capitalism on a translation / spring / 2014 global scale. But, as Bonnie Honig (2001) rightly suggests, they also testify for an extremely ambivalent character of the political process itself: in fact, whole populations of strangers are now os- 98 cillating between a condition of outsiders and insiders in the con- struction of a postnational and postcolonial order, for which Europe appears as a violent, conflictual “laboratory.” Strangers could be- come (and very often actually become), either internal enemies, who are looked upon with suspicion and fear by the state and the “majoritarian” population, or additional citizens, whose very dif- ference enlarges the fabric of rights and the democratic legitimacy of the institutions. Their inclusion in the domain of the “right to have rights” would illustrate what French political philosopher Jacques Rancière called granting the shareless their share (Ran- cière 1998). Indeed, this symmetry is heavily unbalanced yet never completely destroyed, or it is at stake in the daily resistances and vindications of basic rights on the part of the foreigners, making them members of an active community of citizens even before they are granted formal citizenship, thus concretely anticipating a cos- mopolitical transformation of the political. This consideration may sound very optimistic indeed, and I will qualify it through adding a third and last point. I became aware of this when I started reflecting on the consequences of the failed attempt at establishing a European Constitution in 2005, and its relationship to the development of so-called “populist” attitudes in Europe, in fact a revival of nationalist feelings, of which the strangers are the inevitable victims—not only when they come from outside Europe, but between its own “peoples.” What is cause and what is effect in this matter can be disputed, but perhaps it does not matter so much, and we must develop a symptomatic interpretation. The French and the Dutch played the role of the bad Europeans in the story, but shortly after the even former German Chancellor Hel- mut Schmidt—not a bad connoisseur—expressed his conviction that, if popular referendums had been called everywhere in Europe, the result would probably have been a “no” in a majority of coun- tries, including Germany. I don’t believe this to illustrate the per- petual conflict between reactionary nationalism and enlightened cosmopolitanism. I also don’t think that the reason for the failure of the “federal” project entirely lies in the social and economic causes that were emphasized by the French Left, when it insisted translation / spring / 2014 that the draft constitution had been rejected because it completely endorsed a legitimization of the neoliberal conception of the public sphere, and a dismantling of collective social rights. Even if this is 99 largely true, which I tend to believe it is, it would not produce a na- tionalist revival on its own. It could also—at least ideally—foster the development of pan-European social movements, for which democratic advances written into the Constitution (notably in the Charter of fundamental rights) could serve as an instrument. Some- thing else must be acting as well. I believe this might lie in a vicious circle created by the addition of different kinds of xenophobia: on the one hand, negative feelings toward other European peoples, or “fellow Europeans,” in each European country; and on the other hand the xenophobia directed against non-European populations of migrants (or of migrant descent)—with such highly ambivalent cases as Romanians, Turks, Balkan peoples, or populations of North African descent who have been part of “European history” for centuries in a colonial or semicolonial framework. This is what I call the cosmopolitical difficulty of Europe to deal with its double otherness, an internal and an external other- ness which are no longer confronted in absolutely separated spaces. This is also the difficulty of Europe to completely distinguish be- tween internal borders (between member states) and external bor- ders (with the rest of the world, and especially the South), or abolish this distinction and return to a classical status of the national border and the definition of the stranger. To put it in one phrase, European racism directed against immigrant “extra-European” pop- ulations, which hampers the development of social movements against neoliberal policies, also results from a projection of the na- tionalist feeling opposing European nations to one another, which the European construction in its current form has only superficially cloaked. It forms a derivative for a repressed mutual xenophobia. But the reverse is also true: it is the incapacity of European nations, and the unwillingness of European states, to grant migrants and populations of migrant descent equal rights and recognition, as well as the permanent temptation from populist parties and leaders to exploit antimigrant fears and hatreds for domestic purposes, which prevents Europeans from imagining that they could address their most urgent common social and political problems as a single con- stituency, thus giving rise to a new more “cosmopolitical” moment translation / spring / 2014 in the history of democratic citizenship. There is something like a “missing nation” in the middle of Europe, a nation made of several long-established migrant communities with different histories but 100 a similar final destiny, and also some common cultural characters easily seen as threats to European culture. Once it might have been called the “sixteenth nation” when there were fifteen official mem- ber states, now it could be called the “twenty-sixth nation” (an idea already proposed by Catherine di Wenden—see Wenden 1997; with more recent admissions to the EU, including Croatia, one should perhaps more accurately say “the twenty-ninth state”). And it is this missing nation in the middle returning in a fantastic manner as a virtual internal enemy that makes it so difficult for all the other na- tions to perceive themselves as building a single constituency, au- tomatically depriving them of the capacity of collectively influencing the global trends of politics, culture, and the economy. translation / spring / 2014 101 References Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. New York–London: Verso. Apter, Emily. 2005. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 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Bigo, Didier, Elspeth Guild (Ed.) (2005). Controlling Frontiers. Free Movement into and within Europe. Hants and Burlington: Ashgate. Brown, Wendy. 2010. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books. Butler, Judith, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Žižek. 2000. Contingency, Hegemony, Uni- versality. New York–London: Verso. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and His- translation / spring / 2014 torical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cheah, Pheng, and Bruce Robbins. 1998. Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dal Lago, Alessandro, and Mezzadra, Sandro. 2002. “I confini impensati dell’Europa”, 102 published in the collective volume Europa politica. Ragioni di una necessità, edited by H. Friese, A. Negri and P. Wagner. Roma: Manifestolibri. de Wenden, Catherine. 1997. La Citoyenneté. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. The Divided West. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 2009. Europe: The Faltering Project. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, Jürgen, and Jacques Derrida. 2003. “Nach dem Krieg: Die Wiedergeburt Europas.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 31. http://www.faz.net/ak- tuell/feuilleton/habermas-und-derrida-nach-dem-krieg-die-wiedergeburt- europas-1103893.html. Held, David. 2013. Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Wash- ington Consensus. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Honig, Bonnie. 2001. Democracy and the Foreigner. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kaldor, Mary. 2013. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, Or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press. Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. New York–London: Verso. Rancière, Jacques. 1998. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press. Rigo, Enrica. 2006. Europa di confine. Trasformazioni della cittadinanza nell’Unione allargata. Roma: Meltemi. Tassin, Étienne. 2003. Un monde commun. Pour une cosmopolitique des conflits. Paris: Seuil. Étienne Balibar was born in 1942. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne in Paris, and then obtained his PhD from the University of Nijmegen. After having taught in Algeria and France, he is currently Anniversary Chair of Contem- porary European Philosophy at Kingston University, London, and Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York. His books include Reading Capital (with Louis Althusser) (1965), Race, Nation, Class. translation / spring / 2014 Ambiguous Identities (with Immanuel Wallerstein) (1991), Masses, Classes, Ideas (1994), The Philosophy of Marx (1995), Spinoza and Politics (1998), We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (2004), and Identity and Difference (2013). 103

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Knowledge on the Move: Between Logistics and Translation Brett Neilson ............................ University of Western Sydney, Australia. [email protected] Abstract: Translation and logistics are often considered distinct and opposed ac- tivities. The former is a social practice that produces boundaries and connections between languages, cultures and forms of life. The latter is a technical operation that contributes to the production of value by creating efficiencies of communi- cation and transport. This paper takes translation and logistics as twin analytical pincers in which to examine the changing politics and economy of knowledge in the contemporary capitalist world. Particular attention is given to the socio- technical systems that enable practices of translation and the role of social and cultural negotiation in facilitating movement along the logistical chains that sup- port global production. By examining the terms and the limits of the overlap between translation and logistics, the paper investigates its implications for the global arrangement of space and time as well as the subjective stakes of labor in the production of knowledge. ______________ How does knowledge travel? The question is profound to the point of being banal. Movement is intrinsic to knowing. Whether the passage is between subject and object, through space and time, or across the boundaries of disciplines or other gardens of knowledge, knowledge seems unable to submit to stillness. The present essay investigates two dimensions of knowledge movement that have come to the fore under conditions of capitalism and glob- alization: the first associated with logistical operations and the sec- ond deriving from translation. The aim is to show the intertwining and interdependence of these different aspects of knowledge move- ment, despite the seeming tension between them in terms of open- ness to political and cultural life, subordination to technological processes and coordination with economic activity. Logistics organizes and produces the heterogeneity of translation / spring / 2014 global space and time. Tuned to the turnover of capital, it mobilizes material and infrastructural implementations to produce communi- cation, transport, and economic efficiencies. With its origins in mil- 129 itary supply, it has, since the 1960s, become a software-driven process that coordinates production and assembly processes across planetary expanses. No longer an exercise in cost reduction, it has become integral to the maximization of profit. Essential to its op- erations is the governance of supply or commodity chains. Logis- tical networks rely on internal standards and protocols to establish interoperability between systems and facilitate the movement of people, goods, and things. Attention to the logistics of knowledge movement thus requires awareness of techniques and technologies that enable sorting, classification, distribution, and storage. Increas- ingly these processes are inseparable from the production of knowl- edge itself, making it unfeasible to consider them post hoc arrangements that pertain merely to the movement of already formed or commodified knowledge. The metaphor of knowledge transfer, which circulates widely in academic and commercial con- texts, registers some of the limits and dilemmas associated with such an approach to knowledge. It signals at once the dream that knowledge might travel efficiently and unaltered between a source and a target and the reality that such movement is always inter- rupted by social and cultural factors. In other words, it shows how the logistics of knowledge movement is always entangled with the politics of translation. Translation is a privileged cultural operation and social practice that produces bridges and barriers between languages, civ- ilizations, and forms of life. It is an iterative operation that facili- tates movement through an active process of mutation in which difference and incommensurability tend to win over standardization and protocols. This is to say it is a vernacular or idiomatic practice that creates social relations within a force field marked by differ- entials of power, culture, and economy. At once sparking connec- tions and active in processes of domination, not least those associated with modern colonialism and global capitalist expansion, translation is an inherently double-sided political concept and prac- tice. It can open channels of communication and understanding be- tween communities and cultures but only at the risk of establishing boundaries in ways that further a politics of rigidified identity. His- translation / spring / 2014 torically this has been one of its major functions. When the practice of translation establishes equivalence between languages or groups of people, it enforces the idea of distinct communities, nations, or 130 civilizations traveling coevally through time. It thus contributes to the creation of dominant geopolitical constructs: the West and the rest, center and periphery, and so on. In the contemporary world, where such an approach to translation remains prevalent, it plays a part in dividing the planet into blocs or regions and producing nor- mative figures of continentalization: the European, the Asian, the African, et cetera. Yet, as several critical scholars (Sakai 1997, Iveković 2010, Mezzadra 2010) have emphasized, translation con- tinues to hold a potential for radical subversion or the unsettling of established identities, boundaries, and the social relation of capital. Here is the dilemma. Translation is seen as the cultural op- eration par excellence, a creative act with the power to rearrange social relations whether in politically liberating or constraining ways. By contrast, logistics is widely understood as a set of tech- nical operations driven by algorithmic processes and subordinated to the imperatives of capital or war. Attempting to shift these es- tablished views is perhaps a futile exercise. The current paper holds these shibboleths in place, even as it questions them by probing the borders between the cultural and the economic, and querying the separability of the creative and the technical. The argument is de- ceptively simple: without logistics no translation, and without trans- lation no logistics. This is an analytical and political claim rather than a logical proposition or dialectical formulation. The intertwin- ing of translation and logistics comes into view with the histori- cization of these practices. Particularly in current conditions of capitalism (where cooperative networks are crucial to systems of production, and value creation depends ever more on distribution and access to knowledge), translation and logistics have developed in ways that make them increasingly indistinguishable. This article explores the terms and limits of this overlap, investigating its im- plications for the global arrangement of space and time as well as the subjective stakes of labor in the production of knowledge. Traveling Theory In an article entitled “Traveling Theory” (1983, 226), Ed- ward Said identifies “a discernible and recurrent pattern to the translation / spring / 2014 movement” of ideas and theories. Although widely read within crit- ical and postcolonial circles, the paper’s delineation of four distinct stages of “travel” reads like a familiar narrative of immigration and 131 acculturation: First, there is a point of origin, or what seems like one, a set of initial circumstances in which the idea came to birth or entered discourse. Second, there is the distance trans- ferred, a passage through the pressure of various contexts as the idea moves from an earlier point to another time and place where it will come into a new prominence. Third, there is a set of conditions—call them conditions of acceptance or, as an inevitable part of acceptance, resistances—which then confronts the transplanted theory or idea, mak- ing possible its introduction or toleration, however alien it may appear to be. Fourth, the now full (or partly) accommodated (or incorporated) idea is to some extent trans- formed by its new uses, its new position in a new time and place. (Said 1983, 226–227) Said’s essay focuses on the geographical movement of ideas and theories, which, although part of knowledge, are not the whole of it. Yet the typology he offers provides a schema by which to assess the evolution of knowledge movements across the past three decades. A distinct absence from his analysis is an account of the material forces and technical factors that compel knowledge to move. Said recognizes a “commerce of theories and ideas” but does not interrogate the economic and material processes that underlie this trade or exchange (226). The movement of knowledge, in this account, seems almost disconnected from economic forces or tech- nical parameters. It is the result of patterns of influence between prominent thinkers. Said’s primary example is the transfer of Lukács’s concept of reification into the works of Lucien Goldmann and from there into the writings of Raymond Williams. Although he examines the conditions of acceptance, pressures, and resistances that surround this transplantation of ideas, he does not explore the material con- duits that make it possible. The movement of knowledge between the works of these figures is attributed to patterns of “indebtedness” and “use” (235, 242). There is little attention to histories of publi- cation, translation, or dissemination—say, in the manner of Franco Moretti’s (1999) rewriting of the history of the European novel. Said mentions that Goldmann was Lukács’s student and that Williams heard Goldmann deliver two lectures in 1970. But in his account, the transfer of knowledge is almost entirely restricted to translation / spring / 2014 philological and hermeneutic concerns. As a result “Traveling The- ory” has little to say about how the movement of knowledge is linked to infrastructural conditions of transport, communication, 132 memory, or economy. Implicit in Said’s argument is the claim that Lukács’s concept loses its revolutionary potential as it travels, a po- sition he revises in a later essay entitled “Traveling Theory Recon- sidered” (1994) by considering Frantz Fanon’s reception of Lukács. In both of these pieces, however, the focus is on matters of concept production, reading, and reception. Transplanted knowledge is sub- jected to pressures of context and interpretation but the exact man- ner in which it moves through space and time remains obscure. This is surprising given Said’s (1978) writings on how ori- entalist knowledge practices have shaped and in turn been shaped by colonial adventures in Asia and the Islamic world. Following from this work, there has been an ongoing concern across a number of disciplines with the material and discursive practices that have led to the emergence (and maintenance) of a distinction between the West and the rest. One result of this is a/the growing attention to how the practice of translation facilitates the circulation of knowledge across geopolitical and social boundaries. As Irrera (2013, 2) explains, the “notion of translation, although rarely men- tioned by Said, is actually at the very heart of the cultural practices of Saidian humanism.” At stake is partly an emphasis on transla- tion’s capacity to create mutual understanding and reciprocity be- tween human groups. In a late article published in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, for instance, Said (2001) argues against a campaign to stop the translation of Arabic books into Hebrew on the grounds that greater availability of Arabic writings in Israel will better enable Israelis to understand Arabs “as a people.” But as a practitioner of comparative literature, a discipline that maps lin- guistic differences over bodies of expression and thought, Said would have been aware of the ambivalent position of translation as both a border-breaking and border-making practice. Although com- mitted to humanist precepts and the opening of world-historical horizons, he remained acutely aware of the politics of cultural im- perialism and the capacity for translation to serve the ends of dom- ination and separate populations into distinct identity groups. The limit of Said’s work for understanding current knowl- edge movements lies less in its muted engagement with translation translation / spring / 2014 than its neglect of what today is called knowledge management— that is, the codification and collection of processes and devices for governing the production, circulation, and utilization of knowledge. 133 “Traveling Theory” was written at a time when the rise of a knowl- edge economy oriented toward services, intellectual property rights, innovation and information technology was just getting underway. Thirty years later, the implication of translation in practices of lo- gistical calculation that pertain to the production and transfer of knowledge has become a crucial part of globalizing capitalism. There is a need to move beyond the paradigm of traveling theory with its cultural and exegetical bias and to probe translation’s role in the production of subjectivity and the making and unmaking of worlds. This means investigating translation’s entanglement with operations of capitalism. The capacity of capital to translate het- erogeneous forms of life into the homogenous language of value is only one aspect of this entanglement. Efforts to make capital’s turnover productive also invest practices of translation, whether they take a linguistic, cultural, or more generally social form. Only by disentangling translation from these efforts can we begin to dis- cern a knowledge politics adequate to the invention of new modes of social cooperation. The Logistics Revolution If Said’s “Traveling Theory” supplies an icon of thinking about knowledge movements and translation without a developed account of relevant logistical arrangements, there is a plethora of approaches that do the opposite. Logistics is a technological and pragmatic field, increasingly driven by computational modes of control and forever pushing deadlines. It is hard to imagine logis- ticians entertaining an interest in the subtleties of translation theory or its implications for issues of economy and politics. Nonetheless the transfer and sharing of knowledge is crucial to logistical processes, particularly when they connect up supply chains in which efficiencies can be established through the implementation of standards or other mechanisms of internal governance. Accord- ing to Ballou (1992, 5), the “mission of logistics is to get the right goods or services to the right place at the right time, and in the de- sired (right) condition, while making the greatest contribution to the firm.” This definition, with its identification of the firm as the translation / spring / 2014 exemplary logistical subject, registers the commercial imperatives that drive contemporary logistical practices. Yet this was not always the case. Until the mid twentieth century, logistics was primarily a 134 military practice associated with the supply of food and arms to fighting forces. This is not the occasion to explore the history of military logistics and its implications for the relation of war to politics (Neil- son 2012). Suffice it to say that logistics was considered one of the three arts of war alongside strategy and tactics. Prominent nine- teenth-century military thinkers such as Carl von Clausewitz (2007) attributed a lesser role to logistics insofar as it was understood as a preparatory exercise that established the conditions for these more warlike arts. As technological innovations such as the introduction of railways and the use of fossil fuels changed military campaigns, logistics became a central part of modern warfare. Meanwhile, with the spread of the industrial revolution, practices of transport and spatial economics drew mounting interest in the civilian sphere. In seminal publications such The Theory of the Trace (1900), the Ger- man civil engineer Wilhelm Launhardt built on the mathematical formulations of Pierre de Fermat to derive efficiency criteria for commercial transport networks with regard to topography. This work was replicated and extended by Alfred Weber, the younger brother of Max, in his Theory of the Location of Industries (1929). Weber’s book closed with a mathematical appendix, written with Georg Pick, which offered a formula purporting to derive the opti- mal location for an industrial plant based on variables such as the cost of transport, the agglomeration of industrial facilities and the cost of labor across different sites. These are among the earliest precedents for a mathematical approach to logistics. It is not until the 1960s, however, that the introduction of a systems analysis ap- proach to transport and distribution management began to remake geographies of production and circulation at the global scale, giving rise to the distinct economic sector of logistics. Scholars who study the evolution of the field call this the logistics revolution (Allen 1997). Changes in this period and its af- termath include the spatial reorganization of the firm, the perform- ance monitoring of labor, the interlinking of logistics science with computing and software design, the introduction of the shipping container, the formation of business organizations and academic translation / spring / 2014 programs for the production and dissemination of logistical knowl- edge, the building of global supply chains, and the search for cheap labor rates in poorer areas of the world. Logistics moved from being 135 an effort of cost minimization to become an integrated part of global production systems and a means of maximizing profit. The myth that production stopped at the factory gates, challenged in feminist theory and politics, was shattered in the mainstream world with the evolution of more efficient transport and communication systems. The assembly of goods across different global locations, with objects and knowledge constantly moving between them, served to blur the processes of production and distribution. Logis- tics also made the organization of global space more complicated and differentiated. Geographical entities such as special economic zones and logistics hubs sprang up to attract investment and organ- ize the business of global production. Increasingly, logistics also came to play a role in service economies and production processes not involving the manufacture of material goods. From financial operations to television production, translation services to the for- mation of global care chains, the logistical organization of work and mobility became central to the expansion of capitalist markets and logic. The technological and representational systems that en- abled this shift have seen vast changes since the 1960s. The evolu- tion of supply chain management and just-in-time production would have been impossible without the controlled feedback of lo- gistical data into production and distribution systems. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) software platforms aided efforts to digitally record, communicate, and analyze every aspect of production, transport, display, and sales. This resulted in more expansive and articulated logistical sys- tems that sought to continuously map out the position and trajectory of objects in motion. The real-time integration of these systems pro- vided an unprecedented ability to rationalize labor at every point along the chain, intensifying the pace and squeezing workers for greater productivity. But the desire to match ideals of lean produc- tion to agile and adaptable logistical processes proved elusive. The reduction of costs, elimination of waste, and optimization of flow could only be pushed so far without jeopardizing the robustness and flexibility of production systems. Issues of supply chain re- translation / spring / 2014 silience sparked efforts to minimize contingency by simulating the decisions of actors on both supply and demand sides of the equa- tion. Today complex techniques of scenario planning, sometimes 136 involving the use of software adapted from financial market appli- cations, are deployed to smooth out discrepancies and interruptions. The challenge of achieving interoperability between systems and building “fault tolerance” into them has underscored the difficulties that underlie programs of standardization. Nonetheless, the internal governance of supply chains continues to demand protocols of hi- erarchy, codifiability, capability, and coordination (Gereffi, Hum- phrey, and Sturgeon 2005). To some extent, the problem of interoperability can be con- ceived as one of translation. The attempt to coordinate discrepant systems, smooth out glitches, and exchange data via common for- mats means working across gaps and connections to relationally produce, arrange, and conceptualize information. Often this in- volves the creation of standards to which different systems must conform to enable the transfer of information between them. In such instances, translation is flattened out and directed toward a single and tightly controlled set of protocols. But such standards are hard to create, technically and in terms of the time, labor, and resources that must be invested in them. They also tend to prolifer- ate, leading to a situation where standards conflict with other stan- dards. Even in cases where technical interoperability has been established, social and cultural factors tend to interfere, making the task of translation tricky and unstable. This is not an observation made only by social and cultural thinkers such as the anthropologist Anna Tsing (2005), who writes about the “friction” that inhabits the global supply chains of contemporary capitalism. Engineers also recognize the cultural and social barriers to interoperability, writing of the need to establish “cultural interoperability” and of the imperative to establish “supply chain integration” by facilitating “the exchange of knowledge across dissimilar cultures and in dif- ferent native languages” (Whitman and Panetto 2006, 235-36). It is in this sense that logistics must reckon with the politics of trans- lation. The question is whether such a politics provides resources for smoothing out the operations of capital or whether it supplies methods for organizing against current practices of exploitation and dispossession. translation / spring / 2014 137 In the Translation Machine The proximity of the social practice of translation to the worlds of the technologist, engineer, and logistician is evident not only in discourses about “cultural interoperability” and supply chain integration. It is also present in processes of translation them- selves, which are increasingly powered by algorithmic technologies and codes. Any attempt to reckon with the politics of translation must confront the rising prevalence of machine translation, which submits the social practice of translation to logistical protocols and software routines that purport to accomplish direct transfers be- tween languages. Think of the interface of online translation plat- forms such as Babelfish or Google Translate. Two text boxes of the same size face each other. One can write (or more usually cut and paste) into the first, choose the language into which the text is to be translated, and click the button. The program has the capacity to detect the input language. Such a technique of translation pow- erfully reinforces what Sakai (1997) calls the schema of cofigura- tion. The copresence and equal size of the text boxes suggests a parallel between languages that are conceived as separate prior to and independently of the act of translation. Rhetoric and context fall away. The screen divides source from target, incomprehensible from comprehensible. As the user’s eyes are drawn from left to right, she is sealed as member of one language community as op- posed to another. As much as this is a machine for translation, it is also a machine for the production of what Jon Solomon (2013) calls the “speciation of the human”—the division of the genus human into distinct and fixed blocs of identity and culture. From philology to imperialism, comparative literature to algorithms, the movement is seamless and seemingly instantaneous. Yet there is a glitch. As anyone who has used these plat- forms knows, the results are patchy. Machine translation offers an antidote to dreams of a pure or universal language, such as that of- fered by Walter Benjamin (1968, 80) when he describes the trans- lator’s task as releasing “in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another.” Benjamin’s impulse is theolog- ical, but the dream of machine translation has equally been driven translation / spring / 2014 by a vision of universal language, albeit one that is much more in- strumental. The cyberneticist Warren Weaver (1955), a pioneer in the field, writes: “When I look at an article in Russian, I say: ‘This 138 is written in English, but it has been coded in some strange sym- bols. I will now proceed to decode’” (18). He also described the need to “descend, from each language, down to the common base of all human communication—the real but as yet undiscovered uni- versal language—and then re-emerge by whatever route is conven- ient” (23). Such an approach, which treats language as code, has proved a dead end in machine translation (see Kay 2003, Neilson 2010). Today rule-based methods have all but been replaced with corpus-based approaches, which deploy statistical techniques and huge libraries of translated texts to move between languages. The results are sketchy and often only partly legible. It as if culture has taken its revenge against logistics. But what is the politics of all this? Benjamin’s vision of a universal language may have been undermined by machine translation techniques but his writing sup- plies us with at least one powerful image to describe the fate of contemporary translation. In the first of his “Theses on the Philos- ophy of History” (1968, 253), he writes of an “automaton” that can play a winning game of chess. The contraption, which makes it ap- pear as if the game is being played by a “puppet in Turkish attire,” actually conceals an “expert chess player” who guides “the puppet’s hand by means of strings.” Benjamin uses this image to argue for the role of theology in supporting and driving historical material- ism. Today, when the theological drive toward a universal language has been displaced by machine translation, this image of the me- chanical Turk has a much more cynical connection to the business of translation. In 2005, Amazon opened its platform Mechanical Turk (https://www.mturk.com/mturk/), a web-based service that of- fers users the possibility to bid to perform paid work by completing various tasks that cannot be fulfilled by artificial intelligence. As the FAQ for the site explains, “[t]oday, we build complex software applications based on the things computers do well, such as storing and retrieving large amounts of information or rapidly performing calculations. However, humans still significantly outperform the most powerful computers at completing such simple tasks as iden- translation / spring / 2014 tifying objects in photographs—something children can do even before they learn to speak.” Not surprisingly, this model of micro- contracting, pioneered by Mechanical Turk, has also found its ap- 139 plication in the translation world, particularly via sites such as http://ProZ.com, which allow translators to submit quotes to per- form translation jobs, often cleaning up the results of machine translations. The site claims to serve “the world’s largest commu- nity of translators” and to be the “number one source of new client’s for translators.” In this way, the glitches in machine translation rou- tines have become occasions for the crowd sourcing of labor in the most precarious and flexible of circumstances. In his article “The Freelance Translation Machine,” Scott Kushner (2013, 2) explores how online translation platforms such as ProZ.com negotiate “the encounter between the computational and the human in the service of capital.” He is interested in how “algorithmic power” harnesses “human thought, precisely because it does not conform to machine logic.” The task of the translator, in the context of sites like this, is to “complete the algorithm” in a way that obscures the act of translation or makes it appear auto- mated, despite the fact that the translator exists in a social world (4). Kushner explains that ProZ features social networking tools that allow clients to rate the work of translators. The 300,000 free- lance translators who work on the platform pay for membership, bid for jobs, accumulate a record of ratings and have the opportu- nity to display credentials and qualifications on the site. Vendors are granted easy access to a global workforce by filling out a sub- mission form that specifies language pairs, number of words, and deadlines. This has allowed ProZ to emerge “as a temporary stand- in for the ultimate translation dream: friction-free machine transla- tion” (12). Platforms like ProZ reinforce what Sakai (1997) calls ho- molingual address, posing as if it is possible to translate seamlessly between languages that are conceived as always already separate entities. At stake is “the idea of the unity of language,” which makes it possible “to systematically organize knowledge about languages in a modern, scientific manner” (Sakai 2009, 73). In observing that “such an idea is essential for any standardized, automated, algo- rithmic approach to translation,” Kushner (2013) draws an inter- esting parallel. ProZ, he comments, is interested not in the contents translation / spring / 2014 of translation but rather in the protocols that allow it to occur in as frictionless a manner as possible. To this extent, translation be- comes a logistical proposition: “ProZ.com is no more interested in 140 a translation project’s contents than a barge captain is in the con- tents of the shipping containers piled upon his deck.” Furthermore, the “smooth functioning of the translation industry under global- ization demands conceptual containers (‘unified languages’) just as transoceanic transport requires uniform containers.” With this parallel between container shipping and the workings of online translation platforms, Kushner suggests a strong relation between the protocols and algorithms of the global logistics industries and the protocols and algorithms that facilitate the “do loops” of con- temporary freelance translation practice. He is fully aware, how- ever, that platforms like ProZ require humans to tease out “the finer points of language and its social wrappings” and recognizes that these “social wrappings are the stuff of Sakai’s (1997) ‘heterolin- gual address.’” He thus understands the freelance translation ma- chine to develop “an interface connecting (and simultaneously separating) the homolingual and the heterolingual, the machine and the human” (Kushner 2013, 13). But what are the politics of this implied association of the homolingual with the machine and the heterolingual with the human? Is the politics of heterolingual ad- dress something more or less than an attempt to salvage humanitas from logistical operations? On Seamlessness Writing with Sandro Mezzadra, I have posed the question of the politics of translation as one of the rubbing up of concepts against material circumstances. Taking our cue from a comment by Gramsci on a speech delivered by Lenin in 1922, Sandro and I seek to derive a political concept of translation that reaches beyond the linguistic and cultural dynamics usually implied by the term. In particular, we are interested in how the question of translation be- comes constitutive for political organization in a globalized world—an aspect of translation that is strongly evident in political struggles concerning migration and border crossing. We also seek to understand “the role of translation in the operations of capital” to provide a “framework for analysing the conditions under which translation can become a tool for the invention of a common lan- translation / spring / 2014 guage for contesting capital” (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013a, 276). Capital is a social relation that reduces all differences to a homo- geneous measure of value, and, to this extent, it functions like a 141 regime of homolingual translation. The heterogeneity of labor— which means its fragmentation beyond the figure of the waged in- dustrial worker—offers a counterpoint to this homogeneity but also poses the problem of organization across different borders and so- cial, cultural, and economic boundaries. The challenge of translat- ing between disparate and divergent struggles is one of the most pressing political tasks of the day. Logistical supply chains provide a privileged point of in- tervention for this challenge. This is because they organize and con- nect labor forces in the name of capital. The aim of supply chain management is to make the operations of such chains as efficient as possible. Software optimization is a crucial part of these efforts, which must continually balance the leanness of the chain, or its ability to eliminate redundancies and function in a responsive just- in-time manner, against its agility, or capacity to route around dis- turbances such as resource shortages or labor strikes. As Tsing (2009) writes, supply chains focus “our attention on questions of diversity within structures of power” (149). They link up dissimilar firms, distant locations, and distinct labor forces, showing “that di- versity forms a part of the structure of capitalism rather than an inessential appendage” (150). Logisticians dream of creating a seamless world, where borders and differences become not barriers to be overcome but parameters within which to establish efficien- cies. In practice, however, they know that designs and programs encounter obstacles and frictions of all kinds and even contribute to their creation, from traffic bottlenecks to unruly workforces. The analytical temptation is to associate such disturbance with the human element in logistical transactions. Society and culture be- come interruptive forces that disrupt the efficiency of capital’s lo- gistical operations, playing havoc with relations of interoperability and value creation. Earlier I outlined how the question of interoperability re- lates to that of translation, but it is important also to register the link between translation and the production of value. In the Grun- drisse, Marx famously draws a parallel between translation and the role of money in facilitating circulation and making possible the translation / spring / 2014 universal exchange of commodities. He writes about “ideas which first have to be translated out of their mother tongue into a foreign language in order to circulate, in order to become exchangeable” 142 (1973, 163). This is a familiar metaphor but it is worth considering how this logic of exchange relates to the question of capital’s turnover, or the process of circulation by which it turns through commodity production to resume its original monetary form. It is this process of turnover that logistics seeks to optimize or render more profitable. The dream of seamless production is strongly linked to that of smooth and efficient circulation. Indeed, in con- temporary global production networks, where objects and knowl- edge move constantly between distant sites, these processes become ever more indistinguishable. It thus seems to make sense to equate or draw a parallel between the homogenizing logic of capital’s ex- change and the creation of logistical standards and protocols that facilitate its turnover. The concept of homolingual translation pro- vides a powerful tool for understanding both of these movements. There is limited analytical grip, however, in equating ho- molingual translation with a mechanical action that is upset by the unpredictability of the human. The example of translation platforms like ProZ, already discussed above, shows how the social context of translation can contribute precisely to the appearance of a seam- less movement between supposedly distinct and comparable lan- guages. Perhaps here the Deleuzian notion of the machine, which describes a complex assemblage that crosses the human and the technical, is more applicable than that of the mechanism, which designates a technical apparatus. In any case, the social dynamics of translation and logistical operations appear inextricably linked. This link becomes evident in the historical context of contemporary capitalism, in which the production and transfer of knowledge is a privileged domain of value creation. I do not wish to suggest that logistics provides the primary or the only ambit of contemporary capital’s operations. As I have argued with Sandro Mezzadra (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013b), it is crucial to approach the logistical dimension of global capitalism in the context of its financial and extractive operations, which inter- sect the logistical domain in complex ways. This article points to a privileged link between the dynamics of translation and those of logistics. Doubtless it would be possible to make a similar argument translation / spring / 2014 about the workings of finance or extraction. But the case of logistics is interesting in this regard because it is a practice that enables and drives the material forms of global mobility that have made trans- 143 lation a pressing social and cultural issue. To insist on a relation between translation and subjectivity in the context of logistics is to raise the question of the labor of translation. It is to highlight the unrest, energy, and movement that are constitutive of translation as well as the bodily and cognitive relations that make it possible. It is also to emphasize the susceptibility of such labor to processes of abstraction and measure which are enmeshed in capital, state, and law. The tension between such abstraction and what Marx calls labor’s “form-giving fire” (1973, 361) not only crosses bodies and minds but also shapes the heterogeneity of global space and time. Piecing apart these tensions and uncovering their political poten- tialities requires an analytical attention to the intersection of trans- lation and logistics. translation / spring / 2014 144 References Allen, W. B. 1997. “The Logistics Revolution and Transportation.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 553: 106–116. Ballou, R. H. 2007. “The Evolution and Future of Logistics and Supply Chain Man- agement.” European Business Review 19 (4): 332–348. Benjamin, W. 1968. “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” Illuminations, edited by H. Arendt, 253–264. New York: Schocken Books. Gereffi, G., J. Humphrey, and T. Sturgeon. 2005. “The Governance of Global Value Chains.” Review of International Political Economy 12 (1): 78–104. Ierrera, O. 2013. “Edward Said’s Humanism.” Transeuropéennes. http://www.transeu- ropeennes.eu/en/articles/voir_pdf/94. Iveković, R. 2010. “The Watershed of Modernity: Translation and the Epistemological Revolution.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 11 (1): 45–63. Kay, M. 2003. “The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Machine Translation.” Readings in Machine Translation, edited by S. Nirenburg, H. Somers, and Y. Wilks, 221–232. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kushner, S. 2013. “The Freelance Translation Machine: Algorithmic Culture and the Invisible Industry.” New Media & Society 0 (0): 1–13. Published online be- fore print. Launhardt, W. 1900. The Theory of the Trace: Being a Discussion of the Principles of Location. Madras: Lawrence Asylum Press. Marx, Karl. 1973. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mezzadra, S. 2010. “Living in Transition: Toward a Heterolingual Theory of the Mul- titude.” The Politics of Culture: Around the Work of Naoki Sakai, edited by R. F. Calichman and J. N. Kim, 121–137. Abingdon: Routledge. Mezzadra, S., and B. Neilson. 2013a. Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press. ———. 2013b. “Extraction, Logistics, Finance: Global Crisis and the Politics of Op- erations.” Radical Philosophy 178: 8–18. Moretti, F. 1999. Atlas of the European Novel, 1800–1900. London: Verso. Neilson, B. 2010. “Opening Translation.” Transeuropéennes. http://www.transeu- ropeennes.eu/en/articles/voir_pdf/107. ———. 2012. “Five Theses on Understanding Logistics as Power.” Distinktion: Scan- dinavian Journal of Social Theory 13 (3): 323–340. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. ———. “Traveling Theory.” In The World, The Text, and the Critic, 226–247. Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1994. “Traveling Theory Reconsidered.” In Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, 436–452. London: Granta Books. translation / spring / 2014 ———. 2001. “Defiance, Dignity and the Rule of Dogma.” Al-Ahram Weekly. May 17–23. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/534/op1.htm. Sakai, N. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 145 ———. 2009. “How Do We Count a Language? Translation and Discontinuity.” Translation Studies 2 (1): 71–88. Solomon, J. 2013. “Another European Crisis?! Myth, Translation, and the Apparatus of Area.” Transversal. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/solomon/en. Tsing, A. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2009. “Supply Chains and the Human Condition.” Rethinking Marxism 21 (2): 148–176. von Clausewitz, Carl. 2007. On War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weaver, W. 1955. “Translation.” Machine Translation of Languages: Fourteen Essays, edited by W. N. Locke and A. D. Booth, 15–23. Cambridge: MIT Press. Weber, A. 1929. Theory of the Location of Industries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Whitman, L. E. and H. Panetto. 2006. “The Missing Link: Culture and Language Bar- riers to Interoperability.” IFAC Annual Reviews in Control 30 (2): 233–241. Brett Neilson is Professor and Research Director at the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Western Sydney. With Sandro Mezzadra he is author of Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (Duke University Press, 2013). He is currently collaborating with Ned Rossiter in coordinating a large transnational research project translation / spring / 2014 entitled Logistical Worlds: Infrastructure, Software, Labour (http://logisticalworlds.org). 146

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The Eventfulness of Translation: Temporality, Difference, and Competing Universals Lydia H. Liu ........................ Columbia University, USA [email protected] Abstract: The article seeks to develop a new angel for translation studies by re- thinking its relationship to the political. It begins with the question “Can the eventfulness of translation itself be thought?” Since neither the familiar model of communication (translatable and untranslatable) nor the biblical model of the Tower of Babel (the promise or withdrawal of meaning) can help us work out a suitable answer to that question, the author proposes an alternative method that incorporates the notions of temporality, difference, and competing universals in the reframing of translation. This method requires close attention to the multiple temporalities of translation in concrete analyses of translingual practices, or what the author calls “differentially distributed discursive practices across languages.” The author’s textual analysis focuses on a few pivotal moments of translation in global history—chosen for their world transforming influences or actual and potential global impact—to demonstrate what is meant by the “event- fulness of translation.” These include, for example, the nineteenth-century Chi- nese translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law or Wanguo gongfa, the post-World War II multilingual fashioning of the Universal Declara- tion of Human Rights with a focus on P. C. Chang’s unique contribution, and the Afro-Asian writers’ translation project during the Cold War. ______________ Imagine a poem fluttering down from the sky and somehow falling into your hands like snowflakes. You might think that this scenario comes from a surrealist movie, but I am referring to neither surrealist fantasy nor a writer’s delirium. It is related to one of the scandals of translation in modern history. The scandal gripped my attention when I first learned that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States had prepared a Russian translation of T. S. Eliot’s poem Four Quartets and airdropped it onto the territory of translation / spring / 2014 the Soviet Union in the Cold War (see Stonor Saunders 2001, 248). This minor escapade quickly passed into oblivion, but the CIA’s and IRD’s (Information Research Department of the British spy 147 agency) worldwide promotion of post-War modernist art and liter- ature appears singularly effective in hindsight—so effective, in fact, that Frances Stonor Saunders, who researched the CIA archives, came to the conclusion that the West won the Cold War mainly by conquering the world of arts and letters with weapons of the mind rather than with the arms race or economic sanctions that allegedly brought down the Socialist bloc. Critics need not accept Saunders’s conclusion to heed a few curious consequences of the cultural Cold War. One of them is that the majority of CIA-backed artists and writers—and there is a long list of them—have made their way into the modernist literary and artistic canon of the West and have systematically been translated as “world literature” around the globe where, for instance, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm are read and taught in more lan- guages than Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, even though the latter, in the opinion of a literary critic like myself, is a superior writer. And as we turn to twentieth-century poets, T. S. Eliot is perhaps taught in more languages of the world than are Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, Nâzım Hikmet, and Bei Dao combined. It seems that the bets the CIA placed on Eliot, Orwell, abstract expressionists, and other writers or artists they fa- vored—airborne or subterranean—paid off handsomely. Critics sometimes attribute their success to the sophisticated taste and fore- sight of CIA and IRD covert operators and their collaborators. There may be some truth to this, but taste or aesthetic judgment can be mystifying. It cannot explain, for example, the remarkable co- incidence whereby many of the writers blacklisted by Senator Mc- Carthy and disfavored by the CIA on non-artistic grounds during the Cold War have simultaneously been marginalized in contem- porary literary studies or dropped out of the canon altogether after World War II (see, for example, Goldstein 2001, and, on blacklist- ing in the UK, Hollingsworth and Norton-Taylor 1988). Why is it, then, that aesthetic judgment takes a backseat when it comes to ex- cluding certain writers but would play a decisive role when it comes to including other writers in the literary canon? This begs the fur- ther question of where politics stands in regard to literature, an old translation / spring / 2014 or perhaps not so old a question. Is the making of the literary canon fundamentally political? Or is it merely a case of politics interfering with literature? What role, if any, does global politics play in the 148 struggle over literary productions and their chances of survival in the modern world?1 Can such politics throw fresh light on some of the blind spots in the field of translation studies? These questions have prompted my study of translation as a political problem in this article as well as in my earlier work. The more I learn about the cultural politics of the Cold War, the less I feel inclined to treat global politics as outside interferences. Rather than closing off the boundaries of literature and politics and ren- dering them external to each other, I propose that, first, we examine the dynamic interplay of forces and circumstances that precipitate the act of translation as an act of inclusion and exclusion. Such forces and circumstances are not so much external to translation as prior to any translator’s determination of texts to be chosen and translated while excluding other works. To anticipate my argument, the study of these processes can help illuminate the meaning of the political better than citing the intentions of writers and translators, or their idiosyncratic tastes. Secondly, there is a formidable obstacle to overcome if we decide to undertake this line of investigation in translation studies. The obstacle, which often stands in the way of our understanding of the political, is the familiar mental image of translation as a process of verbal transfer or communication, linguistic reciprocity or equivalences, or an issue of commensurability or incommensu- rability. It is almost as if the promise of meaning or its withdrawal among languages were the only possible thing—blessing or catas- trophe—that could happen to the act of translation.2 I have critiqued these logocentric assumptions in translation studies elsewhere (Liu 1995, 1–42; Liu 1999, 13–41) and will not reiterate my position here. To do so would take us through another round of critiques of linguistics, philology, theology, the philosophy of language, and cultural anthropology which would take us too far afield. I should .......................... 1 Most scholars of literature who are familiar with Pierre Bourdieu’s work would probably concur that canon formation cannot but be political. I find Bourdieu’s notion of the lit- erary field useful in a national setting but limited for thinking across national borders, especially when it comes to international politics in cultural life. See Bourdieu 1993. translation / spring / 2014 2 Although more sophisticated than that of other theorists, Walter Benjamin’s concep- tion of translation in “The Task of the Translator” ultimately endorses this manner of reasoning. In his notion of Pure Language, translation holds out a promise of meaning in messianic time, if not in secular temporality. See my critique, in Liu 1995, 14-16. 149 mention briefly, though, that when I proposed the idea of translin- gual practices twenty years ago, I was grappling with epistemolog- ical issues about how we study translation and deal with conceptual pitfalls in philological methods (see Liu 1995). One question I came very close to asking but did not ask in the mid-1990s was “Can the eventfulness of translation itself be thought?” This question, as it now appears to me, may lead to a more promising approach to the study of translation than either the communication model or the biblical model.3 And in the context of my essay in this special issue on translation and politics, such a question allows me to develop a new critical method for discerning and analyzing the political in regard to translation. I have long felt that a new method and a new conceptual framework are necessary because the problem of translation trou- bles not only the study of language, literature, philosophy, and cul- tural anthropology but also cuts across other disciplines and fields. In molecular biology, for example, the idea of translation is ubiq- uitous and appears in the guise of a metaphor—unquestioned and under-theorized—that is used to conceptualize the biochemical processes of DNA and RNA. The mobility of this metaphor in the hands of scientists and social scientists has greatly outpaced our ability to think clearly about the idea, much less come up with a method to analyze its discursive behavior across the disciplines. In short, translation is no more just a linguistic matter than can lin- guistic differences be reduced to cultural differences. I believe we have reached the point where the eventfulness of translation itself must be interrogated.4 In the first section, below, I introduce my methodological reflections and try to develop some ideas about the multiple tem- poralities of translation in what I call differentially distributed dis- cursive practices across languages. This analysis leads to a discussion of universalism and cultural difference in the second sec- .......................... 3 The story of the Tower of Babel has hitherto dominated our framing of translation as a theoretical problem. I am doubtful that an endless rehashing or deconstruction of this biblical story will get us any closer to a better understanding of translation. For earlier translation / spring / 2014 critiques of the biblical story, see George Steiner 1978; Paul de Man 1986, 73–105; and Derrida 1985, 165–208. 4 In recent decades, new approaches have been developed here and there to open up the field beyond established translation studies. See, for example, Naoki Sakai 1997 and Liu 1995. 150 tion, which focuses on the multilingual making of one of the best- known documents of the post-War period: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (hereafter, UDHR) of the United Nations. Here I examine P. C. Chang’s contribution as Vice-Chair on the Drafting Committee of the UDHR document—along with Chair Eleanor Roosevelt and other members—and analyze his philosophical con- testation of parochial universalism at the UN in 1947–1948. I turn next to a remarkable vision of competing universalisms with a focus on Afro-Asian Writers, Conferences and their translation projects in the 1950s. The third section shows how some of these projects were organized and pursued in response to the post-War geopolitics of that time. I conclude with some final reflections on translation, and literary diplomacy and internationalism in the Cold War. 1. In light of my initial question—“Can the eventfulness of translation be thought?”—I would say yes, but not until we begin rethinking the relationship amongst text, interpretation, and event. If all acts of translation—and by extension, all textual work—take place within specific registers of temporality and spatiality, do all translated texts qualify as events? The answer hinges on how the idea of “event” is defined or philosophically worked out, but such is not the task of the present essay (I assume that the reader is fa- miliar with Alain Badiou’s rigorous philosophical work on the sub- ject—see, especially, Badiou 2005 and 2009). Instead of indulging in exercises of pure thought or compulsive definitions which belong elsewhere, I choose to focus on the multiplicity of differentially distributed discursive fields as the site—spatiality and mobility— of any translated text and explore their temporalities as instances of events. For no event that is worthy of the name—as naming is always part of the process—could possibly exist outside of the dis- cursive practices that organize it and make it emerge as such, much less the event of translation which always presupposes the multi- plicity of discursive fields across different languages. The first step toward a fruitful understanding of the eventfulness of translation, therefore, is to develop a conceptual framework to analyze the in- terplay of temporality and discursive practices across languages. translation / spring / 2014 Before we contemplate the possibility of such a framework, we must address a potential objection: What is to be achieved with the proposed study of the eventfulness of translation? Why not be 151 content with our good old philological methods? Is it not sufficient to analyze, say, a word for word rendering of a poem from English to Russian, or the case of a mismatched verb in translated text? I would not rule out the value of this kind of philological work so long as it does not limit our understanding of how a work of trans- lation is brought into being in the first place and why a writer is deemed worthy of translation into foreign languages more than other writers. As a matter of fact, T. S. Eliot found himself com- pelled to address these issues when he accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stock- holm in 1948, Eliot states: If this were simply the recognition of merit, or of the fact that an author’s reputation has passed the boundaries of his own country and his own language, we could say that hardly any one of us at any time is, more than others, worthy of being so distinguished. But I find in the Nobel Award something more and something different from such recognition. It seems to me more the election of an individual, chosen from time to time from one nation or another, and selected by something like an act of grace, to fill a peculiar role and to become a peculiar symbol. A ceremony takes place, by which a man is suddenly endowed with some function which he did not fill before. So the ques- tion is not whether he was worthy to be so singled out, but whether he can perform the function which you have assigned to him: the function of serving as a representative, so far as any man can be of thing of far greater importance than the value of what he himself has written. (Eliot 1948) Eliot’s disavowal of his unique accomplishment as a poet could have been motivated by real modesty but it inadvertently touches on the truth of what it means to “fill a peculiar role and to become a peculiar symbol” or to “perform a function” and serve “as a representative.” And of what is he a representative? When the poem Four Quartets leapt over the spatial, linguistic, and ideolog- ical divide of the Cold War to fall from the sky—let’s hope not di- rectly into rivers— the Russian translation was probably taken by covert operators to represent good poetry from the Free World as opposed to the dogma of socialist realism. In that case, the poet could do very little about the idiosyncratic decisions of those oper- ators who instrumentalized his work under the circumstances. It is interesting that Eliot is keenly aware of his own pas- translation / spring / 2014 sivity when it comes to being selected, being endowed, being sin- gled out, being assigned by others, and so on. To emphasize his passive role is not to extricate him from the complicity with the CIA 152 but to point out that, in spite of himself, Eliot’s name and poetry do indeed float around like a symbol, perhaps more mobile and air- borne than other symbols, but nevertheless a symbol, which is often beyond his control but which he must live up to. Furthermore, the symbol called T. S. Eliot is assigned to function in a multiplicity of languages and discursive fields that inevitably mark a literary work for translation and international distribution. This preferential mark- ing, I emphasize, holds the potential of turning a symbol into an event, or an event into a symbol, back and forth. In this sense, the question as to which translated or trans- latable text qualifies as an event, or even a global event, depends very much on the ways in which we analyze the temporality and spatiality of its discursive mobility, hence its historicity. To bring the eventfulness of translation into critical view, one must stop thinking about translation as a volitional act of matching words or building equivalences of meanings between languages; rather we should start by taking it as a precarious wager that enables the dis- cursive mobility of a text or a symbol, for better or for worse. The wager releases the multiplicity of the text and opens it up to an un- certain future, more often than not to an uncertain political future. The confluence of forces that enable the discursive mobility of a text or those forces that can mobilize the energy of translators or cause a poem to be airdropped from the sky should give us the first clue regarding the political in translation. This is something I have learned from my previous study of the first Chinese translation of international law—Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law (1836)—by the American missionary W. A. P. Martin and his Chinese collaborators in 1863- 1864. In The Clash of Empires, I analyzed the military and political conflicts of the Second Opium War to understand who determined the selection of Wheaton’s text and how its translation Wangguo gongfa (literally, “Public law of ten thousand countries”) was brought to fruition in 1863–1864 (see Liu 2006, Chapter Four). Re- flecting on the temporalities of this translation and its dissemination, I was immediately struck by its peculiar eventfulness and realized that this translated text was by no means a singular event—I saw at translation / spring / 2014 least a triple event at the moment of its creation. What do I mean, though, by the triple event of the Wangguo gongfa? The first and immediate event was the creation of the Chi- 153 nese text itself, a textual event that required a great deal of negotia- tion and compromise among the Chinese translators and the Amer- ican missionary. Words and their meanings were made up, suspended, substituted, or banished in the course of translation. Next came the diplomatic event. As a matter of fact, the textual and diplo- matic events became inextricably entangled before there was even a translated text. For example, the act of preferential marking in regard to which text of international law ought to be selected and which ex- cluded from translation mirrored the diplomatic conflicts among the imperial powers in China. The timely interventions made by the American ministers William B. Reed and Anson Burlingame and by Sir Robert Hart—the second British Inspector-General of the Impe- rial Maritime Custom Service of the Qing—all played into the hands of Prince Gong and his Foreign Office Zongli yamen in Beijing, who agreed to sponsor the translation project. Even more interesting is the third aspect of this happening, which I have called the epistemo- logical event, because the historical unfolding of the Wangguo gongfa was predicated on a certain view of the global that was yet to come. That process requires a somewhat different temporality— spanning the late Qing through the Republican era up to our own time—before the geopolitical consciousness could emerge among the Chinese elite. I attribute the rise of so-called global (and belatedly national) consciousness in East Asia to this triple event. In this sense, the multiple temporalities of the Wangguo gongfa as one of many translations of Elements of International Law vastly complicate our understanding of translation and its historicity. These temporalities were thoroughly embedded in the precarious wager I suggested ear- lier. Through the discursive mobility of the Wangguo gongfa, the wager in the realm of international politics unleashed the linguistic multiplicity of Wheaton’s text from English to Chinese, then from Chinese to Japanese, and so on to open it up to an uncertain political future. That future, in hindsight, converged in the Japanese annexa- tion of Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and other colonial enterprises, all worked out in the legal terms of the Wangguo gongfa or Bankoku kōhō (Japanese pronunciation for the kanji characters). But what about cultural differences? Are cultural differ- translation / spring / 2014 ences not more central to the work of translation than the problem of temporality and spatiality? Do these differences matter? My an- swer is yes, they do matter, but no more and no less than the uni- 154 versalist aspirations that inspire any acts of translation or episte- mological crossings through languages in the first place. As I ar- gued elsewhere (Liu 1999, Introduction), universalism thrives on difference; it does not negate difference so much as absorb it into its familiar orbit of antithesis and dialectic. The situated articulation of cultural difference has been embedded in the universalizing processes of past and present all along, which determine what counts as difference and why it should matter. Such processes can indeed tell us a great deal about how cultural differences are dif- ferentially distributed through the eventfulness of translation and how these differences undergo discursive markings—inclusion, ex- clusion, comparison, dispersion, cutting, abstraction, et cetera— before they appear as such from the vantage point of the universal. Indeed, it is the struggle over the universal where the political as- serts itself persistently with respect to cultural differences. And as we turn our attention to the twentieth century, what could be more universal than the claims of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? In the next section, I discuss the drafting of this important document at the United Nations in 1947–1948 to illustrate how the dialectic of universalism and cultural differences is played out in translations where the struggle over words and concepts across lan- guages becomes the very site of international politics. 2. The UN Commission on Human Rights began its discus- sion informally in the spring of 1947. John P. Humphrey (1905– 1995), the first Director of the UN Secretariat’s Division on Human Rights, recalls that the Chairman of the Human Rights Commis- sion, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, undertook the task of formulating a preliminary draft international bill of human rights, working with elected Vice-Chairman Peng-chun Chang (1892–1957) and the Rapporteur Charles Habib Malik (1906–1987) with the assistance of the Secretariat. On Sunday February 17, 1947, Mrs. Roosevelt invited Chang, Malik and Humphrey to meet in her Washington Square apartment for tea and discuss the preparation of the first draft of the UDHR by the Secretariat. Humphrey records a snippet of their conversation below: translation / spring / 2014 There was a good deal of talk, but we were getting nowhere. Then, after still another cup of tea, Chang suggested that I put my other duties aside for six months and study Chinese philosophy, after which I might be able to prepare a text for the Committee. 155 This was his way of saying that Western influences might be too great, and he was look- ing at Malik as he spoke. He had already, in the Commission, urged the importance of historical perspective. There was some more discussion mainly of a philosophical char- acter, Mrs. Roosevelt saying little and continuing to pour tea. (Humphrey 1984, 29) This seems to be the uncertain first moment of what would become decades of conversations and intellectual debates that even- tually gave birth to the International Bill of Human Rights in three landmark documents in the history of mankind: the UDHR (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966). Malik was a Lebanese Christian and Thomist philosopher. He had studied philosophy in Europe before World War II working briefly with Heidegger before arriving in the United States to com- plete his doctoral degree in philosophy at Harvard University. Malik was a man of strong convictions, and his Christian person- alism was the main source of his universalism, even though his life- long passion was anticommunism.5 By contrast, Chang was a secular humanist, musician, and a man of letters. Educated in China and the United States, he was thoroughly bilingual and bicultural.6 Chang and Malik had different upbringings and were steeped in very different intellectual traditions, but they both were scholar– diplomats and hailed from the non-Western world. At the UN, they were joined by other non-Western members of the eighteen-mem- ber Commission on Human Rights, including Filipino diplomat Carlos Romulo, Indian feminist educator Hansa Mehta, and Latin American delegates who made important contributions to the con- ceptualization of the International Bill of Human Rights (see Glen- don 2002, and Morsink 1999, 2245-2248). .......................... 5 Malik was Edward Said’s uncle by way of his marriage to Said’s mother’s first cousin. Said’s reminiscences show some mixed feelings about Malik’s politics and personality. See Edward Said 2000. translation / spring / 2014 6 P. C. Chang (or Zhang Pengchun, in the pinyin Romanization system) was born on April 22, 1892, in Tianjin. He was the younger brother of P. L. Chang (Zhang Boling), who was the founder of Nankai University and one of the most preeminent educators in the Re- public of China. Both brothers studied at Columbia University. For Chang’s life, see Cui Guoliang and Cui Hong 2004, 615–710. 156 Upon his election as Vice-Chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission, Chang resolved to refashion the idea of “human rights” into a universal principle—more universal than ever before—and he envisioned the ground of that universalism somewhere between classical Chinese thought and the European Enlightenment. Records of the drafting processes involving the Declaration suggest that Chang was impatient with cultural rela- tivism and engaged in a relentless negotiation of competing uni- versals between Chinese and European philosophical traditions. His method was that of a translingual reworking of ideas across these traditions—a constant back and forth—to open up the uni- versal ground for human rights. And he did so by crossing the con- ceptual threshold of linguistic differences in the face of an old conundrum of incommensurability: Does the idea of the “human” in English mean the same thing in a language that does not share its linguistic roots or philosophical traditions? On the one hand, Chang takes a pragmatic approach to the question of cultural dif- ference and incommensurability in order to bring about consensus among member states on the Human Rights Commission and on the other hand—philosophically more interesting for us—he makes a wager of commensurability through a mode of intellectual per- suasion and translation that required an unwavering commitment to his vision of universalism. The numerous interventions Chang made in the drafting of the UDHR illustrate this commitment very well. Take Article 1, for example. The language of this article reads: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” This statement is deceptively straightfor- ward; in actuality, the finalized words are the outcome of one of the most contentious debates on the Third Committee concerning God and religion. In what is known as the Geneva draft, which was produced by the Second Session of the Commission on Human Rights in the Geneva meetings on December 2–December 17, 1947, the draft article states: “All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed by nature with reason and translation / spring / 2014 conscience and should act towards one another like brothers” (ital- ics mine; see Glendon 2002, 289). The words “by nature” in the Geneva draft were introduced by the Filipino delegate as a deistic 157 reference to natural law.7 While the Lebanese philosopher Malik wanted to substitute the words “by their Creator” for “by nature,” other delegates tried to introduce similar references to God in the UDHR (see Glendon 2002, 89). Johannes Morsink’s study shows that when the Third Committee began its meeting in the fall of 1948, two amendments were proposed to insert overt references to God in Article 1. The Brazilian delegation proposed to start the sec- ond sentence of Article 1 thus: “Created in the image and likeness of God, they are endowed with reason and conscience.” The Dutch delegation came up with a similar assertion of religious faith: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, based on man’s divine origin and immortal destiny, is the foundation of free- dom, justice and peace in the world.” These amendments led to in- tense debates. In the end, neither of the amendments was voted on, although the Third Committee did vote to remove “by nature” from Article 1 (the proposal was approved 26 to 4, with 9 abstentions— see Morsink 1999, 287). Mary Ann Glendon has noted (2002, 146) that on that oc- casion it was Chang who carried the majority by reminding every- one that the Declaration was designed to be universally applicable. His intervention and reasoning were essential to the decision of the Third Committee to remove the phrase “by nature” from the Geneva draft. Chang’s argument was that the Chinese “population had ideals and traditions different from that of the Christian West. Yet [...] the Chinese representative would refrain from proposing that mention of them should be made in the declaration. He hoped that his colleagues would show equal consideration and withdraw some of the amendments to article 1which raised metaphysical problems. For Western civilization, too, the time for religious in- tolerance was over.” The first line of Article 1, he suggested, should refer neither to nature nor to God. But those who believed in God could still find the idea of God in the strong assertions that all human beings are born free and equal and endowed with reason .......................... translation / spring / 2014 7 The same theological reference also framed the language of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and the American Declaration of Independence (1776), as well as nu- merous other documents on the rights of men which were promulgated before World War II and served as templates for the UDHR. 158 and conscience, but others should be allowed to interpret the lan- guage differently. (See Third Committee, Ninety-sixth meeting on October 7, 1948, 98 and Third Committee, Ninety-eighth Meeting on October 9, 1948, 114) Obviously, Mrs. Roosevelt was per- suaded by his argument, for she adopted the same language when she had to explain to her American audience why the Declaration contained no reference to the Creator (Glendon 2002, 147). Chang urged the Third Committee not to indulge in meta- physical arguments and succeeded in sparing the Committee from having to vote on theological questions. Rather than debating on human nature again, he asked the Committee to build on the work of eighteenth-century European philosophers and ancient Chinese philosophy. From this, Morsink (1999, 287) speculates that the motivation behind Chang’s support for the deletion of “by nature” was that some delegates understood the phrase as underscoring a materialistic rather than a spiritual or even humanistic conception of human nature. I am inclined to think that Chang’s argument is remarkably consistent with what he had termed the “aspiration for a new humanism” (Twiss 2009, 110). His new humanism goes so far as to attempt to overcome the conceptual opposition be- tween the religious and the secular and that between spiritualism and materialism. That vision emerged early on in one of the most interesting interventions Chang made to the Cassin draft of the UDHR. The Cassin draft was based on the first draft of the Declaration written by Humphrey the Secretariat. Article 1 of the Cassin draft was very different from what it has since become. It states: “All men, being members of one family, are free, possess equal dignity and rights, and shall regard each other as brothers” (consult “The ‘Cassin Draft,’” in Glendon 2002, 276). In June 1947, when the French del- egate René Cassin presented this draft to the Drafting Committee, the group revised the language of Article 1 to read: “All men are brothers. Being endowed with reason and members of one family, they are free and equal in dignity and rights.” In the course of dis- cussion, Chang found the implied concept of human nature limited and biased, so he proposed that Article 1 should include another translation / spring / 2014 concept as an essential human attribute next to “reason.” He came up with a literal translation of the Confucian concept he had in mind, namely ren 仁 which he rendered as “two-man-mindedness” 159 (Glendon 2002, 67).8 Drawing implicitly on classical Chinese sources, Chang glossed this written character as a composite of the radical for “human” 人 and the written character for number “two” 二 . Interpreting ren as “two-man-mindedness” through his epi- graphic analysis of the discrete parts of the written character, Chang sought to transform the concept of “human” for human rights by regrounding that idea in the originary plurality of humanity rather than in the concept of the individual. Yes, no equivalents of this classical Confucian concept ex- isted in English or French to help Chang explicate the meaning of this important concept which can be traced back through the mil- lennia-long philosophical tradition in China. That tradition, in my view, has produced an overly abundant discourse on the concept of “human,” its ethical being, and so on, but had almost nothing to say about “rights” until the second half of the nineteenth century.9 Chang, straddling both traditions, found himself in a strange, pre- carious situation of having to use words like “sympathy” and “con- sciousness of his fellow men” to convey what he had in mind (see Commission on Human Rights 20 June 1947). That effort misfired, and it certainly fell flat on Cassin, Mrs. Roosevelt, and all other members of the drafting committee who promptly accepted Chang’s proposal but agreed to let the word “conscience” translate the idea of ren. That word was added to the word “reason” to make the sec- ond line of Article 1 read: “They are endowed with reason and con- science…” With great insight, Glendon writes that “that unhappy word choice not only obscured Chang’s meaning, but gave ‘con- science’ a far from obvious sense, quite different from its normal usage in phrases such as ‘freedom of conscience’” (Glendon 2002, 67–68). Not surprisingly, the metropolitan languages were not about to surrender themselves to the Confucian term to produce a novel concept in English or French, thus missing an extraordinary oppor- tunity to reimagine what it means to be “human” in other terms.10 .......................... 8 Chang’s epigraphic reading derived from the Shuowen jiezi (100 CE), the first dictionary of Chinese written characters compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Xu Shen. translation / spring / 2014 9 The language of “rights” and “human rights,” like “sovereignty,” was first introduced to China via the 1864 translation of Wheaton’s Elements of International Law discussed above. 10 I used the word “surrender” in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s sense. In “The Politics 160 Perhaps all is not lost in translation. Anyone who has had the opportunity to peruse the Chinese version of UDHR prepared by the United Nations will be surprised to learn that the Confucian concept has somehow worked its way back into the document through the delegation of another term, liangxin (see http://www. un.org/zh/documents/udhr/). The word liangxin is made up of two written characters 良心 , the character liang for “innate goodness” and the character xin for the “mind/heart.” This translation openly takes the place of “conscience” and interprets the English word back into Chang’s classical term ren, which articulates a more fun- damental sense of what makes a human being moral than the idea of “conscience.”11 The concept liangxin is closely associated with that of ren in Confucian moral philosophy, denoting the empathetic endowment of the human psyche toward another human being prior to the formation of individual conscience. In the Chinese version of the UDHR, Chang’s original explication of ren as “two-men- mindedness”—though lost to the English and French texts—is re- found through an associated concept.12 I have covered only one of numerous textual examples to be gleaned in the multilingual making of that historic document. In fact, a good number of languages besides Mandarin and classical Chinese contributed to the making of the UDHR, and these lan- guages opened the document to the radical multiplicity and translin- gual plurality of the philosophies and cultures of the world, first in its moment of genesis and then in subsequent translations. If we but lend an ear to the plurality of voices and substitutions across numerous multilingual editions of this document, we are bound to encounter other temporalities and universals that are waiting to be rediscovered and mobilized for the benefit of future politics. The fact that Chang’s pluralist vision of the universal “human” fails to register in the texts of hegemonic metropolitan languages and .......................... of Translation,” she argues that the translator must “surrender to the [original] text.” See Spivak 1993, 179–200. 11 The notion liangxin was elaborated by ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius (ca. 372– ca. 289 BCE) to explicate Confucius’s concept ren and was subsequently developed translation / spring / 2014 by Song dynasty philosophers for the Neo-Confucian theory of moral personhood. 12 The official languages at the UN were initially English and French, while Russian, Chi- nese, and a couple of other languages were soon added to the list of official languages, rendering the linguistic landscape extremely variegated. 161 philosophical traditions suggests that it will take more than indi- vidual scholar–diplomats, no matter how resourceful they are, to overcome the tremendous odds of East–West or South–North dis- parity in the arbitration of moral discourse. Within less than a decade after the UN adopted the UDHR, however, self-determina- tion or national independence movements swept across the globe and, suddenly, another extraordinary opportunity emerged where- upon the peoples of Asia and Africa began to stage their competing universals worldwide. Following the 1955 Bandung Conference, a number of worldwide events played a critical role in this episode of Afro-Asian solidarity to which we now turn. 3. I first developed an interest in Afro-Asian Writers, Confer- ences while researching the origins of the literary journal Shijie wenxue [World Literature] that began publication in the People’s Re- public of China in 1959.13 As I was going through the past issues of Chinese translations of poets and writers from around the world, the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe’s name caught my attention im- mediately. His novel Things Fall Apart (1958) was printed in the February issue of 1963 (select chapters) and was read in Chinese translation long before this novel became known to the mainstream readership of the West, and certainly long before Achebe’s works were relegated to so-called Anglophone literature. I was struck by the fact that Achebe had been recognized first as a distinguished Afro-Asian writer in China, Egypt, India, the Soviet Union, and other countries before he became a postcolonial Anglophone (African) writer, as he is currently known and taught in the English depart- ments of American academia and elsewhere. And there is a world of difference between these two modes of recognition. To my mind, that difference lies mainly in the forgotten history of post-Bandung Afro-Asian writers’ interactions and solidarity in 1958–1970. I should emphasize that a great deal of its politics lies in the work of translation and its organization in the name of world literature. The first of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences—an off- shoot of the newly formed Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organi- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 13 The journal was originally called Yiwen [Translations] when it was founded in 1953 and changed its name to Shijie wenxue in 1959 after the first Afro-Asian Writers’ Con- ference in Tashkent in 1958. 162 zation which had been inspired by the Bandung Conference and met in Cairo on December 26, 195714—took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in Soviet Central Asia in October 1958. Asian and African delegates and Western observers flew in from all directions and landed in the new airport of Tashkent. Reporting on the arrival of these airborne poets and novelists, one journalist observed: “[W]e had come to meet the writers of Asia and Africa, gathering for the first time. A new airport; a smiling reception committee; a drive along avenues of acacia and poplar hung with coloured lamps and banners lettered in Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi” (Parker 1959, 107–111).15 The conference was attended by leading writers of thirty-six countries, including renowned Turkish poet Nâzım Hik- met, Yashpal, Mulk Raj Anand and Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay of India, Ananta Toer Pramoedya of Indonesia, Burma’s U Kyaw Lin Hyun, Cambodia’s Ly Theam Teng, Vietnam’s Pham Huy Thong, African American writer W. E. B. Du Bois, and Mao Dun and Zhou Yang who led a delegation of twenty-one members from China. Interestingly, W. E. B. Du Bois and his wife Shirley were invited to Tashkent as the honored guests of the first Afro-Asian conference in October 1958. Long deemed a dangerous radical in the eyes of the US government, Du Bois drew the only standing ovation to an individual from the Asian and African authors at the conference. In an informal discussion of African unification prob- lems with writers from Nigeria, Madagascar, Ghana, Somaliland, Senegal, and Angola, Du Bois told them that “a socialist Africa was inevitable” (Horne 1985, 321). Such was the optimism of the Tashkent conference. Still, the Third World delegates represented a broad spec- trum of literary and political persuasions. They came together not to debate about their national or political priorities but to discuss an agenda that concerned them all. First, what role would the de- velopment of literatures and cultures in different Asian and African countries play in the progress of mankind, for national independ- .......................... 14 On the history of the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization and China’s role in it, see Neuhauser 1968. translation / spring / 2014 15 For the day-to-day events, see the diaries of Guo Xiaochuan, who served on the preparatory committee of the Tashkent conference in Guo Xiaochuan in 2000. See also Sh ichi Kat ’s (1999) reminiscence of his representation of Japan on the same prepara- tory committee. 163 ence against colonialism, for peace and freedom throughout the world? Many writers commented on how colonialism has destroyed traditional cultural ties between Asia and Africa. Efua Theodora Sutherland, representing the Ghana Society of Writers, saw that oc- casion as “a step towards the reunification of the disrupted soul of mankind,” further remarking that It is up to us to seek practical ways and means of strengthening our cultural links. There is a need to channel to our continent some of your best literary contributions. We need to know the works of Asian and African writers, to be in touch with the wider horizon which those works represent, and which have hitherto been unavailable in our country. (quoted in Parker 1959, 109) Her enthusiasm was shared by all and it was decided that a Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers would be set up for the purpose of maintaining future interaction and activities and that its headquarters would be located in Sri Lanka, then still known as Ceylon (these were moved to Cairo a few years later). Unlike the scholar–diplomat P. C. Chang, who staged a lone battle at the UN to recast the moral concept of “human” on the basis of plurality (ren, “two-human-mindedness”) before granting uni- versal validity to the concept of human rights, the Asian and African writers pursued a much more ambitious course of action. They mounted a full range of activities, forming international alliances, setting up transnational institutions, and creating journals to educate themselves and educate each other through translations, conversa- tion, and so on. In the following decades, for example, the Bureau coordinated numerous meetings, translations, and publications. There were, no doubt, attempts made by the Soviet Union and China to set the political agenda, either for the purpose of pushing the world revolution or undermining each other when the relation- ship between the Kremlin and Beijing deteriorated. But, just as in the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization over the years, these attempts often met with resistance from the United Arab Re- public (Egypt), India, and other Third World countries (on this his- tory, see Shinn and Eisenman 2012, 60–61, and Larkin 1971). Clearly, no one wanted a USSR-front organization. Egypt and India translation / spring / 2014 played a central role in the Permanent Bureau. After the second Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in Cairo, the Bureau started a quar- terly called Lotus in Arabic, English and French and launched a 164 prize for African and Asian literature—named the Lotus Prize—to honor distinguished poets and writers from Asia and Africa. Nov- elists and poets honored by this prize include Chinua Achebe from Nigeria, Ousmane Sembène from Senegal, Ngugu wa Thiong’o from Kenya, Malek Haddad from Algeria, and Mahmoud Darwish from Palestine. It is often forgotten that that these Afro-Asian writ- ers—now thoroughly canonized as Anglophone or postcolonial writers in English Departments across North America and else- where after the Cold War—first emerged within a global socialist intellectual network where their recognition by the West as “post- colonial” writers was neither necessary nor important. Instead, the Afro-Asian writers were striving toward a new humanism—a uni- versalism about life and liberty—that was pitted against colonial violence. This was unequivocally expressed by Mulk Raj Anand who led the Indian delegation to the second Afro-Asian Writers’ confer- ence in 1962. In his speech, Anand elaborated the new humanism as follows: Our literatures and arts are thus the weapons of a new concept of man—that the sup- pressed, the disinherited and the insulted of Asia and Africa can rise to live, in broth- erhood with other men, but in the enjoyment of freedom and equality and justice, as more truly human beings, individuals, entering from object history, into the great history when there will be no war, but when love will rule the world, enabling man to bring the whole of nature under self-conscious control for the uses of happiness, as against despair. (Arora 2007, 17–18) Interestingly, Garcia Lorca’s poem “Ode to Walt Whitman” was evoked to express the sentiment of the socially engaged writers from Asia and Africa: I want the strong air of the most profound night to remove flowers and words from the arch where you sleep, and a black child to announce to the gold-craving whites the arrival of the reign of the ear of corn.16 Anand states that the mission of the writer is to translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 16 Here I have substituted a translation of this poem by Stephen Spender and J. L. Gili, in Lorca and Allen 1995, 135. 165 act as the conscience of the people aware of their pain. To have a creative vision of all that affords joy in life, to release the vital rhythms in the personality, to make man more human, to seek apperceptions of freedom from all forms of slavery and to give this freedom to other people throughout the world—in fact to awaken men to the love of liberty, which brings life and more life. (Arora 2007, 18) This call for freedom was not empty rhetoric but was echoed by writers from the socialist bloc as well as from the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa. To those who had person- ally experienced slavery and racial and economic exploitation under colonialism, liberty had a specific meaning: it meant decol- onization, national liberation, and world peace in the spirit of the Bandung Conference. The Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in Tashkent made a tremendous impact on China. Almost immediately, the journal Yiwen (Translations), which used to predominantly feature Soviet and Western authors, began to shift focus and publish works by Iran- ian, Iraqi, Egyptian, and Mozambique writers. In January 1959, the journal was renamed Shijie wenxue [World literature] and began to devote its bimonthly issues to systematic translations of Afro-Asian writers, African American writers, and, later, Latin American writ- ers. By 1962, more than 380 titles from over thirty Asian and African countries had been printed in its pages. Irene Eber’s survey indicates that by 1964 and 1965, Afro-Asian and Latin American writers began to outnumber Western authors. The October 1964 issue was specifically dedicated to black literature, which included African writers as well as African American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Margaret Walker (on this, see Eber 1994, 34–54). Following the Tashkent conference, the Chinese Writers Union extended invitations to their Afro-Asian friends and, over the years, many of them visited China more than once. The great Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer made his second trip to China after the Tashkent conference. His interactions with Ding Ling, Mao Dun, Guo Moruo, Zhou Yang, and other Chinese writers were frequent and helped transform his ideas about what a writer’s responsibility was toward society. Hong Liu’s study suggests that translation / spring / 2014 Pramoedya’s contact with the Chinese delegation and the Chinese embassy goes back to as early as the 1955 Bandung Conference. After that, Pramoedya began to follow the works of Chinese writers 166 and came to admire the social prestige enjoyed by socialist writers in the PRC, “where literature is considered to be one of the political and economic forces” and where writers were paid generously for their publications, in stark contrast with conditions in Indonesia (see Liu 1996, 124). Pramoedya regarded Mao Dun and Lu Xun as the foremost writers of modern China, and he not only translated some portions of Lu Xun’s short story collection Diary of a Madman but also pub- lished his translation of one of Ding Ling’s long articles, “Life and Creative Writing.”17 Perhaps more than anyone else in Indonesia, Pramoedya took the socialist credo of “living with peasants and workers” to heart and fervently believed that writers should go into social life and live with the people. He himself “went down” to the countryside of the Banten area to investigate the lives of peasants and miners. Conclusion I began my discussion by trying to raise some new ques- tions about translation and its relationship to the political. My ap- proach has been to work through the ideas of event, temporality, difference, and competing universals as a conceptual alternative to the familiar model of linguistic communication or the theological model with which we are all familiar in translation studies. The al- ternative method I have developed involves analyzing the multiple temporalities of translation in differentially distributed discursive practices across languages. To bring such a method to bear on con- crete analyses of the eventfulness of translation, I have taken the reader through the nineteenth-century translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law in Chinese, the post- World War II multilingual fashioning of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a focus on P. C. Chang’s contribution as well as the Afro-Asian writers’ collective translation projects during the Cold War. .......................... translation / spring / 2014 17 See “Duer Fanwen Ji” (An interview with Toer), Hsin Pao (Jakarta), November 17, 1956; cited in Liu 1996, 125. It is unclear if Pramoedya’s translation of Lu Xun’s short story collection (Catatan Harian Orang Gila) was published, although his translation of Ding Ling’s “Hidup dan Penulisan Kreatif” did appear in the journal Indonesia 7,3 (March 1956): 102-110. 167 Just as I was about to bring my reflections to a close, one of Benedict Anderson’s observations about Pramoedya came back to haunt me. Anderson has been familiar with Pramoedya’s work and communicated with this Indonesian writer on numerous occa- sions. One afternoon, as I was reading Anderson’s discussion of Pramoedya in Language and Power, I was struck by this statement: “More broadly, Pramoedya gave me an inkling of how one might fruitfully link the shapes of literature with the political imagination” (Anderson 1990, 10). What could Anderson have meant by “the political imagination”? This question has led me to speculate whether Anderson’s personal correspondence with Pramoedya had touched upon the Afro-Asian Conference in Tashkent, where Pramoedya had been the leader of the Indonesian delegation. I wonder further if Ander- son became aware of Pramoedya’s extensive interactions with Mao Dun and Ding Ling and of his published translation of the Chinese writers. It is interesting that Anderson has translated Pramoedya for the English-speaking audience just as the latter had translated Ding Ling or Lu Xun for his Indonesian audience. These unexpected crossings of translations suggest that the future itself might be the ultimate preserve of multiple temporalities. I am hopeful that the legacies of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences— their political imagination, their encouragement to think differently about the fu- ture of universalism, their ambitious translation projects along with their reinvention of world literature—will live on through the tem- poralities of potential translations yet to come. translation / spring / 2014 168 References Anderson, Benedict R. O’g. 1990. Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Arora, Neena. 2007. The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors Pty. Ltd. Badiou, Alain. 2005. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. New York: Con- tinuum. Badiou, Alain. 2009. Logics of Worlds: Being and Event. Volume 2. Translated by Al- berto Toscano. New York: Continuum. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. Edited by Randal Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press. Commission on Human Rights, Drafting Committee, First Session, Summary Record Of the Eighth Meeting at Lake Success, New York, on Tuesday, June 17, 1947 at 2:30 p.m. E/CN.4/AC.1/SR.8. Cui Guoliang and Cui Hong, eds. 2003. Zhang Pengchun lun jiaoyu yu xiju yishu [P. C. Chang on education and theatrical arts]. Tianjin: Nankai daxue chuban- she. de Man, Paul. 1986. “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin’s ‘Task of the Translator.’” In Resistance to Theory. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1985. “Les Tours de Babel.” In Difference in Translation, translated and edited by Graham F. Joseph. London: Cornwell University Press. Eber, Irene. 1994. “Western Literature In Chinese Translation, 1949–1979.” Asian and African Studies 3 (1): 34–54. Eliot, T. S. 1948. Banquet Speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laure- ates/1948/eliot-speech.html. Accessed September 21, 2013. Glendon, Mary Ann. 2002. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House. Goldstein, Robert Justin. 2001. Political Repression in Modern America: FROM 1870 TO 1976. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Guo Xiaochuan. 2000. Guo Xiaochuan quanji [Complete works of Guo Xiaochuan]. Volume 9. Guilin: Guangqi shifan daxue chubanshe. Hollingsworth, Mark, and Richard Norton-Taylor. 1988. Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting. London: The Hogarth Press Ltd. Horne, Gerald. 1985. Black and Red: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Re- sponse to the Cold War, 1944–1963. Albany: State University of New York Press. Humphrey, John P. 1984. Human Rights and the United Nations: A Great Adventure. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational. Katō, Shūichi. 1999. A Sheep’s Song: A Writer’s Reminiscences of Japan and the World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. translation / spring / 2014 Larkin, Bruce D. 1971. China and Africa: 1949–1970: The Foreign Policy of the Peo- ple’s Republic of China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Liu, Hong. 1996. “Pramoedya Ananta Toer and China: The Transformation of a Cul- tural Intellectual.” Indonesia 61 (April): 124. 169 Liu, Lydia H. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Trans- lated Modernity, China 1900–1936. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2006. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Mak- ing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Liu, Lydia H., ed. 1999. Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Durham: Duke University Press. Lorca, Francisco Garcia, and Donald Allen, eds. 1995. The Selected Poems of Fed- erico Garcia Lorca. New York: New Directions. Morsink, Johannes. 1999. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Neuhauser, Charles. 1968. Third World Politics: China and the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization 1957–1967. Harvard East Asian Monographs. Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Parker, Ralph. 1959. “The Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference.” Meanjin Quarterly, 18 (April): 107–111. Said, Edward. 2000. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Vintage Books. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press. Shinn, David H., and Joshua Eisenman. 2012. China and Africa: A Century of En- gagement. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1993. Outside the Teaching Machine. London: Rout- ledge. Steiner, George. 1978. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stonor Saunders, Frances. 2001. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: New Press. Third Social and Humanitarian Committee of the UN General Assembly. 1948. “Draft International Declaration of Human Rights (E/800) (continued).” Ninety- sixth meeting, October 7, 1948, 98; Ninety-Eighth Meeting, October 9, 1948, 114; Ninety-Eighth Meeting, October 9, 1948, 114. Summary records, Official Records of the Fifth Session of the General Assembly. Lake Success, N.Y. Twiss, Sumner B. 2009. “Confucian contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Historical and Philosophical perspective.” In The World’s Religions After September 11: Volume 2 Religion and Human Rights, edited by Arvind Sharma, 153–173 Westport, CT, and London: Praeger. Lydia H. Liu is a theorist of media and translation living in New York. She is Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and has published on literary theory, translation, digital media, Chinese feminism, and empire in English and Chinese. Her English works include The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Un- translation / spring / 2014 conscious (2010), The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Mak- ing (2004) and, more recently, a coedited translation with Rebecca Karl and Dorothy Ko called The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (2013). 170

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The Postimperial Etiquette and the Affective Structure of Areas Jon Solomon ............................. University of Lyon, France [email protected] Abstract: This essay examines the role of translation in building the affective structure of postcolonial/postimperial areas, identifying ressentiment, erudition and disavowal, and homolingual address as the three main aspects to be studied. The postimperial etiquette is an agreement concerning the recognition of “le- gitimate” subjects and objects formed in the crucible of the apparatus of area in- herited from the imperial–colonial modernity. This agreement functions as an ideology for contemporary cognitive capitalism. The essay ends by suggesting strategies for transforming the postimperial etiquette and proposes that energy be redirected away from both resubstantialized objects and anthropocentric sub- jects towards social relations that are both the point of departure for and the final determination of intellectual work. ______________ Translation as a “Bridging Technology” with Ideological Functions There is a series of terms beginning with translation that needs to be mapped out and connected, end-to-end. This is the se- ries that runs through translation–culture–nation–race/species and can be rehearsed as follows: Translation is what enables people from different cultures to bridge the gaps that separate them, yet in the age of nation–states, culture has been appropriated by the prac- tices and discourse of national identity. As for the modern nation itself, none of its claims to natural, organic status can hide its birth in colonial theories of race and species (which I shall denote by the term “anthropological difference”). Though translation therefore bears some intrinsic historical connection to anthropological dif- ference, how are we to understand it today? The culture–nation–race/species nexus takes us directly to translation / spring / 2014 the heart of historical capitalism. If we follow Elsa Dorlin as she charts the birth of the French nation in colonial theories and prac- tices of anthropological difference, then we will agree that these 171 theories arose principally as a historical response to the new and accelerated practices of human migration growing out of mercan- tilism and colonial conquest (Dorlin 2009, 211). Dorlin’s analysis, which is too interested in bringing our attention to the sadly over- looked connection between gender and race to make room for a full consideration of capitalism, draws my attention for one further rea- son whose importance to this essay will become greater as we pro- ceed: the role of the body. The transition from royal to popular sovereignty was accomplished, according to Dorlin, by substituting the body of the nation, composed of supposedly natural traits (what would later be called “national character”), for the royal individual. The need for these nationalized traits to be “natural” unleashes an essential imbrication between race and gender that forms the core of Dorlin’s important account, leading her to conclude that “[t]he question of the nation constantly refers back to its corporeality” (Dorlin 2009, 208). My interest in citing this passage will be to show how translation operates today as a somatic technology, teth- ering bodies to the apparatus of area that hides the matrix of an- thropological difference by naturalizing the nation–state. Following the new and growing visibility of the “constant crisis” that is the state at the end of the twentieth century, a broad spectrum of theorists, activists, and artists have been interested in exploring the potential of a nonrepresentational politics. My interest in nonrepresentational politics is limited exclusively to its potential ramifications for disrupting the schema of anthropological differ- ence that forms the backbone of our common, global modernity. This article assumes that representational politics, that is, the poli- tics of identity, is invariably tied to the state. The state is the point of reference that makes it possible to imagine complete congruence between taxonomies of anthropological difference, social organi- zation, and divisions of knowledge without which identity politics would be meaningless. Hence, a nonrepresentational politics is by nature insurrectional, which means that it must fight against the “agents and agencies active in the invention of the ideological prac- tices of everyday life in support of the reproduction of state power” (Kapferer 2010, 5). In relation to translation I would argue, in other translation / spring / 2014 words, that it must be considered in light of the reproduction of stateness (which is a way of producing and managing “anthropo- logical difference” for the sake of capital accumulation), and that 172 it (translation) plays a crucial role in the management of the tran- sition to a new type of world order based on the “corporate–state.” While an analysis of the world order imposed among and by corporate–states is beyond the purview of this essay, it will be helpful to offer a quick review of the period prior to this time, the period of a world order constructed around the nation–state. If we follow Antony Anghie’s work on the colonial origins of the modern world system based upon state sovereignty, we are struck by his assertion that international law instantiates or “postulates” a “gap” within the global human population and then, having naturalized this gap, proceeds to enumerate for itself the task of developing all manner of techniques to bridge the gap (Anghie 2004, 37). Of course, you will immediately see the irony of a technique that is it- self responsible for the problem that it is supposed to solve. (Per- haps Anghie has found the most economical definition of humanism around.) The reason that irony has remained largely hid- den, we may conclude after reading Anghie, is to be found, with regard to the discipline or field of international law, in the ideology of cultural difference. As long as the “gap” of cultural difference was assumed, as the field of international law asserted, to preexist the practices of colonial encounter (just as the practices and insti- tution of modern state sovereignty supposedly developed in Europe were assumed to preexist colonialism), the only viable question left for the development of that field of practice concerned the appro- priate types of political and social technologies to bridge that gap. Now, this is exactly the role that translation has been called upon to play in the modern era of nation–states. Operating at a quotidian level, with a reach equal to or perhaps greater than law, translation has been a crucial technique for the establishment and consolidation of areas—that quintessential apparatus of modernity that correlates via a system of geo-mapping subjective formation to hierarchical taxonomies of knowledge and social organization. I say it is a quintessentially modern apparatus precisely be- cause of its importance to the fundamental project of modernity. According to modernity’s self-definition, the “modernity-project” should be defined through the principles of liberty, equality, and translation / spring / 2014 reason, but I think that we are now ready to admit that there is an- other side to the project of modernity, the succinct definition of which would be: a belief that technological progress and aesthetics 173 can be joined together in a single effort to develop the perfect race/species. Modernity is thus a project in species–being the work of which is manifested or located exactly in the body. This body should ideally be understood as the physical manifestation of an area, which is neither climate (Hippocrates) nor temperature (Aris- totle), but is rather an instrument of endogenous genotechnology (Dorlin 2009, 209). This “area” is hardly a unitary phenomenon, but rather a series of nodal points relayed in constantly shifting as- semblages among bodies, tongues, and minds. These assemblages are then grouped into populations. Hence, the project of perfecting the species through a concrete population of bodies grouped into areas invariably has to posit a split within the human species. This split, which was also present in Kant’s contradictory definition of “humanity” as both a universal quality shared by all members of a species and an ideal that was nevertheless unequally realized by different members or populations, has been a core component of the “modernity-project” throughout its history. I see a precursor of this Kantian strategy in Anghie’s description of Vitoria’s charac- terization of native peoples, who share universal reason but are bur- dened by a “personality” (which will later be called, once again, “national character”) that causes them to deviate from the universal norm. I do not wish to dwell on this history, but merely call atten- tion to the need to provide a critical counterhistory that will provide an account of the political and governmental technologies invented and mobilized, as translation has been, “to bridge the gap,” when they were in fact participating in the consolidation and prolongation of the entire anthropological edifice of the colonial/imperial moder- nity (a racism vaster than any phenomenon known by that name today, for it includes virtually all other manner of social difference). It is my hypothesis that we do not see (or at least have not seen up to now) the ideological effects of these technologies precisely be- cause we are (or at least have so far been) so deeply invested in the apparatus of area. These technologies, such as translation and in- ternational law, hide the essential strangeness of the areas into which the globe has been divided, as a means of population man- agement for the benefit of capital accumulation, through the history translation / spring / 2014 of colonial/imperial modernity. Ostensibly resembling the latter-day inheritors of premod- ern empires, kingdoms, feudalities, et cetera, these areas (typified 174 by the nation–state) could best be understood as an enormous ap- paratus of capture designed to subsume the productive capacity of society into the needs of capital. Within the organizational structure of the nation–state, the work of perfecting the race/species is always an aesthetic question as much as a technological one. Hence, we might refer to the anthropological work of modernity as perfiction- ing (a neologism that combines the two words “perfection” and “fiction”) inasmuch as it invariably involves a typology of fanta- sized images concentrated around, or projected upon, the link be- tween bodies and nations. As capitalism transitions to a new historical form, the role of the area–apparatus is undergoing a concomitant change. Today’s areas are designed not so much to capture as to “pool” populations within. As capitalism moves from its industrial phase to a cognitive phase, the “pooling” of population takes on its greatest significance within the emerging bioeconomy of semiocapitalism and the cor- porate surveillance state. The call-word of this configuration is “life is code, primed for transaction.” 1 Although the contemporary con- figuration draws its symbolic resources from the cultural imaginary of the imperial–colonial modernity, its greatest ideological use is to cover up the total subsumption of population into the bioinfor- matic economy. No longer a source of surplus value simply through its role as labor, population is becoming a source of value through its role as an inexhaustibly mutable source of bioinformatic code. Population is, other words, pooled not just as labor—that is, pro- ducers—nor even just as consumers, but also for its role as source- code. The reason why the corporate-state “needs” to put just about everybody under surveillance ultimately amounts to the potential of all source-code to be “pirated.” Translation today continues to play the role of ideology, preventing us from seeing how the “bridging technologies” are in fact prolonging the agony of the domination under which we live, labor, and perish. In the hope of providing elements for a critique of this ideology, I attempt in this essay to describe the affective structure of area, typified today by what I call the postimperial eti- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 My thanks to Julian Elam for this phrase, which he developed in our seminar “The Ap- paratus of Anthropological Difference and the Subjective Technologies of Speciation,” held at Université Jean Moulin (spring, 2013). 175 quette. I propose that one part of the insurrection-to-come against the postimperial etiquette of the corporate surveillance state will emerge out of the subjectivity of the translator–subaltern. Translation and Subjectivity Naoki Sakai has been telling us for a long time that trans- lation is a social practice (Sakai 1997). In it, the essential indeter- minacy, hybridity, and openness of social relations is evident. Yet, Sakai also tells us, the dominant form of sociality established through the regime of translation in the modern era deliberately ef- faces such originary hybridity. The technical term that is used by Sakai to denote this form of sociality is the “schema of cofigura- tion,” which is premised upon the representational practices of the “homolingual address.” The identities created out of cofiguration are posterior to the translational encounter and mutually codepen- dent, yet claim to be anterior and autonomous. This is the form of sociality that is essentially codified in the homogenizing machine of the nation–state, which would always like to present itself as an organic, historical entity when it is in fact an apparatus of posterior superimposition. The reason Sakai uses the term figuration is be- cause the figure stands for an absent totality that cannot be grasped experientially and for which the imagination substitutes a schematic figure, like a map, that is essentially aesthetic. It is important to re- member that in Sakai’s account the totality does not correspond to anything other than the schema itself. Rather than absent, it is fic- tive, in an active, generative sense. The power of this fiction is that it enables originary difference to be captured and plotted onto a grid of identifiable positions. Hence the schema of cofiguration is much more about establishing a field of representation in which identities are constructed in such a way that they appear to precede the establishment of the representational field upon which they de- pend (and within which they will certainly be organized in hierar- chical fashion) rather than being about the content of specific identities. Against representation, Sakai invites us to engage in the “heterolingual address.” Seen in light of Sakai’s critique, the dif- translation / spring / 2014 ference between the hetero- and homolingual forms of address as- sumes the character of a political choice, bearing clear ethical dimensions. The ethics of national language, which Sakai identifies 176 with racism, exemplifies the stakes involved. It might be useful to point out, however, that the ethics of national language is not a char- acteristic unique to this or that particular language but rather a com- mon denominator shared by all languages when they are “counted” according to a “Romantic Ideology” (Agamben 2000, 65) of cul- tural individuation (Sakai 2009). This understanding views both language and people as individualized, determinate entities, and as- sumes an organic link of equivalency between the two. The “schema of cofiguration,” as described by Sakai, is precisely the means by which the “Romantic ideology” of language and people is transformed into an ethics and an aesthetics of everyday, lived experience. To engage in the practice of heterolingual address con- stitutes a refusal of the aesthetico-ethical constellation of cofigura- tion and a desire for liberation from it. The Affective Structure of Area and the Postimperial Etiquette If, as Balibar writes, “the emancipation of the oppressed can only be their own work, which emphasizes its immediately eth- ical signification” (Balibar 1994, 49), then the emancipation from the apparatus of area, which oppresses all or else oppresses none, can only be undertaken collectively. Yet by the same logic, the re- pression of emancipatory movements against the apparatus of area can be expected to have a definite collective face as well. This is the difference between complicity and cooperation. Bearing in mind recent discussions that underscore the displacement of this problem at an ontological level by contrasting different forms of collectivity (often positing the state/people pairing against that of the Common/singular), I would like to direct our attention to the problem of affect, where it immediately becomes evident that the practice of ressentiment is by far the most ubiquitous response on both sides of the colonial/imperial divide to a refusal of cofiguration and an exodus from the apparatus of area. The phenomenologist Max Scheler, who devoted a mono- graph to the subject of ressentiment, argues that one of the reasons it arises is because one side or the other in a typical social dyad (such as Master and Slave, or Male and Female) experiences the translation / spring / 2014 existence of the other in terms of existential foreclosure: since I can never have/be/feel what the other has/is/feels, I am motivated by an insatiable rancor. The critique of “egalitarianism” at the heart of 177 Scheler’s work, which mistakes social equality for exchange value 2 rather than indeterminacy (and leads Scheler to see Jews, women, and socialists as representative sources of ressentiment), is not the subject of my concern here. Rather, I would like to suggest that there is another form of ressentiment undetected by Scheler, the type that arises not between the terms of a dyadic pair, but in the relation of complicity that unites them. In the midst of their differ- ence and relative struggle, they nevertheless work together. Al- though their mutual fear is undeniably real and strong, it is not as strong as their mutual fear and anticipation of the emergence of something new, something that neither falls within the dyadic pair nor is part of its trajectory. It is, rather, this form of ressentiment— a form of crisis management that aims to sustain a certain regime of biopolitical production—that is most common today. Ressenti- ment is not a personal psychological problem; it is an affective structure peculiar to the institutions of national translation in which we work, and it opens up subject positions for bodies placed within. Those who pretend that they are free from this structure are pre- cisely the ones who contribute, through their disavowal, to the structure’s reproduction—even when they are deemed to be “fight- ing the good fight.” The reasons why this form of ressentiment is now evident but was not yet visible a century ago when Scheler was writing are as much historical as methodological. Besides the revolution within phenomenology led by Martin Heidegger in the first part of the twentieth century that led to the rise of the philosophies of differ- ence in its latter half (paving the way, in effect, for the ontological shift to which we alluded above), there is also the progression of geopolitical events that brought a formal end to colonialism and destabilized the sovereignty of the nation–state, gradually replacing it with the transnational corporate–state. As the philosophies of dif- ference began to infiltrate humanistic disciplines outside of philos- ophy, the foundational oppositions of civilizational difference and national sovereignty were being thrown into disarray by the col- lapse of the Eurocentric system of international law that had dom- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 2 Ironic, since Scheler bemoans the effect that exchange value has wrought upon social relations. To understand how equality can be understood as a form of indeterminacy in the social, it is necessary to link it to liberty, forming an inherently contradictory and unstable pair that Étienne Balibar calls the proposition of equaliberty. See Balibar 1994. 178 inated the world system throughout several centuries of colonial/ imperial modernity. In other words, the “constant crisis” that is the state (Kapferer 2010) became visible. With the visibility of this cri- sis it suddenly became possible to imagine, in the concrete arena of history, subjectivities and relations that were completely unfore- seen by the old oppositions between the “West” and the non- “West,” or between the native and the foreign. Yet alongside these historical openings, we also undoubt- edly see today a reinforcement of those anachronistic oppositions that take the form of complicity. A particular feature of capitalism, one which was undoubtedly present throughout its history but which has become easily visible today, lies in its penchant for cre- ating profitable crisis. Under neoliberal “biocapitalism,” crisis has become a more or less permanent mode of operation for capitalist accumulation, so much so that there is a greater interest in the pro- longation of crisis through regimes of permanent crisis manage- ment than there is in the resolution of crisis. Within that context, academic exchange and the modes of address in today’s world are characterized by a relation that I would like to call the postimperial etiquette.3 My hypothesis is that the postimperial etiquette constitutes an affective structure, or subjec- tive technology, that plays a crucial role in the contemporary biopo- litical production. Ressentiment, as I have proposed, is the first of its essential affective structures. The second element essential to the affective structure of postcolonial etiquette is an investment in the homolin- gual address, such as I have previously analyzed in twentieth cen- tury thinkers such as Michel Foucault (Solomon 2010, Solomon 2011), Jean-Luc Nancy (Solomon 2013), Giorgio Agamben (Solomon 2014), and Ernst Cassirer (Solomon 2009). The regime of translation constructed through the homolingual address lures even these great figures of twentieth century thought into projecting between retroactive and proactive alternatives: the images of a past- that-never-happened and those of a future-that-will-have-to-be- abandoned—that is, the West as both a tradition and a destiny. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 3 Although it is a postcolonial/postimperial phenomenon, for the sake of convenience I will use the term postimperial. 179 Recently, I have been trying to work out the implications of Sakai’s critique of translation with respect to a phenomenon, which I call speculative superimposition, that is characteristic of modern postcolonial/postimperial societies in general (Solomon 2012). Here, we may refer to the affective trait of mournfulness ex- pressed by deconstructive authors such as Philippe Lacoue- Labarthe when faced with a world beyond the apparatus of area. In a 1992 conference in Strasbourg, “Thinking Europe at Its Borders,” Lacoue-Labarthe centers his intervention on the question of “after- wardsness” (l’après-coup 4): “In its most abrupt, and hence most paradoxical, definition, afterwardsness designates the belated—but recognized—manifestation of something that did not happen or did not have even the slightest chance of happening. Of something that took place, thus, without taking place” (Collectif Géophilosophie de l’Europe 1992, 74). I am hardly persuaded that the “retroactive” quality identified by Lacoue-Labarthe as the philosophically essen- tial movement of European modernity can be simply contained within and ascribed exclusively to an area called “Europe.” On the contrary, this is, I would argue, a characteristic of the modern logic of area in general. As much as the modern nation–state would like to claim organic anteriority, it is always both an internal imposition and an expropriation from the outside. (This predicament is what eventually disqualifies the distinction between constituent and con- stituting powers, forcing the search for “destitute” powers instead— see Nowotny 2007.) The same “afterwardsness” is evident in the construction of the “West,” which relies on translation to superim- pose upon the image of spatiality a temporal process that leads to “exceptionally universal,” metaphysical subjects. The deconstruc- tive school of the postwar philosophies of difference that formed the locus in which Lacoue-Labarthe and other philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, worked was steeped in an historical awareness of the “end” of the “West.” Hence it is no won- der that Lacoue-Labarthe warns us (or is it invites us to lament?): “afterwardsness can also, quite simply, take the form of regret or repentance” (Collectif Géophilosophie de l’Europe 1992, 76). Re- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 4 Lacoue-Labarthe explicitly takes up the Freudian–Lacanian theme of Nachträglichkeit. English translations of this term are either “deferral” or “afterwardsness,” neither of which is fully satisfactory. 180 gret differs from repentance with regards to the recognition of guilt and the desire for repetition. One may regret the past not just be- cause of some regrettable action, but simply because it is past, or has been fantasized as past, and hence desire its repetition without the slightest iota of contrition, much less repentance. Nostalgia for the bonds of a fantasized “lost community” that never really existed (or has been idealized and turned into an image) forms, according to Jean-Luc Nancy (1991, 9), one of the essential structures of modernity. The phenomenon of “afterwardsness” through which areas are constructed finds expression in the postimperial etiquette through the affective quality of ressentiment. The reason why we use the French term, instead of an English translation such as “re- sentment,” is because of the etymological structure of the French word, which emphasizes a temporal dimension (re-) of repetition. Re-sentir: to feel again and again what one has not really experi- enced (which is the same as turning experience into a phenomeno- logical fetish). Ressentiment plays such an important role in the affective structure of the postimperial etiquette precisely because it is intrinsically related to the temporal construction of the modern area–apparatus. The regime of translation constructed through the homolin- gual address lures subjects into projecting between retroactive and proactive alternatives: the images of a past-that-never-happened and those of a future-that-will-have-to-be-abandoned. The past-that-never-happened refers to the representation of translation as an encounter between two discrete languages. Sakai shows how this idea can only be retrospectively superim- posed upon the translational exchange as a schema or an image. What this superimposition effaces is the essential hybridity and in- determinacy seen in the position of the translator, as well as the pe- culiar interruption of linear temporality in translation. This aspect of the translator corresponds to the problem of individuation, which makes it impossible to speak of language(s) as one would speak of countable nouns (Sakai 2009). The future-that-will-have-to-be-abandoned refers to the translation / spring / 2014 way that the homolingual address guides action towards the future. Sakai explains: 181 By the schema of cofiguration, I want to point out the essentially “imaginary” nature of the comparative framework of Japan and the West, since the figure in cofiguration is imaginary in the sense that it is a sensible image on the one hand, and practical in its ability to evoke one to act toward the future on the other. (Sakai 1997, 52) The “future” that is thereby constituted is reduced, accord- ing to the figural logic of the schematism, to a spatialized repre- sentation. The dimension of future temporality as irruptive discontinuity is effaced. “This is why,” writes Sakai, “difference in or of language that incites the act of translation comes as a repre- sentation only after the process of translation. Involved in transla- tion is a paradox of temporality that cannot be accommodated in the worldly time of the past, the present and the future” (Sakai 2009, 86). Acting toward the future according to the schema of cofiguration constituted by the homolingual address produces a spatialized representation that effectively cuts off the temporality of the future as unrepresentable negation and creation. It eliminates, in other words, the possibility for new subjectivities that do not cor- respond to the oppositions installed by the schema of cofiguration. As an affective structure, the homolingual address operates exactly like that “angel of history” seen in Paul Klee’s painting and fa- mously described by Walter Benjamin as being propelled “into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward” (Benjamin 1969, 258). The “future” promised by this form of sociality, typical of the apparatus of area, is a future of ruins. One of the characteristic symptoms of this mode of cap- turing the future particular to the apparatus of area is the peculiar dialectic between historical preservation and environmental de- struction everywhere in evidence today. One does not have to look to ancient Mayan temples in the Guatemalan rain forests, regularly “mined” for gravel by developers to see the concrete nexus of this opposition. A much more potent example could be seen, for in- stance, in postwar France, one of the active world-leaders in the in- stitutionalization of historical monument preservation and which holds it to be an absolute human value essential to collective iden- tity. Yet as a nation that derives ¾ of its energy needs from nuclear translation / spring / 2014 power and is one of the main exporters of nuclear technology around the globe, France can be said to be playing an active, if ironic, role in the production of the ultimate form of “preserva- 182 tion”—the radioactively contaminated wasteland. The third element in the affective structure of area to which I would like to draw attention is erudition. In the meaning to which I would like to ascribe to this term, it refers not just to the problems of access and class mobility, but also more generally to the socially meaningful qualification of “knowledge” and the distribution of it among bodily bearers. Erudition operates through division—the di- vision of labor, to begin with, but also the disciplinary divisions of knowledge, the economic divisions of affect, and finally the indi- viduating divisions of the body. Translation and address play an important role here, too, as erudition excludes or devalorizes certain kinds of knowledge that cannot be “translated” into the quantitative forms and standardized denominations to which the definition of “knowledge” is limited. In today’s neoliberal regime, such exclu- sion is exercised through the standards set by financially motivated evaluation bureaucracies. In today’s neoliberal regime, such exclu- sion is exercised through the standards set by financially motivated evaluation/surveillance bureaucracies, intellectual property regimes, and disciplinary boundaries. Erudition is time-consuming. It signals both an unprece- dented expropriation of the intellectual worker’s time, such that one is never fully off work, as well as a consumption of time by making affective experience a direct source of value (“consumers hungry for new experience”). Working-too-much, often under precarious conditions, is fast becoming the main way in which subjective dis- avowal, a fetishism of the object under the sign of erudition, is in- stituted, even among those of us who would otherwise like to be alert to the problem of disavowal. The technical term that Marx uses for “working-too-much” is absolute surplus value, typically produced by extending the worker’s labor time. Several decades ago, Gayatri Spivak used Marx’s technical term globally to char- acterize relations between the West and the non-West in the post- colonial era (Spivak 2009b, 123). Today, it would appear that the extraction of absolute surplus value through excessive labor time is fast becoming one of the principal ways to assure not just a hier- archy of relations but the unquestioned acceptance of the field of translation / spring / 2014 oppositional terms through which hierarchies are constructed and reversed. What is being forgotten is that the terms of specific dif- ference, such as the West and the non-West, always contain a core 183 component of negativity, freedom, indeterminacy, and antagonism, and are never simply given. Due to a Cartesian habit, we might not think of erudition in terms of affect, but under the definition that I would ascribe to it, affect “sneaks” into erudition through the particular way it indi- viduates the body. Erudition constitutes a singular appropriation of the relation between body and knowledge by granting exclusive le- gitimacy to the abstract, accumulational form that we call, in Eng- lish, the body of knowledge. The affective form that is closely related to this appropriation of the multiplicity of the body is the sense of knowing. Nationalism is precisely the modern political form that turns knowing into affect. While foreigners can know about the other nation, they cannot understand it in the same way as nationals; they cannot, in other words, partake in knowledge as an affective structure of feeling that is based in “experience” and shared among members of an imaginary community. Yet the cate- gory of experience-that-can-be-shared-sympathetically is deter- mined in advance by the arena that capitalism, in the process of appropriating the state, establishes for the process of valorization. This is the arena of exchange value. Sympathetic knowledge, or national knowledge, is the form of exchange value that is being ap- plied to the act of knowing understood in terms of fantasy—the fantasy of shared experience reflected in knowledge. As an apparatus of fantasy, erudition’s most important role is found in recoding the body. It is not simply that distantiation, based on the Cartesian stance of objectivity, becomes the principle mode of relation, with all of its known symptoms. Erudition is also a means of maintaining an attitude of indifference or disavowal. The most common form of this attitude of indifference with regard to knowledge in the postimperial configuration can be seen in the institutionally sanctioned assumption that issues related to anthro- pological difference fall under the purview of specific disciplines or fields within the human sciences—what are commonly termed “area studies” in North America. The matrix of anthropological dif- ference per se as an organizing principle for the human sciences must never be brought into question at an organizational level. The translation / spring / 2014 organization must be naturalized so that participants never see their own disciplinary commitments, including language and object- choice, in terms of the history of social relations under conditions 184 of colonial population management. It is not simply that objects re- flect the desires and tastes of certain kinds of subjectivity (forming in effect a socially instituted form of prejudgment or simply preju- dice), but rather that objects become means of disavowal by which people can ignore and forget the mediations and negations that con- stitute subjectivity as a social practice. As an affective form, erudition is thus characterized by ob- ject-obsession and subjective disavowal. It is globally institution- alized and legitimized through the supposedly “natural” correspondence between disciplinary divisions in the order of knowledge and various social divisions in the order of political or- ganization. And while it may look as if the university institutions in North America, in which greater anxiety about the status of ob- jects is often seen (accompanied by all kinds of institutional inno- vations to accommodate interdisciplinary approaches), has an advantage in this respect, the truth is rather that an imperial nation- alism, such as seen today in the United States, invariably calls forth performative gestures, such as transdisciplinary object-anxiety, in order to garner the sacrifice of minority populations for the benefit of the capital-state nexus. Disciplinary rigidity and obsession with the legitimacy of “pure” objects as seen in the other nations today outside North American high academia is not a sign of their “back- wardness,” but simply the function of cultural nationalism formed in relation to imperial nationalism. In short, the regime of erudition oversees the silent articu- lation of the reproduction of cleavages (reason vs. myth, speech vs. writing) and identities inherited from the imperial/colonial moder- nity to the neoliberal production of value through affect. The bearer of various forms (racial, ethnic, national, gendered, sexual, linguis- tic, et cetera) of social domination and exploitation that have ac- companied modernity, erudition is above all concerned with bodies of accumulation. Whereas capitalist accumulation produces the bodies coded by political economy and translational accumulation produces bodies coded by civilizational and anthropological differ- ence, erudite accumulation produces normalized bodies of knowl- edge as well as bodies normalized by knowledge. translation / spring / 2014 It is through a process of identification with the body of knowledge as a site of accumulation associated with specific “areas” that intellectuals continually abstract themselves from the 185 production of knowledge as translational, social practice. In the postimperial scholar, this is seen most readily in the prolongation of disciplinary divisions and linguistic competencies and homolin- gual modes of address that form the obverse complement of the postimperial area studies specialist. The postimperial specialist of philosophy, for instance, is not expected to acquire linguistic and affective competencies associated with postcolonial areas, and typ- ically relies on the homolingual address to negotiate anthropolog- ical difference. Or again, the postimperialist specialist of racism studies does not have to negotiate the composition of her classes and articles in relation to the demands of an academia-publishing industry complex in a postcolonial language organized by a post- colonial state that is itself composed through various forms of in- stitutionalized racism. Given the recent demonstrations of admiration for public intellectuals in the “West” whose politics are characterized by their admirers with epithets such as “fuck off!” (Rancière),5 or who gain notoriety for scandalously scatological humor (Žižek), it might be necessary to explain just what we intend to get at by a critique of “etiquette.” Etiquette is part of the “immunitarian” apparatus de- scribed by Alain Brossat in his critique of modern liberal democ- racy. The English usage of the word, which is associated with “good breeding” (Merriam–Webster), underscores its relation to the theme of racial exclusion that forms the hidden backbone of liberalism (Cole 2000)—and modern sociality in general (Quijano 2000). As such, it is a biopolitical technology, for which Brossat offers a won- derfully succinct description: “the distribution of bodies in a dense space, via the mediation [truchement] of a system of rules named etiquette” (Brossat 2003, 36). In the dense space of knowledge, the trio of erudition, homolingual address, and ressentiment constitutes the affective structure according to which bodies of knowledge are constituted and areas populated. It is immunitarian to the extent that it protects the anthropological matrix that supports capitalist accumulation in the colonial–imperial modernity from being over- turned. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 5 http://critical-theory.com/who-the-fuck-is-jacques-ranciere/ accessed on May 20, 2013. 186 Brossat uses the French word truchement to speak of a me- diating role played by a “system of rules.” Although the term’s usage here certainly refers to a general effect of mediation, it is worth noting an older, yet still current, literary usage of the term that refers to a translator and translation. We might thus take this usage as an invitation to think about what would happen were we to substitute traduction for truchement—that is, “translation” for “mediation.” Doing so, we would find that etiquette is precisely the governmental technology that uses translation as a means of dis- tributing bodies across dense space—that is, the space delineated by the apparatus of area. This definition of etiquette approximates Naoki Sakai’s understanding of translation based on homolingual address. As such, it constitutes the main operation of capture exer- cised by the apparatus of area. Can the Subaltern Translate? The importance of subjective transformation in the postim- perial/postcolonial age was highlighted at the beginning of North American postcolonial studies in 1988 by Gayatri Spivak in her fa- mous essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (Spivak 2009a). In that work, Spivak deftly displaces the practice of cultural knowledge production in the wake of colonialism and capitalism away from the image of objects, no matter how marginalized or “illegitimate” in the eyes of dominant representations they may be, towards the production of subjectivity. It is the role of intellectual elites—on both sides of the imperial/colonial divide—that is targeted by the critique of subjectivity in Spivak’s essay. As usual, translations of the postimperial discourse into a postcolonial context can be extremely helpful for understanding the stakes involved. In the discussions of Spivak’s article in Taiwan, two of the most common translations of “subaltern” are 庶民 (shu4min2) and 賤民 (jian4min2). These are classical terms that both share the same cognate min2 as part of there two-character com- pound. Skipping over the possible parallels between min2 and the Latin-derived word “people,” what the two Chinese terms share in common is a description of the people as common or low. In other translation / spring / 2014 words, what we have here are translations that add a biopolitical el- ement to the original term subaltern (which describes not a people but a quality of subjugation, and is hence technically limited to the 187 element of politics). The biopolitical translation risks resubstantial- izing the term “subaltern” through the matrix of anthropological difference—which, as I will show, is precisely what Spivak fights against. Needless to say, this resubstantialization has received priv- ileged institutionalization in the postimperial academic world, and it is precisely here that a look at translation becomes especially in- formative. Let me explain this message by citing another variant trans- lation of the term “subaltern” that I have seen circulating within Taiwan: 從屬階級 (cong2shu3 jie1ji2) , the “class of subordinates.” Once again, this translation runs afoul of the reading of Spivak’s article that I favor. The inclusion of the word “class” (jie1ji2) in the translated term effectively reintroduces the very point that Spivak’s essay problematizes: people are something else before they are a class or a type or a figure—before they are a people, which is al- ways what the state elites and their prefab minorities want them to be. “Subalterns” share aspects of the “unrepresentable”—except that they do not stand heroically “outside” the register of represen- tation guaranteed by the state form of social organization, but are rather hidden or silenced in the biopolitical warehouse of the indus- trial reserve army, the “pool” of a genetic population, or the sweat- shops and brothels of illegal migrant labor. Here, representation is not a formalistic problem, but a practice connected to capital’s ap- propriation of species–being precisely at the point where the mode of production meets the mode of subjection. Hence the necessity Spivak felt to remind her readers of the difference between relations of domination and relations of exploitation, and the need to read across both registers without conflating the two in a schema of rep- resentation. Needless to say, a recuperative reading of the subaltern that reinstates the original Gramscian formula (“subaltern class”) that Spivak had explicitly attempted to rework (by eliminating, first of all, the term “class,” which always refers us back to the state), is hardly a problem limited to Chinese translations. Indeed, the exis- tence of such a translation can only be explained by the realization that it is, of course, a translation not of “the text itself,” but rather of the way in which the North American university-publishing com- translation / spring / 2014 plex has bestowed upon it the honor of domestication by canoniza- tion. So, it is not a mistranslation at all, but a translation that is coldly accurate. The subjective effects of this domesticating canon- 188 ization become all too apparent when one considers the frequency with which the term “subaltern” becomes conflated with or simply substitutes for “the non-West,” leading to the use of nonsensical terms such as “the non-subaltern” to refer to the West. For Spivak, the precise location of this appropriation cannot be identified, it can only be reconstructed as it were, on the basis of a rift in subjective formation. Through a series of brilliant readings of Marx, Foucault, and Deleuze, Spivak shows that there exists a split in subjective formation that corresponds to the two meanings of the English term to represent (which are treated, in the vocabu- lary of German philosophy utilized by Marx, through the two verbs vertreten and darstellen). These two meanings correspond to the difference between the subjects formed in relations of domination and those formed in the relations of exploitation. The former re- quires an analysis of relations to power, the latter an analysis of re- lations to production. It is the modern state—which of course can now include suprastate organisms and nonstate ones as well—that offers the promise of “fixing” the relation between the two, offering a precise location, as it were, such that two projected images seem to merge, just as happens in the optical viewfinder of a coincident rangefinder camera. The image, or fiction, of this “place” in which location and identity, past and future, language and people coincide is an essential feature of the aesthetic representation crucial to the modern apparatus of area. Spivak’s essay thus contributes to the classic Marxist notion of class, which is summarized, as Jacques Bidet would say, by the formula “the state is always a state of class.” Spivak shows, by displacing domination and exploitation, that the notion of “class” must be expanded (without losing the specificity of “class”) far beyond the limits of political economy to accommo- date a vast tableau of dynamic, minoritarian relations (of which gen- der is only the tip of the iceberg) within the construction of anthropological difference. The “subaltern” is thus the name for the spacing that is undecidably both the concrete body of this or that downtrodden and marginalized individual and the possibility of a being that can no longer be configured through the matrix of an- thropological difference. Not “humanity,” not species–being, not an translation / spring / 2014 inheritor of the entire anthropological project of the colonial–im- perial modernity devoted to perfictioning, but a true (and truly car- ing) stranger. 189 From the perspective of a concern with translation, the rea- sons for the necessity of this expansive analytic find themselves in the correlation between the history of linguistic transformations under the auspices of the modern nation–state and the transitions of capitalist “development.” Although the creation of national lan- guage in Europe was linked to class through the rise of the bour- geoisie and their need to create a political community opposed to that of a kingdom, this narrative obfuscates that part of the Euro- pean nation that was forged, as Elsa Dorlin shows, in the colonies. There, the class element was concomitantly fused to an anthropo- logical element (beginning with race and gender). “Europe” and its nations only became “European” through this process of fusion (be- tween gender, race, class, language, ethnicity, sexuality, et cetera) that established the anthropological matrix of modernity and natu- ralized it via the apparatus of area. The crux of Spivak’s essay lies, as we have said, not with the identification of objects and their historical deconstruction, but rather with the constitution of subjects, particularly the subjects of knowledge forming under the shadow of capital and the state in the apparatus of area. For this reason, I must confess that the one thing that is strangest to me in the extraordinary reception this widely circulated essay has received is that so many commentators have looked at the subaltern as a problem to be solved or an idea to be applied, rather than, as Spivak writes in an entirely different context (one that is actually about translation), a locus to inhabit (Spivak 2005, 95)—or, as an invitation to cohabitation. We need, in other words, to develop practices of “being there” that are different from those normally catalogued under the Apparatus of Area.6 This is not a call for a new aesthetic piety of place, but rather a plea to de- finitively end the essential project of modernity: the idea that tech- nological progress and aesthetics could be allied together in the creation of a perfect species—what I want to name by the neolo- gism “perfictioning.” .......................... translation / spring / 2014 6 I do not think that I have yet compiled a complete catalogue, but there are several se- ries whose importance is evident: 1) typology: character–figure–image; 2) ontology: ori- gin–individuation–hylomorphism; 3) anthropology: animal–human–milieu; 4) economy: production–exploitation–accumulation; 5) statistics and logistics: temporality–event– control 190 While her emphasis on unrepresentability leads Spivak to conclude that the subaltern by definition cannot speak (which means that the subaltern always disappears under the weight of rep- resentation when subjects are made to conform to identities that ig- nore their constitutive, originary difference), she does not consider her startling answer from the perspective of translation. Or, more precisely, the position of the translator. The translator, of course, is in the position of someone who speaks without ever meaning any- thing herself. She is never authorized to say “I.” Strategies based on the disclosure of the “invisibility of the translator” (Venuti 1995) are important to the politics of translation, and for that very reason they ultimately amount to a reinvestment in the nexus between modes of production and modes of subjectification through the cat- egory of identity. In lieu of invisibility, Sakai (1997) calls attention to the hybridity and indeterminacy of the translator, and he proposes a practice of heterolingual address that accounts for discontinuity as a constitutive moment of the social. This outline of the position of the translator leads me to suggest that for the professional uni- versity-based intellectual the ethical response to the problem of subalternity will not be found in speaking or listening, but rather in “translating.” To suggest that an ethics of subalternity can be found in translation is quite different from suggesting either that the subal- tern “herself” translate or that intellectuals translate “for the subal- tern.” A negative example will help to illustrate my point, and prevent the confusion that might occur by modifying an idea that was first described in a remarkable text by a North American grad- uate researcher in political science, Jay Maggio, titled “Can the Subaltern Be Heard?” (Maggio 2007). This article, which demon- strates formidable familiarity with Spivak’s oeuvre, proposes trans- lation as a viable means of displacing Spivak’s original question. The genius of Maggio’s formula is, however, not well served by its elaboration. Symptomatically, the article falls into the well–populated ranks of those respectables who have assigned themselves the task of finding “a possible solution to the Spivakian puzzle” (Maggio 2007, 438). More disturbingly, the author relies translation / spring / 2014 upon a notion of cultural translation, whose presuppositions of ho- molingual address we do not share, to “advocate a benevolent trans- lator in the West who offers a sympathetic reading of the subaltern” 191 (Maggio 2007, 437). Although the rhetoric of benevolence and sympathy—as well as “respect” (Maggio 2007, 435)—offers a fine opportunity to remind ourselves about the merits of Christiane Vol- laire’s (2007) more materialist analysis of the politics and aesthetics of humanitarian aid in its relation to war, the arms trade, and the politics of “regime change,” I would like to focus our attention on this idea of being “in the West.” In spite of the unmistakable spirit of charity and humility that characterizes this text, the one reform that is not contemplated is subjective—the crucial one, as far as subalternity is concerned. If “the translator must recognize the im- plicated relationship of the Westerner and the subaltern” (Maggio 2007, 434), the translator in Maggio’s text never dislodges itself from its self-assurance about identity. In order to get a sense of the magnitude of this self-assurance, I would ask the reader to bear with a lengthy list of textual citations that refer to the “West,” in- cluding: “Western discourse,” “the Western translator,” “the West- ern academy,” “Western thought,” “the intellectual Western scholar,” “a Western critic (citizen),” “Western philosophical tra- ditions,” “the Western approach,” the “Western viewer,” “the West- ern self,” “the modern Western subject,” “Western metanarratives,” “a uniquely Western notion of the subject,” “the very Western con- cept of an active speaker,” “the careful Western [sic.],” et cetera. Such self-assurance might be taken in this postimperial era as the sign of humility and respect; countless theorists of much greater sophistication than myself and Maggio have been known to engage in the same repetitive obsession. Essentially a catalogue of trans- lational tropes, this manner of invoking the West inevitably leads the author to ask, halfway through the article, “how can the Western scholar study the subaltern?” (Maggio 2007, 431). My response to this question is to repeat the mantra “away from the study of objects and back to the formation of subjects and social composition.” The lessons that the subaltern has to teach us about representation and its objects extend equally to the translator. Even the longest list of supposed civilizational traits combined with the most well-intentioned discourse that “recognizes the conditional nature of the constitution of both the dominant group as well as the translation / spring / 2014 subaltern” (Maggio 2007, 436) cannot immunize the translator against her own essential hybridity—much less against what Fou- cault dryly terms the “form of a relation with power” (Foucault 192 2000, 162). Hence it is no surprise to find discussions of subalter- nity, among those who would like to treat it as an ethical relation to objects of study, conducted in a confessional mode whose ulti- mate effect is to reinstantiate identity as a subject of representation. Undoubtedly, there is a postimperial etiquette at work here. Given that the history of colonialism is seen as a massive project of ex- propriation, the postimperial scholar signs on to a pact (the postim- perial etiquette), in which his identification with the West is to be taken as the sign of a historic eschewal of the politics of imperialist expropriation. An overwhelming proportion of today’s postimperial scholars—even the ones who specialize in postcolonialism—have embraced this ethics of positionality associated with their respectful acceptance of the area in which they are supposed to be assigned. It is precisely at this point that Naoki Sakai’s unique ac- count of the position of the translator really shines. What is revealed here is an essential, original hybridity and indeterminacy, present in every social relation, yet whose presence can never be fully rep- resented or conveyed or captured. I would like to suggest that it is this “position” that is the only viable option for the intellectual of any location on today’s postcolonial/postimperial geocultural map who is concerned about the ethics of subalternity. So, for profes- sional intellectuals, it is a question of becoming subaltern with re- gard to the postimperial etiquette, and then of using this process of becoming to expand the ranks of subalternity without end. This process of becoming must not be viewed through the terms of sym- pathy, much less appropriation; it must not, in other words, become an aesthetic project of mimesis and figuration through which the modern project of perfictioning, or fabricating racial/species per- fection, can be realized technologically! Instead, the process of be- coming subaltern has to be directly aimed at the apparatus of area, which is the main impediment to the maximization of subalternity without end. That injunction means that intellectuals will have to undertake or commit to a series of revolutionary changes in the op- positions that structure the “area–institutions” in which they work, beginning, in the context of a discussion about translation, with the valorization of authorship over that of translation, and extending translation / spring / 2014 beyond that specific context to the affective economy that is mobi- lized in support of the apparatus of area. The invention of new forms of inhabitance outside of the apparatus of area—or, to use a 193 less jargonistic language, the abandonment of the postimperial/ postcolonial, civilizational state and the exodus from the future- ruins and past-images in which it has trapped us—is, to my mind, the only way to “adequately address the damage done by colonial- ism” (Maggio 2007, 431). Which is to say, of course, that the only form of reparation that makes any sense in the face of that unre- payable debt is to recyle the affective debris of area into a being that does not accumulate, but grows through shedding. Transforming the Postimperial Etiquette A collective pact concluded precisely over the apparatus of area could never function without an affective component. In a re- cent work, Franco “Bifo” Berardi has described what he sees as the major affective traits of “semiocapitalism” (Berardi 2009a). Chief among them is the pendulum that swings between depression and panic, from bear market to bull market. Berardi talks about in- terrupting the obsessive repetitions in order to create alternate re- frains. My very un-Spinozist response to Bifo is that we replace depression with sadness. In the context of this essay, I will define this as the positive affirmation associated with carefully observing the way in which the trio of homolingual address, ressentiment, and erudition entraps us and prevents our liberation from the ap- paratus of area. Such sadness becomes the platform not for reject- ing the affective structure of area, perhaps claiming ourselves to be liberated from it while others languish (or revel) within, but for embracing it within the transformations of the collective bodies– tongues–minds assemblage(s). In other words, while depression is individual, sadness is transindividual. Depression is the form that sadness takes as it goads us into individuating in the retroactive– proactive way that is typical of the apparatus of area. Sadness is affirmative in the sense that it restores depression to its transindi- vidual element. Undoubtedly, this transformation of affect from the indi- vidual to the noncollective transindividual is part of an ontological shift. Scheler’s text on ressentiment, for example, can be read, as Olivier Agard’s neat analysis of Scheler shows (Agard 2009), translation / spring / 2014 through the twin themes of an antihumanist problematization of hy- lomorphic anthropology and resistance to capitalist modernity. First published in 1912 and rereleased in an expanded, revised edition 194 in 1915, Scheler’s work in this text presages his incursions in the 1920s into the debates over philosophical anthropology taking place in the Weimar Republic. Agard’s excavation of Scheler’s work reveals a philosopher who stands, problematically, at the cen- ter of a paradox between an “anthropocentric tendency” and an “in- verse tendency towards a rupture with anthropomorphism” (Agard 2009, 185). As both the “measure of every reality” and a “cultural construction” or bit of “stardust,” summarizes Agard, “man is both central and decentered at the same time” (Agard 2009, 185). In Res- sentiment, Scheler bemoans the way in which modern capitalist so- ciety perverts the Christian notion of love, directing it towards humanity in its generic qualification as a species (Scheler 1994, 99). Under capitalism, “the will of the species” substitutes itself for the good, which is reduced to a function of utility. As a result, a “new man” is produced. The new man is a hylomorphic type, de- fined by his relation to animality (not God). For Scheler, it is pre- cisely this sort of hylomorphism (a word that he does not use, as far as I am aware) that creates of man a figure that oscillates be- tween the “overman” and the “overanimal” (Scheler 1994, 105; my translation of Übertier). Even as Agard warns against conflating Scheler’s antihumanist problematization of anthropology with the likes of Michel Foucault (leaving aside the details of Agard’s fas- cinating, yet brief, comparison between the two thinkers), his de- scription of Scheler implicitly recalls the Foucaultian critique of man as an empirico-transcendental doublet. Agard concludes that “[t]his dilemma remains valid today” (Agard 2009, 185). The con- clusion I take from his analysis is that, at its base, ressentiment arises when the nonhylomorphic pair “Common/singular” (Virno 2009) is diverted to serve the interest of accumulation, becoming a state–people nexus instead. When Scheler speaks of affect in terms of a contrast between being a “passive feeling” (what is translated into French as a “state”) as opposed to an “action” and “movement” (Scheler 1994, 93), he betrays the productive negativity in his an- tihumanism and falls back into anthropology. The vocabulary of state, act, and movement is political as well as physical. Behind this physics of power lies a Hobbesian anthropology. In place of translation / spring / 2014 this classical political physics and its attendant anthropology, it would be well to recall what Bifo says about power: it is not a force, but a field of relations (Berardi 2009b, 118). 195 With regard to reclaiming erudition, the most stubborn ob- stacle to a reappropriation of this relationship today is the coloniza- tion of time. I feel embarrassed to admit that the only strategies I can propose in the face of this time-consumption system are the re- fusal of work and volunteerism. The latter is undoubtedly a com- promise, and bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to the way in which “free” labor is an integral part of the neoliberal model of labor management. The former is simply not an option for many— work, in the capitalist logic of surplus population, refuses them. For these reasons and others, the liberation from the colonization of time through the refusal of work is only the beginning, and could never be an end in itself. The most important ways of reappropri- ating erudition will have to come from transformations in the rela- tion between knowledge and the body. This is another facet of permanently leaving behind the anthropological project modernity. We start by refusing to adopt an exceptional position, such as seen in the Cartesian split. For professional intellectuals, this means first and foremost that the construction of disciplinary objects must al- ways be contested, if not refused. First, by questioning codes of domination in the objects presently considered “legitimate”; sec- ond, by questioning and rejecting the institutional imperative to de- vote one’s work to disciplinary objects at all. In place of disciplines devoted to objects that accumulate in the body of knowledge, we need disciplines devoted to knowledgeable practices of subjective transformation. By way of conclusion to this section, let me quote a passage from a fascinating work on the capitalist mobilization of affect by a member of the French Regulation School, Frédéric Lordon: “[I]t is once again Spinoza who gives us perhaps the definition of true communism: exploitation of affect will come to an end when men know to direct their common desires—and form an enterprise, yet a communist one—towards objects that are no longer material for unilateral capture, or, in other words, when they understand that the true good is that which wishes that others possess it at the same time as I” (Lordon 2010, 195–196). Lordon is expressing nothing less than an ontological revolution away from possessive individualism. translation / spring / 2014 For Lordon, this means going beyond the notion of objects as “ma- terial for unilateral capture.” Yet, based on my experience engaging in and reading through a critique of the apparatus of area, Lordon’s 196 formula still leaves too much room for the subjective investment in objects that is known as disavowal. No longer taking the individual as the legitimate unit of analysis means precisely rethinking the na- ture and status of objects. Ultimately, the constative part of the in- tellectual sphere rejoins the performative part. Social relations enjoy the singular position of being the nonrepesentable, practical fulcrum between those two moments: they are both the originary point of departure and the element of determination-in-the-last instance. Armed with this sort of awareness, our interest in objects, be they disciplinary or transdisciplinary, pales in comparison to our eager- ness to embrace the realm of cooriented ontology, “neither a return to the substantial object nor a so-called necessary anthropocentrism [but] an existentialism resolutely opposed to all homogeneity, to all ontological flattening as to all foreclosure of the common—an ex- istentialism without reserve” (Neyrat 2013, 25). The critique of area studies shows that what is crucial to the transition to a world that has nothing to do with colonialism, and perhaps capitalism, is nei- ther the accumulation of critically powerful troves of knowledge about specific objects nor so-called maturation and growth in the sphere of the subject, but rather the simplicity of thinking relation before the emergence of the two terms of which it is supposedly the expression—something like what the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy calls Mitdasein.7 Once we focus firmly on relations, all those “bridging tech- nologies” can no longer operate their ideological functions. Just as the citation above is a passage from Spinoza to Lordon, now it be- comes here a passage of mine and yours. The wish to be as numer- ous as possible in the sharing of indeterminate relations is a vow that befits the practice of the translator–subaltern, and the multi- tude(s). Areas in the Age of the Logistical Population The postimperial etiquette’s function is to leave the appa- ratus of area intact. This is what “being tactful” in the era of post- colonial/postimperial globalization means: it is an affective translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 7 Unfortunately, it is precisely in the relation between the constative and the performa- tive elements that Nancy’s philosophical writings sometimes most grievously betray his ontological discovery of the importance of being-in-common. See Solomon 2013. 197 economy that obviates the need to link a radical reorganization in the mechanisms of accumulation to subjective transformation. This understanding of the postimperial etiquette is corroborated by Gay- atri Spivak’s observation that “a hyperreal class of consolidated so- called international civil society is now being produced to secure the post-statist conjuncture” (Spivak 1999, 399). Although the postimperial etiquette promises to mitigate the possibility that his- torical resentment will break out into open struggle, it does so at the cost of instituting a highly normative regime. Clothed in an os- tensibly ethical discourse of respect for “cultural difference,” the postimperial etiquette prolongs racism, in the broadest sense of the term, by naturalizing the apparatus of area. Transnational complicity is acquiring a new face in the age of global semiocapitalism and biocapitalism, while the institutions and practices that constitute areas are changing rapidly. As we move from the age of the nation–state to the corporate–state, fueled by unprecedented privatizations of state functions, one has to be con- cerned that the postimperial etiquette today may well be operating as an ideological “justification” for the political legitimacy of the neoliberal corporate–state. Given the increasing integration of biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology within the context of capitalist accumulation, the meaning and role of pop- ulation is undergoing vast change. The shift from “statistical pop- ulations” to “logistical populations” (Harney 2010) takes on its greatest significance, to my mind, in the apprehension of population in terms of a “pool.” As biocapitalism identifies life with code and code with value, populations themselves essentially become ware- houses of value–code available for the development of virtually un- limited new products to be advanced by biocapitalism. Genetic code, as seen in the expression “DNA pool,” is thus the first level of meaning that I would ascribe to the “pooling” effect of logistical populations. The second and third levels occur in the moments of production and consumption. As the products of biocapitalism will be marketed directly back to the populations from which the value– code was originally sourced, logistical populations are also com- posed of a “consumer pool” and a “labor pool,” both of which are translation / spring / 2014 essentially held captive to, or made targets for, the extraction of surplus value out of the bioeconomy. Needless to say, the mainte- nance of discipline and control within each of these pools requires 198 an elaborate security apparatus capable of monitoring in real time the movements and borders that constitute pooling as such. The utopian vision behind logistical populations considers the possibil- ity of aligning in perfect synchronicity the global supply chain with the food chain of the global biosphere, thereby realizing the tran- shumanist dream of overcoming the limits of the individual body to create the perfect species–being. Yet within the context of social action motivated by the pursuit of surplus value, this utopian vision functions in the mode of ideological alienation, covering up the separation between a present and a future whose real function is to be found not in the promised alignment of cosmic supply and de- mand, but in the temporal circulation of the capitalist circuit that transforms money into commodities and then back into money. In order to see the ways in which logistical populations function as transactionable pools for the corporate surveillance state, we will unquestionably need to develops ways of looking be- yond the ideology of cultural difference and identity that naturalizes the pooling effect. Even as the state moves away from a classic na- tional form of organization, the ideology of the nation–state con- tinues to play an enormously influential role in the mobilization of affect and the short-circuiting of collective transnational resistance to the corporate surveillance machine. In view of this situation, I expect that translation and the heterolingual form of address will play an increasingly important role in the insurrections-to-come for a coinhabitable planet. translation / spring / 2014 199 References Agamben, Giorgio. 2000. Means Without End. Translated by Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Agard, Olivier. 2009. “La question de l’humanisme chez Max Scheler.” Revue germanique internationale. http://rgi.revues.org/331. Accessed November 26, 2012. Anghie, Antony. 2004. Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Balibar, Étienne. 1994. Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx. Translated by James Swenson. London and New York: Routledge. Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken. Berardi, Franco. 2009a. Precarious Rhapsody: Semiocapitalism and the Pathologies of the Post-Alpha Generation. Translated by Arianna Bove et al. London: Minor Compositions. ———. 2009b. The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy. Translated by Francesca Cadel and Giuseppina Mecchia. New York: Semiotext(e). Cole, Phillip. 2000. Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immi- gration. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University. Dorlin, Elsa. 2009. La Matrice de la race: Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la Na- tion française. Paris: Éditions la Découverte. Foucault, Michel. 2000. Essential Works of Foucault (1954–1984), Volume 3: Power. Translated by Robert Hurley, edited by James Faubion. New York: New Press. Géophilosophie de l’Europe. 1992. Penser l’Europe à ses frontières. Paris: Éditions de l’aube. Harney, Stefano. 2010. “From Statistical to Logistical Populations.” http://transit- labour.asia/blogs/statistical-logistical-populations. Accessed May 29, 2013. Kapferer, Bruce. 2010. “The Crisis of Power and the Emergence of the Corporate State in Globalizing Realities.” Paper presented at James Cook University, Australia. Video: http://www.jcu.edu.au/cairnsinstitute/info/resources/ JCUPRD1_061065.html. PDF: http://www.jcu.edu.au/cairnsinstitute/pub- lic/groups/everyone/documents/audio_object/jcuprd1_061188.pdf. Maggio, J. 2007. “Can the Subaltern Be Heard? Political Theory, Translation, Repre- sentation, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 32 (4): 419–444. Lordon, Frédéric. 2010. Capitalism, désir et servitude: Marx et Spinoza. Paris: La Fabrique. Merriam–Webster. Dictionary of the English Language. http://www.merriam-web- ster.com/dictionary/etiquette. Accessed June 9, 2013. Neyrat, Frédéric. 2013. Le Communisme existentiel de Jean-Luc Nancy. Paris: Lignes. Nowotny, Stefan. 2007. “The Double Meaning of Destitution.“ Transversal. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0507/nowotny/en. Accessed September 24, 2011. translation / spring / 2014 Quijano, Anibal. 2000. “The Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.“ Nepantla: View from the South 1: 3. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 200 ———. 2009. “How do we count a language? Translation and discontinuity.” Trans- lation Studies 2: 1, 71–88. Scheler, Max. 1994. Ressentiment. Translated by William W. Holdheim. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Solomon, Jon. 2009. “The Proactive Echo: Ernst Cassirer’s ‘Myth of the State’ and the Biopolitics of Global English”, Translation Studies (New York & Lon- don: Routledge) Vol. 2 No. 1, Jan. 2009. 52-70. ———. 2010. “The Experience of Culture : Eurocentric Limits and Openings in Fou- cault”, Transeuropéenes, No. 1, Vol. 1, 2010. http://www.transeuropeennes. eu/en/articles/108/The_Experience_of_Culture_Eurocentric_Limits_and_O penings_in_Foucault. ———. 2011. “Saving Population from Governmentality Studies: Translating Be- tween Archaeology and Biopolitics.” 2011. In eds. Deotte, Brossat, Liu & Chu. Biopolitics, Ethics and Subjectivation Paris: L’Harmattan. 191-206. ———. 2012. “Another European Crisis? Myth, Translation, and the Apparatus of Area.” http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/solomon/en. Accessed June 5, 2013. ———. 2013. “Zai shijie shuju yushang gongcundashi: ping Nonxi ‘Lun sixiang de jiaoyi’” [Meeting the Master of “Being-In-Common” at the World Book- store: A Review of Jean-Luc Nancy’s On The Commerce of Thinking”]. Router: a journal of cultural studies 15: 498–515. ———. 2014. “Invoking the West: Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Romantic Ideology’ and the Problems of Civilizational Transference.” Forthcoming. Eds. Huang, Cory and Jon Solomon. Concentric. Spivak, Gayatri. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press. ———. 2005. “Translating into English.” Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation. Edited by S. Bermann and M. Wood, 93–110. Princeton: Princeton University. ———. 2009a. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana and Chicago: Uni- versity of Illinois Press. ———. 2009b. Outside in the Teaching Machine. London and New York: Routledge. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. Lon- don and New York: Routledge. Virno, Paolo. 2009. “Angels and the General Intellect: Individuation in Duns Scotus and Gilbert Simondon.” Translated by Nick Heron. Parrehsia 7: 58–67. Vollaire, Christiane. 2007. L’Humanitaire, le coeur de la guerre. Paris: L’Insulaire. Jon Solomon was born in the United States and trained at Cornell University. He lived in east Asia for twenty-five years before relocating to Europe to assume a position as professor in the Institute of Transtextual and Transcultural Studies, Université Jean Moulin, Lyon, France. His extracurricular interests include backpacking and Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism. His current project is to develop a discussion of “area” as an es- sential operation for the governing capacity of the state in parallel to the question of translation / spring / 2014 “population,” a form of the investment of state power within life, what might be re- ferred to as "biopower," following Foucault. Within this project, an examination of the biopolitics of translation occupies a privileged place for understanding the relations be- tween anthropological difference, geocultural area, and regimes of accumulation. 201

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Beyond the Regime of Fidelity ............................ Bauhaus University, Germany. Boris Buden [email protected] Abstract: The case of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, accused of treason by the United States, reveals its true political meaning in the context of a problem with which the traditional theory of translation is so obsessively concerned—the quasi dialectics between fidelity and betrayal. To put it more simply: to betray in trans- lation always means to break a contract in which modern society and its political container, the nation–state, is ideologically grounded, namely the so-called social contract. It is because the commonsense concept of translation, whose meaning Naoki Sakai epitomized in the notion of homolingual address, not only concep- tually parallels the social contract theory, but is, even in its most recent versions (Rawls, Habermas), directly involved in the construction of the bourgeois polit- ical sphere and the modern liberal democratic state. For the same reason, an abandoning of the regime of homolinguality—that is, traditional understanding of translation with its crude binarism and its obsession with the question of fi- delity—cannot be reduced to a simple shift in the paradigm within translation theory. It implies an agonistic—and therefore genuinely political—act of chal- lenging the very mode of sociality that is reproduced by the modern liberal dem- ocratic state. In short, it implies the traumatic betrayal of the very regime of fidelity on which it is based. ______________ Treason It didn’t take long for the infamous T-word to appear. Not only were notorious American conservatives like Dick Cheney quick to accuse the NSA leaker Edward Snowden of treason, but they were promptly joined by Democrats like California Senator Dianne Feinstein and the most prominent John Kerry, Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. Those rightly shocked by the use of such a scary word in a public discourse supposed to be governed by rational argument, a word that not only moralistically sabotages a possible debate on the problem but is itself heavily charged with translation / spring / 2014 almost mystical dimensions of guilt, crime, and punishment, just as quickly responded with a no less irrational rejection of the accusa- tion of treason. An article in The New Yorker (Herzberg 2013) pro- 104 vides a good example of how desperate such justification strategy is: first, Snowden has committed no crime. According to the Con- stitution (Article III, Section 3), the treason against United States consists only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, which, as it can be easily proved, he hasn’t done. Sec- ondly, even if he has violated a law (“he is manifestly a law- breaker”), Snowden is not a traitor. The proof: his intentions were innocent. Not only did he never intend to damage national security, but he acted, rather, on the basis of a belief that he was serving the true interests and highest values of his country. Thus, regardless of whether he has broken the law or betrayed his country, Snowden is a true patriot. And finally, guilty or not—a lawbreaker, a traitor, a patriot or not—he has already been severely punished by sentencing himself to perpetual exile. However helpless in its attempt to rationally reject the ac- cusation, this argumentation succeeds perfectly in foreclosing the problem it has touched upon. It deals with the symptoms of the in- toxication caused by the public use of the world “treason”—“the word is pure poison,” writes Herzberg in the same article—not with the toxic substance itself. What is actually so poisonous about the word “treason” is precisely the fact that its meaning transcends far beyond the moral–juridical discourse that reigns over the public of today’s liberal democratic regime. The motif of treason and fi- delity—which is intrinsically tied to it—evokes fundamental ques- tions on the formation of the social. More than a hundred years ago, the sociologist Georg Sim- mel stated that society would not be able to exist for any time at all without the phenomenon of fidelity, or Treue (Simmel 1908). He understood fidelity as a “sociological affect” that aims to foster the persistence of social relations. His favorite example is the well- known expression “faithful love.” Why is there a need for fidelity, Simmel asks, if love that once brought two people together still per- sists in their long-lasting relationship? Fidelity is obviously needed when the cause that initiated the relationship at the very beginning has in the meantime disappeared. It is, for instance, what makes an erotic relationship survive even if the physical beauty that brought translation / spring / 2014 it about diminishes and turns into ugliness. This is why Simmel sug- gests that the notion of “faithful love” simply be replaced by a more appropriate one: “enduring love.” It is precisely because of the mat- 105 ter of time, or, rather, of endurance that “fidelity and its opposite become important […] as the bearer of the existing and self-pre- serving kinds of relationship among members.” It is “one of the most universal patterns of action significant for the most diverse in- teractions among the people” (Simmel 2009, 517). “Fidelity and its opposite,” writes Simmel, where by “its opposite” he obviously means “betrayal,” which in this context ac- quires an unexpected meaning. To stay within Simmels’s example: the expression “betrayal of love” makes no more sense than the al- ready mentioned “faithful love.” Behavior that appears to us, and is often described, as “betrayal of love” is nothing other than an ef- fect of the simple absence of love. How can we say that a person who leaves his or her partner, or begins a love relationship with an- other, has betrayed the love of this person, if the fact that this love vanished before is precisely what brought about the demise of the relationship? Paradoxically, one can betray only a former love, or, more precisely, one can betray what has been brought into existence by this love—be it marriage, family, children, friendship, or similar. It is in this context that Simmel questions the well-known truism “that it is easier to destroy than to build.” It doesn’t actually hold for certain human relationships. While it is true for a relationship that it requires certain conditions to come into existence, this doesn’t mean that the subsequent loss of these conditions will necessarily cause its collapse. Once it has begun, it doesn’t permanently rely on the feeling or practical occasion without which it would not have arisen in the first place—as long as it relies on the fidelity that com- pensates for the absence of these conditions and keeps the relation unchanged in its social structure. This is why it is sometimes harder to destroy than to build. But what does this tell us about the case of Snowden’s “trea- son,” which has shocked public opinion the world over? First of all, it tells us that the whole juridical dimension of the accusation of treason, including its rejection, completely misses the point—its temporal meaning. Although juridical discourse correctly addresses the agonistic character of the problem by situating it in the relation between friends and enemies—“Treason against the United States, translation / spring / 2014 shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,” states Article Three of the United States Constitution—it understands treason and im- 106 plicitly addresses fidelity primarily in terms of belonging to a friendly inside that automatically presupposes loyalty and is op- posed to a hostile outside that deserves no such feelings. This quasi dialectic between fidelity and treason is based on a spatial percep- tion of political and cultural entities. Precisely as such, it reminds us directly of the commonsense view of translation and its obsession with the same subject. According to this view, translation takes place between two already existing languages that automatically imply two different cultures, respectively two separate social and political entities— mostly a nation and a nation–state—each enclosed in a homoge- neous, often also clearly demarcated space. The task of translation in this situation is then to bridge linguistic and other differences so as to facilitate communication between the two entities. Once we have accepted this view, the proper position of translational practice becomes problematic. It can, in fact, never occupy a location equi- distant from the two sides, one of which is always defined as orig- inal while the other is a sort of secondary production—that is, its translation.1 This circumstance is the source of an endless discussion about which side to adhere to—either the linguistic and cultural realm of the original, or the respective one of its translation. Since in either case there is always at stake more than a simple correspon- dence of linguistic meaning—namely cultural but above all social and political effects of translational practice—such discussion as- sumes dimensions of much greater importance that go back to the very formation of the social. The already-mentioned quasi dialectic between fidelity and treason is nothing but a moralistic—and in this sense ideological—expression of a simple truth according to which translation has always been more than a purely linguistic issue, and namely a social and political act. As in the case of the accusation of treason leveled against Snowden, this endless moralistic discussion about whom a transla- .......................... 1 One of today’s widely preferred solutions to this problem is to declare “inbetween- ness” as a cultural space in its own right, endowed with authentic emancipatory po- translation / spring / 2014 tential. Precisely in promising an easy escape from the crude binarism of the traditional concept of (cultural) translation, it fosters the illusion of an emancipation without a rad- ical conflict with the powers that have themselves generated this same binarism. To challenge an imposed “either/or” implies an even more decisive “either/or,” of which the case of Edward Snowden is the most cogent proof. 107 tor should be faithful to has an ideological function, which is to sup- press the problem it tackles, and in this way support the social re- lations that inform the existing reality. Security or Freedom As is well known, the public debate surrounding recent cases of leaking classified information—not only in Snowdon’s case, and not only in the USA—is generally framed by the alterna- tive “security or freedom” that is typical for the whole debate on “terrorism.” Rastko Močnik 2 compared it with Lacan’s concept of vel, or a “forced choice” (Močnik 2003, ix). Confronted with some- one who says “your money or your life,” we actually have no alter- native. If we choose money we lose both. So there is no other option than to choose life (without money). Something similar happens in the “security or freedom” alternative. If we choose security, we will have security without freedom; if we choose freedom, we will lose both. In the case of Edward Snowden, it seems at first sight that he has crossed a fine line that demarcates a proper relation between freedom and limitations to this freedom imposed in the name of se- curity. In a democratic society, such a line is supposed to be drawn as a result of a rational public debate, which cannot be decided a priori and is in itself endless. Yet we have seen that such a debate was quickly interrupted by the accusation of treason and deterio- rated into an a posteriori sophistry on individual guilt and inno- cence. So it seems that Snowden mistook “security or freedom” for a true alternative, while it was, in fact, a vel—a non alternative. .......................... 2 At this point, an editor at a typical publisher’s or journal would ask me to further specify who this name actually refers to, expecting me to provide additional information usually comprising profession and geopolitical location. In this particular case, this information would probably read “Slovenian philosopher.” This would most certainly help readers quickly orientate themselves on the map of today’s global production of knowledge, yet the question is, what sort of orientation is this in point of actual fact? It opportunis- tically follows the model of representation and classification of epistemological subjects that is fully in accordance with today’s still dominant picture of the world as a colorful translation / spring / 2014 cluster of nations and ethnicities located in their own, clearly demarcated linguistic, cul- tural, and political spaces. But this is precisely the model that supports—and is sup- ported by—the traditional concept of translation and the corresponding regime of fidelity, which are the object of criticism here. This is why I refuse—at least in the main text—to provide any such “stylistic” specification. 108 By choosing freedom, it had to end in treason. But why was his the wrong choice? The answer seems obvious: Snowden seems to be a naive essentialist. In his decision to reveal to the general public clas- sified details of the mass surveillance programs put in place by the US and UK governments, he actually addressed and claimed a value—freedom manifested as civil liberty—for which he believed to be the very essence of the society and the state he served, or as we would rather put it today, an essential part of the US American identity. The fact that the addressee responded with the accusation of treason proves that this value has already evacuated its political embodiment, the institution of the state as well as the decisive part of civil society both still claiming to have originated in this value. This is the reason why there is a need for fidelity. It alone is capable of preserving the duration of a social relation beyond the presence of the values and forces that once initiated it. Fidelity assures that this social relation, including the whole institutional edifice built on it, will outlive these values and forces with the same synthesizing effect. What Snowden did not know is that by choosing freedom instead of security he has claimed a former freedom whose place within the American imaginary has in the meantime been occupied by security. By the same token, we might say more generally that the accusation of betraying the so-called American values—or, for ex- ample, “Western values”—does not make much sense. One can only betray what has been created by and built upon those values and now persists after they have passed. The same applies to the accu- sations of betraying love of country as well as the attempts to justify such a betrayal—a claim, for instance, that Snowden in his “wrong- doings” was actually motivated by a genuine love for his country. The moment a patriotic feeling becomes a matter of fidelity, then the so-called love of country has already vanished. This, however, does not mean that an endless public debate over the proper dose of love of country or a harmonic coexistence of freedom and security makes no sense whatsoever. Such discus- sions, as Močnik argues, have a clear ideological function—to re- produce the relation between the state and individual in the translation / spring / 2014 immediacy of this relation. At stake is a situation that has been con- ceptualized in the grounding myth of the modern bourgeois state, in the so-called social contract theory. As is well known, it explains 109 the establishment of political order, above all of its most important institutional form, the state, as a result of a contract among individ- uals. It also presupposes that these individuals, before they enter into the contract, were not bound by any social relation. They enter into the contract directly, as it were, from the state of nature, as purely natural beings, so that the social character of their mutual re- lations is nothing but a retroactive effect of the contract itself. There is also an element of gain and loss in the social contract, at least in its Hobbesian form, where individuals have to surrender some of their freedoms to their ruler in exchange for protection of their re- maining rights, a meaning that brings us back to the topic of free- dom and security, or, respectively, of treason and fidelity. Seen from this perspective, treason is simply a violation of that original con- tract by which an individual egoistically usurps too much freedom, thus jeopardizing the security of others. As a response, society can- cels the contract with this particular individual and excludes him.3 Translation and Social Contract: a Parallel At this point, we should draw a parallel between the theory of social contract and the already mentioned commonsense concept of translation, whose meaning Naoki Sakai has epitomized in the notion of homolingual address (Sakai 1997, 1–17). Sakai shifted at- tention from the paradigm of communication in which translation appears as the transferring of a message from one language to an- other to the problem of address, which reveals the linguistic en- counter that takes place in translation as essentially a social relation. What he calls the regime of homolingual address is a particular rep- resentation of translation in which one side of the translational en- counter addresses the other as though both are representatives of different linguistic communities. It reduces the initial situation of not understanding, which prompts translation, to one single differ- ence between two language societies. Thus, the already mentioned commonsense notion of translation according to which translation always takes place between two separate languages perceived as enclosed, homogeneous, internally transparent linguistico-cultural spaces—and necessarily implies the whole drama of fidelity and translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 3 It either prosecutes a traitor like Bradley Manning, or leaves him in a quasi-stateless limbo by canceling his travel documents, as in the case of Snowden. 110 treason—is in fact a retroactive effect of the homolingual mode of address. At stake is a constellation that, as mentioned above, is rem- iniscent of the social contract, that fairytale regarding the formation of state and society. First of all, the relation between languages and language communities, as structured under the regime of homolin- gual address, resembles the relation between individuals in the so- cial contract. As is well known, individuals enter into the original contract directly, as it were, from the state of nature—that is, as though they have never before been involved in any sort of social relation. In other words, they become social beings only and for the first time at the moment of entering into the contract. Is this not sim- ilar to the perception of languages and language communities that enter into translational encounter? It makes an impression that they have never encountered each other before and have no traces of for- mer relations, no shared experiences, no history of mutual hy- bridizations, no memories of being in the past mere moments of same linguistic continuities. Like individuals at the moment of en- tering into the social contract, languages and language communities appear at the moment of translation in their absolute isolation and solitude, a condition that is constantly reproduced under the regime of homolingual address. It is therefore probably even wrong to say that this regime suppresses the fact that translation is a social relation. Rather, it completely usurps and monopolizes the very sociality of linguistic practice. Translation appears as the only social relation a language is able to articulate, but as a relation between languages not between humans. Now there are languages that, as isolated monads, socialize freely among themselves thanks to translation. Humans who speak these languages, who understand, misunderstand, or do not under- stand them, who therefore cannot but constantly translate and hence reproduce their linguistic praxis (a praxis of which translation is an unavoidable element) and themselves through it, are supposed to socialize too—but only within the enclosed space of one single “own” language. Do they have any social life beyond that? No. Out- side of this space there is nothing but a (linguistic) wilderness, a translation / spring / 2014 presocial state of language qua nature. Once again, we are describ- ing a reality that is retroactively structured as such through a certain, historically particular, and ideologically framed perception of trans- 111 lation based on the paradigm of homolingual address. It would be wrong to say that it simply desocializes translational praxis. Rather, it seizes the social truth of translation and redistributes it according to its ideological function. Its modus operandi is dehistoricization. In order to achieve its ideological goals, the homolingual address imposes a sort of structural oblivion on the translational praxis. It is only after having got rid of its history, which is the his- tory of its social relations, that translation in the homolingual mode of address can feature its three main characteristics, typical of a commonsense understanding of translation. The first is its posteri- ority, the impression that translation enters the scene only after the two languages have already completed their development and reached their final form—that is, as though they meet for the first time without having had anything to do with each other before. This automatically has another effect: the externality of translation. It appears that it confronts an already existing, enclosed, and internally homogenous linguistic space from its outside. So the perception of such a language–space excludes translational praxis in both way temporally and spatially. Finally, these two features merge into one for the traditional understanding of translation’s essential feature, its secondary character. At stake is the notorious binary relation be- tween the so-called source and target language, which implies a qualitative difference between the original in one language and its secondary production in another. It is also on the grounds of this same dehistoricization that the regime of homolingual address in principle doesn’t recognize any qualitative difference between and among languages. Rather, it presupposes an abstract equality of all of them and grants each the freedom to enter into relation with any other language according to its own need or will. In this sense, too, it repeats the logic of the modern bourgeois political sphere that is imagined as emerging out of the social contract and consisting of abstract, mutually separated individuals that are all “free and equal.” In fact, we can think of the regime of homolingual address as a linguistic pendent to the bour- geois political sphere. It also creates a homogeneous space, clearly differentiated from other spheres of life, in which, instead of indi- translation / spring / 2014 viduals, languages and respective language societies appear in trans- lational encounter as free and equal—only after and because they have been radically separated from each other, which actually 112 means separated from their social relations and the history of their social interactions. But beyond the abstract postulate of equality among lan- guages, the reality of translational praxis looks quite different. The statistical data on international flows of translated books show how the world system of translation is hierarchically organized (see, on this point, Heilbron 2010). The so-called hypercentral position is occupied by one single language. Almost sixty percent of all trans- lated books in the world are translations from English. Only two languages, German and French, have a central position each with a share of about ten percent of the global translation market. It is fol- lowed by seven to eight languages in a semicentral position, each with one to three percent of all translated books (Spanish, Russian, Italian, etc). The remainder of almost two hundred languages, among which quite large ones such as Chinese or Arabic (from which less than one percent of all translations worldwide are un- dertaken), are peripheral (Heilbron 2010, 2). As in the case of the social contract, the regime of homolin- gual address does not simply hide the reality of hierarchies, hege- monies, and relations of domination and submission. It is, in fact, like the bourgeois political sphere that is retroactively constructed by the social contract, an institution of domination itself. The rela- tion of domination is intrinsic to the very formation of such a sep- arate homogeneous sphere of abstract linguistic equality, which is why there is no space for an alternative within its horizon. Good, Bad, Faithful The conceptual and ideological alliance between the regime of homolingual address and the social contract theory can also be historically traced down to German Romantic translation theory. As is well know, it is still praised for its so-called welcoming of the foreign (see Berman 1992). In the perspective of German Roman- tics, the foreign (das Fremde), which should be clearly perceptible in translation, is a sort of added value that is supposed to refine the language of the translator and the spirit of his or her nation, or as we would say today, its culture. Concretely, in their case it was a translation / spring / 2014 classical quality that German originally lacks and can acquire only through translations from the classical languages—Greek and Latin. This, however, implies a certain original form of the German lan- 113 guage that could be imagined as a kind of linguistic state of nature, a condition of language before its first encounter with other lan- guages. We can think of it as a state of language prior to its first translation. Precisely as such it again clearly resembles the concept of an individual existing before its first encounter with other indi- viduals in the abstractness from any social relations, that is, before the emergence of society—a constellation akin to the concept of the social contract. In relation to the principle of fidelity that implies a for- eignizing of the language and culture of translation, both emphati- cally preferred by German translation theorists—in contrast to the so-called French school, which proclaimed the principle of license and domestication—the German Romantic concept of translation operates according to the following scenario: a language, respec- tively a language community, represented through the figure of the translator, gives up a part of its natural originality and accepts con- tamination by the foreign in order to achieve the state of culture. But the translator, in accomplishing this cultural mission, must therefore also sacrifice part of his or her freedom and stay faithful to a certain cultural task, which is always already a social and po- litical one—the task of nation-building. Accordingly, the fidelity of translation is not a matter of its quality in terms of a degree of faith- fulness to the original, but, rather, a matter of loyalty to the linguistic community, and, concretely, to the nation. It refers directly to a so- cial relation that must be preserved and developed beyond any given essence, or to recur to Simmel’s notion of fidelity, it refers to a social relation that must be constantly cultivated after the pregiven origi- nality—as it is retroactively projected into the state of nature—has been replaced by culturally generated sociality. Thus, not being faithful in translation does not mean betraying the original text, or any sort of original essence, but betraying the social relation that has been cultivated upon and beyond this originality. In the final analysis, this means betraying a very specific and a very specifically binding political commitment. The consequences of such a betrayal, of course, run far deeper than the consequences of an inaccurate or bad translation. translation / spring / 2014 In fact, the differentiation between a good and a bad translation is itself ultimately a political issue. So, Antoine Berman (1992, 5) de- fines bad translation as an ethnocentric translation that systemati- 114 cally negates the strangeness of the foreign work. It is clearly the fidelity to a particular political cause—here, obviously, a commit- ment to what we may call liberal inclusivism—that makes such an assessment possible. However, Berman cannot admit a political and ideological bias. Rather, he insists on a purely ethical position, ar- guing that translation gets its true sense only from the ethical aim by which it is governed. Moreover, he is convinced that defining this ethical aim will liberate translation from “its ideological ghetto,” which is for him one of the tasks of a theory of translation. For Berman, ethics is what translation is all about, not politics or ideology. What he calls the “ethics of translation” consists of deter- mining the pure aim of translation as such. It consists, finally, “of defining what ‘fidelity’ is” (Berman 1992, 5). That such an expansion of the ethical dimension of transla- tion has itself an ideological function, namely to avoid confrontation with the political meaning of translational praxis and the role fi- delity plays in it, is already revealed by opening the historical di- mension of translation. Referring to Leonard Forster’s research on multilingualism in literature, Antoine Berman reminds us himself that the lettered public of the sixteenth century used to read a literary work in its different linguistic variants, which is why it ignored the issue of fidelity and treason (Berman 1992, 4). How, then, has this issue become, since the eighteen century, of such crucial importance for different translation theories and is even believed to determine the very essence of translational praxis? People started to hold their mother tongue sacred, says Berman. Not only that, we can add. Peo- ple began to think of the origins of their social order, the state, and their very sociality in terms of contractual relationships, which sig- nificantly raised the importance of the ethical dimension of social and political life including the issue of fidelity and treason. More- over, people started to imagine their common being in cultural terms. They began to create nations, unique national cultures, and languages enclosed in homogeneous, clearly differentiated spaces. It was in the age of Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth century that the ground was laid for the most important political in- stitution of our time, the nation–state, and for the political structure translation / spring / 2014 of the modern world, the so-called Westphalian order. Needless to say, both translation and fidelity have important roles in this process, which they have played up to the present. The best example 115 is one of the most prominent political philosophies of the liberal age—John Rawls’s theory of justice, a modern revival of the clas- sical social contract theory. No Justice Without Translation: a Proviso John Rawls introduces the notion of translation at the most traumatic point of his concept of a liberal democratic society, at the dividing line between the private and the public, which in our age of radical desecularization has become a true frontline along which today’s societies threaten to break apart and fall back into the con- stant war of all against all, as is the case today with the sinister af- termaths of the so-called Arab spring. This historical event is in a way a double failure of transla- tion. First, the translation of an allegedly universal concept of West- ern democracy into a local, “predemocratic” idiom of a non-Western world, supposed to be deeply contaminated by tribalism, ethnocen- trism, religious fundamentalism, and authoritarianism—a transla- tion that undoubtedly follows the track of the old imperialist expansionism—resulted in chaos and violence. It only rearticulated this particular non-Western location as historically belated, con- cretely, not yet mature for democracy. But at the same time the po- litical concept of translation that was built into the very project of Western liberal democracy as the instrument of its universal trans- latability, designed to deal with particular claims of all sorts, espe- cially with those of different religious communities, has also failed, revealing a corrupt element within the original itself that renders its translation impossible. As is well known, in his conceptual reenactment of the old social contract theory, Rawls constructed the so-called original po- sition, an imaginary standpoint projected behind what he calls “the veil of ignorance,” an imagined boundary that makes all particular facts like ethnicity, gender, class, religion, and so forth external to our reasoning that now, protected from and cleansed of all the par- ticularities, can arbitrate between rival parties out of the only knowl- edge available within this sphere—the knowledge of the general principle of justice. translation / spring / 2014 Rawls later revised this argument—making concessions to the ever stronger ideology of liberal multiculturalism—and included the so-called proviso, which allows for the expression of religious 116 arguments in public debates so long as they can be translated into the language of public reason (see Rawls 1997). Thus, the bourgeois political sphere falls apart into two lin- guistic spaces that are at the same time separated and connected through translation, which articulates and controls the divide within this sphere and at the same time provides for its homogeneity. In his own dealing with the problem of desecularization, Jürgen Habermas (1989) basically adopted Rawls’s “translational proviso.” He, too, believes that religious citizens—whom he calls “monolingual citizens” (!) since their religious language is the only one they understand—should be allowed to use their religious ar- guments in the public sphere as long as these are translated into a language that is accessible to all citizens. But he also explicitly states who is supposed to undertake this translation, namely the sec- ular citizens, and precisely where it should occur—at what he calls the “institutional threshold,” a boundary that separates the so-called informal public sphere, which allows for articulation of religious arguments and which is therefore contaminated with private rea- sons, from another that informs a sort of pure, or primal, public sphere, the sphere of parliaments, courts of justice, ministries, pub- lic administrations, et cetera. Within the informal public, which we can imagine after the multicultural model as a sphere of linguistic diversity, prevails a ca- cophony (Habermas calls it the “babble of voices” of public com- munication) of mutually incomprehensible languages of different religions, or, as Rawls would put it, comprehensive doctrines. Placed on the threshold to the institutional part of the public sphere, where no religious arguments are allowed, translation, which Habermas explicitly compares with a filter, lets pass only secular inputs, cleansing the language of religious particularities and turning it into a homogenous, totally transparent language of the secular state. The political sphere of a bourgeois democratic society is thus multilingual. It speaks many languages, of which only one is considered to be its original language—the mother tongue of a lib- eral secular state. From the point of view of this proper language of the state and society, all its other languages appear foreign, which translation / spring / 2014 is why they must be translated. And yet this translation is a one- way translation. Is the proper language of the public sphere sup- posed to be accessible to all, thus requiring no translation? 117 The source of this ambiguity actually lies in the fact that Habermas understands translation according to an a priori, given homolinguality—that is, in terms of a preexisting linguistic unity. He thus reduces its meaning to the function of linguistic purification and homogenization. This is only possible on the assumption of a homogenous target language, the language of a public reduced to an exclusively institutional realm. However, this language doesn’t seem to preexist translation. Rather, it appears to be its product, a performative result of the homolingual address, in which Haber- mas’s idea of translation is grounded. This is why this ultimate lan- guage of the political public—purified from any sort of religious or doctrinaire particularity, a language into which all the languages of the “informal public” can be and should be translated—itself eludes any further translation. It is a language in which all foreignness is finally sublated, which makes it the mother tongue of a society en- closed in a democratic, secular state. It alone is able to generate a total transparency of the political public in which, in the sense of an act of self-reflection, society as society is grounded. We should not forget that Habermas, in his Structural Transformation (1989, 24–29), already starts from the assumption that public debates are fully comprehensible and linguistically transparent. On the other hand, the linguistic heterogeneity that is as- cribed to the informal public turns out to be a mere plurality of the already existing, homogenous languages of a particular religion, a political doctrine, or a Weltanschauung. From the point of view of the mother tongue of the society—that is, on the part of a presumed total transparency of the proper, institutional political public—the linguistic diversity of the informal public appears as a domain of a specific clandestinity, the clandestinity of the so-called alien word. Translation: a Return of the Repressed We should, at this point, recall the “grandiose organizing role of the alien word” of which Vološinov writes in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (1973).4 He defines the “alien word,” or the “foreign-language word,” primarily as a word that eludes gen- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 4 In this section, I rely on Nowotny’s “Kontinua der Verwandlung. Sprachphilosophische und linguistische Aspekte der Übersetzung.” See Nowotny 2008, 95–131. 118 eral use; it hides within itself a secret that can be deciphered and is administrated by “rulers” or “priests” who alone have at their com- mand its “true meaning.” It is not difficult to recognize here a ho- mogenous religious language of Habermas’s informal public. This also explains his translational proviso. What religion has alienated from general use must now be made “generally accessible” again through translation at the institutional threshold. This becomes clear if we remember that Habermas, in fact, conceives of translation according to the psychoanalytic model (see Habermas 1987, and, for a more detailed consideration, Buden 2005, 85–89). Its primal task is not simply to enable understanding between two partners who speak different languages, but rather to sublate the suppression (Verdrängung), which he understands as the splitting-off of one part of the language from public communica- tion—in other words, the privatization of one part of its meaning.5 The goal of psychoanalytic cure, which Freud already explicitly compares with translation, (see Freud 280) is to enable the self-re- flection, that is the reappropriation, of a previously privatized part of public language—made foreign and clandestine due to mental illness—so that the self can restore itself in its totality and trans- parency. This generally explains Habermas’s model of seculariza- tion: religious language is allowed to take part in the articulation of the public sphere because it is in principle understood as a split-off part of this same public sphere, a language that is alienated from society, which, precisely as such, obscures one part of the social self-formation process (Bidlungsprozess) that is closely connected with the public sphere. Just as the patient reappropriates alienated parts of the history of her development in performing translation/ self-reflection together with the analyst, so too does society recon- struct its own self-formation process in performing translation/self- reflection cooperatively via secular and nonsecular citizens, thus establishing itself in its totality and transparency. This clearly confirms that translation for Habermas has a primarily socially formative function, concretely playing a crucial translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 5 Here, we should not forget that psychoanalysis is not an auxiliary means of commu- nication for Habermas, but rather the paradigm of communicative self-reflexion. 119 role in the Bildungsprozess—not only a process of both collective and individual self-creation, but also a process in which society and culture inextricably merge. However, precisely in fulfilling its social function, transla- tion opens up a paradox similar to the one of the theories of the so- called social contract, in which liberal political concepts still try to ground society. Louis Althusser has pointed to this problem in deal- ing with Rousseau’s contrat social concept: at the moment of the conclusion of the contract, as a contract between individuals and the community, the second contractual partner, the community, doesn’t exist since it is only its product (Althusser 1987, 146 and following pages). Thus, the result of the contract—the community that does not preexist the contract—is preinscribed in the very con- dition of the contract. This completely applies to Habermas’s translational pro- viso, which presupposes that translation occurs between two lan- guages—a religious language articulated in the so-called informal public and the language of the proper political public that is spoken behind the institutional threshold. Namely, at the moment of trans- lation one of these languages, the “mother tongue” of the liberal, democratic state, does not exist yet since it should first emerge as the product of this translation. In terms of the filter metaphor—as has been said before, Habermas explicitly compares the institutional translation with a filter that extracts only secular reasons—this lan- guage has the form of a “language filtrate.” The perception that it was already there before the translation is, in fact, an effect of a par- ticular representation of translation that necessarily compels us to the assumption of preexisting, distinct, and closed linguistic enti- ties—in short, the performative effect of what Sakai calls the ho- molingual address.6 So both the existence of homogenous religious communities and the existence of a secular, liberal democratic so- ciety are grounded in the ideological perception of a homogenous linguistic unity. This is the reason why we say that translation has .......................... translation / spring / 2014 6 See Nakai (1997, 2): “[I]t is not because two different language unities are given that we have to translate (or interpret) one text into another; it is because translation artic- ulates languages so that we may postulate the two unities of the translating and the translated languages as if they were autonomous and closed entities through a certain representation of translation.” 120 a socially formative function. It is translation that finally makes out of a diversity of different, religious, ethnic, doctrinaire, and so forth, linguistic communities a homogenous secular society. This society, too, is a linguistic community, yet it does not originate in “natural”—or, from the perspective of the secular state, alienated, privatized—languages, but in a linguistic extract filtered out of these natural languages, which is considered the mother tongue of a liberal democratic society enclosed in the secular state. The nature–culture difference, which is clearly heard here, again evokes the theory of the social contract. One can easily imagine what Habermas and liberal theory would expect to happen to a so- ciety that ignores the translational proviso and does not properly guard the boundary between private and public—a regression into the state of nature, into a Babylonian confusion of tongues and lin- guistic communities that can no longer agree on any common in- terest, since they only speak languages that are foreign to one other. In short, a society without the internal border between private and public, without a borderline drawn by the translation–filter would collapse and end in some sort of Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes. Come Home and Face the Consequences Referring to the impossibility of literally translating the fa- mous Italian aphorism on translation traduttore traditore into Eng- lish as “the translator is a betrayer,” Roman Jakobson suggests that this rhyming epigram be translated in the form of “a more explicit statement and to answer the questions: translator of what messages? betrayer of what values?” (Jakobson 2000, 143). Let us avoid being seduced by the allegedly high stakes of “messages and values.” There is more at stake here: fidelity and be- trayal in translation refer directly to the socially formative role of this linguistic practice. As we have tried to show here, under the regime of homolingual address—which is precisely the name for a historically contingent, ideologically functional, and politically pragmatic form of translational practice—the meaning of linguistic translation, as well as the meaning of fidelity and betrayal in trans- translation / spring / 2014 lation, cannot be separated from the concept of social contract. To betray in a translation does not mean to send a wrong message or to violate a precious value but to break a social contract and in this 121 way jeopardize the existing form of social being—that is, con- cretely, a particular society enclosed in a nation–state and defined primarily through its identity that implies a unique culture, history, ethnicity, and language. The regime of homolingual address, which almost uncon- testedly dominates present-day understanding of translation, struc- turally and historically corresponds to the formation of the bourgeois political sphere, which still provides the backbone for the system of actually existing democracy. Moreover, the concept of translation, forged under the same regime, plays a crucial role—as we have seen in Rawls’s and Habermas’s theories of the secular state—in the way this system creates and maintains the values in which it sees itself grounded: the rule of law, civil liberties, legal equality, secularity, human rights, et cetera. In other words, what is at stake is not only how the concept of translation based on homolin- gual address performatively reproduces the social and political con- ditions of its possibility, the “objective reality” of separate languages, linguistic communities, and nation states, but rather how the system of actually existing democracy—which implies this “ob- jective reality” of separate languages, linguistic communities, and nation–states as the condition of its possibility—ideologically re- produces itself through this same concept of translation. It plays a crucial role in the strategy of its self-legitimation. We would prob- ably not be exaggerating if we were to say that removing this con- cept of translation from the ideological construction of the liberal democratic state—abandoning, for instance, the homolingual mode of address implied in it—would bring the whole edifice down. Can we imagine a secular democratic state without translation at the threshold between its separate spheres that is a necessary precondi- tion for its values claims? Can we imagine a democracy without the claim to transparency and rationality of its political sphere that is provided through translational filtering on its boundaries? Can we imagine a society and its nation–state without its mother tongue that is created through homolingual translation, both in linguistic and political terms? And, finally, can we imagine a democracy, or what- ever might replace it for the better, beyond the homosociality of the translation / spring / 2014 nation–state and its claims to a unique cultural, linguistic, or ethnic identity? No we cannot—as long as we obey the regime of homolin- gual address. It has captured our (political!) imagination, disguised 122 as a natural, self-explanatory concept of a relative humble form of linguistic practice called translation. It has also morally blackmailed our political will, pressing it into the irrational and terrifying limbo between fidelity and treason. There is therefore no other escape but to betray it. And face the consequences. This is precisely what American television journalist Bob Schieffer said in his commentary on CBS News to Edward Snow- den: “Come home and face the consequences.” In his view, Snow- den is not a hero like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. who led the civil rights movement, broke the law, and suffered the con- sequences. They didn’t put the nation’s security at risk, run away and hide in a foreign country, like Snowden did. For Schieffer, there is no value—such as civil rights for in- stance—without “home.” One cannot claim one without claiming the other. His heroes of the civil rights movement sacrificed them- selves for their home, or more precisely for a value they believed would make this home better. For them, therefore, the whole drama of fidelity and treason was not an issue. But it has now become an issue in the case of Snowden, where the value he claimed has de- tached itself from “its” home. Now fidelity is needed—to preserve a home without value, or, as Georg Simmel once put it, to preserve a social relation after the reasons that initiated it have disappeared. This is why Schieffer calls on Snowden to come home. He wants him to reconcile value and home and to revive the old harmonic unity of both from the time of the American civil rights movement. And this is also why Schieffer maliciously accuses Snowden of being motivated by his private pathology: he is “just a narcissistic young man who has decided he is smarter than the rest of us.” Not only does he deny any social relevance to Snowden’s act, he sees nothing socially relevant outside of home. So he could easily stage the drama of fidelity and treason and cast the NSA leaker in the role of repentant traitor. “Come home and face the consequences” is merely an empty, moralistic blackmailing ploy that relies on no val- ues whatsoever, except on an equally empty appeal to honor. Yet, brought together, honor and fidelity make for a poisonous mixture: Meine Ehre heißt Treue (“My honor is fidelity”) was the motto of translation / spring / 2014 the Nazi Waffen Schutzstaffel (SS) organization, and was engraved on its members’ belt buckles. 123 Dare to Betray! Before bringing this story to an end, we should not forget to ask ourselves what actually made Snowden a traitor. Was he truly a freak who naively mistook public transparency for an essential American value? In fact, as a person working for state institutions (the NSA and the CIA) he occupied—in terms of the languages spo- ken in the public sphere—a contradictory position. On the one hand, he was clearly situated in the midst of what we have called the mother tongue of the liberal democratic state, the language of the state institutions that is, according to Habermas, supposed to be un- derstandable by all citizens. At the same time, it was a place of total clandestinity, of a language that is completely excluded from public use since it originates in a secret that can be administrated only by the rulers themselves, regardless of whether they are democratically elected or not. Kant was already familiar with the contradictory character of such a position. In his famous essay on the nature of the Enlight- enment (Kant 1996), he states that those who occupy a civil post or office entrusted to them are actually destined to use their reason pri- vately, meaning not freely, since they are bound by the interest of the community whose affairs they have to deal with. So it is pre- cisely the position within a state institution that automatically pre- vents a person from using their reason publicly. What Kant calls the public use of one’s reason takes place only when a person as a scholar (Gelehrter) makes use of it before the entire public of the world of readers (Leserwelt). Only this public use of reason is free, precisely in terms of a freedom that is required for the Enlighten- ment. But the difference between private and public use of reason can also be understood in terms of a difference in the mode of ad- dress. One makes private use of reason insofar as one addresses one’s own political community and its particular interests. In polit- ical terms, we might call it a homosocial mode of address, and it consequently implies its linguistic correlate, homolingual address. The use of reason in this case is limited within the scope of one par- ticular society that is almost automatically perceived as a particular translation / spring / 2014 language society. So it is limited within one—mostly national— language and within the idea of its exclusive transparency as well as its exclusive political impact. In other words, one addresses the 124 public privately when, in doing so, one assumes a position that is representative of a particular political and linguistic community. It is this limit that not only renders our addressing the public private, but also deprives it of freedom. A public use of reason, on the contrary, knows no such lim- its. We use our reason publicly when we address the world of read- ers beyond any particular society or language. And we do so, as scholars, not as representatives of this or that political or linguistic community, and not even as representatives of this or that academic community. It is the mode of address here that defines scholar, not a particular professional competence. A scholar is someone who ad- dresses an entire world whose boundaries are drawn only by liter- acy. Since the literacy in this case is supposed to transcend all linguistic and cultural differences as well as political demarcations, it obviously presupposes the praxis of translation. This then also means that we have to deal, here, with some sort of translational lit- eracy that is performatively evoked in the scholar’s mode of ad- dress. This throws new light on Snowden’s treason. It certainly consists in his breaking the social contract in which today’s norma- tively dominant political form of sociality—the liberal democratic nation–state—is still ideologically rooted. The question is, however, how has he done it? Obviously, by performing another mode of ad- dressing the public that transcends the limits of his own political community and its interests as well as the limits of one single lan- guage. Concretely, Snowden has addressed a value, which has aban- doned that particular universe called home—a transparency that has spilt over from the enclosed space of a single society, from a clearly demarcated area of an alleged cultural originality, from the concep- tual frame of a democracy locked up within the container of the na- tion state, from the vocabulary and the grammar of a single national language and its respective community. But he has addressed a transparency, too, that has liberated itself from the quasi-dialectical clinch with its “mirror-value,” the secrecy that is constitutive of any institutional articulation of the so-called national interests; a trans- parency that at the same time liberates both him as the addresser translation / spring / 2014 and his addressee, the Kantian “world of readers” or what Naoki Sakai nowadays calls the “nonaggregate community of foreigners,” from the confines of a privately enclosed public. 125 In radically going public, Snowden’s treason also clearly consists in his using reason publicly in the original Kantian sense. Does this then mean that precisely in committing his treason he also acted as a Kantian scholar? Why not? His treason is a political act par excellence, yet such that it simultaneously produces and dis- seminates knowledge. It implies and fosters an emancipatory hy- bridization of a radical democratic politics and knowledge production whose effects recall the forgotten ideals of the Enlight- enment. It is a treason that performatively evokes what it norma- tively addresses—a translational literacy: an ability to act politically and comprehend cognitively beyond the homosociality of the na- tion–state, beyond the homolinguality of a language society but also beyond the gated communities of cognitive competence. As is well known, for the Enlightenment project to work, it had to rely on what Kant called maturity (Mündigkeit). He defined it as the emergence from self-imposed immaturity and dependence whose cause lies not in a lack of intelligence but in a lack of deter- mination and courage to use one’s own intellect freely and inde- pendently, without the direction of another. Kant summed up this idea in the famous slogan of the Enlightenment: Sapere aude!, or “Dare to know! Dare to think independently!” It is precisely in terms of Kant’s maturity that we should think of Edward Snowden’s treason. It presupposes his liberation from a self-imposed regime of fidelity. However, to accomplish it, determination and courage are needed. The slogan of the emanci- patory transformation the leakers like Manning and Snowden have announced would therefore read: Prodere Aude!—“Dare to betray!” (see Buden 2008). translation / spring / 2014 126 References Althusser, Louis. 1987. “Über Jean-Jacques Rousseaus ‘Gesellschaftsvertrag’. Die Verschiebungen.” In Machiavelli - Montesquieu - Rousseau. Zur politischen Philosophie der Neuzeit, Schriften volume II, translated by Henning Ritter and Frieder Otto Wolf, 131–172. Berlin: Argument. Berman, Antoine. 1992. The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Translated by S. Heyvaert. Albany: State University of New York Press. “Bob Schieffer To Snowden: Come Home And Face The Consequences.” 2013. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/16/bob_schieffer_to_snow- den_come_home_and_face_the_consequences.html. Accessed August 2013. Buden, Boris. 2005. Der Schacht von Babel. Ist Kultur übersetzbar? Berlin: Kadmos. ———. 2009. “A Tangent that Betrayed the Circle: On the Limits of Fidelity in Trans- lation.” http://translate.eipcp.net/transversal/0608/buden/en. Accessed Au- gust 2013. Freud, Sigmund. 1982. Traumdeutung. Studienausgabe Band II, edited by Thure von Uexküll and Ilse Grubrich-Simitis. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. Knowledge and Human Interest. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. ———. 1989. Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Translated by Thomas Burger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Heilbron, Johan. 2010. “Structure and Dynamics of the World System of Translation.” http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/40619/12684038723Heilbron.pdf/H eilbron.pdf. Accessed May 10, 2013. Herzberg, Hendrik. 2013. “Some Dare Call It Treason.” The New Yorker, June 28. Jakobson, Roman. 2000 [1959]. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In The Trans- lation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 138–143. Oxon–New York: Routledge. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” In Im- manuel Kant. Practical Philosophy, translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. http://www.marxists.org/ref- erence/subject/ethics/kant/enlightenment.htm. Močnik, Rastko. 2003. Tri teorije: Ideologija, nacija, institucija. Translated by Branka Dimitrijević. Beograd: Vesela nauka. Nowotny, Stefan. 2008. “Kontinua der Verwandlung. Sprachphilosophische und lin- guistische Aspekte der Übersetzung.” In Boris Buden and Stefan Nowotny, Übersetzung: das Versprechen eines Begriffs, 95–131. Vienna: Turia und Kant. Rawls, John. 1997. “The idea of public reason revisited.” The University of Chicago Law Review 64 (3): 765–807. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. “Introduction: Writing for Multiple Audiences and the Heterolin- translation / spring / 2014 gual Address.” In Translation and Subjectivity. On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism, 1–17. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Simmel, Georg. 1908. “Treue: Ein sozialpsychologischer Versuch.” Der Tag n. 225, Erster Teil: Illustrierte Zeitung (Berlin), June 10. 127 ———. 2009. Sociology: Inquiries Into the Construction of Social Forms. Translated and edited by Anthony J. Blasi, Anton K. Jacobs, and Mathew Kanjira- thinkal. Leiden: Brill NV. Vološinov, V. N. 1973. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Translated by Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Boris Buden is a writer, cultural critic, and translator based in Berlin. He studied philos- ophy in Zagreb (Croatia) and received his Ph.D. in cultural theory from Humboldt Uni- versity, Berlin. His essays and articles cover topics relating to philosophy and politics as well as art and cultural criticism. He has translated some of Freud’s most significant works into Croatian, and has authored several books, including Der Schacht von Babel [The Pit of Babel] (2005) and Zone des Übergangs [The Zone of Transition] (2009). Buden translation / spring / 2014 is currently visiting professor at the Faculty of Art and Design, Bauhaus University, Weimar. 128

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translation speaks to Vicente L. Rafael translation editor Siri Nergaard met with Vicente Rafael in Misano Adriatico, Italy in May 2013 at the Nida School of Translation Studies where he gave a series of three lectures. During the conversation, Rafael explains how he, as a historian, became interested in translation and how he sees translation in connection to war and weaponization. The imperial ideology of translation to gain control over linguistic plurality and diversity is threatening translation, he says, and can be seen as a war of both and on translation. The control over linguistic plurality through English is our own contemporary example of the United States’ imperial project of dominating the world, according to Rafael. The conversation continues with Rafael’s telling about his interest in translation play as an opposite mechanism to war, enabling an undoing and reconfiguration of the power relations between languages and cultures. Via the example of the Philippines, the talk touches upon the role colonial education plays in regulating language, creating a linguistic hierarchy, and how translation nevertheless appears in surprising forms and expressions. The interview with Rafael was recorded and can be accessed at the journal’s website: http://translation.fusp.it/interviews NERGAARD: Hello, Vicente RAFAEL: Good Morning NERGAARD: Since our journal translation has the subtitle “a transdisciplinary journal,” you are really the perfect person for us to talk to in this interview for our journal: you are not a traditional scholar of translation studies, but you work deeply on translation from your perspective as a historian. Translation offers a unique perspective on, or a new way to analyze, colo- nialism, power, and language, especially in the Philippines, and even today in the United States. I would like you to tell the story of how trans- lation became such a central theme for you. RAFAEL: Well, like all good things in life it happened quite accidentally. By accident I mean that when I was in graduate school two things—one I [was] looking for a topic to do and I got interested in the early modern period, sixteenth century, looking at the Spanish colonization of the Philippines among other things. I noticed that there were very, very few sources written by colo- nized natives themselves. Most of the history was written by Spanish missionaries. I was also quite surprised to see that a lot of the writings of Spanish missionaries had to do with problems translation / spring / 2014 of translating the gospel because they had to preach in the native languages in order to be understood, which is much easier than translating the native languages into Spanish. It is much easier for the missionaries to learn the local languages than for the na- 203 tives to learn Spanish. And this is, of course, a practice consistent with what they had been doing in Latin America, so I got very interested in this topic and asked myself what would happen if one were to take a look at native languages as historical agents. Because we often think of historical agents as human beings, but there is a certain way in which you can also think of language as a historical agent that is somehow free of human control, in excess of human control, and that’s exactly what happened. One result is that I wrote my book, Contracting Colonialism, where I talked about the centrality not just of translation, but the relationship between translation and Christian conversion. And it turns out that in the missionary tradition the two are in fact almost syn- onymous. To translate and to convert are very closely related. And these in turn were absolutely essential for carrying out a kind of imperial project of colonization. So from then on it seemed like translation, conversion, and colonization seemed to all resonate with each other as part of a continuum, and that has been a re- curring obsession on my part, where I started looking at my sub- sequent work. In my later work I started looking at the American empire and the American colonization of the Philippines. But I also became very, very interested lately in the emergence of Eng- lish as a kind of hegemonic language. So those are the things that have led to my becoming very interested in translation. Origi- nally, the interest in translation grew out of my interest in larger historical issues relating to empire and colonialism. NERGAARD: As a historian this attention to language and translation in relation to history became a kind of obsession, as you said. How did the institu- tions, the universities react to this? The departments of history have not paid so much attention to language—the role of language and translation. So how was your work accepted, how was it received in the universi- ties? RAFAEL: First of all I think you are absolutely right. Not just history, but in many other Social Sciences, even in the Humanities, trans- lation has been ignored. NERGAARD: Even Comparative Literature ignored translation for many years… RAFAEL: It is for the same reason that there is a tendency to see language in purely instrumental terms, as a means to an end, as if thought was possible without language—as if actions were possible with- out language. I was very, very lucky again to be at the conjunction translation / spring / 2014 of things. I started my graduate training in the late ’70s and I went to Cornell, which is in upstate New York, and at that time the United States was just opening up to a fresh wave of Conti- nental theory, mostly from France and Germany. Everything 204 ranging from Hermeneutics to Deconstruction, to French Fem- inism—all of which paid close attention to the workings of lan- guage. So it was a time that was very hospitable to what they used to call the Linguistic Turn and so it allowed me space and re- sources to do my own work. But it is still a struggle. In other words, the question of language is not something that is easily thought about in the historical profession. In that sense, my work is still sort of idiosyncratic, but that is OK because then I always feel like I have something different to say than what most other historians have to say. I am not doing the same old thing. I have got something different to contribute. There are certain advan- tages to being on the margins. One just has to know how to take advantage of that position. NERGAARD: You are speaking about a period in which the so-called Linguistic Turn took place in philosophy, but it also ignored translation. RAFAEL: There is another aspect in my case to what I was doing that made translation absolutely essential—that I was involved in the US in what was called Area Studies, which is this thing that emerged in the post-Cold War period. The United States was very interested in competing with the Soviet Union, and one of the things that they did was try to extend not just their military influence, but their cultural influence around the world. Part of that was to fund universities to put up what they called Area Studies so they would study different regions of the world and develop a kind of scholarly expertise in these areas. Very similar to what Britain and France and Holland and all the other Euro- pean countries had done. And in the process of funding these Area Studies programs they began to emphasize language training and of course that brought out the question of translation. So people became very adept, or at least there was a whole generation of Area Studies experts that emerged from these centers that de- veloped fluency in the languages and some of them became in- terested in the problem of translation. This included two of my advisors at Cornell—one of whom was Benedict Anderson, an- other of whom was James Siegel—and they had written particu- larly on problems of translation around the emergence of things like nationalism, the emergence of authoritarianism in various parts of Southeast Asia. So, in a way, again I was very fortunate to be working with people who already assumed the importance of translation. In my case, as I said, translation emerges organi- cally from the very sense of the problems I was looking at, be- translation / spring / 2014 ginning with religious conversion and then later on with... more lately thinking about problems of counterinsurgency and milita- rization and so forth, where once again language and the attempt to tame language through translation becomes absolutely crucial. 205 NERGAARD: In the last works you mentioned, you introduced new terms and a new vocabulary with which to discuss translation studies. War of trans- lation, translation in wartime, weaponization of translation, targeting translation in the counterinsurgency. This is really a new vocabulary and it is quite strong. RAFAEL: Well it’s not so much that it is new. The other day I was reread- ing The Translation Studies Reader by Lawrence Venuti. It is very interesting to read his historical introduction about translation studies in which he talks about, for example, Roman Antiquity and the status of translation as it was understood by the late Roman writers—Cicero and Horace and others. I am not very familiar with that history, but I was very surprised to realize that even then there were competing notions of translation. For ex- ample, a part of the idea of translating Greek authors into Latin in part had to do with the late Roman desire to rival the legacy of Greece. Not only were they appropriating Greek literature and Greek writing and Greek thought, they also wanted to, as it were, conquer it in the sort of imperial vein and so you realize that the idea of translation, at least in the West, was always implicated in the idea of rivalry, competition—which is another word for war. Not only that, but there has always been a contest between rhetorical approaches to translation and grammatical approaches to translation—word-for-word, sense-for-sense—and that ten- sion has animated, for example, translations of the Bible from St. Jerome to Luther. And, of course, it has figured in the history of missionary translations of the gospel all the way up to today. At the Nida School of Translation Studies we are talking about this. So it is not surprising translation should figure in imperial proj- ects of all sorts including the latest one, which is the United States’ project to maintain their dominant position in the world. So in a sense what I am doing is simply reminding people of a feature of translation that tends to get lost, which is it tends to turn on not just the transfer of meaning, but also on the struggle to control that process of transferring meaning. It relates to all sorts of tensions around procedures, around the limits of what can be translated. In that sense, translation is always fraught, so it is always at war, as it were. And, finally, something I was trying to talk about yesterday is that there is what Derrida calls a kind of logocentric tradition in Western thinking, which tends to priv- ilege thought over speech and then, of course, speech over writing and so, for instance, there is this hierarchical chain of signs. And translation figures very prominently there because within the lo- translation / spring / 2014 gocentric context, as I have tried to argue, translation becomes a means to an end. And that end, at least in the Western logocen- tric context, is the end of translation, so you can say the end of translation is the literal end of translation—the point where peo- 206 ple will feel like everything is so transparent that there is no need to translate. That itself is part of this war of domination that is going on. NERGAARD: And it is almost always there as a ghost, as if that transparency was the ideal, where translation is not necessary any more. RAFAEL: Yes, exactly. NERGAARD: With that transparency—the end of translation—we would lose everything. We would lose plurality. We would lose meaning. We would lose everything. Nevertheless, that’s the kind of ideal ghost right there. RAFAEL: Right. NERGAARD: As if we could avoid difference. RAFAEL: And it not so much, really, to avoid difference or to avoid plu- rality. It is to be able to have total control over linguistic plurality, to make this control totally mechanical. And that is the dream, for example, of automatic translation systems. Now, the attempt to develop automatic translation systems, which I have also writ- ten about, is precisely to make everything perfectly equivalent to everything else, which of course is the dream of capitalism. This would be a perfectly capitalized world where everything could be exchanged for a single medium and measure of exchange, and in this case that medium and measure of exchange is increasingly English. English is now becoming the equivalent of the dollar, the capitalist “sign par excellence.” So, again, it is not so much the disappearance of difference—it is about the ability to control the production and circulation of differences that this imperial ideology of translation, in my opinion, has set out to do. And, of course, there are all kinds of resistances to that, and that is part of the story that I am very, very interested in: to try and plot the way in which not only this war on translation is progressing— that is, the war of as well as on translation—but also the way in which this war is being evaded, the way this war is being dis- placed, the different responses to this war in such a way as to make the kind of final victory impossible. So what you get, in- stead, is the emergence of what I call ongoing insurgency, lin- guistic insurgencies of all sorts: puns, jokes, the creation of slang. And there is, of course, the most important arena for linguistic insurgency, which I believe to be literature. So long as you have translation / spring / 2014 literature you have hope. Because so long as you have literature, you have the need for translation. It works both ways: to the ex- tent that you have translation, literature becomes possible, and to the extent you have literature, translation becomes essential. 207 NERGAARD: Necessary and essential. RAFAEL: Right, to that extent you cannot have a single ideology of trans- lation controlling the production of difference, because differ- ence will always proliferate beyond the control of any particular translation ideology, thanks to literature. NERGAARD: Thanks to literature… RAFAEL: Yes, so literature is a principle of hope as far as I am concerned, or I should say a resource, a resource of hope in a world where translation tends to get reduced to merely instrumental terms, such as, for example, when the US Department of State calls translation a complex weapons system. NERGAARD: Very interesting. And the connections to other areas in translation studies becomes clear. But I still suggest that you introduce a new vo- cabulary. With postcolonial criticism we are familiar with concepts like “power” and “conflict,” but you use “war.” You use other concepts, too, such as “weaponization”... RAFAEL: In part, that grows out of the influence of the events of the last ten years, including the “Global Wars on Terror,” the kind of brazen attempt at colonial occupation on the part of the United States in Afghanistan and in Iraq as well as interventions in places like Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and so forth. Not to mention, of course, the occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel, which would not be possible without the aid of the United States. All of that has placed the question of war, I think, in a lot of peo- ple’s minds, and my attempt to talk about translation in terms of war grows out of my concern with more recent events. There is also another aspect to it, which is that there is a way in which war has always played a central part in the formation of social re- lations and the formations of society. When you think about how, for example, modern national states have arisen, almost every sin- gle modern state has arisen precisely in the wake of, or in the process of, engaging in war both against other nation–states, as well as against certain peoples within that particular nation–state. So I would think that, to the extent that war is constitutive of social relations, it would then also have a constitutive role in the processes of translation, as indeed one can see by looking at the history of translation, showing how it is always fraught, it is al- ways involved in all sorts of conflict. That there is, just as Derrida translation / spring / 2014 many years ago said about the violence of writing, so too I think there is a violence that is intrinsic to every act of translation. I think in certain cases it helps to think about translation in those terms. I do not, of course, assume it is an appropriate way to 208 think about translation in every possible context, but, especially in contexts I have been looking at, I think the connection be- tween translation and war is very useful. NERGAARD: You probably could relate this to what Antoine Berman says— that all translation is naturally ethnocentric. So you sense this violence again, because you want to change what is foreign and make it look more like what you are familiar with. RAFAEL: I mean, I agree with that to a certain extent in that the trans- lation might begin in a sort of ethnocentric vein, but to the extent that translation also signals a kind of ineluctable opening to the other, it also initiates a kind of ongoing alterity. Its war-making powers, as it were, invariably become attenuated. Again, as I sug- gested yesterday in my talk, the other possibility in thinking about translation as war is translation as play, and the question of play then turns conflict, violence, and so forth in a different direction. It is about the displacement of conflict. It is not the banishment of conflict, but the reformulation of conflict as a kind of indeterminate, ceaseless displacement that allows for the desta- bilization of any particular power relations. And play, this is something I would like to explore further. I have only just begun to think about this question of play and of course there is an enormous literature about this. But the question of play as that which attenuates, not just a particular kind of dialectical conflict, which is at the heart of war, but the question of play is that which opens up into other possibilities, the possibilities of the literary, for example, as I was trying to suggest yesterday. Play as that which is connected to the question of freedom. Why do we play? We play because in some sense play offers a kind of escape. It of- fers a kind of release. It opens up an alternative world where noth- ing is stable, where no one is permanently on top, no one is permanently on the bottom, where there is a certain kind of joy and happiness in being able to not just control the world, but also in allowing oneself, as it were, to be controlled by the world; so there is a kind of delight in the loss of identity, or the fluidity of identity. NERGAARD: But you have to be empowered with language before you can allow yourself to play in such a fashion. RAFAEL: Well, you have to know the rules, of course, you have to know the rules before you can play the game, so it also brings in a cer- translation / spring / 2014 tain kind of discipline, but a discipline that is not about surveil- lance. It is a discipline that is not about submitting to a particular power. It is a discipline that enables you precisely to participate in the loss of power, if you will. So much of play is predicated on 209 this loss of power, and, as I said, a kind of opening up to a certain kind of freedom. It is to think about translation as that which is connected to an emancipatory project. That is the other side. So on the one hand translation is war, which is to think of transla- tion as ineluctably implicated in power relations, but on the other side of it is translation as play, which is to think of translation as that which also has the potential to undo and reconfigure, and perhaps do away with these power relations in the name of a more just and a more free world. NERGAARD: Yesterday, during your talk at The Nida School in Misano Adriatico, you were discussing the school system back in the Philippines. Can you tell us a bit more about that situation in which local languages are pro- hibited and the use of a foreign language is imposed? RAFAEL: What I was talking about yesterday was colonial education and the role colonial education plays in regulating language and in the creation of what I have been calling a linguistic hierarchy. I think this is typical with all, not just in a colonial context. I think this is typical of all schools, the majority of schools, where the idea of going to school, among other things, is the idea of learn- ing how to behave in a certain socially acceptable way. And in- trinsic to that mode of behavior is the ability to be able to speak in a certain accessible way. So one is educated, but one is educated in a particular way, so one becomes recognizably “grown up,” be- comes developed. There is this whole developmentalist philoso- phy that is, I think, intrinsic in all modern educational systems, colonial and postcolonial. And that has to do with being able to speak in a certain way. Speaking in a certain way, speaking in a way that is educated, as they say, and this is something that can be empirically verified in lots and lots of different situations. But this idea of appearing to be, or sounding to be, educated means being able to speak language in a kind of standardized conven- tional way. That often entails repressing the more idiomatic, more colloquial, more dialectical versions of that language. So one speaks Italian correctly, which means not speaking the local di- alects. This is intensified and amplified in the colonial situation. The colonial situation I was talking about yesterday, where Fil- ipino students were expected to speak English, but in the process of speaking English, they were expected to repress the vernacular. And then, of course, the question becomes to what extent is this repression successful? Or does the repressed always return? And obviously in the case of the Philippines that is what happens. It translation / spring / 2014 returns to haunt, as it were, various attempts to speak in a stan- dardized conventional fashion. How do we know this? Very sim- ply, we know this because of the persistence of accents. To the extent that people still speak with accents is the extent to which 210 their speech is always marked by the very thing they were sup- posed to suppress. And what is that very thing they were sup- posed to suppress? They were supposed to suppress their mother tongue, which is their origin, right? So the origin always comes back, as it were, in displaced fashion. In the form of an accent, and I think this is true every time people speak, they always speak with accents and those accents always betray where they came from, their accents always betray another speech. Deleuze has this wonderful short essay called “He Stuttered,” where what he says about stuttering we can say about accents. Stuttering, he says, re- veals the existence of another language within language. And he goes on to talk about this in another register when he talks about style. He says style is the foreign language that dwells within con- ventional speech, and to the extent that we all have our own style of speaking, that we try to develop our own style of speaking when we speak with an accent, is the extent that we are always speaking another language within the language that is socially ac- ceptable. So that means we are always translating whenever we speak, whether our own or another’s language. NERGAARD: And can I use the accent because I want to keep my identity, too? It is not that I am not able to speak proper English, but I keep my accent because that is part of my origin. RAFAEL: Yes, perhaps, perhaps. As you know the sounding of accents is always the sign of translation at work, so another way of thinking about accents is that accents are always the points where transla- tion occurs, where it fails or it succeeds, right? Now, I don’t know how you do this, but for example in my case, my English would be standard American English, but when I go to the Philippines I cannot speak like this. If I spoke like this people would have difficulty understanding me, or they would think that I was put- ting on airs, that I was trying to be better than them because I spoke a different, more Americanized English, and so they would expect me to speak in the local register. I would have to change accents and usually within a day or two I am speaking entirely, as it were, “native.” I have to “go native,” right? Perhaps this hap- pens to you too when you go to Norway? And this usually is the case, so we are always translating back and forth, not only be- tween languages, but between accents, because accents are ways of marking our identity, which is to say, difference, right? NERGAARD: Exactly, exactly. I was thinking about the history of Norway when translation / spring / 2014 the Danish dominated Norway and the official language was Danish. Our written language was Danish, but the accent persisted: no Norwegian speaker used the Danish pronunciation. These languages are very close, so you have the language, the nonlanguage and the in-between, and the 211 Norwegians were still always in-between—they wrote in Danish, but the pronunciation was Norwegian. RAFAEL: Fantastic, fantastic. And there is a question of whether or not it is a matter of intention. We like to think it is a matter of in- tention. We like to think we are in control of our accents, but in fact, to the extent that we always speak with an accent, is the ex- tent that we cannot help but speak with an accent. That suggests that there is something physiological about speech that is beyond intentionality. Which is to suggest, if you take it one step further, that there is something about translation that is beyond our in- tention. There are different ways to think about it. One can think maybe translation is hardwired into our body. We must translate, we have no choice but to translate within language, across lan- guages, within accents, across accents. It is precisely something that we are compelled to do, which is to say it is compulsive. It is beyond our intentionality. That is the other interesting thing, too, about accents: we find it is not just the sign of translation at work, it is also the sign of a certain kind of resistance to inten- tionality. Right? NERGAARD: That’s very interesting. That’s another area that has not been ex- plored in translation studies at all. The psychological aspect of it, too, de- serves study, so I will look forward to your next book, Vicente. RAFAEL: It will be on accents. NERGAARD: Of course. Thank you very much. RAFAEL: You are very welcome. It has been a pleasure. NERGAARD: Thank you. Vicente L. Rafael, is Professor of History at the University of Washington in Seattle. Much of his work has focused on such topics as comparative colonialism and national- ism, translation, language and power, and the cultural histories of analog and digital media especially in the context of Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and the United translation / spring / 2014 States. His books include Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (1993); White Love and Other Events in Filipino Histories (2000), and The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines (2005). 212

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Introduction Sandro Mezzadra and Naoki Sakai ................................. University of Bologna, Italy [email protected] Cornell University, U.S.A. [email protected] Over the last decades the encounter with cultural and postcolonial studies has deeply influenced the development of translation stud- ies.1 The study of the conditions of translation, and more radically of what Antonio Gramsci would call “translatability,” has led to an emphasis on the issue of power and deep asymmetries between lan- guages, and social and “cultural” groups. The “politics of transla- tion” has emerged as a fundamental topic, even for the more technical debates within translation studies, while the concept of translation itself has been politicized and used as a theoretical tool in discussions of nationality, citizenship, multiculturalism, and glob- alization. The relations between translation, violence, and war, to give just one example, have been productively at play in these theoretical developments (cf. Apter 2006; Rafael 2012). Translation can be pro- ductive or destructive, by inscribing, erasing or redrawing borders; it is a process, political par excellence, which creates social relations and establishes new modes of discrimination. Far from being con- ceived of as the “other” of violence, translation has emerged as a deeply ambivalent concept and practice. Put simply, translation al- ways cuts both ways: at once a mechanism of domination and lib- eration, clarification and obfuscation, commerce and exploitation, opening up to the “other” and appropriation. Translation, to further explicate its constitutive relation with the concept and institute of the border, produces both bridges and walls (see Mezzadra & Neil- son 2013). To insist on this requires, however, some critical remarks on the ways in which translation has been traditionally conceived of. This will clear the way for a better understanding of the stakes translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 On “Translation and the Postcolonial,” see the recent special issue of Intrverntions. International Jour- nal of Postcolonial Studies, 15 (2013): 3, edited by Francesca Orsini and Neelam Srivastava. Among the founding postcolonial texts on translation, we limit ourselves to mentioning Spivak 1993, considered its importance for the topic of this issue of Translation. 9 of current discussions surrounding the politics of translation and the politicization of the concept of translation. 1. Translation beyond communication Often, translation has been apprehended within an implicit framework of the communication model. Just as a verbal interaction between individuals is typically and schematically construed ac- cording to the model of communication in which a message sup- posedly travels from a speaker’s consciousness to a listener’s con- sciousness, the action of translation is represented in a similar schema of communication in which a message is transferred from one language to another. Whereas the verbal communication occurs between two individual minds through the common medium of the same language, presumably translation is distinct from verbal com- munication in general precisely because the common medium is absent in the case of translation. Instead, two languages are involved in translation so that a message cannot be deciphered in terms of a common code. It is expected that translation takes place where, due to language difference, there is no immediate comprehension. In this view of translation as a communication, the trope of border works powerfully to make and determine a particular incident of social and political transaction as translation. From the outset, whenever translation takes place, a border between one language and another is given as a gap or distance that separates one group of people from another and differentiates one language from another. Let us call this particular image or representation of translation ac- cording to the model of communication “the modern regime of translation.” But, the status of discontinuity or incommensurability that prompts translation is far from self-evident in this representation of translation between the preestablished unities of languages. Ac- cordingly, we are led to further investigate the workings of the communication model in our understanding of translation. We are thus skeptical of the model of communication that underlies the view of translation readily accepted in some translation studies today. First of all, as the tropes of war, battle, or violence capture some aspects of translation very well, translation cannot be translation / spring / 2014 simply regarded as an act of overcoming a gap or of bridging a dis- tance between languages. Neither can it be merely an operation of diplomacy and conciliation between national polities, distinct ethnic 10 groups, religious communities, or political orders. The relation be- tween translation and borders is again crucial here. There is a need to repeat that translation can inscribe, erase, and distort borders; it may well give rise to a border where there has been none before; it may well multiply a border into many registers; it may erase some borders and institute new ones. Similar to the maneuver of occupa- tion at war, translation deterritorializes and reterritorializes languages and probable sites of discommunication. It shows most persuasively the unstable, transformative, and political nature of border, of the differentiation of the inside from the outside, and of the multiplicity of belonging and nonbelonging. In short, a border is not something already accomplished, something engraved in stone, so to say, but in constant motion and metamorphosis. It is rather in the register of action than of substance, rather a verb than a noun. It is a poietic act of inscribing continuity at the singular point of discontinuity. Viewed from the peculiar angle of this constitutive relation with processes of bordering, new and in a way unexpected political implications of translation come to light. 2. Modernity in translation The role of translation in the epistemic structure of modern colonialism and the formation of the modern state and national sov- ereignty, as well as in the operations of global capitalism, has there- fore been underscored by several scholars, while often the same scholars have emphasized the need to rework the concept and prac- tice of translation as a cornerstone of a new politics of liberation. The very unity of the concept and practice of translation has con- sequently been challenged and productively exploded. This is the very site where, as Gavin Walker insists, the politicality of transla- tion ought to be explored. What we called above “the modern regime of translation” has been contested, and it has been acknowl- edged that different, even antagonistic, regimes of translation were prevalent in previous eras and in many regions in the world. What must be investigated is a specific structure of homolingual address that characterizes “the modern regime of translation”(see Sakai 1997).2 The different regimes may also be “homolingual,” but the translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 2 The modern regime of translation does not immediately imply that it is “homolingual,” as the opposition between “homolingual” and “heterolingual” is primarily concerned with the two contrasting attitudes of 11 modern regime of translation institutes a particular and strict econ- omy of homogeneity and heterogeneity through translational trans- actions. It is important to note that the “identities” we take for granted in the world today—ethnic, national, cultural, and civiliza- tional identities—are premised upon “homolingual” addresses in the modern regime of translation. Some genealogical remarks are needed here. What must be emphasized with respect to the formation of the modern state and nationality is the particular role played by the modern regime of translation by means of which the unities of national languages were projected and manufactured. The so-called modern era, which witnessed the emergence of national languages—German, French, English, and so forth in Western Europe, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in Northeastern Asia, and many others in other parts of the world—is fundamentally different from previous eras in the iden- tification of language.3 .......................... the interlocutors: the homolingual attitude assumes that, within the same language—the sameness of which is in dispute—transparent communication is somewhat guaranteed, whereas the heterolingual at- titude sees the failure of communication in every utterance, so that every interlocutor is essentially and potentially a foreigner. See Sakai, 1997. The “modern regime of translation” indicates a different classification of translational institutions. Histor- ically there have been many modes of translation, some of which do not clearly distinguish one language to translate from and another to translate into. In the present-day world, “Spanglish” is a good example of such a mode, which is widely used in North America to link many different groups and individuals. “Spang- lish” cannot be accommodated within the “modern regime of translation” precisely because it is neither English nor Spanish. Seen from a slightly different perspective, it is both English and Spanish. What is re- markable about this mode of translation is that, instead of clearly demarcating one language unity from another, it confuses the two, preventing one unity of language from becoming distinct from another. Pre- cisely because it cannot be accommodated in the modern regime of translation it is not regarded as a “le- gitimate” form of language. There used to be many modes of translation like “Spanglish” in Northeast Asia, and as a result it was ex- tremely difficult to develop the sense of a distinct national language. Our suspicion is that, prior to the de- velopment of national languages, medieval Europe was not so different from Northeast Asia in this respect. In the eighteenth century, the Japanese established a new mode of translation, as a result of which they discovered the Japanese language for the first time. When it was discovered, however, the scholars of the Japanese classics did not say the Japanese language existed in the present. Instead, they said that there used to be a Japanese language in antiquity, but it became so contaminated by the Chinese that it was dead by the eighteenth century in their present world. Thus the Japanese language was discovered as stillborn. It is astonishing yet true that people in the Japanese archipelago did not know that the language they spoke in their everyday life had unique phonetics and syntax totally distinct from classical Chinese, the then universal language of Northeast Asia (Sakai, 1991). 3 The terms “modernity” and “premodernity” are deployed in this article so as to demonstrate that social translation / spring / 2014 formations in many parts of the world have transformed in a remarkably uniform manner in the last several centuries. Even though the eras of premodernity and modernity are used to guide our explication concerning the particular values, methods, and procedures of translation—the modern regime of translation—it is not assumed that these eras can be determined with a strict chronology. Our presumption is that the contrast of premodernity and modernity clearly indicates the historical tendency from a wide variety of social for- 12 In the eras prior to the one we understand as modernity, there was no political entity—empire, kingdom, city–state—whose subject population was monolingually unified. In the premodern eras, there were only multilingual societies, where belonging to a polity was never equated to the possession of an ability to speak a single language. Of course, the multiplicity of languages did not mean an egalitarian recognition of different languages. Language use was always associated with social rank, so that different lan- guages were hierarchically ordered and regarded as markers of the social station an individual speaker or interlocutor occupied, but in the eras of premodernity it was impossible to find the legitimacy of government based on an official monolingualism or of a nativist heritage by which the identity of the individual was determined in the last instance by whether or not he or she was a native speaker of the official language. The very idea of the native speaker, which plays the decisive role in the identity politics of national recognition in modern cultural politics, was invented in the transitional phases from the premodern eras to the modern era. It is evident that what is crucial in this diagnosis of moder- nity and its politics of language is a presumption that language is countable—that is, that language is some being in the world which can be subsumed under the grammatical category of the countable.4 Here the countability consists in separating one language from an- other (externality) on the one hand, and juxtaposing these separated units within a common genre (commensurability) on the other. The transition from the premodern eras to the modern era seems to have given rise to two essential conditions to render the monolingualism .......................... mations in premodernity to a comparative uniformity of the modern international world. The chronological pattern of development in one area is so vastly different from that of another area that the historical de- velopment in Western Europe, for instance, cannot be said to replicate itself in East Asia and the rest of the world. In this respect, we believe that the developmentalist history of modernization, in which the modernity of Western Europe is expected to be reproduced in other, less developed areas in later eras, is incapable of apprehending the historical situation of the present, in which the stability of the West can no longer be taken for granted. Nevertheless, we also believe that there are a number of tendencies along which each area is transformed. What is suggested by the contrast between premodernity and modernity is this tendency or direction from one polarity (premodernity) to another polarity (modernity). 4 To elucidate whether or not language is a being-in-the-world requires a lengthy discussion, which cannot translation / spring / 2014 be undertaken here. Tentatively, we must be satisfied to say that, as far as it is a representation, language is a being-in-the-world. It is well known that the grammatical category of the countable is limited to some linguistic formations. Many languages in Northeast Asia, for instance, do not have this category as an es- sential rule of syntax. Nevertheless, the concept of the countable is equally important to these Northeast Asian languages, roughly classified as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and so forth. 13 of national language available. To separate one language from an- other is to locate a language outside another and thereby establish an externality of one language to another.5 Of course, this process of separation is generally called “translation,” which is again a process of inscribing a border. As one can see, the externality of one language and another is neces- sarily accompanied by a certain practice of “bordering” (Mezzadra & Neilson 2013). The language unit thus separated, however, is not unique beyond comparison in each case—language A is separated from language B, and language B is separated from language C. Despite different operations of separation, the languages thus isolated—A, B, C, D, and so on—form one common genre; they are commen- surate among themselves so that, from the outset, they are posited as comparable units in the common genre. In this respect, transla- tion is also a procedure of comparison. To use the terminology of Aristotelian logic, each language is a species in the general class of languages, with the separation of one language from another, mark- ing the instance of “species difference or specific difference (di- aphora)”; this thus accommodates languages within the classical conceptual economy of species and genus. It goes without saying that the operation that measures this “species difference” is nothing but a historically specific form of translation, and this particular regime of translation conforms to the design of the modern inter- national world. Translation may be carried out in many different forms, but modernity does not allow for forms of translation that do not accord with the modern international world. Let us call this particular assemblage of the methods, criteria, and protocols regu- lating the conduct of translation, as distinct from other forms, “the modern regime of translation.” It is important to note that the explication of modernity of- fered here is not descriptive of the empirically valid reality of the modern international world. It is essentially prescriptive. The regime of translation is said to project and produce the supposed .......................... translation / spring / 2014 5 It is precisely because of its rejection of externality that “Spanglish,” for instance, is not recognized as a proper and legitimate language (see note 3, above). Here one must not confuse externality with the idiom of “exteriority” or “outside” referred to by Maurice Blanchot and Michel Foucault, since externality is nothing but an erasure and displacement of “exterior- ity.” 14 unity of a national language, the externality of one language to an- other, and the idea of the international space in which ethnic and national languages supposedly coexist and are compared. The op- eration of national translation, of translation conducted in terms of the modern regime of translation, asserts and institutes these com- ponents—the unity of a national language, the external relationship of one language to another, and the presupposition of the interna- tional space—not on a descriptive but a prescriptive basis. What this theoretical elucidation reveals is the prescriptive design of the international world. The unity of a national language, for example, is not an empirically ascertainable objectivity; rather it is what Immanuel Kant called “the regulative idea,” which does not concern itself with the possibility of experience. It is no more than a rule according to which a search in the series of empirical data is prescribed. What it guarantees is not the empirically verifi- able truth. Therefore, the regulative idea gives only an object in idea; it only means “a schema for which no object, not even a hy- pothetical one, is directly given” (Immanuel Kant 550 [A 670; B 698]). Therefore, what takes place performatively in accordance with the modern regime of translation might also be called “the schematism of cofiguration.” Schematism means a working of schema, so, in this case, it represents a working of two schemata projecting two different language unities between which a message is transferred. The unity of language cannot be given in experience be- cause it is nothing but a regulative idea; it enables us to comprehend other related data about languages “in an indirect manner, in their systematic unity, by means of their relation to this idea” (Kant 550 [A 670; B 698]). It is not possible to know whether a particular lan- guage as a unity exists or not. The reverse is true: by subscribing to the idea of the unity of language, it becomes possible for us to sys- tematically organize knowledge about languages in a modern, sci- entific manner. And the occasion on which the schemata of national languages are projected is the process of translation, prescribed by the protocols of the modern regime of translation. translation / spring / 2014 3. Bordering the international world In this respect, the regime of translation, which helped to institute national languages and sustain the view of the international 15 world as a forum for a juxtaposition of distinct ethnic or national languages, is distinctly modern. In the premodern eras, as we con- tended above, the population was not unified through the common language imposed by the state; rather it was fragmented into many different kinship lineages, classes, ranks, and regions. Until the eighteenth century in Western Europe and until the nineteenth cen- tury in East and South Asia, Eastern and Northern Europe, and Rus- sia, there hardly existed the idea of integrating the entire population under the norm of one ethnic or national language. Consequently some universal languages—Latin, Classical Chinese, Arabic, San- skrit, Classical Greek, and so forth—prevailed across regions, king- doms, fiefdoms, and various graduated zones of power and suzerainty. The elite minority was skilled at one of these universal languages while the vast majority of commoners lived in a multi- plicity of local dialects and pidgins. Two points must be noted with regard to the modernity of the international world. The first is the historical particularity of the concept of nationality. The word “nationality” signifies the re- lationship between an individual and a territorial national sovereign state. However, it is important to note that this relationship is me- diated by the “nation.” The institution of a territorial state sover- eignty came into existence in the system of the Jus Publicum Europaeum in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the process of its “nationalization” took off quite later even in Western Europe.6 As the relationship between an individual and a territorial national sovereign state, the concept of “nationality” means a for- mula of identification according to which a particular individual subjects him or herself to the sovereignty of the state. It is a specif- ically modern form of communal belonging for an individual and, to our knowledge, was not to be found anywhere in the world before the eighteenth century. Nationality connotes an individual’s exclu- sive belonging to the state, but this feeling of belonging is primarily expressed in one’s sympathy with other individuals belonging to the same state. And this community of shared sympathy is called a “nation.” Even when the word is used in the sense of ethnicity or race, it necessarily implies an exclusivity of belonging. The concept translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 6 For a brilliant analysis and description of modern state sovereignty and the Jus Publicum Europaeum, see Schmitt, 2006. 16 of nationality is erected upon the assumption of a one-to-one cor- respondence between an individual and a nation, and indirectly be- tween an individual and a state sovereignty. The second point that must be stressed is how the unity of language is appropriated into the assumption of one-to-one corre- spondence between an individual and a particular state sovereignty. It is through the concept of the native speaker that one-to-one cor- respondence between an individual and a particular nation is most unambiguously expressed. With the native speaker, the possession of a language is equated to the innate identity of the individual’s destiny. It is a truism that a language is something one acquires after birth, but against all counterevidence, the concept of the native speaker reconstitutes an individual’s belonging to the nation in terms of his or her innate and almost biological heritage. This is how the concept of nationality is most often asserted in ethnic terms, and the ethnic identity of an individual is recognized in ref- erence to his or her native language. In the new international configuration of modernity, there is no room for universal languages that transcend nationalities and ethnicities. It is no accident that all the universal languages—except perhaps for Arabic—gradually declined as national languages were established to symbolize the cultural homogeneity of the national community (while at the same time, due to colonialism, some lan- guages were spread across continents, gaining a status that was nev- ertheless completely different from previous universal languages).7 Regardless of whether or not a language is actually spoken by the vast majority of the nation in the territory of the national state, the national language is held as a norm with its use as a prescriptive marker of nationality. The institution of national language thereby acquired an incredible force of command with which to nationalize the population. For a long time, however, as if to reiterate ultranationalist mythology, it has been assumed that national language is a transhis- .......................... 7 It goes beyond the scope of this introduction to discuss the problems connected with this colonial spread translation / spring / 2014 of such languages as Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Russian, and Japanese. Postcolonial scholars have long focused on such problems and on the related challenges for translators of literary works char- acterized by the presence of a multiplicity of languages. In the present global conjuncture further problems are posited by the status of English as the universal language of exchange and communication as well as by the emergence of competing universal languages (e.g., Spanish and Mandarin Chinese). 17 torical entity and can be traced back to the ancient origin of the na- tion. But as soon as the historical vicissitudes of national or ethnic languages are in question, one can no longer evade a series of prob- lems—how the modern national language came into being in the first place, how a language could be conceived of as an internally coherent entity distinguished from other languages in an analogy to the territorial integrity of the modern territorial state, and ulti- mately in what modality the national language can be understood to be a unity unambiguously distinguished from other national lan- guages. Once again we must go back to translation, a process of border—or bordering, to use the terminology of Mezzadra and Neilson once again—in which a distinction is inscribed and rein- scribed between a language and another, a quite violent process of negotiation in which two figures of a language to translate from and another language to translate into (schemata of cofiguration) are projected to regulate the conduct of translation. Let us note that the distinction of one language from another is primordially figured out in this process of translation, without reference to which the very externality of one language to another could not be established. 4. Citizenship and translation By staging an encounter between scholars who work on the politics of translation and those involved in the politicization of the concept of translation, this special issue of Translation at- tempts to take stock of the theoretical developments and achieve- ments in the field. At the same time, it aims to lay the basis for future conversations and new directions of research. It needs to be repeated that the politicization of the concept of translation in recent years has run parallel to the discovery of its deep ambivalence. As Rada Iveković writes in her contribution to this issue, “translation does not guarantee freedom of any kind, and […] it can be as much a politics of conquest, capture, exploration–and–exploitation and colonialism, whether inner or outer.” “But politics of translation,” she adds, “may be invented.” It is in working through this deep ambivalence that some of the main concepts and topics at stake in contemporary political debates can be productively reframed. No translation / spring / 2014 doubt, what is unambiguously declared—and this is a guiding motto of this special issue of Translation—is that translation is not a matter confined solely to the domain of linguistics. 18 Take citizenship, for instance. There have been several at- tempts to rethink the concept of citizenship through translation in order to open it up and delink it from the national norm. Étienne Balibar comes to mind here, among others. In his contribution to this issue, Balibar dwells very effectively on the opposition as well as the tricky entanglement of the “paradigm of war” and the “par- adigm of translation” in the construction of the “other” of the citizen, which means of the “foreigner” and the “stranger.” At stake in his essay is the emergence of the very opposition (of the borders) between “us” and “them” upon which modern citizenship is predi- cated. While it is rather obvious to think of “war” as the most cat- astrophic modality of the relation between “us” and “them,” the role of translation as a “transcendental” condition of possibility for the existence of reified political identities can easily pass unno- ticed. The essay by Boris Buden is particularly relevant here. It draws a convincing parallel between the scene of translation and the seminal scene of the “state of nature” in European modern po- litical philosophy. Thinking of an original “state of language,” within which the “first translation” produces the emergence of dis- tinct languages and linguistic communities, works on both sides. On the one hand it sheds light once again on the deep political im- plications of the very concept and practice of translation—“All Contract,” Thomas Hobbes symptomatically writes in Leviathan (1981, 194), “is mutuall translation, or change of Right.” On the other hand, it opens up a peculiar angle on the development, and even on the technical apparatus, of the modern regime of translation we discussed above (starting with the important instance of the German Romantic tradition, emphasized by Buden). Simply put, this regime of translation does not merely reinforce the distinctive- ness of national languages upon which the bordering of citizenship is predicated. Rather, it contributes to their production—as well as to the production of the “other” of citizenship. A whole set of questions arises here—ranging from debates on multiculturalism (as well as on its multiple current crises) to the contemporary transformations of border and migration “manage- translation / spring / 2014 ment” regimes. When considering such issues, it is clear that the role of translation cannot be confined to the one we have just high- lighted. It is clear, in other words, that here and now, not in some 19 remote future utopia, “vernacular” practices of translation are work- ing the boundary between “distinct” and reified linguistic commu- nities, building platforms that enable the daily crossing of fortified borders and are fostering new experiences of identity and “other- ness.”8 It is definitely possible and productive to envisage a kind of clash between the ordered regime of translation staged by borders and the translational practices connected to the production of sub- jectivity, which meshes with migration as a social movement. What Naoki Sakai has called “heterolingual” address nicely captures these subversive aspects of practices of translation, which point to the emergence of a “multitude of foreigners” (Sakai–Solomon 2006). “There is no absolute translation,” Rada Iveković writes in her contribution. This impossibility (notwithstanding the many at- tempts to deny it) opens up a wide and heterogeneous field of social conflict and political experimentation. While what we can call “homolingual citizenship” oscillates between the extreme of war and a benevolent “integration” within an already constituted and bordered assemblage in dealing with the “other,” the heterolingual practices of translation outside the modern regime of translation disrupt this very polarity and keep open both the space of citizenship and the production of subjectivity that inhabit it. This is the reason why a particularly important task today is an exploration of spaces of citizenship below and beyond the nation–state—from cities to regions.9 As far as the production of subjectivity is concerned, the relevance of translation in the forg- ing of the modern Western subject has often been highlighted in recent years. Both Rada Iveković and Jon Solomon refer to it in their contributions to this issue. It is therefore crucial to insist on the fact that to point to an opposition and a conflict between radically different regimes of translation is to open up a field of investigation .......................... 8 For a rich discussion of these topics, and more generally of cultural translation, see the essays collected by Ghislaine Glasson-Deschaumes for the special issue of Révue Transeuropéenne, 22 (2002), entitled “Traduire entre les cultures.” 9 On “cities in translation” see, for instance, the fascinating book by Sherry Simon (2011). As far as “regions” are concerned, translation has, for instance, been key to the attempt to rethink the European space by Éti- translation / spring / 2014 enne Balibar (2009). But we may also recall Gayatri Spivak’s reflections on a “critical regionalism,” which led her to speak of a “practice of othering ourselves into many Asia-s,” making Asia “a position without identity” (Spivak 2008, 235 and 240). Interestingly, she draws inspiration from José Martí’s essay “Our America” and from W. E. B. Du Bois’s Pan-Africanism (217–223), engaging in what could be termed an ex- ercise in transregional translation. 20 where the very constitution of the subject, itself crisscrossed by lines of antagonism, is always at stake. While it is rooted, as we stressed above, within concrete practices of translation, our use of the “heterolingual” address here also works more broadly, shedding light on practices and dynamics well beyond the translational and even linguistic field. The concept of the institution itself deserves to be reassessed from this angle; it must open up towards the imagination of a continuous labor of translation between its stabilizing function and the multifarious so- cial practices that the institution targets and that at the same time make its existence possible. 5. Translating capital As Brett Neilson’s contribution to this issue demonstrates in particular, one of the multifarious ways in which the concept of translation has been politicized in recent years lies in its use as a tool for the critique of political economy, or, in other words, for critical understanding of the operations of contemporary (global) capital. In highlighting the growing relevance of “machine transla- tion” in our time, Neilson focuses on two crucial aspects of these operations: so-called “knowledge management,” and logistics. More generally, Neilson is keen to register “the link between translation and the production of value,” referring to the parallel drawn by Marx in the Grundrisse “between translation and the role of money in facilitating circulation and making possible the universal ex- change of commodities.” This is a crucially important point dis- cussed by several scholars in recent years. By placing the problem of translation within the “political economy of the sign,” several years ago Lydia Liu, for instance, mapped some intriguing connec- tions “between the exchange of commodity and that of the sign in Marx” (Liu 2000, 23; see also Spivak 1985, 83). The crucial point here, as both Neilson and Liu recognize, is the commensurability and equivalence—between languages, sys- tems of signs, and values of commodities. From this point of view, it becomes possible to use what was previously discussed as the “homolingual” address to critically grasp the modalities with which translation / spring / 2014 capital translates the heterogeneous contexts, ways of human activity and life, modalities of labor it encounters in its “development” into the homogeneous language of value (Mezzadra 2010). How does 21 capitalism repeatedly sanction this specific regime of translation, according to which it is an act whereby to establish an equivalence between different languages on the one hand, and a linguistic dif- ference represented as a gap to be bridged by translation on the other? The international space of commensurability on the one hand and the externality of one language to another on the other? How is the formula of equivalence prepared in the modern interna- tional world as a space of commensurability? We think these ques- tions are becoming increasingly urgent today. One of the ways in which they emerge, as Neilson shows, is the challenge of achieving “interoperability” between systems in the governance of supply chains through logistical protocols. An- other way in which it surfaces is, as Gavin Walker succinctly ob- serves in his contribution to this volume, the refusal of the political in translation, of the potentiality in translation of contestation, by the “flattening of the uneven and hazardous practice of translation” into simplistic forms of commensurability. Thus, the question of equivalence brings us back to the topic of the politics in and of translation. “To insist on the historical,” Walker argues, “is also an insistence on the instability of this two [of the contrasting figures in the regime of translation], an emphasis on the point that this two is in no way a coherent or natural arrangement but rather itself a historical product of the encounter of translation.” What Gavin Walker uncovers in this politics of translation is exactly what Marx called the historically practical character of relation “in which the very terms of its relation itself is subject to a fluid motion, a flux of radical singularity.” 6. Framing the world There is a need to emphasize this link between capital and translation within the more general discussion that surrounds the multiple roles played by translation in the historical and conceptual constitution of modernity. In particular, it is looking at the global scope that has characterized it since its inception, which means looking at colonialism and imperialism as constitutive aspects of modernity, that it “cannot be considered unless in reference to trans- translation / spring / 2014 lation” (Sakai 2000, 797). In his contribution to this issue, Jon Solomon proposes to critically consider “the various forms of social domination and exploitation that have accompanied modernity” 22 from the triple perspective of capitalist accumulation (which pro- duces “the subjects of political economy”), translational accumu- lation (which produces “the subjects of civilizational and anthropological difference”), and erudite accumulation (which pro- duces “normalized bodies of knowledge”). Needless to say, what counts more is the interweaving between these three regimes of ac- cumulation. Translation, in particular, is deeply implicated in cap- italist accumulation, as just mentioned, and apparently it has prominent roles to play in the production of “normalized bodies of knowledge” through what Solomon calls “erudite accumulation.” The combination of these three angles allows light to be shed on the constitution of “the West” through the encounter with its multiple “others”; this necessarily required multiple exercises in translation, linguistic as well as conceptual. Both the spatial parti- tions that organized the global geography of modernity (from the “global lines” described by Carl Schmitt in The Nomos of the Earth to the “areas” of area studies) and the cognitive partitions, upon which modern knowledge and rationality are predicated, bear the traces of these translational exercises. While it is still necessary to investigate these traces and the reproduction of “Eurocentrism” in the present, there is also a need to carefully analyze current global developments and trends in order to grasp elements of continuity and discontinuity. 7. Translation, universalism, and the common Among other things, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 has exposed the shattering of old spatial hierarchies, the reshuffling of geographies of development, and the emergence of new region- alisms and patterns of multilateralism that are among the most im- portant tendencies of contemporary capitalist globalization. For the first time since the beginning of “modernity,” the hegemony of “the West” within the world system appears unstable and challenged. Constructed as “particular” and “ubiquitous” at the same time through the “homolingual address” (Sakai 1997, 154–155), “the West” can definitely reproduce itself, even in a situation in which Western hegemony destabilizes. But again, it is urgent to map the translation / spring / 2014 practices of translation emerging in the current geographical turmoil that point to different frames of encounter, transnational and transcontinental entanglement. In her contribution to this issue, 23 Lydia Liu’s reconstruction of the development of “Afro-Asian” writers’ solidarity after the 1955 Bandung conference is especially important from the point of view of the construction of the historical archives of such practices in the past. A new theory and practice of translation can help us to imagine new spatial and political constel- lations that emerge out of the current spatial turmoil, and also test and challenge the stability of the “international world,” and the Eu- rocentricity upon which the internationality of the modern world was initially erected. Considering the prominent role played by translation both in the production of national languages and in the “regulation” of the intercourses between them, it is not surprising that the modern regime of translation, as we insisted above, was also pivotal to the shaping of the modern world as an international world, i.e. as a world organized around the (legal and political) norm of the “na- tionality.” The Chinese translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law (1836) by the American missionary W. A. P. Martin and his Mandarin collaborators, published in 1864, is a good case in point, and Lydia Liu discusses it in her essay (see also Liu 2006, chapter 4). Wang Hui also shows very effectively in his recent The Politics of Imagining Asia (2011, 233–242) the ways in which this particular translation traveled very quickly to Japan and became an important tool for the disruption of the “tribute system” that pre- vailed in the region of today’s East Asia, particularly along China’s borders. The Japanese elite was already aware before the Meiji Restoration that the tribute system was incompatible with the in- ternational world. The Japanese takeover of the Ryukyu archipel- ago, with the establishment of the Okinawa prefecture in 1879, and the occupations of Taiwan and Korea are part and parcel of the process through which the national norm and the aesthetics of na- tionality—with its imperial implications—were imposed on the population of the regions. The “translation” of Western international law prompted this process, legitimizing it “on the basis of a new kind of knowledge and new rules of legitimacy” (Wang 2011, 241). It is important not to overlook that in the process of modernization, translation / spring / 2014 while the Japanese state effectively undermined the tribute system in East Asia and subsequently appropriated Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea externally on the international stage, the Japanese national 24 language was formed internally or domestically. It goes without saying that the Japanese national language was invented through the regime of translation (Sakai 1991). New borders were drawn in this process, both on maps and in minds. The role of translation in law deserves careful study both in past history (think for instance of the Japanese adoption of the French and, later, German model of civil law, and the British model of commercial law in the late nineteenth century through transla- tion10) and in the present (think for instance of the global transfer of the American standard of “rule of law”11). In her contribution to this issue, Lydia Liu points to a rather different instance with her analysis of the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). In reconstructing the multilingual making of that his- torical document, Liu shows how the contribution of a multiplicity of languages, as well as the translations, clashes, and even misun- derstandings between them, potentially opened the Declaration to “the radical multiplicity and translingual plurality of the philoso- phies and cultures of the world, first in its moment of genesis and .......................... 10 A massive importation of European institutions to Japan was already underway in the 1870s and ran parallel to the development of the study of foreign languages. In the first two decades after the Meiji Restoration, the most studied European languages were English, French, and some Russian. Initially, no one studied German. But in the late 1880s and 1890s Germany became an important country for the Japan- ese. The Japanese State began adopting German examples in such a variety of fields as constitutional, civil, and criminal law and jurisprudence, industrial engineering and natural sciences, medicine, and the army. It is important to note that the modern Japanese language itself was created in these processes of introducing and translating European institutions into Japan. 11 There is a growing literature on the role of translation in law, both with reference to specific historical instances and more generally within the framework of theoretical debates. From this latter point of view see, for instance, Hasegawa 2009 and Ost 2009. For a critical analysis of the global transfer of the American standard of “rule of law,” see Mattei and Nader 2009. To follow up on the Japanese example, in the first few years of the Meiji period (1868–1910) many Euro-American legal and political texts were translated into Japanese because a knowledge of European institutions was absolutely necessary for the new Japan- ese State administrators to ensure the Japanese State be recognized as a legitimate sovereignty in the in- ternational world. For them international recognition was absolutely necessary, for this was the only way to escape colonization. It was during this period that the Napoleonic civil code was first introduced to Japan, and a radically different institution of family—the modern family—was introduced to replace the previous institution of family. “Translate the Napoleonic Civil Code as soon as possible!” was the order Etô Shimpei, the first Minister of Justice, issued to his staff at the new Meiji Government in 1871. But there was no systematic civil code in the first few decades of Meiji. Many ordinances were sporadically issued by the state so as to establish new civil rules and procedures, but there was no systematic civil law until 1898, when the systematic civil code, modeled after German civil law (which is to say after the circu- translation / spring / 2014 lating drafts of what would become the German Civil Law Code of 1900), was first legislated. German civil law theory was particularly influential in Japan until the First World War and shaped the interpretation of the civil code in its first two decades. After the war the main trend was toward a “re-Japanization” of civil law, balanced by the need to accommodate international—i.e., Western—standards. US influences be- came particularly important at that time (see Schröder and Morinaga 2005). 25 then in subsequent translations.” It is necessary to keep in mind, as Liu herself does, that this moment of “openness” was foreclosed by the hegemony of the United States of America, which largely monopolized the interpretations and uses of the document. Never- theless the multiple temporalities and the dense fabric of cultural and political encounters hidden behind the text of the Declaration point to a conflict between different regimes of translation which deserves further investigation. It is important to remember in this regard that African American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois played an important role in the process that led to the constitution of the UN and to the draft- ing of the Declaration (see Anderson 2003). More generally, Du Bois (as well as the late Malcolm X) interpreted “human rights” in a particularly radical way. One of the earliest African American po- litical texts, David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1830), may be quoted here in order to highlight the back- ground of this peculiar interpretation. “There is a great work for you to do,” Walker wrote to his “coloured” fellows, “as trifling as some of you may think of it. You have to prove to the Americans and the world, that we are MEN, and not brutes, as we have been represented, and by millions treated” (Walker 2003, 32). Put simply, it was this experience of a “failed recognition,” this violent negation of humanity, common to colonized and enslaved peoples (men and women, of course), that allowed Du Bois to see in the claim for human rights something more than a merely juridical or political device. The “human” itself could not be taken for granted; rather, it was something to be (re)constructed as a fundamental “ontolog- ical” stake in politics. Once we consider it from this standpoint, Lydia Liu’s dis- cussion of the roles played by translation in the multilingual making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acquires new, and more general, meanings. It effectively points to the potentialities of the very concept of translation in the contemporary discussions sur- rounding the topics of universalism, universality, and the common. In brief, we think there is a need to even go beyond the notion of alternative and competing universalisms, which risks ending up re- translation / spring / 2014 producing the familiar picture of “equivalent” (universal) lan- guages, with translation playing the role of arbitrator and mediator among them, thereby restoring the modern regime of translation for 26 national translation rather than undermining it. The point is, instead, to insist that the universal itself (as the example of the “human” in the African American experience shows) has to be produced, and to focus on the necessary roles of translation in this aleatory process of production. These roles cannot but be profoundly ambivalent, and this ambivalence (discussed in this introduction from the point of view provided by the distinction between “homolingual” and “heterolingual” addresses) shapes universalism as such. Keeping universalism open (open in translation to multiplicity and hetero- geneity) means keeping it accessible to the common process of its production, as a basis for the invention of new processes of libera- tion. It is here that the “hazardous and contingent possibility of the common,” to quote once more from Gavin Walker’s contribution to this issue of translation, emerges as a fragile but necessary key to the collective invention of “a new mode of life desperately needed in the global present.” translation / spring / 2014 27 References Anderson, Carol. 2003. Eyes off the Prize. The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Apter, Emily. 2006. The Translation Zone. A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Balibar, Étienne. 2009. “Europe as Borderland.” Environment and Planning D: Soci- ety and Space, 27 (2): 190–215. Hasegawa, Kō. 2009. “Incorporating Foreign Legal Ideas through Translation.” In Theorizing the Global Legal Order, edited by A. Halpin et al., 85–106. Ox- ford: Hart Publishing. Hobbes, Thomas. 1981. Leviathan. Edited by C. B. Macpherson. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Kant, Immanuel. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St Martin’s Press. Liu, Lydia H. 2000. “The Question of Meaning Value in the Political Economy of the Sign.” In Tokens of Exchange. The Problem of Translation in Global Cir- culations, edited by Lydia H. Liu, 13–41. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. ———. 2006. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Mak- ing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mattei, Ugo, and Laura Nader. 2009. Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal. Ox- ford: Blackwell. Mezzadra, Sandro. 2010. “Living in Transition. Toward a Heterolingual Theory of the Multitude.” In The Politics of Culture. Around the Work of Naoki Sakai, edited by R. F. Calichman and J. N. Kim, 121–137. New York: Routledge. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC–London: Duke University Press. Ost, François. 2009. Le droit comme traduction, Le droit comme traduction. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Rafael, Vicente L. 2012. “Targeting Translation. Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language.” Social Text, 30 (4): 55–80. Sakai, Naoki. 1991. Voices of the Past: the Status of Language in Eighteenth Century Japanese Discourse. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ———. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis–London: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2000. “‘You Asians’: On the Historical Role of the West and Asia Binary.” South Atlantic Quarterly, 99 (4): 789–817. Sakai, Naoki, and Jon Solomon. 2006. “Introduction: Addressing the Multitude of Foreigners, Echoing Foucault.” In Biopolitics, Colonial Difference, edited translation / spring / 2014 by Sakai and Solomon, 1–35. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Schmitt, Carl. 2006. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Pub- licum Europaeum. Translated by G. L. Ulman. Candor, NY: Telos Press Publishing. 28 Schöder, Jan, and Yoshiko Morinaga. 2005. “Zum Einfluss des BGB auf das Japanis- che Zivilrecht.” Rechtstransfer durch Zivilgesetzbücher, issue edited by Elisabeth Berger, 2005 (29): 38–44. Simon, Sherry. 2011. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. New York: Routledge. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1985. “Scattered Reflections on the Question of Value.” Diacritics, 15 (4): 73–93. ———. 1993. “The Politics of Translation.” In Outside in the Teaching Machine, 200–225. New York: Routledge. ———. 2008. Other Asias. Oxford: Blackwell. Walker, David. 2003. Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Edited by Peter P. Hinks. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Wang Hui. 2011. The Politics of Imagining Asia. Edited by Thomas Huters. Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press. Sandro Mezzadra teaches political theory at the University of Bologna and is adjunct fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Western Sydney. In the last decade his work has particularly centered on the relations between globaliza- tion, migration, and citizenship as well as on postcolonial theory and criticism. He is an active participant in the “post-workerist” debate. Among his works: Diritto di fuga. Mi- grazioni, cittadinanza, globalizzazione (2006) and La condizione postcoloniale (2008). With Brett Neilson he is the author of Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (2013). Naoki Sakai teaches in the departments of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies and is a member of the graduate field of History at Cornell University. He has published in a number of languages in the fields of comparative literature, intellectual history, translation studies, the studies of racism and nationalism, and the histories of semiotic and literary multitude—speech, writing, corporeal expressions, calligraphic regimes, translation / spring / 2014 and phonographic traditions. His publications include: Translation and Subjectivity ; Voices of the Past. He has edited a number of volumes including: The Translation, Biopolitics, Colonial Difference (with Jon Solomon) Vol. 4, Traces: A Multilingual Series of Cultural Theory and Translation (2006). 29

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The Regime of Translation and the Figure of Politics .................................... McGill University in Montréal, Canada Gavin Walker [email protected] Abstract: What is a “politics” of translation? How does translation—a general theoretical term that indicates a social process of articulation or disarticulation through which some phenomena in a given social field appear as a “two”—relate to politics as such, that is the practice of politics? Frequently, a phrase such as “the politics of translation” presupposes that “translation” is a complex and multiva- lent term to be unpacked, but “politics” is, in this style of composition, often treated as if it were self-evident, as if it were possible to simply affix the term “politics” to various concepts in order to politicize them. But I want to disrupt this easy notion of politics and politicization by suggesting that we must seek another means of entry into the relationship of politics and translation than sim- ply a facile imbrication of two presuppositions. What I will be primarily con- cerned with here is the clarification of the question of the two—duality, two “sides,” complementarity, comparison, division, scission, antagonism, perhaps even the figure of the “dialectic.” The question of translation, and particularly the status of the two in translation, has important consequences for the thinking of politics, even the politics of politics, a metapolitics or archipolitics. I will at- tempt to elaborate these consequences at length in order to disrupt two comple- mentary misunderstandings: the notion of politics as ubiquitous or constant, and the notion of translation as a simple transposition or transference between two already established positions or fields. ______________ In recent years, the question of translation has been deep- ened and extended by numerous important interventions in theory. This concept—and I want to insist on the full plenitude of transla- tion as a concept—is not, however, merely a theoretical question. Translation is also a means of naming or marking a real arrange- ment of forces that organizes real social relations. In this sense, Naoki Sakai has alerted us to an important conceptual distinction translation / spring / 2014 within the work of this concept: the distinction between translation itself and what he calls “the regime of translation.” I want to try to develop this distinction, so crucial to Sakai’s work, in a specific di- 30 rection: the direction of politics proper. What is a “politics” of trans- lation? How does translation—a general theoretical term that indi- cates a social process of articulation or disarticulation through which some phenomena in a given social field appear as a “two”— relate to politics as such, that is the practice of politics? Frequently, a phrase such as “the politics of translation” presupposes that “translation” is a complex and multivalent term to be unpacked, but “politics” is, in this style of composition, often treated as if it were self-evident, as if it were possible to simply affix the term “politics” to various concepts in order to politicize them. But I want to disrupt this easy notion of politics and politicization by suggest- ing that we must seek another means of entry into the relationship of politics and translation than simply a facile imbrication of two presuppositions. We should be equally careful here to avoid a dis- ciplinary separation of registers that would simply equate “politics” with presumed political acts—practical/concrete acts—and “trans- lation” with “culture” in a metonymic style of substitution. Instead, I want to enter into this relation by treating these two terms, these two concepts, in a divergent manner: what is at stake in the concept of politics? What is at stake in the concept of translation? And above all, what is at stake for an act of theoretical articulation be- tween them? What I will be primarily concerned with here is the clarification of the question of the two—duality, two “sides,” com- plementarity, comparison, division, scission, antagonism, perhaps even the figure of the “dialectic.” The question of translation, and particularly the status of the two in translation, has important con- sequences for the thinking of politics, even the politics of politics, a metapolitics or archipolitics. We will attempt here to elaborate these consequences at length in order to disrupt two complementary misunderstandings: the notion of politics as ubiquitous or constant, and the notion of translation as a simple transposition or transfer- ence between two already established positions or fields. There are essentially two dominant registers of inherited knowledge in which the figure of the two has been extensively de- veloped: politics and psychoanalysis. We can think of figures of politics such as the distinction between friend and enemy (Schmitt), translation / spring / 2014 the primacy of partisanship (Gramsci), the choice of one line or an- other (Lenin), the geopolitics of the right wing (one putative “civ- ilization” or another), the geopolitics of the left (the revolutionary 31 camp or the capitalist camp), questions of historiography (the tran- sition from one mode of production to another and the articulation between them), and, of course, questions of psychoanalysis. In the case of psychoanalysis, the figure of the two is perhaps most widely developed: we can immediately recall such instances as the two of analyst and analysand in the clinical scenario, the field of love (“the scene of the Two” in Badiou’s terms), but also the two of the split— the splitting of the drive between its self-negating effects and its compulsive repetition, the splitting of the subject between the enun- ciation and the enunciated, the splitting of the law between its pre- tension to eternality and its unstable institution in every scenario of domination. But what is the two on the most abstract or concep- tual level? (Perhaps this is in fact the most truly “practical” level, in the sense that the concept is precisely what allows for the fullest development of what is constrained in the “real” social field). Here, we must return to the broad question of how to explain three terms or fields: translation, politics, and the politics or politicality of trans- lation. Let us then begin with translation. Translation: The Regime of the Two The typical presentation of the concept of translation is not, in fact, referential to “translation” at all but rather to the represen- tation of translation, what Naoki Sakai has called the “regime of translation.” In order to set the scene for an articulation between the concept of politics and the concept of translation, we must first expand and delineate what is actually referred to by this term “translation” and the ways in which a clear understanding of this term is covered over, hidden, or obscured by its confusion with its own representation. In the commonsensical usage of this word, we often assume a simple and formal transposition of content from one signifying system to another. The individual terms, linguistic struc- ture, and field of meanings are meant to pass through and detach from one system of signification and reattach themselves, trans- ferred into another system, to a new home. More broadly, we are no longer simply accustomed to translation as a concept linked solely to national language, yet national language nevertheless re- translation / spring / 2014 mains the general historical concept implied in the term translation: one putatively unitary language system’s set of codings are disar- ticulated and reassembled in the terms of another putatively unitary 32 system. English is “translated” into Japanese, French is “translated” into Russian, and so forth. Beyond this basic sense, however, we are now used to another use of this term—the whole field of dis- cussions of “cultural translation,” for example. These discussions, however, often reproduce the worst tropes related to the representation of translation—the image of translation as communication, translation as simple transfer, trans- lation as a “bridge” between two self-identical elements, translation as a “filter” or screen (see Sakai 2009). All of these concepts of translation essentially imagine that translation is nothing more than an act of articulation between two already existing entities. Hence, “Western” products are “culturally translated” in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and so forth, or vice versa, essentially leaving the concept of “cultural translation” as a mere substitution for something like the local inflection of ostensibly “foreign” elements. Here, there- fore, there is no reflection on the process of the formation of the local and the foreign as modes of classification; instead, they are simply treated as the presupposed boundaries or edges of terms that are posited as “two sides” of a relation, a relation that could be con- nected in multiple ways, to be sure, but always a relation of one thing and another. It is exactly this representation of translation that sup- presses or conceals the more basic question of translation as such: Strictly speaking, it is not because two different language unities are given that we have to translate (or interpret) one text into another; it is because translation articulates lan- guages so that we may postulate the two unities of the translating and the translated languages as if they were autonomous and closed entities through a certain represen- tation of translation. (Sakai 1997, 2) In other words, translation is an open and inconclusive act of articulation in the space of radical incommensurability, in the space of indeterminacy prior to coalescence into the form of rela- tion. Translation is represented as if this zone of indecidability was not the primary scene of engagement, but rather the outcome of its own processual motion. But the basic problem is that translation describes what Gramsci called a “historical act,” an act with polit- translation / spring / 2014 ical and historical contents. However, the representation of trans- lation represses this aspect of history, and therefore, the aspect of politics, which is always involved in the necessity of reducing cir- 33 cumstances to one line and another. We will return to this aspect when we take up the question of politics proper. If we reduce trans- lation to its representation, we undertake an act of dehistoricization, by which the originary differential, the acting and poietic dimen- sion of translation, is repressed and reduced to an ahistorical con- stant, a relation already established between two elements that are themselves not called into question. The paradox presented by this gap or rupture between the work of translation and its representation is that it is only through translation that we can enter into this gap itself, exposing us to a theoretical dynamics in which translation appears as a structure that works on itself. But how does this operate? And what kind of prob- lem does this disclose, not only for translation but also for trans- latability? What makes it possible to represent the initial difference as an already determined dif- ference between one language unity and another is the work of translation itself. This is why we always have to remind ourselves that the untranslatable, or what can never be appropriated by the economy of translational communication, cannot exist prior to the enunciation of translation. It is translation that gives birth to the untranslatable. Thus the untranslatable is as much a testimony to the sociality of the translator, whose figure exposes the presence of a nonaggregate community between the addresser and the addressee, as to the translatable itself. However, the essential sociality of the un- translatable is ignored in the homolingual address, and with the repression of this in- sight, the homolingual address ends up equating translation to communication. (Sakai 1997, 14) Here Sakai introduces the concept of “homolingual ad- dress,” a term that plays a crucial role in explicating the specifically theoretical physics of this question. The homolingual address pre- supposes that not only the language community (or let us say more broadly social community) of the addresser but also that of the ad- dressee is unitary, or perhaps, more specifically, univocal, and that it can be expressed in a relation of integrity or totality. In this schema, the unity of the community of the addresser and that of the addressee do not have to be the same. In fact, they can be radically divergent from each other. But they must each be presupposed as two unities. That is, the surrounding economies of address and re- ceipt must be understood or imagined as two islands, two self-con- translation / spring / 2014 tained and self-identical spaces without excess or escape. These two spaces would each constitute an interior and an exterior, a hard ker- nel of solidity inside and a fluid, indeterminate space outside. But 34 this structure of presupposition is itself based on another intervening set of determinations, a schema—and here we should emphasize the centrality of the Kantian thinking of the concept of schema for Sakai’s work, in which important and original theoretical results are generated around this figure of thought—through which social circumstances are represented as if they corresponded to this prior image of isolated, unitary, and identical communities. But what happens in such a schematic? What is elevated and what is repressed from view? In turn, what is accidentally or fortuitously disclosed to us by means of another dynamics that would inhere in such relations? First and foremost, a complex tem- porality is installed here. Translation, as we have been arguing, is above all a historical act, in the Gramscian sense. What Gramsci suggests by this formulation is that the concept of the act—the prac- tice—that is crucial to us never occurs merely at the level of a con- ceptual dynamics or an empty, contentless purity. The act for Gramsci is always historical, always immersed in a context, a genre, a category of statements, movements, alliances, spontaneous and emergent political allegiances, forms of intelligibility, and so forth. In this sense, translation—the act of articulation in a social space of incommensurability—is always historical insofar as it never merely occurs as an interval, but rather creates the conditions for an interval or gap to assert itself. But where this gap should be lo- cated, how it should be formed, and what conditions inform its emergence, are all questions linked to the specific historical and po- litical dynamics of the particular circumstantial conjuncture within which the act of translation is undertaken. In this sense, translation is an instance of the historical present, a historicity suffused with an openness and sense of intervention, while translation’s represen- tation is saturated by a conception of the past as closure, the past as fixity, in which two sides are structurally presumed. What plays the essential role here is the prefix, in the strict sense: the always-already determined nature of supposition: By erasing the temporality of translation with which the oscillation or indeterminacy of personality in translation is closely associated and which can be thought in an anal- translation / spring / 2014 ogy to the aporetic temporality of “I think”, we displace translation with the represen- tation of translation. […] The representation of translation transforms difference in repetition into species difference (diaphora) between two specific identities. (Sakai 1997, 15) 35 Here, a new and crucial point is presented: we see how translation as a historical act is conflated with or covered over by the representation of translation, or the regime of translation, but we also see how this conflation creates a specific modality of the presentation of difference as such. As Sakai points out, here differ- ence in repetition—translation as a historical act, an act of articu- lation that is incessantly repeated but always in divergent conjunctures with divergent compositional elements and out- comes—is instead transformed into a sort of specific difference, in the schematic sense of genus, species, and individual. It is in this sense that the representation of translation, in which the open his- toricity of articulation is foreclosed as a mere encounter between two presupposed “sides,” comes to be not an expression of a dif- ference that must be bridged, but rather a difference that takes place always-already within the economy of commensurability. Two sides are presupposed, two unities are preposited. These two unities come to be capable of an encounter, of being represented as two fields between which translation passes, because they already are pre- sumed as unities within a field of commensurability, in which an encounter is possible at all. But this, as Sakai demonstrates through- out his body of work, is precisely the theoretical mode by which translation as an act of articulation in the space of incommensura- bility, is repressed or hidden. In this sense, the regime of translation is the repression of the historical, despite its appeal to history – the supposed “natural” basis of national linguistic community and so forth – an appeal that might be linked here also to the psychoana- lytic concept of “drive,” a force of pulsion towards an object of de- sire that nevertheless must undermine its own satisfaction or fulfillment. This entire theoretical structure is what Sakai calls “the schema of cofiguration,” “the discursive apparatus that makes it possible to represent translation” (Sakai 1997, 15). This apparatus or mechanism is immersed in discourse, that is to say, in history. The schema of cofiguration is a mechanism that is itself profoundly historical, a product of the historical process, but one that allows through a certain evasion of the implications of this historicity. This translation / spring / 2014 schema in essence names or marks the gap between the historicity of translation and the historicity of its own representation, a repre- sentation that acts as if translation could from the outset be a pre- 36 supposition rather than a rupture or contingent act in the incom- mensurable and irreconcilable field of historical flux. This is again why the historicity of translation that is repressed by the regime of translation finds its resolution in practice, in the historical act: “the practice of translation remains radically heterogeneous to the rep- resentation of translation” (Sakai 1997, 15). As an act of social ar- ticulation, in which a previously existing set of terms and relations emerges and develops, translation is always first and foremost prac- tical. It involves an intervention, or what we might call a forcing (following Alain Badiou), the production of an economy of ele- ments and relations between them that the prior conjuncture could not theoretically anticipate in its own logical structure. This open- ness of practice and historical contingency must always be “radi- cally heterogeneous” to the regime of translation, the schema of cofiguration in which two sides are posited from the outset as if their own conditions of production were mere teleological out- comes of necessity, and not themselves subject to the same histor- ical flux that enabled even the discursive apparatus through which they could be apprehended at all. This is why, in the question of translation, we must pay ex- tremely close attention to the position of the translator, the site in which the entire process remains open to a certain flux, even within the representation of translation, which desperately attempts to re- press the historicity of the image of “two sides”: At best she can be a subject in transit, first because the translator cannot be an “indi- vidual” in the sense of individuum in order to perform translation, and second because she is a singular that marks an elusive point of discontinuity in the social, whereas translation is the practice of creating continuity at that singular point of discontinuity. Translation is an instance of continuity in discontinuity and a poietic social practice that institutes a relation at the site of incommensurability. (Sakai 1997, 13) Here the concept of the singular needs to be unpacked at length, and in reference to a series of theoretical problems linked to the question of the subject. Sakai locates the concept of singularity in the figure of the translator, what he calls the subject in transit, that is, the “point of discontinuity” in the representation of translation translation / spring / 2014 as a smooth transposition of meaning between one signifying sys- tem and another. The singular here is thus a marker of interruption, an emblem of a split, a break, or a rupture. Equally, however, the 37 singular is also that mechanism through which continuity attempts to renew or renovate itself, needing to always be articulated through concrete instances and thereby attain a social solidity. As a conse- quence, singularity is that form in which both continuity and dis- continuity find a foothold or grounding, a paradox or dynamic tension that furnishes the point of rupture in the regime of transla- tion. It is in this sense that singularity is the site of connection be- tween the historical practice of translation and the representation of translation that hides or shields it from view. Equally, however, singularity is also the point around which our investigation of pol- itics must circulate. Politics: The Torsion of the Two Just as the concept of translation is in fact a divided con- cept, suspended between the regime of translation (the work of its representation) and translation as such, so too is the concept of pol- itics divided between at least two dominant instances. Translation itself is a marker of instability, a point or site within the social mo- tion at which there is an active process of institution, the formation of a relation out of the field of radical incommensurability. But the regime of translation is a repression of this radical singularity, one that instead relies on an ahistorical insistence on the ubiquity of the two. Here is where a theoretical relation can be drawn between translation and politics. But let us first investigate the concept of politics as such, before we enter into the relational concept of a pol- itics of translation. The two dominant instances through which the concept of politics is broadly understood can be conceived in terms of ubiquity and rarity. What do these two relations signify? Our global moment is one in which politics appears to be everywhere: in our personal lives, in our increasing capacities to participate in supposedly po- litical processes (polls, questionnaires, the interactive space of on- line news, the massification of opinion via social media, and so forth). Our tendency today, therefore, is to imagine that politics is something ubiquitous: always available, easily accessible, a ques- tion of simply “choosing” or “thinking” within a field of immedi- translation / spring / 2014 acy, a direct plane of outcomes that lies within our proximate horizon. But is this thesis not in fact the death of politics as such? What specificity could we even accord to politics if every social– 38 historical instance were considered “political”? The concept of ubiquity presupposes that everything is political, that politics suf- fuses our situation. In a sense, this concept of politics is one that conceives of it as a continuity, as a constantly present field of in- stances that emerge in and through everything. But what if instead we were to say that politics is rare? In other words, what if we were to state that politics is not what is included throughout the social– historical world, but rather what is excluded? The argument for the rarity of politics is one that suggests something quite different from the thesis of ubiquity. Here, instead, politics would be conceived as a specific, concrete, historical, and practical figure, something with specific moments of institution, something that emerges in and through a specific conjuncture, rather than a presupposed immanent and universally accessible field. Such a concept of politics could be said to have a certain genealogy of recent and contemporary thinkers associated to it: Foucault, who rejected the ubiquity of politics, and instead spoke of the possibility of politicization, the “making-political” of social instances through practical interventions; Badiou, who insists on the event, which punctures the seemingly smooth and closed situ- ation by introducing new and inventive contradictions, grounding a political sequence and thus retroactively convoking a political subject through a fidelity; Rancière, in whose work we find an em- phasis on the strong intervention of an egalitarian proposal that sus- pends the representations possible in the dominant order, an opposition that he names the antagonism between “politics” and “police.” In essence, all these thinkers oppose the basic thesis that “everything is political,” insisting instead that, strictly speaking, if everything is political, then in truth nothing is political, because politics here would be indistinguishable from the situation of its emergence, eliminating entirely any element of contestation or nov- elty. If everything were political, the very act of politicization would be meaningless. There would be no need for political analyses or political interventions that above all introduce an element of exte- riority into the situation, exposing it to new limits, boundaries, and combinations rather than simply accepting the status quo as a set translation / spring / 2014 of rigid givens. In this sense, contestation itself would merely be enclosed within an economy of inclusion, such that any force of the outside would itself already be presupposed as internal to the all- 39 encompassing, entirely immanent situation. Here, of course, there would be no need to speak of politics as such, because if politics is anything, it is precisely the rare moment when the existing social and historical arrangement is called into question by means of novel and inventive acts of contestation, the creation of new antagonisms that previously could not be represented in the conjuncture. In thinking this concept of politics, let us take an example from Rancière, who offers an apt formulation: “Politics exists when the figure of a specific subject is constituted, a supernumerary sub- ject in relation to the calculated number of groups, places, and func- tions in a society” (Rancière 2004, 51). Here a series of terms emerge that are crucial for our analysis. First, as Rancière points out, the question of politics is always linked to the question of the subject. But there is an important proviso, in that the subject – that is, the subject of a political process – is not considered here to be a given, something that would be presupposed. Rather, the typical or commonsensical order of the process is inverted: the subject is un- derstood as an effect of politics rather than its guarantor, justifica- tion, or legitimating force. It must also be said that here the subject is specific, that is, the product of specific circumstances, trends, and forces. But what Rancière also emphasizes here that is most crucial for our analysis is his emphasis that this subject is always supernumerary. What does he indicate with this concept? There is here a thought of countability or calculability: as we know, a given social formation is composed of groups, interests, communities, forms of relation, and types of social linkages. For this given soci- ety, the social body itself apprehends these elements; certain groups are recognized, acknowledged, and counted, or accounted for in the body of society as a whole, by means of statistical interventions, censuses, and surveys. In other words, these groups and communi- ties constitute a specific number rather than an infinite series. This must be the case because for a group to count as one it must be ac- knowledged as such. But what Rancière points us toward here is a concept of politics that exceeds or that cannot be encompassed by this calcu- lability, this preestablished count through which society constitutes translation / spring / 2014 itself in a given situation. Instead, he claims, politics proceeds when a supernumerary—some element, statement, concept, action, in- vention, creation—that is not calculable within the given hierar- 40 chies, taxonomies, and arrangements presents itself within a social formation. This figure of politics would be precisely an excess el- ement escaping calculation that, by presenting itself within an order of the count, suspends that order by its very existence, calling into question the very foundations of the forms of ordering making up the social status quo. Elsewhere, Rancière provides us with a sug- gestive historical episode that might clarify the process by which this rare conception of politics erupts, inserting into the conjuncture an entirely new mode of contestation that, strictly speaking, was absent prior to its enunciation, prior to the historical act of politics: The difference that political disorder inscribes in the police order can thus, at first glance, be expressed as the difference between subjectification and identification. It inscribes a subject name as being different from any identified part of the community. This point may be illustrated by a historic episode, a speech scene that is one of the first political occurrences of the modern proletarian subject. It concerns an exemplary dialogue occasioned by the trial of the revolutionary Auguste Blanqui in 1832. Asked by the magistrate to give his profession, Blanqui simply replies: “Proletarian.” The magistrate immediately objects to this: “That is not a profession,” thereby setting him- self up for the accused’s immediate response: “It is the profession of thirty million Frenchmen who live off their labour and who are deprived of political rights.” (Rancière 1999, 37) In essence, the crucial point of this historical moment is ex- pressed in terms of a “subject name” that is “different from any identified part of the community.” What is already included or counted within the existing situation is a compositional part of that situation, something “identified” (sighted or cited) within the set of available relations produced by the status quo, the arrangement of forces at work. Thus, when Blanqui refers to himself before the magistrate as a “proletarian,” he presents the subject-name of some- thing paradoxically foundational to the existing order, but in a neg- ative or absent sense. The figure of the proletariat appears as the negative ground of the status quo, the element that must be included insofar as it is a core element of the situation (“the profession of thirty million Frenchmen who live off their labour and who are de- prived of political rights”), but that must be excluded as calculable within the existing social and political arrangements, because to do translation / spring / 2014 so would expose the instability, the contingency and accidental na- ture of the dominant discursive apparatuses for the ordering of so- ciety (the figure of the citizen, legal personhood, state recognition). 41 All of these elements are themselves historical products, but prod- ucts whose contingent and historical origins must be erased or cov- ered over in order to function as putatively “natural” givens in the maintenance of the social order. It is here that Rancière points out that politics is exactly what emerges at the point when this erasure of historicity is exercised, when the element that is excluded in rep- resentation presents itself. Here, we might profitably take up another complimentary discussion, this time in the work of Alain Badiou, who has exten- sively developed the generic conceptual schema behind such an un- derstanding of politics by drawing a clear distinction between representation and presentation, and the position of an evental rup- ture in the supposedly “normal” course of the situation, a circum- stance linked in his thought to the figure of the State. The ultimate effect of an evental caesura, and of an intervention from which the intro- duction into circulation of a supernumerary name proceeds, would thus be that the truth of a situation, with this caesura as its principle, forces the situation to accommodate it: to extend itself to the point at which this truth – primitively no more than a part, a rep- resentation – attains belonging, thereby becoming a presentation. The trajectory of the faithful generic procedure and its passage to infinity transform the ontological status of a truth: they do so by changing the situation “by force”; anonymous excrescence in the beginning, the truth will end up being normalized. However, it would remain sub- tracted from knowledge if the language of the situation was not radically transformed. (Badiou 2005, 342) Here Badiou, in a dense and concentrated formulation, points out something crucial for this discussion of the supernumer- ary “subject-name” in the question of politics: the role of force. In essence, when Rancière relates the story of Blanqui’s trial, what he points out is that something derived from the situation but not co- extensive with it erupts into being and “forces the situation to ac- commodate it.” More specifically than merely its supernumerary character, it is this forcing that expresses the nature of politics. A political process does not merely present something absent from the situation that nevertheless must play a role within it; rather, it forcibly punctures the situation by means of an insistence. What is “counted” in the situation is given a place within it. But what is su- translation / spring / 2014 pernumerary, what exceeds calculability in the optic of a putatively constant and stable scenario, never attains a clear “place” within the logic of the situation into which it intervenes. This is because, 42 as a forcing, such a supernumerary intervention always compels the situation to modify its equilibrium in order to persist. What we might then say is that, if politics is the rare and evental forcing of a modification of the situation by means of the intervention of a supernumerary element, then the representation of politics as a calculable, easily accessible, and immediate field obscures and represses politics as such. This we could call “the regime of the political,” the mode of inquiry that reduces the in- stance of politics proper—a forceful and hazardous intervention that institutes a novel modality of the situation—to a mere set of choices already presented within the field of commensurability. Let us expand more on this point. What is commensurable is capable of a relation, capable of being included in a preestablished or presupposed set of potential relations. What is incommensurable is a radical difference, a dif- ference that cannot be “explained” or resolved, even into a rela- tional concept of “difference” itself. Concepts of difference that we frequently encounter in theoretical analysis—cultural difference, linguistic difference, sexual difference, national difference, etc.— are not, strictly speaking, incommensurable. One putative cultural space is contrasted with another, instituting a relation of “differ- ence”; one presupposed linguistic community is placed into relation with another, establishing a system of ordering “differences” be- tween the two zones; physical elements, social behaviors, cultural practices, and so forth are formed into categories of belonging, thereafter establishing modalities of detecting supposed “abnormal- ities” and forming a regime of differences with types of relations, modes of contrast, means of comparison, and so on. But all these “differences” are forms of specific difference, differences that are gradations of contrast within a conceptual species. In other words, rather than being markers of difference as such, these are all rela- tions included within a regime of homogeneity, one in which the heterogeneous is ordered on the interior of a bordered space of uni- vocality. When politics is thought as the simple oscillation between already-established positions within the field of commensurability, translation / spring / 2014 what is desperately repressed is the historicity of politics as such, politics as an historical act. Paradoxically, however, it is always history that is appealed to in the service of this erasure: the situation 43 is treated as a necessary outcome of a circumscribed history, a lan- guage is retrospectively made a unity through appeals to national history, a social circumstance is made “natural” by means of retro- jecting a historical development onto a contingent process. But in this way, the historical possibility of politics, the fact that politics has no guarantee or legitimating force, is covered over and re-pre- sented as a set of necessities. The radical historicity of politics is contained precisely in its excess over the historical narrative, the inability of appeals to history to exhaustively account for the his- torical materiality of the institution of a new mode of social exis- tence, or to account (or “count”) for the historicity of singularity (see Haver 1986). If politics then, is a fidelity to a concept of his- toricity as incompletion, it is never an incompletion that would lead to abstention or withdrawal. Such a concept of politics, by empha- sizing the incompletion of the historical process and the radical incommensurability of interventions supernumerary to the conjunc- ture, is instead a theory of partisanship. And this concept of the partisan is always a thought of the two. From the outset, politics has its own concept of “two”—the situation and the intervention, the field of the countable and the supernumerary, for instance. It might be argued that such a conception of politics can never be re- ducible to the two precisely because it is supernumerary and there- fore exceeds all forms of the count. But this would be to misunderstand the status of the two, a decisive concept that we now must clarify in knitting together the questions of politics and trans- lation. The Politics of Translation: The Distribution of Force Having considered two separate concepts—the relation be- tween translation and its representation (the “regime” of translation) and the relation between two conceptions of politics (ubiquity and rarity)—I want to consider the possibilities for thinking the politics of translation through an articulation of these two fields of inquiry. First and foremost, let us revisit the basic problem: the representa- tion of translation is a regime in which two sides are made to ap- pear. It is not the case that these two sides are “already there”— translation / spring / 2014 translation is an act in which this division or separation is enacted. This division or separation occurs for at least two reasons. On the one hand, it expresses the forms of political subjectivation that are 44 given by means of social relations and that express social forms of power and subordination. On the other hand, the intervention into this regime—which cannot be simply or easily overcome, as it es- sentially expresses the social-historical forms through which sig- nifications such as language itself are inherited—cannot consist in refusing the act of division or separation either. To do so would simply mean valorizing a flattened concept of immanence, in which the copresence of all phenomena was treated as one indistinguish- able plane. The political consequences of this are stark: the status quo is thus treated as the immanent expression of the existing field of elements, which only have to be differentially arranged to enact a political intervention. Everything is interior to this schema, it ends in proposing a certain univocality of politics and of thought, in which an actual break remains impossible. In other words, if our reaction to the concept of translation as a schema, as a modality of analysis, remains at the level of sim- ply refuting the parceling out of phenomena into “two,” we will be unable to sustain a genuine politics of translation. A politics of translation must not take the immanentist route, which presumes that the response to the simplistic binaries of modernity is to pro- pose instead one unitary field in which everything is arrayed for experience. This would be to deny the politicality of politics proper, which consists precisely in following through the consequences of what cannot be included within a unitary field of experience. In other words, if we are to create a politics of translation that is not merely an acting correlate to the regime of translation, in which we are consistently given “two sides” of a false choice, we must at- tempt to inhabit this relation of the Two in a divergent manner, to see how this separation might function differently. If we were to say that politics is rare, while the regime of politics is ubiquitous, we might also say that, although the discursive apparatus of the regime of translation makes us think otherwise, in fact translation is rare. Let us now take up this question of the two, the question of how to think this problem without simply valorizing the false bi- nary structure of the schema of cofiguration. In the case of transla- translation / spring / 2014 tion, the representation of this concept always relies on the image of the structure of communication—one successful and unitary se- quence is “translated” (here transposed, recoded, reframed) into an- 45 other. In this representation, therefore, a figure of the two is always being generated: two sides, two languages, two systems of enunci- ation. This sense of equivalence—the insistence that translation is a smooth transfer of meaning from one “side” to the other—is given by means of the regime of translation itself, in which the structure of presupposition is always relied on as a primary driving force. Language itself is presupposed as coextensive with national com- munity or with an instituted and given community of belonging, thus rendering all instances of translation into modes of communi- cation or transfer between these already-presupposed entities. In this sense, to insist on the historical act or practice of translation is also an insistence on the instability of this two, an emphasis on the point that this two is in no way a coherent or natural arrangement but rather itself a historical product of the encounter of translation, which is then retrospectively attributed to its origins, and then once again conjured up in order to derive itself from its own presuppo- sitions. This peculiar and circular logic of origin is a general phe- nomenon of capitalist society, one that we must insist is in no way limited to the questions here under consideration (see Walker 2011, and 2012). But for our purposes, what is distinctive and crucial here is to try to think of how we can understand this figure of the two—of division, scission, torsion, and so forth—without repro- ducing the other two, the binary structure of cofiguration presented to us in the regime of translation. If the two of the regime of translation is a two that is lo- cated, as we have discussed, within the presupposed terrain of com- mensurability, we might profitably ask: is this cofigurative pairing really a Two at all? Is it not the case that the secret of the regime of translation is in fact its flattening of the uneven and hazardous prac- tice of translation, in which neither “side” preexists the process, it- self never a simple teleological instance? If this is all true, should we not refer to the regime of translation not as a Two but as a One? In fact, what the regime of translation and the regime of the political share, in flattening their respective practices into simplistic forms of commensurability, is a refusal of contestation, of the truth of the two, the truth of division and rupture, that another direction is pos- translation / spring / 2014 sible, and one must choose. One must choose because politics, while contained in the supernumerary eruption that suspends the dominant order by introducing or presenting a structuring principle 46 that is nevertheless absent, consists also in upholding the conse- quences of this eruption (see Walker 2013). In the guise of the two, what is really presented to us in the regime of translation and in the regime of the political is a concept of the one, of a field without real scission, a space of preordained “difference” within which everything has already been decided, placed into a regime of rela- tion that excludes critical contestation. In considering this duality of the two, suspended between the historical practice of translation and its representation, we might proceed here by entering into the thinking of the concept of the di- alectic, this embattled and even “scandalous” term, a term over which fierce contestations in the theoretical field have been fought. The question of the relation between the analysis of translation and the thought-form of the dialectic is fraught and complex. How can we think these two instances of relation or non-relation together? What is at stake in doing so? First and foremost, before we enter fully into the elaboration of this question, I want to state from the outset my basic thesis: the politics of translation remain fundamen- tally linked to the dialectic precisely because the dialectic is the es- sential form through which the critical force of antagonism and contestation is preserved. But what is it, in the form of dialectical thought, that remains linked to this split of translation and its rep- resentation? Marx reminds us: The dialectic in its rational form is a scandal and an abomination to the bourgeoisie and its doctrinaire spokesmen, because it includes in its positive understanding of what ex- ists a simultaneous recognition of its negation, of its inevitable destruction; because it regards every historically developed form as being in a fluid state, in motion, and there- fore grasps its transient aspect as well; and because it does not let itself be impressed by anything, being in its very essence critical and revolutionary. (Marx 1996, 20) The dialectical torsion between elements is an expression, not of simple commensurability, but of the historically practical character of relations, in which the very terms of the relation itself are subject to a fluid motion, a flux of radical singularity, in which the terms—and the putative division between them—torsionally invert into each other, each in turn containing the seeds of the prior translation / spring / 2014 results and cyclically passing between forms of solidity. The di- alectic is in essence a refusal of the simplistic commensurable stra- tum of specific difference, a refusal that posits a new and restless 47 Two, ceaselessly changing in history and practice, against a mere binary treated as two sides of a given field. This “rational form” here is of course the Hegelian “rational,” the figure of intelligibility, not the concept of rationality linked to the questions of “rational choice,” homo economicus, and so forth. What is this “rational” figure in the field of translation? It is precisely politics. Politics is the form through which the potentiality of translation—the histor- ical act of making, creation, relation in the space of incommensu- rability—realizes itself in the social life world. In this sense, the politics of translation is an entirely literal phrase: translation, rather than its representation, realizes itself in and through politics, un- derstood here as the field of contestation, raised to a principle: the principle of the supernumerary historical intervention that cannot be merely reduced to an outcome of the existing situation. The politicality of the split between the historical practice of translation, the pure articulation in the space of the incommen- surable, and the representation of translation as communication or exchange between two given sides is a conflict between two images of duality: the regime of translation or schema of cofiguration es- sentially produces a false image of the two in order to neutralize the real of the Two, the radicality of intervention that the Two expresses. This latter duality is not the simple exchange between one “side” and another, but a two that expresses the split between the state of the situation, in which difference is flattened into commensurability, and the eruptive intervention of singularity that presents the void core of the situation, that exposes its regime of cofiguration. To apprehend the singular is frequently nothing but a reduc- tion to a genealogical or taxonomical structure, a process through which the singular is itself erased as singular, precisely in an act of attempting to “locate” it, to “site” (or cite) it. The structure of the citation, the historicization, whereby the singular comes to be a sta- bilized meaning, a stable signification, places the singular into an economy of signification, one that then saturates the original in- stance with a full density of meaning. When we cite a quotation we do more than simply “locate” a text: we refer a series of words, con- cepts, and statements to a group of significations—places, names, translation / spring / 2014 publishing houses, networks of knowledge, linkages of power, pa- tronage, intellectual heritage and genealogy, modes of analysis, par- tisan groupings within the production of knowledge, etc.—thereby 48 overwriting the cited text with a deeply sedimented, ingrained his- tory. This interjection of the historical into the text constitutes one of the key elements through which the singular tends to always van- ish, emergent but interrupted, in the process of its own elaboration. In turn, just as a statement once cited transforms from an irruptive interjection into a genealogical referent, so too a politics that pres- ents itself as a natural outgrowth of a set of givens or field of histor- ical necessities erases the element of politics proper—antagonism, contestation, the singular exposure of the void of the situation.1 One of the peculiar aspects of the question of translation, one crucially pointed out by Sakai, is that translation names both the negative system of capture in which social phenomena are bracketed into simple dualisms (the schema of cofiguration or regime of translation), but also names the affirmative politics through which this gap itself is negotiated or intervened into, in practice, in strategy. Translation always implies strategy. We know that there is a politicality of translation—but the real question is, if this politicality is merely the expression in the political field of the double bind of the regime of translation, how can we develop a specifically affirmative politics of translation? Here part of the es- sential question is the distance, separation or split between the one shore of translation and the other. Can we learn something essential here from the question of politics more broadly? In the political sphere the problem is exactly that you must take a distance from a relationship of antagonism in order to develop your forces on your own terrain. What does this tactical consideration mean for the pol- itics of translation? The representation of translation makes the social space of incommensurable and radical heterogeneity into a simple relation of two already-determined sides. But this two, as we have noted, in fact functions in a univocal manner, suspending the radical differ- ence of the two under the homogenizing force of the one, the field in which specific difference is already included in its count of the situation. In contrast to this false pairing, politics consists in the ac- tive and forceful production of a two where previously there was translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 On the thought of singularity, see Lazarus, especially 1996 and 2013. I intend to extensively discuss the unique and original work of Lazarus on another occasion. 49 only one: the act of division here is of a decisively different char- acter than that of the regime of translation, in which division is only a simulacrum of difference. Politics, in this sense, precisely consists in the radical act of making two sides appear—two antagonistic classes, two lines, two positions—and in refusing the two (the schema of cofiguration) produced by the situation itself and in which we find nothing but a field of mutually reinforcing complic- ities. Let us take the example of class—the quintessential social cat- egory of capitalist society—in thinking the possibility of a politics of translation: The simple class contradiction is a permanent structural fact, economically locatable (weak correlation), while the class struggle is a process of particular conditions, entirely political in essence, which is not deducible from the simple weak correlation. To con- fuse the class contradiction with the class struggle, to practice the correlative indistinc- tion of the contradiction, is the philosophical tendency of economism, workerism, the Marxism of drowsiness and the classroom. (Badiou 2009, 24) In the same way that the “simple class contradiction” is a structural fact of the situation under which it exists (world capitalism), so too the “regime of translation” which establishes the civilizational- colonial division of labor is a structural fact of the “international world,” the world constructed from the unit of the nation–state. What this means in practice is that a politics of translation cannot begin from the mere “structural fact” of translation—the fact that significations and social relations are parceled out and distributed according to the schema of separation and classification as discrete and holistic entities—but must begin instead from the active nega- tion of this fact. Such a politics would not refuse the concept “trans- lation,” but would attempt to enter into it from another direction, another mode of possibility, a way to “apprehend singularity with- out making it disappear” (Badiou 2005, 30), without making it dis- appear under the weight of its own name. Just as politics can never confuse the class contradiction— the mere fact of the situation—with the class struggle, the active and inventive intervention that cannot be accounted for in the terms of the situation, so too a politics of translation must never conflate translation / spring / 2014 the representation of translation with the rare and singular en- counter of translation. A politics of translation would consist in the apprehension of singularity, an apprehension that would hold it in 50 tension, refuse to subsume it under the weight of its own surround- ing economy, but that would sustain its visibility in the midst of a regime of representation dedicated to rendering it invisible. In a time when the mutually reinforcing civilizational narcissisms of area studies and the representations of the international world are being constantly presented in the schema of cofiguration, the po- litical and historical work of translation remains a decisive task. Elaborating new political modes of relation, actively creating new linkages and solidarities beyond the simplistic communicative model that we are given by the regime of translation in which we are immersed is a task that reminds us of the center of a politics of translation: a new and open search for the possibilities of the com- mon, but an uncanny common, a common that disturbs our sense of inherited belonging and that suspends our fantasies of natural affiliations. Only through a careful consideration of the politics of translation can we hope to produce this hazardous and contingent possibility of the common, a new mode of life desperately needed in the global present. translation / spring / 2014 51 References Badiou, Alain. 2005. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. London: Con- tinuum. Badiou, Alain. 2005. Metapolitics. Translated by Jason Barker. London: Verso. Badiou, Alain. 2009. Theory of the Subject. Translated by Bruno Bosteels. London: Continuum. Haver, William. 1996. The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lazarus, Sylvain. 1996. Anthropologie du nom. Paris: Seuil. ———. 2013. L’Intelligence de la politique. Paris: Al Dante. Marx, Karl. 1996. “Afterword to the Second German Edition.” Volume 1 of Capital, volume 35 of Marx–Engels Collected Works. New York: International Pub- lishers. Rancière, Jacques. 1999. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Translated by Julie Rose. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press. ———. 2009. “Translation and the Schematism of Bordering.” Translated by Gavin Walker and Naoki Sakai. Presentation at Gesellschaft übersetzen: Eine Kommentatorenkonferenz, October 29–31, 2009, Universität Konstanz, Ger- many. Walker, Gavin. 2011. “Primitive Accumulation and the Formation of Difference: On Marx and Schmitt.” Rethinking Marxism 23 (3): 384-404. ———. 2012. “Citizen-Subject and the National Question: On the Logic of Capital in Balibar.” Postmodern Culture 22 (3). Project MUSE. Web. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>. ———. 2013. “The Body of Politics: On the Concept of the Party.” Theory & Event 16 (4). Project MUSE. Web. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>. Gavin Walker is Assistant Professor of History and East Asian Studies at McGill Uni- versity in Montréal, Québec. He has been a Mellon Graduate Fellow in the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University and a visiting researcher at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan. He works on modern Japanese intellectual history, Marxist theory and historiography, and contemporary critical theory. Recent publications include “The Ab- sent Body of Labour Power: Uno K z ’s Logic of Capital” in Historical Materialism 21 translation / spring / 2014 (4) and “The Body of Politics: On the Concept of the Party” in Theory & Event 16 (4). He is currently completing his book, entitled The Sublime Perversion of Capital: Marxist Theory and the Politics of History in Modern Japan. 52

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Translation and national sovereignty. The fragility and bias of theory 1 Rada Iveković ................................. [email protected] Abstract: The author starts by describing her own relationship to language and translation, which is the result of her growing up between languages and among several. She proceeds to explain why she uses elements of “Indian” philosophies to highlight her point about language and translation, just as she uses elements of “continental” philosophy, with the advantage that exposing “our” problems to that “elsewhere” sheds unexpected light on them. She then explains difficulties in language, translation, and understanding as a result of the division between “theory” and “practice,” and gives examples (such as those from ancient Indian languages and writings) of cultures where that division was avoided. The divide takes sharper contours in the relation between the “west” and the “rest.” As- sumptions of superiority are based on the tacit cognitive precondition of separating theory from practice by an insurmountable wall. Historically located polities have each a general corresponding cognitive order and translation regime. Which means that whole genealogies of knowledge have remained invisible to European lan- guages, untranslated, apparently untranslatable to the hegemonic gaze. The con- clusion points to the disaster of national subjectivation in Yugoslavia, in the post-Yugoslav states, and elsewhere. ______________ Translation always raises the question of its politics. I will try to argue for the inevitability of an inter-con-textual and political approach to translation, quite beyond the textual one. I start from the observation that any “origin” is located, therefore oriented, therefore interested, and therefore concealing a politics; that knowledge is historically informed and that so is there- fore translation. Language and translation are not neutral: translata- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 This paper was partly written while i was Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, from February to June 2013. I thank ARI and in particular professor Prasen- jit Duara, ARI’s director, for their input and for giving me the opportunity to carry out this work in excellent conditions. 53 bility, not only as a possibility, but also as a fundamental mecha- nism, is already there in any language capacity, even before we can name the language. Both have associated themselves since moder- nity with the constitution of the nation. Translation is both on the side of a metaphor as well as, lit- erally, of language(s) and of the material production of worlds, in both cases as political. They involve a declared or hidden politics of translation. Languages traverse each other, bear one another, and rub against each other, even beyond our awareness. They are not mutually excluding. No child is born monolingual. Monolingualism is inculcated in and through a national horizon and the definition of a national language. In this sense a world of translation—trans- lational—is still a transnational world. Because languages are com- municating vessels decanting into each other, content is never transferred from a source language into a target language without rest or excess. Translation cannot be reduced to a binary, and it ac- tually precedes the definition or establishment of national and lin- guistic difference. It happens not between but within languages. It is a complex relationship fleeing in various directions, including all the way through languages, and it transforms the translator as well. The writings of protagonists translate to themselves and to others, but above all, to later generations, their lives, imaginaries and historical conditions. Understanding them from outside their context, from a later generation, or from another translation regime requires some ability of brokering between parallel, circulating, and intersecting histories, where everything is moving and changing meaning: translation takes place on uncertain ground, according to uncertain principles, without guarantee, and gives vacillating, un- certain results. Translation is inevitable, although its politics is un- predictable. The question of learning from others’ experience, or from experience tout court arises. How do we translate from one regime of sentences (Wittgenstein, Lyotard), or from one world, into another? But how do we translate from one translation regime to another? An example: the impossibility and difficulty to translate “caste” (as well as many other terms): the concept of caste is a nor- translation / spring / 2014 mative concept of Western sociology for India. How does it trans- late into India, and back to and from India? It is a “travelling” concept, lost between theories and undermining the construction 54 of hegemonic knowledge, which is oblivious of translation regimes or of the politics of translation. The question concerns a minimum rhetorical rule: since we can only speak of language from within language itself, don’t the rules about language also apply to the would-be metalanguage? Lost in languages I was born into Serbo–Croatian which, rather than a clearly and once-and-for-all standardized language, was a constellation consisting of a number of different language feelings, stylistic val- ues, competing standardizations, carrying of course various accents, some syntactical variations, and multiple vocabulary choices. By the accidents of life, i was exposed early on to a series of variants of that language (once going under that common name, though no more). These corresponded to different places in Yugoslavia. The language feeling was regional and local rather than national, be- cause the national/state framework itself was fragmented by ac- cents, syntax, scripts, writing, and various rival standardizations. The language could be “more Croat” or “more Serb,” with a grada- tion and no absolute distinguishing principles. I could read the two scripts before going to school. Across that nébuleuse of multiple possible ways of speaking and writing that were however heavily disputed by politicians and by some language-policing linguists, and that were used to express other political disagreements, i, like everyone else, could find my way at large throughout the country, understand and be understood. Speaking was no issue at all. Pub- lishing was, however, depending on the linguistic politics of your editors, of the journal, the publisher, or the local academy. I was constantly negotiating with editing rereaders—bearers of a great variety of language views and believers in different standardization conventions—about my articles and books. We called them “lec- tors.” Some of them were my great enemies, in general those who were staunch advocates of a strong official codification of separate national languages (whether Serb or Croat). You could tell from their editing (submitted to us before publication for proofreading) not only their linguistic and translation politics most of the time, translation / spring / 2014 but their politics tout court (Iveković 2007a). The result is that i have published, depending on how i man- aged to negotiate my personal language and how my own relation 55 to it evolved, in a great variety of forms of Serbo–Croatian, com- pletely “inconsistently” over time. It was never like French, which you can write in only one way. Not everyone was as fickle as i was, and most probably adopted the language of his or her social context at the time of writing. But i moved a lot between Belgrade and Za- greb and lived in both. You could write according to various codes and in several ways of which each meant a political statement if you stuck to it. That language contained a contested, competing, and disputed inner multiplicity. Yet i couldn’t help but be utterly in- consistent, not out of carelessness, but on the contrary out of a con- stant concern for language, meaning, and translation. Such inconsistency was paradoxically dictated by my continuous con- stancy regarding language. The very spirit and most important fea- ture of that language was that it had plural and inconclusive standardizations as well as plentiful options, and the official rules for writing (pravopis, which included spelling and some additional sets of usages) also changed constantly, sometimes due to political disputes disguised as linguistic disputes. Being consistent either meant being dogmatic about form and sticking to only one way of writing, or being inconsistent with the form but consistent with the spirit of this language that was always in transformation. Great writ- ers such as Miroslav Krleža and Ivo Andrić had written in different modes of the language—ekavski and ijekavski—which have only recently become (and only superficially and, in the final analysis, wrongly, irrespective of language history) identified respectively with Serbian and Croatian. People who had not been exposed, like myself, to various vernaculars and manners of speaking and writing, could stick to one form, although even there official rules changed all the time.2 Since i started publishing predominantly in foreign lan- guages, the fate of my writing is exactly the same: it is corrected, .......................... 2 A number of spellings and writing rules were made official for all during the lifetime of Yugoslavia, and alternative proposals were occasionally issued by nationalist institutions. One spelling (pravopis) was the Novosadski pravopis, or “The Novi Sad writing agreement,” of 1954 (and the revised 1962 version), which focused on similarities, which i had decided to stick to when i started publishing, not so much because it translation / spring / 2014 was midway between Serbian and Croatian, but rather because i thought it would be good to stick to one as the rules kept changing all the time. It was contested by linguistic nationalists. Another attempt in 1967, the Deklaracija o nazivu i položaju hrvatskog književnog jezika, or “Declaration on the name and condition of the Croatian literary language,” insisted on dissimilarities and announced a first nationalist turn a few years later (1971). 56 depending on the sensibility of the reader or reviewer, because it is perceived to be inadequate in terms of an ideal form of the lan- guage. Many were those who refuted that multiplicity, who held monolithic, sovereignist, national politics of language and transla- tion. That language was many languages at once, or in one, always itself in the process of translation. It was both one and many. The comparisons were to me linguistically delectable, ruminating on language was exciting and sometimes frustrating. The one-and- multiple language was fluctuating in its definitions, grammars, spelling, writing codes, and even names, which were occasionally changed and decreed by academies, uncertain to some, loved and disputed by many. All styles were cultivated, from the extreme purism of each “national” language to rather syncretic approaches where “languages” and their accents or vocabularies were mixed.3 Croatian was much more language sensitive at first sight in its national language politics and also more concerned about written form, but it turned out later that Serbian as a national lan- guage (somewhat more at ease with oral expression) was no less dogmatic, including in its apparent carelessness about form. What was later (after the war in the 1990s) called Bosnian was more flex- ible, less standardized, and fluctuating between the two other forms. Yugoslavia was this peculiar country composed of six re- publics, two “autonomous regions,” two scripts, and half a dozen main languages, of which several were Slavic, and where Serbo– Croatian was the most widespread, spoken in four of the federal states (Bosnia–Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia) and taught at school in all. Serbo–Croatian was thus imposed on every- one and was also the lingua franca. All instructions on Yugoslav goods were in all Yugoslav languages, including minority lan- guages. These are now all considered and named as four different national languages, linked to the idea of each national state, and more could appear at any time, with theoretically possible, though .......................... 3 Naoki Sakai (2013): “I do not think that difference at stake in this instance can be subsumed under the concept of species difference.” It is worth emphasizing the fact that the determination of the species dif- translation / spring / 2014 ference is offered as a solution to the initial problem of us being at a loss, in response to the perplexity we come across in such a locale.” “[I]t is imperative to keep in mind that it is not because some person or people are different—in the sense of species difference—from me or us that we are at a loss. On the contrary, it is because we are at a loss or unable to make sense in the first place that we attempt to deter- mine this encounter with difference within the logical economy of species and genus.” 57 now less likely, further partitions. The other two Slavic languages were Slovenian and Macedonian, to a great extent understandable with a little good will at least to neighbors, speakers of Serbo–Croa- tian, who, however, did not learn them at school. Important minor- ity languages were Albanian, Hungarian, Italian, and Romani, and many other languages also circulated. The distinction between Macedonian and neighboring Bulgarian responds to the same pat- tern, and is a matter of convention, a convention governed by the political stand on the nation. In Yugoslavia and successor states, the language of Macedonia was and is Macedonian. But that may change for those Macedonians who now opt for Bulgarian citizen- ship (and get it) because it gives them an easy entrance into Europe. There is no doubt about the hegemony of Serbo–Croatian, which, by the end of Yugoslavia, caused a lot of bitterness in particular with the Slovenes (the small difference) and the Albanians (the big- ger language difference). In Yugoslavia, the languages flanked Yu- goslavia’s constitutive “nations” and “nationalities.” 4 Only where languages are distinguished can the unity of one language be established, says Naoki Sakai (2013). Languages and nations tend to construct each other reciprocally in an endless process (Iveković 2008). I have always doubted the existence of the language i was born into. “Lectors” often made you believe that your own language was violating some “pure” form. Competing and coexisting stan- dardizations did so too. When i started university in Zagreb, i enrolled at a “general linguistics and oriental studies” department where i read “Indian studies,” to a great extent from a linguistic and philological per- spective, quite old-fashioned. I came to philosophy through “In- dian” philosophy, “in the reverse” as it were if compared to a usual European trajectory. The nonaligned political orientation of the country that came to introduce such and similar studies after the 1961 Belgrade first summit of leaders of the Non-Aligned coun- tries, in view of its nonaligned and third-world friendships and pri- .......................... translation / spring / 2014 4 “Nations” and “nationalities” (narodi i narodnosti) were supposed to be constitutive and equal, and most had a federal republic that went by their name, while more-mixed-than-the-others Bosnia-Herzegovina was a conundrum of its own. “Nationalities” (national minorities) had a more complex status: they were supposed to be constitutive in their main national body as nations, in another Yugoslav republic or abroad, as was the case for Albanians in Kosovo or Hungarians in Vojvodina. 58 orities, still relied to a great extent on an Orientalist reading, notwithstanding the decolonization wind blowing in the 1960s that had reached our shores with, especially, much empathy for the Al- gerian war of liberation. We studied Sanskrit, Pāli, and Hindi, among Indian languages, and read secondary literature not only in our language5 but also in German, French, and English, while i soon read Max Weber on Asia in Italian, because that seemed to be the only available edition, or translation. I started translating ancient texts from Sanskrit and Pāli into Serbo–Croatian,6 besides translating contemporary philosophy from European languages. The technical problem of transcription and transliteration presented itself immediately with Indian sources, and came to feed our engagement with scripts, language, writing of foreign names and words (disputes among several options sup- ported diversely by the script). Sanskrit has a declension of eight cases, while Serbo–Croatian has seven. How do you decline a San- skrit noun in Serbo–Croatian? How—and where—do you add suf- fixes from the Serbo–Croatian declension to Sanskrit nouns? There were many different usages and clashes over them. Sanskrit has the sonant “r,” which operates like a syllable-forming vowel, that we also have in our language. But English and French language tran- scription conventions require “ri”: should we do the same, or should we write simply “r” as we do in our language in words like “prst”? In that case we should write (and we did) “sanskrt.” Consider ṛ (“r” with a dot underneath) as is done in some transcriptions? Should we write, as the English transliteration does, ś and sh, or, as the French one does, ç and ṣ? Or should we write, in analogy with our ć and č (two distinct sounds that foreigners usually do not differ- entiate in our names), ś and š, something that speakers of Serbo– Croatian understand immediately by analogy? We used to do the .......................... 5 “Our [language],” naški, has become a most widespread and neutral appellation of the common language without naming it, since the partition of Yugoslavia, with nonnationalists. It indistinctly denotes Bosnian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Croatian, or any future split-off language that may come. The Indian–Pakistani anal- ogy would be de and de i. NB: i deliberately have no use for the word “dialect,” which has no meaning outside a national vertical hierarchy of languages. Languages and dialects are of course the same, as much as nations and ethnicities, fixed constructs within a regime of rigid “identities.” translation / spring / 2014 6 At that time, the correct and official appellation of that language in Croatia, where i studied and started writing (though my first book came out in Sarajevo), was “Croato–Serbian,” simply called “Croatian” in popular parlance, just as “Serbian” was shorthand for “Serbo–Croatian” in the Serbian context. In order to avoid further complication, i do not use the form “Croato–Serbian” when writing in English or French, where it is in fact unknown. 59 latter, and immediately created problems for ourselves with any quotation or reference we introduced from Western Indology, and with local nonacademic usages. The language problems from Sanskrit transposed into Serbo–Croatian were a direct continuation of the language dynamics and complications we had with our own language. Sanskrit and Pāli became for me inner problems of Serbo–Croatian, and of the same kind. And again, i had to deal with more or less understanding rereading and editing. The problems raised by the alternative script, Cyrillic, can be added to these. Cyrillic makes foreign words and, above all, names, unrecognizable, and by the same token it also erases some of the historic depth and traces from the written word. Other subterfuges are needed when writing or publishing in Cyrillic, and they, too, are diversely (non)standardized. So my experience with mediating Indian culture in Yugoslavia and dealing with Indian languages only continued my experience with the now nameless language, one-and-multiple. Since very early infancy, too, and again without any merit, i was deeply exposed to other languages—French and Italian at first as my parents were living in Belgium and Italy. I spoke Serbo–Croa- tian, French, and Italian with different people surrounding me. Those languages never left me, although they went and returned with ab- sences or vacations, and Italian was somewhat neglected. I then went to a French school in Germany, where i spoke French and lis- tened to German. Later at school in Belgrade, from grade 5, i took English as a foreign language. From there on, other European lan- guages came through reading or listening. They also came through the other languages and thanks to them, sometimes weighing against each other. They came particularly thanks to Serbo–Croatian into which i tended to translate the new words and to compare them. The welcome diversity of those languages somehow mirrored my own multiplicity, rather than their “national” limitations. It was only nat- ural for me to continue between languages, understood both as medium and mediator. I believe that the diversity, profusion, exten- sion, complexity, burgeoning, and abundance those languages gave me through their simultaneity and intertwining were suitable pat- translation / spring / 2014 terns structuring my thinking and work, somehow never in straight lines. I could not be disciplined. When writing in French or English, i continued the same passionate relationship to language that i had 60 with Serbo–Croatian, brokering styles and writing conventions with more or less success. The world has changed vertiginously since i was born into Serbo–Croatian. Not only have i been brought to learn other lan- guages, but i have also come to construct with others intersecting spaces of many languages with which i dealt at various levels. It is not my merit. Estranged at a mature age from my first language, es- pecially for publishing and work, since the dismantlement of Yu- goslavia, i am in the—regular—situation of constantly hesitating between languages and always being beside a language, or at a crossroads of several languages. Stumbling, faltering, forgetting, double and even treble consciousness help us overcome the double- talk rhetoric, the frozen language (langue de bois), the officialese of the pensée unique. It is a condition of epistemological diversity and of ontological uncertainty, but it is also some kind of normalcy and way of life. I now write in the language i was asked for a paper, which is mainly French or English, and only rarely Serbo–Croat. The dilemma is devastating not regarding articles, but when it comes to fictional writing: here, no language suits me any more. But why the hesitation, since displacement is the rule? Un- certainty is critical and part of the technology of becoming in dis- placement. It is part of a translated world. It may not be the easiest thing to live and it doesn’t guarantee any progressive politics, but we are lucky it is there and lucky to be able to mold a world without absolute translation (Iveković 2007a, 21–26; 2007b). Stumbling ushers us into the wasteland, the terrain vague, that will give the hors champ, the off camera, the tiers instruit (Serres 1991), the dis- tance necessary for writing, translating and working. Uncertainty comes as the necessary third “language” or other, the third element, an operator and broker. Brahmā’s Net Brahmā’s net is the name Buddhists give to ideology.7 Avijjā, ignorance about both the origin and the functioning of the world, keeps us within that net. In a very early linguistic turn translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 7 Brahmā-jāla: Brahmā’s net is also “the all-embracing net of views,” a hegemonic point of view that, in the eyes of the Buddhist, would be Brahmanistic. There is a speech attributed to the Buddha, Brahmajāla Suttam (Dīgha-nikāya 1, 1), which deconstructs under that name different doctrines, including unorthodox ones, existing at that time. Višṇu, Śiva, Brahm are the Trimūrti, the “troika.” Like all three, Brahm is a 61 in Indian philosophy (6th–7th century BCE), Buddhists discovered that language couldn’t say it all, being itself part of that whole. There is no metalanguage different from language. The “beginning” being unknown, Buddhists cultivated cognitive uncertainty and self-decentering. Let me, however, clarify that i do not take Buddhism as a model to follow, nor do i preach it. I only take it as arguably the clearest example, possibly with Daoism, of a series of ancient “Asian” epistemes having certain characteristics highlighted here through the example of Buddhism. Some of these features are: not cultivating the putative split between subject and object (which is really a capturing apparatus of hegemony), between theory and prac- tice, or between sovereignty and exception—amongst others. This does not mean that Buddhism, much as any other philosophy, cannot be used and misused to enhance nationalistic politics—as it has been in many examples, particularly Japan, or recently more locally in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, if these things can be measured. So Bud- dhism doesn’t give any guarantee for an equitable translation regime, nor should it be idealized. No philosophy carries within it- self the guarantee of its infallibility.8 I use elements of “Indian” philosophies to highlight my point just as i use elements of “continental” philosophy, with the ad- vantage that exposing our problems to that “elsewhere” sheds un- expected light on them. Untranslatability is a paradox: there are untranslatables (Bar- bara Cassin 2004; Lyotard 1983; Balibar 2009); there are also con- ditions of (un)translatability. What is untranslatable according to one translation regime, may be translatable in another. There is no ab- solute translation. There are degrees between untranslatables and translatables (Iveković 2002a, 121–145; also at Iveković 2002b), in- dicative of a multitude of options. There are levels and registers of translation, which all point to the circulation of (non)intended mean- .......................... masculine figure and, although without rites, he is also the anthropomorphic personification of the Brah- manist universalist ideal brahman (n.), the absolute. I distinguish between Brahmanic and Brahmanist, the latter involving ideology and a universalist project. translation / spring / 2014 8 I would like to thank Naoki Sakai for pointing out to me the danger that talking about Buddhism may lead to some kind of its idealization: this is not the intention here, nor am i pleading for any kind of indi- genism. We should also meditate on the fact that this is very difficult to get through under the ordinary hegemonic translation regime. I am not dealing with the existing political instrumentalizations of Buddhism, but with the Buddhist conceptual apparatus. 62 ing and implications, with possible incalculable gaps between the two. Because we have the option between an infinite number of translations (including impossibility and unwillingness), and an equally infinite number of methods, we either translate in sheer ig- norance of our subject-position as translators/mediators, or we must have a politics of translation and know or ignore that we do. Lyotard’s Le Différend (1983) was a turning point in con- tinental philosophies as these opened to the possibility (not the guarantee) of other epistemes in principle. Since any utterance re- leases myriad possible worlds,9 as Lyotard would have it after Wittgenstein; and since a concatenation of sentences is inevitable although there is no guarantee or predictable indication—theoreti- cally—concerning their contents and “sentence regime,”10 we must count with the coexistence (and confusion) not only of sentence regimes, but of “translation regimes” as well. We might be under a sentence regime unwittingly, or apolitically, but we can also form a politics of translation by choosing this or that translation code. There are translation regimes even when there is no “translation” as such, since there is no zero degree of language, of translation, or of the human condition, including in extralinguistic matters. But then, for humans, as Buddhist philosophy knows, there is no ex- tralinguistic condition, except outside Brahmā’s net, a very unlikely although possibly desirable ambition, as in nirvāṇa. Some transla- tion from one condition to another is always at work. The difficulty of theory There is some problem with the concept of theory. One could indeed invoke Kant here, but here is a simpler approach. The problem comes from the paradox of the concept of theory’s origi- nation in the West, yet its propagation everywhere as a normative idea in science especially with modernity, and from its vertical hi- erarchy. Theory is a must. It is a contentious notion dividing the West from the rest (see Sakai 2010a; 2010b; 2011a; 2011b; 2011c; Mignolo 2011; 2012), assigning ideological advantages to the West in keeping the monopoly of theory. .......................... translation / spring / 2014 9 One and the same utterance may open up many diverse universes, as “open the window,” which may be a command or a prayer, may imply that it is cold, that it is hot, that there is an earthquake, that there is a bat in the room, that Romeo is waiting outside etc. 10 Sentence régimes, régimes de phrases: performative, imperative, interrogative etc. 63 How to translate from one episteme to the other without es- sentializing them?11 We may temporarily forego the philosophical self-critical breakthrough achieved in principle regarding the lin- gering, but eventually receding, superciliousness of Western thought, ridden with immunity. In principle, for “Western” philoso- phers, self-critique is self-understood. They have even theorized this self-critique as the achievement of Western modernity, and claimed that theirs is the only self-critical episteme. Non-Western scholars have repeated this, though it may be questionable whether anyone is non-Western at all by now (Chakrabarty 2012). The prob- lem remains. Assumptions of superiority are based on the tacit cog- nitive precondition of separating theory from practice by an insurmountable wall, an abyssal line. This division has a normative function. It grounds the ideology of western superiority but presents this as neutrality. Assumptions of preeminence sharply separate subject from object, theory from practice, “civilized” from “uncivilized,” “us” from “others.” Such divisions are characteristic of modern Western knowledge inasmuch as it is colonial, its coloniality being concomi- tant and coextensive with the historical construction of capitalism. Such bipolar structuring of knowledge serves a predatory purpose, the purpose of appropriative sciences at the service of nations and states. Academic disciplines and status–knowledge, which differ from language to language, are constructed in collusion with hege- monic colonial knowledge, which is still to a great extent operative in spite of the post-Cold War devolution into a network of biopo- litical control through various outsourcings of state prerogatives. Disciplines are circularly based on the nation, and reproduce it. Historically located polities each have a general corresponding cognitive order and translation regime, with variations, intercon- nections, interferences and overlaps. On the other hand, there is in general no separating subject and object, body and soul, theory and practice in most of ancient Asian philosophical systems or other extra-European knowledge translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 11 In the next three paragraphs, i draw on my as yet (2013) unpublished paper “The immunity paradigm’s contradictory / complementary facets” from the conference Except Asia: Agamben’s Work in Transcultural Perspective, Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, June 25–27, 2013. 64 configurations. Something of this cognitive condition is still avail- able culturally although refuted by modern sciences, coming through in various new assemblages—(post)modernity, and “West- ern” hegemony not withstanding. What has been the condition of Western understanding of the relationship sovereignty–subjectivity, namely the separation between subject and object or theory and practice, has been neither the condition of the making of politics in the “rest” nor that of sovereignty, and has not been understood as being at the root of the becoming of political subjects in the “rest.” Which means that whole genealogies of knowledge have been kept invisible to European languages, untranslated, indeed apparently untranslatable to the hegemonic gaze. But untranslatability (like absolute translatability) is also a politics. In another conceptual and translation regime, experience and “practice” can outweigh ontological consideration, theory, the latter being in any case only an attribution, a random predication onto some reified object. The implications of śūnya-vāda (the teach- ing of naught in Buddhism) are even more radical: This “theory” (śūnya-vāda) is really here an antitheory invalidating in advance, by an implacable logic, any economic reason, material interests, selfish vital interests, any speculation trusting language and reason or daring ontological qualifications and metaphysical judgments. But both the Brahmanists, who resorted to the absolute, who believed in unconditional given knowledge (Veda), as well as the philosophically nuanced Buddhists, refused building separately such concepts as “subject” or “object.” This is the advaita, nondu- alism, in both, which however doesn’t amount to monotheism. It is a disposition that is decisive even today, and present in art, liter- ature, aesthetics, much of philosophy, in some political dispensa- tions, in forms of life, and in general culture. The historical distinction subject–object known to the West and disseminated all over the world for modernity-useful purposes, is part of an appro- priating conceptual and language apparatus that always has the ten- dency to reappear. It is part of a pursuit limited and burdened by the vital interest, situated within the horizon of “lower” knowl- edge.12 translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 12 Buddhist philosophers introduced the somewhat problematic but philosophically rich distinction between ordinary and higher knowledge. The two are intertwined and the former leads to the latter, which allows 65 The preoccupation with subject and subjectivation, specific to “Europe” and the “West,” stems from monotheism. It emerges as a Mediterranean particularity, and becomes all-pervasive, through colonial history. But there were originally no comparable monotheisms in Asia (except for a late Islam). Something of the mahāyānian Buddhist philosophy can be extrapolated to most philosophies of Asia: The subject–object relationship together with the realm of politics is part of the experiential, conventional truth, limited by language and within “Brahmā’s net.” We perceive the world as plurality through the appropriational mode. Reluctant theory and unreflected theory. Théorie malgré elle If we agree that “theory” is a normative, somewhat para- doxical concept, difficult to sustain and to prove since subsequent ones will correct any theory, and if we agree that it is a normative concept originating, again, in the conceptual “West,” we then must admit that “theory” is a fragile concept. If there is no neutral theory, the normativity in a theory will be its political bias depending on its ideological, geographical, cul- tural, class, gender etc. interests. It will have an origin in a specific concern that can be defined as political and vital, with a tendency to be universalized if possible and neutralized in order to pass un- noticed. Sundar Sarukkai (2013)13 mentions examples that identify ideological biases of theories, particularly in the area of history and of philosophy of science, and also their critique. We couldn’t agree more with him, principally as he argues “that non-Western philoso- phies might actually contribute more usefully to the understanding of the complex scientific description of reality compared to the tools available in dominant western traditions” (Sarukkai 2013, 6). Indeed, there is a blatant incapacity of philosophy and of history of science to translate from one cultural register to another. I would call this failure political, a politics with a deep historic con- dition. I must quote Sarukkai extensively, before suggesting some comments and complements to his excellent work. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... for an unphilosophical jump to esoteric knowledge in popular Buddhism and elsewhere, later. But it also allows important philosophical speculation. 13 I would like to thank Sundar Sarukkai for letting me engage with his important paper here. 66 What is striking about these [Western or after the Western pattern] discussions is that there is no mention of the non-European traditions in all these debates about H[istory of] S[cience] and P[hilosophy of] S[cience]. Even in the invocations of “tradition” and the “ever-changing fabric of human culture” there is no mention of the possible histories of the non-West which might be of interest to this debate. (Sarukkai 2013, 3) Sarukkai displaces his argument on the political terrain without announcing it. He switches from the HS and PS level to the political. Indeed, silencing a discourse is a political act, besides being a cognitive one. The two registers (scientific and political) come in the same wording, but have different implications. Yet as Sarukkai expects an answer from history of science and philosophy of science, he withdraws from the political register again (although a broader reading would have both history of science and philoso- phy of science as political, but this is not Sarukkai’s option.) Elsharky14 makes the important observation that it was the creation of the new disci- pline of history of science that begins to propagate a global ideology of science based on universal values. This effort, beginning before WW I, began to use a new ideology of internationalism in order to reshape the idea of science. Using notions such as Sci- entific Revolution, this discipline departed from the earlier syncretic model in order to frame the new global science which became synonymous with western science. (Sarukkai 2013, 5) Here, Sarukkai acknowledges a political and ideological dimension to history of science and philosophy of science, and he would be right in expecting an answer in political terms. But he stops short. He fails to acknowledge the national character and framework of the discipline of history of science—part and parcel of the international and colonial configuration of “Western sci- ence.” History, be it of science, was born as the foremost national discipline. If, as enough work in H[istory of] S[cience] clearly shows, colonialism and imperialism influence the very creation of the larger historical and philosophical themes associated with modern science then why is there still appreciable resistance to a critical engage- ment with other scientific traditions in the world? Ignoring them only continues this translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 14 Referenced by Sarukkai as M. Elshakry, “When Science Became Western: Historiographical Reflections,” Isis 101, 2010. See also Jack Goody (2007). 67 process of colonialism and imperialism and this is more dangerous since it is now done implicitly. (Sarukkai 2013, 5) But the “other scientific traditions in the world” are also national, since the nation has prevailed as an organizational princi- ple even retrospectively, when we say “Indian philosophy” or “Greek philosophy,” meaning antiquity. We are now clearly on po- litical terrain. But where does the identified “resistance to critical engagement with other scientific traditions” occur? Presumably, again in history and philosophy of science only, which are also pointed to by the author as coming from the Western cognitive hegemony. Why not seek alliances where doors are open, in (some) political philosophy? Why not break out of a limiting discipline, discourse, and translation regime? Sarukkai further remarks that philosophy of science ignores Indian logic because the latter doesn’t distinguish between the em- pirical and the formal (Sarukkai 2013, 7), or indeed between theory and practice. This observation is fine, but the problem is now defin- ing “Indian logic” as if it were a fact given once and for all, as some kind of retroactively operating national logic. If we wish to over- come historical unfairness due to the national construction of knowledge and its transmission, the solution cannot be to claim fairness for one nation or “national” science, “ours,” but only to critique that general national blueprint of knowledge construction. In the Indian case, the extensive work on Indian metallurgy, chemistry and mathemat- ics—to give a few examples—have conclusively proved the presence of an active the- oretical and practical engagement with activities that seem to be similar to other such activities in early Greek and later Europe. However, this does not mean that there was a universal way of doing and creating science. (Sarukkai 2013, 7, italics mine) Again—the comparison is national for all examples, and the nations fixed and defined as preexisting the translation opera- tion. More importantly, Sarukkai doesn’t link whatever he notes in the just quoted paragraphs with the absence of divide between the- ory and practice in “Indian” philosophy (reproached by “Western” views to “Indian” thought). Surprisingly, he invokes it without clar- translation / spring / 2014 ifying the relation between “theory” and “practice,” without defin- ing them or tracing their genealogy. But the divide between theory and practice (a marked hierarchy too) is originally a typically mod- 68 ern Western one. Why would it oblige Sarukkai to conform in any way, if he contests the latter’s logic? There is a skewed mainstream history of science which does not take into account non-Western contributions in the creation of science (ironical considering the work in H[istory of] S[cience] which questions this view!). We need to take this ideology of the mainstream history of science seriously for the harm it has created to non-Western societies—the harm extends from their students to government policies and indeed has had a great impact on these cultures. An exclusivist history of science that keeps the possibility of the scientific imagination within a constructed Greek and European history does great violence not only to other non-Western cultures but also to the very spirit of the scien- tific quest. (Sarukkai 2013, 8) It is the national configuration of knowledge that needs to be overcome. One step further is needed. Why not combat Western history and philosophy of science with the help of “Western” and “non-Western” political philosophy and other disciplines of the kind that take into account those other epistemologies? Why not draw a broader picture involving a critique of the logic of the epis- teme? If we do that, we will also find that an episteme is coexten- sive, coexistent, and enmeshed with a mode of production, forms of life, a political regime, a construct of culture and language, and that we need to look for a broader context. As Solomon writes, “One of the qualities that distinguishes the West as a paradigm of the modern apparatus of area is the institutionalization of transla- tion-as-cultural transference through the disciplinary control of bodies of knowledge” (Solomon 2013). [T]he social formation that we have come to know as ‘the West’ is precisely that form of community that reserves for itself, among all other forms of human community, the key position in the speciation of the human, the place where the epistemological project is articulated to the politico-ontological one. Seen in this light, the West aspires to be the sole community that is self-aware, through scientific knowledge, of humanity’s ac- tive participation in its own speciation. Yet it is not simply by virtue of a proprietary claim over knowledge that the West has been able to form itself as the pole or center or model of human population management in general. In order to occupy this position, it has been necessary to construct out of the contingency of historical encounter (colo- nialism) a political system for effective population management (effective from the point of view of capitalist accumulation). (Solomon 2013, n. p.) translation / spring / 2014 I argue that the separation reproduced by Sarukkai between hard sciences on the one hand as well as the social sciences and po- 69 litical philosophy on the other coincides with the problematic dis- tinction between theory and practice mechanically taken over from positivism and from some unsophisticated forms of Marxism. It is itself “Western” in origin and manner, but, what is more important, it belongs to appropriative knowledge. It has also become quite uni- versal by now. History of science still draw[s] on philosophical concepts that are also available in alternate philosophical traditions. There is no reason to believe that these philosophical ideas are irrelevant to these contemporary concerns of philosophy of science. (Sarukkai 2013, 8) I agree. Connective history of science will by necessity have to deal with and incorporate al- ternate worldviews and philosophical concepts. (Sarukkai 2013, 8) I agree, but additional efforts are needed to achieve this and get out of the system. Connective history of science is a move towards a “global history of local science.” (Sarukkai 2013, 9) Agreed, but it is also a move towards a “global history of science” tout court, since the local–global distinction reproduces the other divides that are at the basis of objectal, and eventually predatory knowledge—particularly congenial to globalized capi- talism. Such knowledge was alien to and discarded by ancient “Asian” philosophical systems. Although this has been revised as modernity made its way, refusing objectal, appropriative knowledge instrumental to production has nevertheless persisted as an alter- native scientific temper in “India” and generally in Asia as well as elsewhere. But Sarukkai only insists that Indians did have all the rationality needed for modern industry, and that their knowledge was merely stolen by the British through distinguishing between “theory” and “practice.” That is surely only part of the story. When the British encountered many Indian inventions in science and technology, they translation / spring / 2014 made use of them in order to establish their own industries but refused to acknowledge that these processes were part of scientific rationality. Claims that these Indian inven- tions were more a product of “doing” rather than “knowing,” specifically a theoretical 70 mode of knowing, made it easy for them to reject the claim of science to almost all in- tellectual contributions from India.” (Sarukkai 2013, 9) How can we project India back, a later and national forma- tion, onto ancient science? The fact that Western philosophy has always done exactly that with ancient Greek thought does not jus- tify the mimetic gesture. That would keep us within the system in- stead of showing ways out. We need some other “scientific” and, eventually, political imagination. A useful investigation here, in line with Sarukkai’s attempt, would be to probe into the parallel, inter- twined, interrelated structures of knowledge, power and produc- tion. About the normativity of science and theory: “One of the primary ways by which the title of science is denied to non-Western intellectual traditions is through the invocation of terms such as logic, scientific method, evidence, prediction and so on” (Sarukkai 2013, 9). While discovering the normativity of hegemonic forms of knowledge, Sundar Sarukkai fails to investigate the relationship be- tween knowledge, production and political system, and thus de- prives himself of the help that political thought could bring, including a consideration of the terms of translation. He remains riveted to a world with fixed identities, which reduces translation to a sterile bipolar exercise that ignores the fluidity of relations. Sarukkai further significantly argues that western mathe- matics are irreparably linked to Platonism, unlike Indian mathe- matics. This makes it impossible for the former to recognize the latter. From seeing the trees, Sarukkai doesn’t see the forest! His claim about Platonism is extremely important: It implies the body- and-soul, theory-and-practice divisions. It will become systemic and institutionalized through monotheism (Christianity) among oth- ers, and hence, in modernity, through the grounding of state sover- eignty and all this implies. Platonism will pervade all spheres of life, labor, and culture, not only mathematics, so that understanding and deconstructing it will require social sciences, one step further from the history and philosophy of science because these too need translation / spring / 2014 to be questioned (not that social sciences are in any way a guaran- tee). It is the whole framework, the regime of translation that re- quires interrogation. 71 What is really so mysterious (a word used by Einstein in this context) about the use of mathematics? The major reason for this mystery is Platonism. If mathematical entities exist in a nonspatiotemporal world then how do we spatiotemporal beings have knowl- edge of them? For these scientists, who viewed mathematics along such a nonempirical axis, the use of mathematics was surprising. Its “natural match” with physical concepts was a source of mystery only if we first begin with a clear disjunction between math- ematics and the world.15 (Sarukkai 2005, 11) Very well: a clear disjunction between subject and object, theory and practice, body and soul, man and woman could also be stated in the same line. The disjunction between mathematics and the world corresponds to that between body and soul of the Chris- tian episteme. It has been the main apparatus of capturing the ma- terial world by the vested interests of dominant classes, and thus of hegemony. Sarukkai proceeds: It is precisely this point which Indian mathematics would challenge. Mathematics is essential to this world; it arises from this world and through human action. The puzzle of applicability will take on a completely different form if we begin with the assumption that mathematics is enworlded and embodied. Interestingly, this is a position that has now gained some ground through the framework of cognitive studies but in a pre- dictable replay these approaches also make no mention of such approaches in non- Western traditions. (Sarukkai 2005, 11) The disjunction of mathematics with the world also implies that of theory with practice, of soul with body, of man with woman, as it entails hierarchical normative relations. One could be more ambitious than Sarukkai, while supporting his critique, and claim that it is not only mathematics but the whole episteme which is af- fected by such disjunctions; and that these do not appear, or not to the same extent, in extra-European epistemes—that is, in non hege- monic epistemes (except for the universal divide, diversely imple- mented, between men and women). There is a historic reason for this: these extra-European epistemes, far from being more right- eous, have not been able to impose themselves as hegemonic, con- sidering the colonial leaning and attraction for power involved in any knowledge. No answer can come solely from traditional phi- losophy of science or history of science here, but rather through a translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 15 The author’s reference here is Sarukkai, 2005. 72 more comprehensive approach and critique of translation regimes, by way of political philosophy, or through an all-encompassing ap- proach that will question the whole hegemonic episteme and con- crete national epistemes too, their genealogy and apparatus. Sarukkai convincingly argues that contributions of “Indian philosophies and sciences” to science in general have been occulted and obscured, impoverishing the history of science of important parts of its heritage. He also gives examples of how varied and rich “Indian physics” or metaphysics (considerations of matter, sub- stance, nature, elements, quality, inherence, motion, etc.) have been ignored, how different schools of “Indian logic” have been uncared for, while similar views from “Greek” philosophy have become the only reference and terminus even though “Indian” examples could have been offered. This additionally left out of sight original “In- dian” contributions. Sarukkai therefore proposes the method of a connective history of science which would take into account the philosophical context of the different historic configurations where all contributions to “global science” would be acknowledged, help- ing the advancement of both science and its history. But without an extra step, he will remain within the system he pledges to cri- tique. Sarukkai has the enormous merit of identifying the non-Pla- tonism in “Indian” sciences, which has earned it nonrecognition on the side of “Western” universalized knowledge. Another important characteristic may be mentioned con- comitantly here that added to “Indian” philosophies being rejected by the “Western” ones, and that has been mediated especially through Buddhism: the purposeful nonrecognition of any kind of subject (or any kind of subject/object divide) on the “Indian” side, and thus the not grounding of any kind of (state) sovereignty at the other end of the scale (Iveković, 2014). While i share Sarukkai’s observations about the configuration of “Indian” philosophies and while i think that they can be enlarged and applied to other areas of knowledge, i would also suggest that it would be more than nec- essary to define or discard terms such as “Indian,” “Indian science” etc. in the way of deconstructing the national scaffolding, if we wish to overcome the given national and transnational framework translation / spring / 2014 and inner logic we critique. 73 For a critical (Anti)Theory of Translation: competing transla- tion politics Theories are built by subjects and sovereigns, and when successfully hegemonic, also in support of sovereignties. Sover- eigns need to have a monolithic national language that is also the language of command and of maintaining the system. Theories are linked to conjuncture, to places, to specific and interested readings of history, to fending for the dominant regime of thinking, of lan- guages, of translation, and, once they prevail, for mainstream. Today it is global capitalism. The reluctant “theories” we are nev- ertheless practicing as processes, for better or for worse, can at best attempt to deconstruct the national framework of knowledge as well as of its transmission (theory), through inventing new politics of liberation and new imaginaires of translation. It must be understood that translation does not guarantee freedom of any kind, and that it can be as much a politics of conquest, capture, exploration-and- exploitation,16 and colonialism, whether inner17 or outer. But poli- tics of translation may be invented. Since they will necessarily be forever amendable, such politics of translation may rather not re- spond to the high name of theory. They will be checked by transla- tion practices in view of their resistance to new enclosures within an “unsurpassable” capitalist horizon. Theory tends to correspond within knowledge, in a figure of co-figuration,18 to the sovereignty of the political sphere. It tends to be absolutized, to produce transcendence and an absolute other. It has also been historically self-attributed, self-complacent, and reserved by the West to itself. This construction originally comes from the monotheistic Mediterranean context where god as the supreme subject (sovereign) is the necessary condition to the projection of the human (epi)subject: no god, no subject. The theory has its modern developments and versions. One of the sub- ject’s declensions will be the nation. Theory is a kind of (barely) .......................... 16 One and the same word, exploração appropriately denoting “exploitation” and not “exploring” in Por- tuguese. translation / spring / 2014 17 By inner colonialism i mean the treatment of such groups as women, Roma, migrants, minorities, or whoever the excluded beyond the abyssal lines (Boaventura de Sousa Santos) or subordinated of one time are. See de Sousa Santos (2000) and de Sousa Santos (2007). 18 Sakai’s important term in a slightly different application. See N. Sakai (1997). 74 secularized cognitive variant of divine transcendence.19 “Scientific knowledge” has been intertwined with and in- separable from theology. Theory will sustain the sovereign (whether godly or human) and its emanation, the subject, as well as their separation from life experience. The subject (and, in its/his stead, derivatively, the epi-subject), custodian of Revelation (San- skrit: śruti), kicks a “beginning” as if it were absolute. The multiple genealogies, origins, and inheritances of theory, however carefully hidden and silenced, resurface again and again, disputing its high and unique status. In fact, what is hidden is the whole apparatus of theory-established hierarchies and exclusion—that is, the mecha- nism of its sovereignist claim (see Solomon 2013). Theory’s tools are language and narration, just as in less theoretical matters. In South Asian ancient philosophies in Sanskrit, this corresponds to the hammered—but really constructed and ideological—difference between śruti and smṛti. Theory will also distribute names and set grades, in which its function—as well as that of language through master-narra- tives—is not very different from that of foundational myths (smṛti). The Greek divide and constructed abyssal gap between logos and muthos (taken over into the Christian religion in corresponding form, and parallel to the developing split between theory and prac- tice) reinforces and maintains the coloniality of knowledge and power: all “others,” whether inner or outer, have systematically been reduced to muthos and nontheory (mere “practice”), as irra- tional and incapable of science. This separation, downgrading, ex- ception, is also an exemption from sovereignty. “Others” were deemed bereft of autonomy out of their own limitation: other con- tinents, women, and any other group, form of life, or translation regime under that label. Theory, as much as god, designates the other. There are certainly ways, and historic experiences, of not complying with such a diktat, that amount to “other possibilities of the spirit.” François Jullien says that such “other possibilities” are translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 19 See François Jullien (2012, 107): “[L]es ‘Grecs’ ont-ils jamais existé? N’ont-ils pas été forgés par nos Humanités?” A similar point is made in Prasenjit Duara (forthcoming). I would like to thank Duara for al- lowing me to read chapters of his work in progress. 75 not always played out, and he goes on unveiling them by “compar- ing” Greek, Christian, and Chinese thinking histories: they become particularly visible when various civilizational options are rubbed against each other. We mentioned some, stemming from what would ultimately be known as (ancient) “Indian” philosophies, while Jullien has been showing it for the Chinese worldviews. Chi- nese or “Indian” philosophies did not delve the insuperable gap between logos and muthos, or theory and practice. No grand nar- ratives were therefore constructed in China, according to Jullien: China had no need to posit god, and the word is not foundational there (see Jullien 2012, 68, 69, 70, and 98).20 Jullien pleads in favor of reading a system of thought “from outside,” through “contrasting parallels” (which is not a dichotomic hierarchical comparison of the classical Western type, and does not presuppose prior categorization), through letting go, letting play parallels, through yielding, through detachment from one’s own/unique culture. The contrastivity, letting the effects of a gap work, will shed light on avenues of thought that have not been ful- filled (Jullien 2012, 65 and following). He calls the contrasting of Chinese and Western thought “entering a way of thinking” (entrer dans une pensée). Such an entry is not afforded through a narrative or a subject behind it. It is operated from a declension or inclination of the reader, of the translator, of the one who approaches a “way of thinking,” who is changed in the process: the translator is trans- lated as she discovers the unthought (l’impensé) lying at the base of thought. It would be difficult to translate this into Sakai’s trans- lation theory, but, like the latter, the former doesn’t believe in neu- tral translation or a neutral ground between contrasted elements. In both, this entails concrete political responsibility from case to case. Discarding one’s armature of thinking, deconstructing and dislo- cating the national construction and fixed framework of knowledge (see Iveković 2007b; 2009–2010) is a necessary precondition and way of doing this. Contrasting without establishing categories and hierarchies, without heeding disciplines (molded by national cultures and insti- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 20 Although an “Asian” disposition, this does not fully correspond to Brahmanic (consider the Veda, Ma- habharata, and Ramayana) or Hindu thought (see Rada Iveković 1992). 76 tutions), may be particularly helpful in highlighting unexpected possibilities, unfulfilled options, or eschewed results. Given that disciplines denote borders of theoretical territories, ignoring them sometimes allows passing beside, below, above, or through dividing lines. This might be a possible way indeed in systems where there is no dominant narrative or vertical epistemological hierarchy, no historic construction of sovereignty and of the concept of a subject (Iveković 2013), such as is sometimes the case in Asia or elsewhere in once colonized continents, or where there has been some consti- tutive (even merely) structural resistance to monolithic national narratives. Times of crises put an accent on the subject’s wavering (Europe today), but can prompt these other thinking options where the concept of a subject was purposely avoided. The great writer and philosopher Radomir Konstantinović wrote about the tension resulting from the inner cleavage of the cit- izen and of the communist, important figures of the subject in twen- tieth-century Yugoslavia (but metaphorically, also elsewhere), ending in the failure of both (Konstantinović 1981).21 Konstantinović’s pessimistic message concerning Western modernity in general was that the political subjectivation of the cit- izen may end in nationalism/Nazism.22 He exemplifies it with the Serbian case. His optimistic message comes with, in principle, open possibilities (the blank of the borderline spirit of the crisis, palanka) and through the split subject. Paradoxically, this is best shown in art, writing, and trans- lation, as in the self-fulfilled prophecy of the novel or drama that can only signal the impossibility of a novel (as the form par excel- lence of national citizenship) or of drama: in the same way in which the only possible subjectivation from perhaps the end of the 1960s is—the impossibility of constituting a subject. Did Yugoslavia not implode because of that impossibility, having no middle class and no nation, supposed to be only a secu- larized administrative, common post-national frame? No drama was to oppress its nonsubject citizens, who were to be spared the .......................... translation / spring / 2014 21 See also French excerpts in Konstantinović (2001a), Konstantinović (2001b), and Konstantinović (2001c). Other French excerpts can also be found in Becket and Konstantinović (2000), and Iveković (1998). 22 Konstantinović talked about modernity as such, irrespective of whether capitalist or socialist: the pattern, for him, was the same, and socialism was a form of modernity. 77 need to engage in politics (my generation), because everything had been taken care of by our revolutionary fathers in the Second World War through resistance to the Nazis? Revolution was “museified,” drama excluded. Radomir Konstantinović tried to think the non- subjectified subject of our times,23 the one incapable of, or refusing translation as exchange and fluidity; the one allowing only for ab- solute translation (see Iveković 2011), entrenching borders, social relations and inequalities.24 Naoki Sakai however deems that nation is not a fatality or a necessity, and that it could have been avoided. What forms in Asia could have helped such an alternative? It is difficult to imagine other options, he insists, from within the prevailing one. We could have had another world, with no nationalities and no nation states. In particular, it was not the destiny of Asia, which took a very long time to adapt to the international world. According to Sakai, na- tionality was not given, being “a restricted and distorted derivative of transnationality.” Like language being the result of translation (and not vice-versa), so is nationality the outcome of transnation- ality that precedes it. “A bordering turn must be accompanied the- oretically by a translational turn: bordering and translation are both problematics projected by the same theoretical perspective” (Sakai 2013). Writing of the scandals with the cartoons of prophet Mo- hammad, Judith Butler analyses the ways in which, according to different frameworks (Christian or Muslim), we may diversely un- derstand the term “blasphemy”: “the translation has to take place within divergent frames of moral evaluation. […] in some ways the conflict that emerged in the wake of the publication of the Danish cartoons is one between competing moral frameworks, understand- ing ‘blasphemy’ as a tense and overdetermined site for the conver- gence of differing schemes of moral value” (Butler 2009, 103–104). .......................... 23 See not only Konstantinović (1981), but also downloadable texts by and on him in Serbo-Croatian, in- cluding Konstantinović (n.d.). The site from which these texts can be downloaded () is an archive of impor- translation / spring / 2014 tant Yugoslav intellectual and political works and is run by Branimir Stojanović Trša. On Konstantinović, see also Sarajevske Sveske, an on-line Serbo–Croat journal. See also Klaus Theweleit (1977 and 1988), and Iveković (2009). 24 On bordering as a process, see Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2003) and (2013). See also Sakai in general, but (2013) in particular. 78 There are thus competing translation codes or regimes, much as Balibar identifies competing universalisms.25 They may go hand in hand. Wendy Brown has it that cri- tique (and theory?) have been identified with secularism. As we know from Balibar (see especially 2012), secularism or cosmopoli- tanism and religion compete on the same terrain. It is all a matter of translation. It is on that contested terrain that various political options for translation can unfold. Alas, there is “normally” no imaginative power or political imagination enabling us to think a world without nations, nationalities and borders, or translating them: in order to do so, we must step without that frame through our mind’s eye. This is a contribution towards an attempt to start thinking one. The question of political translation becomes a concrete one at times of crisis and reshuffling. We are currently in one such age, and trans- lation may well be one of the tools. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 25 Étienne Balibar, from “Les universels” (1997) through “Sub specie universitatis” (2006), develops the observation of competing universalisms, then, logically, with his paper “Cosmopolitanism and Secularism: Controversial Legacies and Prospective Interrogations” (2011), that of competing national sovereignties and competing religions or secularisms. This matter is taken up once again in Balibar (2012). 79 References Balibar, Étienne. 1997. “Les Universels,” in La Crainte des masses. 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Towards the Dislocation of the West.” In eipcp-translate, eine kommunalität, die nicht sprechen kann: eu- ropa in übersetzung, http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/sakai1/en/#_ednref1. Sarajevske Sveske. http://sveske.ba/. Sarukkai, Sundar. 2005. “Revisiting the ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness’ of mathemat- ics.” Current Science 88 (3). 415–423. ———. 2013. “Philosophical Implications of Connective History of Science,” paper at the workshop “The Bright Dark Ages: Comparative and Connective Per- spectives,” organized by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, February. 27–28. Solomon, Jon. 2013. “Another European Crisis?! Myth, translation, and the apparatus of area.” eipcp-transversal, a communality that cannot speak: europe in translation, June. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/solomon/en. Theweleit, Klaus. 1977. Männerphantasien. Volume 1. Basel: Verlag Roter Stern/Stroemfeld. ———. 1978. Männerphantasien. Volume 2. Basel: Verlag Roter Stern/Stroemfeld. Rada Iveković lives and works in Paris. She is a philosopher. Articles: “The Watershed of Modernity,” http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JSKSdg2Ag Taxgvg9V67F/full; “Politiques de la philosophie à partir de la modernité” (in English and French), www.transeuropeennes.eu/fr/articles/113; “For whom the whistle blows: Welcome to the immunity frontier,”; www.africanrhetoric.org/pdf/O%20AYOR %203_1%20Ivekovic.pdf; “Gender and nation” (audio recording in French), http://www. translation / spring / 2014 mondialisations.org/php/public/art.php?id=36101&lan=FR; L’éloquence tempérée du Bouddha. Souverainetés et dépossession de soi (2014); http://eipcp.net /bio/ivekovic. 82

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At the Borders of Europe From Cosmopolitanism to Cosmopolitics Étienne Balibar ........................... Kingston University, London, UK [email protected] Abstract: The essay addresses uses of “cosmopolitanism” and “cosmopolitics” in the current global political conjuncture, from a European point of view. Against the assumption (by Jürgen Habermas in particular) that Europe could become the typical cosmopolitan continent through a natural continuation of its uni- versalist traditions, it argues that the universal exists only in the form of con- flicting universalities. Eurocentrism therefore deserves not only a refutation, but a genuine deconstruction. Expanding on previous contributions, I focus on the historical transformation or the “border” as a quasi-transcendental condition for the constitution of the political, which is paradoxically reflected in its center. The “central” character of the “periphery” acquires a new visibility in the con- temporary period. A “phenomenology of the border” becomes a prerequisite for an analysis of the citizen. I examine tentatively three moments: first, the antithesis of war and translation as contradictory overlapping models of the Political, which I call “polemological” and “philological” respectively; second, the equivocality of the category of the stranger, who tends to become reduced to the enemy in the crisis of the nation-state; third, the cosmopolitical difficulty of Europe to deal with its double otherness, regarding other Europeans and non-Europeans who are targeted by complementary forms of xenophobia. ______________ In this essay, I want to address questions of common inter- est about the use and relevance of such notions as “cosmopoli- tanism” and “cosmopolitics” in the current global political conjuncture, and I will do so mainly from a European point of view. This might seem a contradiction in terms, since the overcoming of a certain Eurocentrism forms one of the preconditions for the de- velopment of a cosmopolitical discourse. I have two reasons for doing so, both linked to a certain practice of critical theorizing. The first is that—in spite of some very interesting refer- translation / spring / 2014 ences to the idea of cosmopolitanism, or its transformation, in so- called postcolonial discourse—the continuous reference to cosmopolitanism today seems largely a product of the self-con- 83 sciousness of Europeans seeking to understand, if not to promote, Europe’s autonomous contribution to the regulation of conflicts in the new Global order. Habermas’s “return to Kant” (and others as well, from which I do not except myself) is typical in this respect. It is as if, after becoming the first imperial “center” of modern his- tory, Europe could become the typical cosmopolitan continent through a natural continuation, or perhaps a dialectical reversal, building its new political figure in this perspective. This implicit claim, shared by many of us, has to be compared with realities, and examined as a discursive formation. The second reason refers to an even more general perspec- tives of “politics of the universal,” which would take into account the conflictual character of universality as such, or the fact that the universal historically exists only in the form of conflicting univer- salities, both inseparable and incompatible. Universalities become conflictual because they are built on the absolutization of antithetic values, but also because they are enunciated in different places by different actors in the concrete process of world history. From this point of view, “Eurocentrism” has a paradoxical, if not unique, po- sition: it is the discourse whose pretense at incarnating universalism in the name of reason, or culture, or legal principles, is most likely to become increasingly challenged and refuted, as the history of the European and “new European” conquest of the world becomes re- examined from a critical point of view. But it is also a symbolic or conceptual pattern which is likely to remain untouched while re- jected or reversed or to become transferred to other imagined com- munities. As a consequence, Eurocentrism deserves not only a rejection or a refutation, but a genuine deconstruction—that is, a critique which dissolves and transforms it from the inside, in order to produce a self-understanding of its premises and functions. In this sense, a deconstruction of Eurocentrism performed by the Eu- ropeans themselves—with the help of many others—is not only a precondition for the undertaking of any postimperial “cosmopoli- tics,” it is part of its construction itself. A distinction of cosmopolitan discourse (or theory) and practical cosmopolitics seems now to have gained a very wide ac- translation / spring / 2014 ceptance, and, while I make use of it, I certainly claim no particular originality. It apparently results from three interrelated considera- tions. First, from the idea of reversing utopia into practice, or re- 84 turning from the elaboration of a cosmopolitan idea (which could serve as a regulatory model for the development of institutions) to the programs, instruments, objectives, of a politics whose actors, be they states or other social individualities, immediately operate and become interrelated at the world level. Note that such an idea can be associated with the consideration of globalized processes in the field of economy, strategy, communications, in opposite ways. It can be argued that the overcoming of the utopian moment of cos- mopolitanism arises as a consequence of the globalizing phenom- ena themselves. The material conditions would now exist for cosmopolitanism to pass from utopia into reality, if not “science.” There would even exist already something like an “actually existing cosmopolitanism,” to recall the title of one of the sections in Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins’s influential anthology (1998), which could become politicized or provide a cosmopolitics or Weltinnen- politik with its practical and affective support. But it can be argued also that globalization destroys the possibility of a cosmopolitan utopia, or deprives it of any nonideological function, because cos- mopolitanism was only possible as an idealized counterpart for the fact that, however global or transnational its objectives might be, which is particularly the case of socialist internationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, actual politics remained rooted in local, and particularly national, communities (see Balibar 2006a). This ideal projects a solution or final settlement for the actual con- flicts, and for that reason would grant a foundational value to the prospect or project of peace, in particular the establishment of peace through the implementation of law. This leads us to another powerful reason for the substitution of a practical notion of cosmopolitics for the classical ideal of cos- mopolitanism, which has to do with the broadly shared idea that the proper realm of politics is conflict. What Globalization has mainly achieved is a generalization of conflicts of multiple forms, reviving old ones (for example, between religious and secular forces) and perpetuating recent ones, displaying them all at the level of the whole world: and so the ultimate horizon of politics in the global age, with no predictable end, would be the fighting of con- translation / spring / 2014 flicts or the attempt at regulating them, but never putting an end to them. Such an idea is common to many authors today, albeit with important nuances: it is there in Ulrich Beck’s thesis that the “cos- 85 mopolitical gaze” presupposes that “war is peace” or their respec- tive realms are no longer fully discernible (Beck 2006). It is there also in Chantal Mouffe’s representation of an “agonistic pluralism” that informs the macropolarities of the progressively emerging post- national political sphere (see Moufffe 2000). And it is there in Eti- enne Tassin, who along Arendtian lines, but also drawing the consequences from a postmodernist critique of the notions of po- litical consensus and collective identities, seeks to articulate differ- ent concepts of resistance to the destruction of the “common world” which results from the uncontrolled processes of capitalist global- ization (see Tassin 2003). But again there is a wide range of dis- cursive positions here, including a certain equivocity of the use of the category “conflict.” At one end we have conflict understood as a specific form of political practice, in a tradition that could be Marxist but also Weberian and, indeed, Schmittian; at the other, we have the idea of conflict as matter or object of political intervention, which takes the form of regulation or, to use the now fashionable terminology, “governance.” The core of contemporary politics, which pushes it to the level of “cosmopolitics,” would be to find how to keep regulating or governing conflict, that is ultimately es- tablish consensus and hegemonies, beyond the declining monopoly of the nation–state in its violent or legal capacity to create peace and order within certain territorial boundaries. Such is clearly the prospect evoked in the work of David Held, with its opposition be- tween a growing state of injustices, disorders, and inequalities cre- ated by Globalization as a counterpart for the universalization of exchanges and communications, and a global “social-democratic governance,” whose quasi-legal instrument would be a “planetary contract” among states and social actors (see Held 2013). But it is also the horizon of Mary Kaldor’s (2013) idea of the “Global Civil Society” and its politicization as “an answer to war,” although in a more nuanced and empirical style. And finally this leads us to the third interrelated motive that I believe underlies the current insistence on “cosmopolitics” as the concrete form of cosmopolitanism or an alternative to its utopian character, which lies in the primacy of the issue of insecurity or— translation / spring / 2014 to put it again in Ulrich Beck’s terms—“risk society” at the global level. This is an additional element because the issue here is not simply to confront alternative replies to the same insecurity, or to 86 the same dominant form of insecurity (be it terrorism, war, eco- nomic instability, mass poverty, the destruction of the environment, and so forth), but more fundamentally, in a sort of generalized Hobbesian problematic, to define and hierarchize the different forms of “insecurity” which are perceived and expressed by actors and power structures in today’s world. It is this second degree in the political contest on insecurity that, far from remaining purely theoretical, directly impacts the antithetic positions on the function of international institutions, inherited from the ancient cosmopoli- tan ideal, as was plainly illustrated by the controversy between George Bush and Kofi Annan in 2003 at the opening of the United Nations’ General Assembly, just before the invasion of Iraq. Again, I claim no originality in my discussion of these themes. My specific contribution, which I have been trying to elab- orate in a more or less explicit manner in the last two decades, has progressively focused on the historical transformation or the “bor- der” (or the “frontier”) as a concrete institution which, far from forming simply an external condition for the constitution of the po- litical, empirically associated with the hegemony of the territorial nation–state, represents an internal, quasi-transcendental condition of possibility for the definition of the citizen and the community of citizens, or the combination of inclusion and exclusion which de- termines what Arendt called the “intermediary space,” or Zwischen- raum, of political action and contestation, where the right to have rights becomes formulated. In this sense, the border is only seem- ingly an external limit: in reality it is always already interiorized or displaced towards the center of the political space. This could be considered since the origins—even before the emergence of the modern Nation–State—a “cosmopolitical” element, which pro- foundly transformed the meaning and institution of borders but did not invent them. The question then becomes how to understand why this paradoxically “central” character of the “periphery” ac- quires a new visibility and a more controversial status in the con- temporary period, in any case in Europe. The same kind of issue is currently being discussed and investigated in depth, especially in Italy, by Sandro Mezzadra and Enrica Rigo from a more juridical translation / spring / 2014 and constitutional point of view (see Rigo 2006). But I also try to develop what I call a “phenomenology of the border” as prerequi- site of an analysis of the globalized citizen, which combines sub- 87 jective experiences with objective structural transformations in a highly unstable, overdetermined manner. It is this kind of phenom- enology that I would like to evoke now, by sketching three devel- opments: first, on the antithesis of war and translation, or polemological and philological models of the border; second, on the equivocity of the category of the stranger and the tendency to reduce it to a figure of the enemy through the development of bor- der wars against migrants; and third, on what I call the “double oth- erness” affecting the status and representation of foreigners in today’s Europe, to reach a final interrogation on the paradoxical identity of what we might call the “subject of cosmopolitics,” as a figure determined locally as well as globally. But before that, I must return, as briefly as possible, to some considerations concerning Europe, “Eurocentrism,” and the cosmopolitical issue. It will be easier and also politically revealing, I believe, to refer here to some well-known propositions by Jürgen Habermas and the way they have progressively evolved under the impact of the recent “war on terror.” This is not only a way to pay a well de- served tribute to a great living philosopher, whose questions and interventions continuously inform our reflection even when we dis- agree with his premises or depart from his conclusions, but also a way to illustrate this self-critical, internal relationship to the “Eu- ropean” definition of cosmopolitanism that I mentioned at the be- ginning. It did not remain unnoticed that Habermas’s positions concerning cosmopolitanism had significantly changed in the last period, before and after 9/11 and the subsequent new wave of US military interventions in the world, especially the unilateral inva- sion of Iraq in 2003 without a warrant from the Security Council. Many of his declarations and contributions have been internation- ally widespread, including the declaration from May 2003 reacting to the statement by European States supporting the US invasion, which was also endorsed by Jacques Derrida, with the title “After the War: Europe’s Renaissance,” in which he hailed the simultane- ous anti-war demonstrations in various European countries as a mo- ment of emergence of the long-awaited European public sphere (see translation / spring / 2014 Habermas and Derrida 2003). This was later developed in the ac- knowledgement of a “split” within the Western liberal–democratic alliance, arising from the antitotalitarian commitment in the post- 88 World War II period, which separated the unilateralist power poli- tics of the US from the orientation of the European “core states” (Kerneuropa) which was supposed to act in the direction of the con- stitution of a “global domestic politics without a global govern- ment” (Weltinnenpolitik ohne Welregierung) in the Kantian spirit (see Habermas 2006). This involved not only a limitation of na- tional claims to absolute sovereignty, but the equivalent of a “con- stitutionalization of international law,” subjecting and transforming the national politics of states through the self-imposed recognition of the primacy of universal legal and moral rules forming a politics of human rights. More recently, Habermas has expressed disappointment and skepticism with respect to this cosmopolitan function attributed to Europe, or its historical avant-garde, but he has maintained the commitment to the same general objective (see Habermas 2009). This amounted to granting a practical reality and effectivity, in a critical situation which would appear as a turning point in Modern history, to the more speculative idea already explained at length in Habermas’s “post national constellation” essays from the previous decade: the constitution of a supranational European ensemble, lim- iting the sovereignty of its member–states without giving rise to a new imperial superstate, was presented there as a form of “transi- tion” between the old power politics of states based on their iden- tification as substantial historical communities, in other terms the hegemony of nationalism, and the coming of the new cosmopolitan order where the relationship of individuals to their communities and allegiances is subjected to the formal and ethical recognition of universal legal norms. The argument bears analogies with the manner in which, in Kant’s practical philosophy, the respect for the moral law or categorical imperative is supposed to impose a con- straint on the “pathological” affective element of individual per- sonality, or in Kant’s own terms, to permanently “humiliate” its power. Accordingly, we would have the unmistakable sign of a shift from nationalism to the dominance of a pure “patriotism of the con- stitution” (Verfassungspatriotismus), intrinsically governing the de- velopment of the European Union, and conferring upon it a translation / spring / 2014 meaning and an influence widely superseding its local function. Now, it would be too easy to dismiss Habermas’s views as utopian and grossly overestimating the cosmopolitan content and 89 capacities of the European construction, and to call for a sobering return to the facts, showing that the Weltpolitik of the European Union, or perhaps we should say, rather, its lack of a Global project of its own in the last period, has patently refuted any illusion of a progressive function, especially with respect to the creation of a Global order and a system of international law genuinely independ- ent from power interests. I believe that a more interesting series of remarks can be proposed. With a nasty spirit, I was always tempted to draw a formal analogy between the way Habermas presented the European construction as an intermediary step between nationalism and the coming cosmopolitical juridical order and the way, after the adoption of the idea of “socialism in one country” around which the world revolutionary movement should gather and redefine its strategy, the construction of the Soviet Union and the Socialist camp was presented as a “transitional phase” in the long process of political transition from capitalism to communism. This is only a formal analogy indeed, but that testifies to the extent to which teleological models of historical progress arising ultimately from the Enlightenment permeate both the cosmopolitan and the inter- nationalist discourses, or dominate their concepts of history in a manner that is relatively independent from the divisions between rival political ideologies. It testifies also to the extent to which such discourses are inseparable from a deep Eurocentric representation of history, even when they claim to be critical of something like a “European nationalism,” or “pan-European ideology.” But there is more to be said, and namely that such a paradox also affects discourses which, in the same circumstances, tried to be more critical with respect to the achievements of the European construction. I am thinking of the way in which, in their book on “cosmopolitical Europe,” Ulrich Beck and Edgar Grande (2004) described the European construction as a “reflective moment” or the emergence of a “politics of politics” in which the feedback ef- fect of globalization and its specific problems associated with “global risks” would progressively transform the very idea of a na- tional interest and allow Europe to correct its own Eurocentrism and lack of cosmopolitanism. Accordingly, the intermediary posi- translation / spring / 2014 tion in which Europe finds itself would dialectically foster its own internal transformation and allow it to play a crucial role in the transformation of the global distribution and definition of power. 90 And, if I may invoke my own elaborations here, I am even thinking of the manner in which, borrowing the dialectical image of the “vanishing mediator,” I tried to explain in 2003 that Europe as a society, a new moment in the history of political forms, could only exist on the condition of becoming the instrument of a resistance to the polarizations of the War on Terror as well as a multilateral competition between Grossräume or geopolitical rival entities, which is centered on a combination of state power and cultural ex- ceptionalism. It should “decenter” its self-consciousness and ac- knowledge the extent to which it had become itself transformed and reshaped by the aftereffects of its violent interaction with the world, particularly through the postcolonial transformation of its population and culture (see Balibar 2003a). However “dialectical” this presentation of Europe may appear (as a potential vanishing mediator in contemporary politics, which could transform others on the condition of becoming transformed itself by the others), it clearly contained an element of European messianism which I shared with many others. It is perhaps owing to my self-critical reflection on the ex- tent to which the messianic idea of Europe as the “vanishing medi- ator” in fact reproduces or pushes to the extreme the Eurocentric scheme inherent in other contemporary uses of the cosmopolitan ideal that I can put into question what I believe is one of the deep philosophical structures underlying the combination of universal- ism and Eurocentrism in the cosmopolitan tradition: namely, the idea that the transformation of the local, particular, national citizen into a “citizen of the world” through a relativization of member- ships and borders requires a singular mediation (or even a media- tor), which turns the empirical interest against itself, performing the negation of particularity from the inside. There is no doubt to my mind that the cosmopolitical discourse in its classical form, as it was elaborated philosophically in Kant and others—including Marx, in his own way—formed a conceptual system organized around the transcendental dualism of the empirical individual and the universal person, or the “generic individual” (as Hegel, Feuer- bach, and the young Marx would reformulate it), namely the indi- translation / spring / 2014 vidual who carries within themselves a representation of the species, therefore also a commitment to the superior interest of the human community as such. The universal subject can be a “univer- 91 sal class,” or a “universal political project” called post national con- stellation. In any case the mediation has to be performed by a mem- bership or a community endowed with the character of a self-negating subject, which means a community (of citizens) with- out a “communitarian” collective identity, or not reducible to it, therefore without exclusionary effects, and with a revolutionary po- tential of universalization. Such is the case of “cosmopolitan Eu- rope” in the discourses that I was quoting. What I am suggesting is, in fact, a reversal of this pattern (which perhaps in the end will prove to be again one of its metonymic reformulations). At the same time I am admitting that the incapacity of Europe to emerge as a cosmopolitical mediation is not to be separated from its only too obvious current stalemate as a political project. There is something intrinsically contradictory in the idea of framing a postnational Europe which is a public space of conflicts, regulations, and civic participation, although it does not take the form of constructing a superstate—perhaps especially if it does not take that form. In a moment I will try to indicate that this intrinsic contradiction can be linked to the fact that the Euro- pean construction as such emphasizes all the elements of otherness inherent in the representation of Europe as a whole, or simply as an ensemble. But this requires a detour through the consideration of the role of borders, from which I hope to gain a metamorphosis in the self-perception of Europe, in which its definition never sim- ply comes from its own history, but returns to it from outside, from the consequences of its externalization. This is a point of view that seems more likely to become adopted in what constitutes the pe- ripheries of Europe in the broad sense: cultural and political zones of interpenetration with the rest of the world—Britain or Turkey or Spain, say, rather than France or Germany, where Habermas im- plicitly localized the European “core states.” But in reality, owing to the consequences of colonialism, and later postcolonial migra- tions and hybridization of cultures, it is also a possibility open for the whole of Europe that should be discussed in common, passing from one country to the other and one language to the other. translation / spring / 2014 Let me now concentrate on what I called a “phenomeno- logical approach” of the border as institution—and in a sense an institution of institutions, whose fundamental characteristics appear 92 historically when it determines specific political practices, setting their quasi-transcendental conditions, as it were. In the the past, an- alyzing the repressive functions performed by the border especially with respect to some strangers, but also some nationals, I coined the formula “a nondemocratic condition of democracy” (Balibar 2003b). I now want to emphasize the ambivalent characteristics of this condition, which represents both closeness and aperture, or their permanent dialectical interplay. Thus, a phenomenology of the border is a very complex undertaking. It is now becoming one of the major objects of reflection and points of interdisciplinary co- operation for anthropologists, historians, geographers, political the- orists, and so on. Even philosophers may have something to say from within their intellectual tradition and disciplinary logic (see Balibar, Mezzadra, and Samaddar 2012, and Mezzadra and Neilson 2013). To take the institution of the border as privileged vantage point in the discussion on cosmopolitics and its tensions does not produce the same effect as adopting, say, the point of view of cul- ture, or territory, or urban society—although there clearly are rec- iprocities between these different paradigms. In previous essays I suggested, following a suggestion from Kant’s early Latin disser- tation on the “regions of space,” that borders are never purely local or bilateral institutions, reducible to a simple history of conflicts and agreements between neighboring powers and groups, which would concern only them, but are always already “global”—that is, a way of dividing the world itself into places, a way of config- uring the world or making it “representable” (as the history of maps and mapping techniques testifies). Hence the development of a “mapping imaginary” which has as much anthropological impor- tance as the imagination of historical time and is not to be separated from it. I should add that borders are, therefore, constitutive of the transindividual relationship to the world, or “being in the world” when it is predicated on a plurality of subjects. This might already explain why the imagination of borders has a privileged relation- ship with utopias, albeit in a very contradictory manner. Either it works through the assumption of their closure, when utopian soci- eties are imagined as isolated from the world, or it works through translation / spring / 2014 the anticipation of their suppression, their withering away giving rise to a “borderless world” for the whole of mankind. But the bor- ders are not only structures of the imagination; they are a very real 93 institution, albeit not with a fixed function and status. And as con- ditions for the construction of a collective experience, they are char- acterized by their intrinsic ambivalence. Here I generalize a reflection on the category of the for- eigner and “foreignness” that I find in particular in Bonnie Honig’s excellent book (2001), to which I will return. This ambivalence be- gins with the fact that borders are both internal and external, or subjective and objective. They are imposed by state policies, ju- ridical constraints, and controls over human mobility and commu- nication, but they are also deeply rooted in collective identifications and a common sense of belonging. We may continue with the fact that borders are at work within opposite paradigms of the political, particularly what I call the paradigm of war and the paradigm of translation, with antithetic models for the construction of the “stranger,” or the institution of difference between the “us” and the “them,” which are both exclusive and nonexclusive. As a conse- quence, while recognizing the importance of the border in the de- velopment of utopian discourses, I prefer to consider that the border as such is a heteroropia or a “heterotopic” place in Foucault’s sense—that is, both a place of exception where the conditions of normality and everyday life are “normally suspended,” so to speak; and a place where the antinomies of the political are manifested and become an object of politics itself. It is borders, the drawing and the enforcing of borders, their interpretations and negotiations that “make” or “create” peoples, languages, races, and genealo- gies… Let me try to indicate three moments of this heterotopic phe- nomenon of borders from the point of view of their current transformations, especially across and beyond Europe. The emer- gence of “European borders” which need to be constantly displaced or redrawn is indeed one of the main concerns underlying this very sketchy theorization. The first element I want to emphasize is the fact that bor- ders and frontiers are simultaneously defined as functions of war- fare (or the interruption of warfare in the form of territorial settlements and an equilibrium of power codified by international law), and as functions of translation, or linguistic exchange: I call translation / spring / 2014 this second aspect a philological model of the construction of the political space—particularly the nation in modern history—where the appropriation of a collective identity and its equivalence with 94 others mainly rests on establishing a correspondence as tight and effective as possible between linguistic communities and political communities. They must have the same boundaries, which are en- forced and developed through education, literature, journalism, and communication (as Benedict Anderson famously demonstrated in his study of “imagined communities” and the becoming hegemonic of the national form of the state—see Anderson 1983). The con- struction of borders through war and the suspension of war, and their interiorization through the community of language and the possibility of translation (namely the activity that takes place when one stands on the border itself, either very briefly or for a long pe- riod, sometimes coinciding with the whole life), are clearly anti- thetic, but it does not mean that the two models are completely external to one another. On the contrary they are bound to contin- uously interfere and merge. In a sense, or in specific circumstances, war arises about translation and translation remains a war—because it involves a confrontation with the conflictual difference, or the ir- reducible “differend” with the other (in Lyotard’s terminology) that can be displaced but not abolished, returning under the very ap- pearance of consensus and communication. This reciprocity of war and translation within the establishment of lasting cultural power structures or hegemonies has been particularly emphasized by post- colonial studies which concern both the old peripheries and the old “centers,” where so called “universal” or “international” languages have been created and institutionalized, and more recently by critics of the idea of a “world literature” (see, for example, Apter 2005). This is one of the major themes in Chakrabarty’s work, Provincial- izing Europe (2000), where he insists on the conflict between an- tagonistic ways of “translating” life worlds, or the experience of the world, into labor (that is, abstraction in the merchant and capi- talistic sense), and history (that is, majoritarian and minoritarian traditions and belonging). Perhaps we could suggest that what char- acterizes our experience of the globalized world, both virtually common and divided among incompatible representations of the sense of history, is a new intensity of this overlapping or undecid- ability of the relationship between war and translation. This would translation / spring / 2014 come also, on the side of war, from the fact that war has become immersed in a much more general economy of global violence, which is not less but more murderous, and in fact includes perma- 95 nent aspects of extermination. Ethnocide or culture wars are part of this economy. The pattern of a “global civil war” that is looming in such diverse interpretations as those proposed by Hans Magnus Enzens- berger, Negri and Hardt, or Agamben, is useful here but it is also misleading because it tends to quickly reduce to unity the enormous heterogeneity of the violent processes overlapping in this global economy, ranging from so-called “new wars” which involve state and nonstate actors, and subvert international law, to the seemingly natural catastrophes which foremost affect the populations targeted by mass impoverishment and made “superfluous” from the point of view of the capitalist rationality. On the other side the labor of translation which permanently confronts the antinomy of equiva- lence and difference, is a way of acknowledging the irreducible na- ture of the untranslatable elements: through its confrontation with this “impossible” task it produces a universal community of lan- guages, or a “pure language,” as Benjamin explained in somewhat messianic terms in his famous essay on “The task of the translator” (on this point, see Balibar 2006b). With the process of globalization, especially as it is seen “from below”—that is, not from the global Republic of Letters, but from the working populations themselves, this labor has also become much more complex and conflictual. In a postcolonial world the hierarchy of idioms, therefore of possibil- ities of translation towards the same “languages of reference,” which serve as general equivalent for all the others, is becoming less and less indisputable and unilateral; it is therefore continuously enforced in a brutally simplified manner through the monolinguistic discipline of internet communication. The association of linguistic hierarchies with borders and collective identities appears much more clearly as a structure of national and transnational power: there is as much violence and latent political conflict, as much ques- tioning of established sovereignties, in the possibility for Algerian citizens to simultaneously use their three historical languages (in- cluding Arabic, French, and Amazigh), as there is for Urdu, Turkish, Arab, and African languages to become recognized as equal parts of the “conversation” among the populations of multinational and translation / spring / 2014 multicultural Europe, therefore granted the same educational and administrative status as the “genuinely European” national or re- gional languages (some of which have for centuries been ex-pro- 96 priated—that is, they no longer “belong” to the populations of Eu- ropean descent). I suspect that similar problems could be raised with respect to Spanish and Asian languages in the North American realm. This brings me to the second aspect of a phenomenology of borders as preliminary to the cosmopolitical issue. Zygmunt Bauman, who is certainly one of the great anthropologists of the cultural side of “globalization” today, emphasized that “all societies produce strangers, but each kind of society produces its own kind of strangers, and produces them in its own inimitable way” (Bau- man 1997). I take this phrase to mark an important step in a story of sociological and philosophical reflections on the figure of the stranger and the foreigner (the duality of categories already marking the difficulty in assessing the priority of the interior or the exterior, the juridical or the cultural aspect), which derive from the famous essays by Simmel and Alfred Schutz, and continues today with Gilroy, Babha, Honig, Spivak. Whether it was the existence of bor- ders that created the stranger, imposing an institutional mark of oth- erness on the complexity of cultural and local differences, or the preexisting difference among nations and genealogies that led to the institution of borders and the closure of territories, is a question that was never completely solved. It would seem that the establish- ment of the new borders of Europe, and the way they are enforced against the self-determination and the right of circulation of migrant and refugee populations, with the continuous relocation of these police demarcations, sheds a brutal light on this issue because of its discretionary character, as embodied in the Schengen rules. In previous essays, I intentionally gave a provocative di- mension to this discussion by suggesting that the introduction of a notion of European citizenship based on national memberships within the European Union produces something like a European apartheid, a reverse side of the emerging of a European community of citizens, by incorporating anybody who is already a national cit- izen in any of the member states, and excluding anybody, however permanently settled and economically or culturally integrated, who comes from extra-Communitarian spaces. The exclusionary aspect translation / spring / 2014 arises from the simple fact that differences of nationality, distin- guishing the national and the foreigner, which formerly applied in the same manner to all aliens within each nation state, now institute 97 a discrimination: some foreigners (“fellow Europeans”) have be- come less than foreigners, in terms of rights and social status (they are no longer exactly strangers), while other foreigners, the “extra- Communitarians,” and especially immigrant workers and refugees from the South, are now more than foreigners, as it were—they are the absolute aliens subjected to institutional and cultural racism. To this general idea, Alessandro Dal Lago and Sandro Mezzadra (2002), Didier Bigo (2005), and other sociologists or politologists who work on the “normalized state of exception” to which migrants are increasingly subjected in order to uphold the distinction between legal and illegal categories of immigrants, have added another ele- ment: the violent police operations (including the establishment of camps) performed by some European states on behalf of the whole community (with the help of neighboring client States, such as Libya or Morocco), amount to a kind of permanent border war against migrants (see, also, Balibar 2003c). The extent to which this policy is an intentional one can be disputed, but what I draw from their analysis is especially the growing indiscernibility of the concepts of police and war (also present in other forms of sovereign violence in today’s world): hence the tendency towards a reduction of the foreigner, or the “real stranger,” to a notion of virtual enemy, which pertains to a power permanently running behind a lost sov- ereignty, or the possibility of controlling populations and territories in a completely independent manner (see Brown 2010). Reducing the figure of the stranger to that of the enemy is one of the clearest signs of the crisis of the nation–state, or the his- torical national form of the state, as was already signaled by Han- nah Arendt (1951). It shows that the crisis of the nation–state, focusing on its borders but also continuously dislocating these bor- ders, does not coincide with a linear process of withering away. On the contrary, it makes the nation–state, or any combination of na- tion–states, return to a relatively lawless mode of exercising power, which strongly suggests a comparison with the early modern mo- ments in the construction of the monopoly of violence that Marx interpreted as “primitive accumulation.” They probably have to do with a new phase of primitive accumulation of capitalism on a translation / spring / 2014 global scale. But, as Bonnie Honig (2001) rightly suggests, they also testify for an extremely ambivalent character of the political process itself: in fact, whole populations of strangers are now os- 98 cillating between a condition of outsiders and insiders in the con- struction of a postnational and postcolonial order, for which Europe appears as a violent, conflictual “laboratory.” Strangers could be- come (and very often actually become), either internal enemies, who are looked upon with suspicion and fear by the state and the “majoritarian” population, or additional citizens, whose very dif- ference enlarges the fabric of rights and the democratic legitimacy of the institutions. Their inclusion in the domain of the “right to have rights” would illustrate what French political philosopher Jacques Rancière called granting the shareless their share (Ran- cière 1998). Indeed, this symmetry is heavily unbalanced yet never completely destroyed, or it is at stake in the daily resistances and vindications of basic rights on the part of the foreigners, making them members of an active community of citizens even before they are granted formal citizenship, thus concretely anticipating a cos- mopolitical transformation of the political. This consideration may sound very optimistic indeed, and I will qualify it through adding a third and last point. I became aware of this when I started reflecting on the consequences of the failed attempt at establishing a European Constitution in 2005, and its relationship to the development of so-called “populist” attitudes in Europe, in fact a revival of nationalist feelings, of which the strangers are the inevitable victims—not only when they come from outside Europe, but between its own “peoples.” What is cause and what is effect in this matter can be disputed, but perhaps it does not matter so much, and we must develop a symptomatic interpretation. The French and the Dutch played the role of the bad Europeans in the story, but shortly after the even former German Chancellor Hel- mut Schmidt—not a bad connoisseur—expressed his conviction that, if popular referendums had been called everywhere in Europe, the result would probably have been a “no” in a majority of coun- tries, including Germany. I don’t believe this to illustrate the per- petual conflict between reactionary nationalism and enlightened cosmopolitanism. I also don’t think that the reason for the failure of the “federal” project entirely lies in the social and economic causes that were emphasized by the French Left, when it insisted translation / spring / 2014 that the draft constitution had been rejected because it completely endorsed a legitimization of the neoliberal conception of the public sphere, and a dismantling of collective social rights. Even if this is 99 largely true, which I tend to believe it is, it would not produce a na- tionalist revival on its own. It could also—at least ideally—foster the development of pan-European social movements, for which democratic advances written into the Constitution (notably in the Charter of fundamental rights) could serve as an instrument. Some- thing else must be acting as well. I believe this might lie in a vicious circle created by the addition of different kinds of xenophobia: on the one hand, negative feelings toward other European peoples, or “fellow Europeans,” in each European country; and on the other hand the xenophobia directed against non-European populations of migrants (or of migrant descent)—with such highly ambivalent cases as Romanians, Turks, Balkan peoples, or populations of North African descent who have been part of “European history” for centuries in a colonial or semicolonial framework. This is what I call the cosmopolitical difficulty of Europe to deal with its double otherness, an internal and an external other- ness which are no longer confronted in absolutely separated spaces. This is also the difficulty of Europe to completely distinguish be- tween internal borders (between member states) and external bor- ders (with the rest of the world, and especially the South), or abolish this distinction and return to a classical status of the national border and the definition of the stranger. To put it in one phrase, European racism directed against immigrant “extra-European” pop- ulations, which hampers the development of social movements against neoliberal policies, also results from a projection of the na- tionalist feeling opposing European nations to one another, which the European construction in its current form has only superficially cloaked. It forms a derivative for a repressed mutual xenophobia. But the reverse is also true: it is the incapacity of European nations, and the unwillingness of European states, to grant migrants and populations of migrant descent equal rights and recognition, as well as the permanent temptation from populist parties and leaders to exploit antimigrant fears and hatreds for domestic purposes, which prevents Europeans from imagining that they could address their most urgent common social and political problems as a single con- stituency, thus giving rise to a new more “cosmopolitical” moment translation / spring / 2014 in the history of democratic citizenship. There is something like a “missing nation” in the middle of Europe, a nation made of several long-established migrant communities with different histories but 100 a similar final destiny, and also some common cultural characters easily seen as threats to European culture. Once it might have been called the “sixteenth nation” when there were fifteen official mem- ber states, now it could be called the “twenty-sixth nation” (an idea already proposed by Catherine di Wenden—see Wenden 1997; with more recent admissions to the EU, including Croatia, one should perhaps more accurately say “the twenty-ninth state”). And it is this missing nation in the middle returning in a fantastic manner as a virtual internal enemy that makes it so difficult for all the other na- tions to perceive themselves as building a single constituency, au- tomatically depriving them of the capacity of collectively influencing the global trends of politics, culture, and the economy. translation / spring / 2014 101 References Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. New York–London: Verso. Apter, Emily. 2005. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1951. “The decline of the Nation State and the End of the Rights of Man,” chapter 9 of The origins of Totalitarianism (Part II: Imperialism), New Edition, Harvest Books: New York, 1994, 267–303. Balibar, Étienne. 2003a. L’Europe, l’Amérique, la guerre. Paris: Éditions la Décou- verte. ———. 2003b. “World Borders, Political Borders.” We, the People of Europe? Re- flections on Transnational Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2003c. “Europe, An ‘Unimagined’ Frontier of Democracy.” Translated by Frank Collins. diacritics 33 (3/4): 36–44. ———. 2006a. “Cosmopolitisme et internationalisme: deux modèles, deux héritages.” Philosophie politique et horizon cosmopolitique. La Mondialisation et les apories d’une cosmopolitique de la paix, de la citoyenneté et des actions, under the direction de Francisco Naishtat. Paris: UNESCO. ———. 2006b. “Sub specie universitatis.” Topoi 25 (1–2): 3–16. Special issue Phi- losophy: What is to be done? Berlin–Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. ———. 2010. “Europe: final crisis?” Theory and Event, 13 (2). http://muse. jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/summary/v013/13.2.balibar.html. ———. 2011. “Our European Incapacity.” opendemocracy, May 16. http://www.open- democracy.net/etienne-balibar/our-european-incapacity. ———. 2013a. “Out of the Interregnum.” opendemocracy, May 16. http://www.open- democracy.net/can-europe-make-it/etienne-balibar/out-of-interregnum. ———. 2013b. “How can the aporia of the ‘European people’ be resolved?” Radical Philosophy 181: 13–17. Balibar, Étienne, Sandro Mezzadra, and Ranabir Samaddar (eds.). 2012. Borders of Justice. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1997. Postmodernity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, Ulrich. 2006. Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, Ulrich, and Edgar Grande. 2004. Das kosmopolitische Europa. Gesellschaft und Politik in der zweiten Moderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Bigo, Didier, Elspeth Guild (Ed.) (2005). Controlling Frontiers. Free Movement into and within Europe. Hants and Burlington: Ashgate. Brown, Wendy. 2010. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books. Butler, Judith, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Žižek. 2000. Contingency, Hegemony, Uni- versality. New York–London: Verso. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and His- translation / spring / 2014 torical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cheah, Pheng, and Bruce Robbins. 1998. Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dal Lago, Alessandro, and Mezzadra, Sandro. 2002. “I confini impensati dell’Europa”, 102 published in the collective volume Europa politica. Ragioni di una necessità, edited by H. Friese, A. Negri and P. Wagner. Roma: Manifestolibri. de Wenden, Catherine. 1997. La Citoyenneté. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. The Divided West. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 2009. Europe: The Faltering Project. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, Jürgen, and Jacques Derrida. 2003. “Nach dem Krieg: Die Wiedergeburt Europas.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 31. http://www.faz.net/ak- tuell/feuilleton/habermas-und-derrida-nach-dem-krieg-die-wiedergeburt- europas-1103893.html. Held, David. 2013. Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Wash- ington Consensus. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Honig, Bonnie. 2001. Democracy and the Foreigner. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kaldor, Mary. 2013. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, Or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press. Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. New York–London: Verso. Rancière, Jacques. 1998. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press. Rigo, Enrica. 2006. Europa di confine. Trasformazioni della cittadinanza nell’Unione allargata. Roma: Meltemi. Tassin, Étienne. 2003. Un monde commun. Pour une cosmopolitique des conflits. Paris: Seuil. Étienne Balibar was born in 1942. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne in Paris, and then obtained his PhD from the University of Nijmegen. After having taught in Algeria and France, he is currently Anniversary Chair of Contem- porary European Philosophy at Kingston University, London, and Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York. His books include Reading Capital (with Louis Althusser) (1965), Race, Nation, Class. translation / spring / 2014 Ambiguous Identities (with Immanuel Wallerstein) (1991), Masses, Classes, Ideas (1994), The Philosophy of Marx (1995), Spinoza and Politics (1998), We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (2004), and Identity and Difference (2013). 103

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Knowledge on the Move: Between Logistics and Translation Brett Neilson ............................ University of Western Sydney, Australia. [email protected] Abstract: Translation and logistics are often considered distinct and opposed ac- tivities. The former is a social practice that produces boundaries and connections between languages, cultures and forms of life. The latter is a technical operation that contributes to the production of value by creating efficiencies of communi- cation and transport. This paper takes translation and logistics as twin analytical pincers in which to examine the changing politics and economy of knowledge in the contemporary capitalist world. Particular attention is given to the socio- technical systems that enable practices of translation and the role of social and cultural negotiation in facilitating movement along the logistical chains that sup- port global production. By examining the terms and the limits of the overlap between translation and logistics, the paper investigates its implications for the global arrangement of space and time as well as the subjective stakes of labor in the production of knowledge. ______________ How does knowledge travel? The question is profound to the point of being banal. Movement is intrinsic to knowing. Whether the passage is between subject and object, through space and time, or across the boundaries of disciplines or other gardens of knowledge, knowledge seems unable to submit to stillness. The present essay investigates two dimensions of knowledge movement that have come to the fore under conditions of capitalism and glob- alization: the first associated with logistical operations and the sec- ond deriving from translation. The aim is to show the intertwining and interdependence of these different aspects of knowledge move- ment, despite the seeming tension between them in terms of open- ness to political and cultural life, subordination to technological processes and coordination with economic activity. Logistics organizes and produces the heterogeneity of translation / spring / 2014 global space and time. Tuned to the turnover of capital, it mobilizes material and infrastructural implementations to produce communi- cation, transport, and economic efficiencies. With its origins in mil- 129 itary supply, it has, since the 1960s, become a software-driven process that coordinates production and assembly processes across planetary expanses. No longer an exercise in cost reduction, it has become integral to the maximization of profit. Essential to its op- erations is the governance of supply or commodity chains. Logis- tical networks rely on internal standards and protocols to establish interoperability between systems and facilitate the movement of people, goods, and things. Attention to the logistics of knowledge movement thus requires awareness of techniques and technologies that enable sorting, classification, distribution, and storage. Increas- ingly these processes are inseparable from the production of knowl- edge itself, making it unfeasible to consider them post hoc arrangements that pertain merely to the movement of already formed or commodified knowledge. The metaphor of knowledge transfer, which circulates widely in academic and commercial con- texts, registers some of the limits and dilemmas associated with such an approach to knowledge. It signals at once the dream that knowledge might travel efficiently and unaltered between a source and a target and the reality that such movement is always inter- rupted by social and cultural factors. In other words, it shows how the logistics of knowledge movement is always entangled with the politics of translation. Translation is a privileged cultural operation and social practice that produces bridges and barriers between languages, civ- ilizations, and forms of life. It is an iterative operation that facili- tates movement through an active process of mutation in which difference and incommensurability tend to win over standardization and protocols. This is to say it is a vernacular or idiomatic practice that creates social relations within a force field marked by differ- entials of power, culture, and economy. At once sparking connec- tions and active in processes of domination, not least those associated with modern colonialism and global capitalist expansion, translation is an inherently double-sided political concept and prac- tice. It can open channels of communication and understanding be- tween communities and cultures but only at the risk of establishing boundaries in ways that further a politics of rigidified identity. His- translation / spring / 2014 torically this has been one of its major functions. When the practice of translation establishes equivalence between languages or groups of people, it enforces the idea of distinct communities, nations, or 130 civilizations traveling coevally through time. It thus contributes to the creation of dominant geopolitical constructs: the West and the rest, center and periphery, and so on. In the contemporary world, where such an approach to translation remains prevalent, it plays a part in dividing the planet into blocs or regions and producing nor- mative figures of continentalization: the European, the Asian, the African, et cetera. Yet, as several critical scholars (Sakai 1997, Iveković 2010, Mezzadra 2010) have emphasized, translation con- tinues to hold a potential for radical subversion or the unsettling of established identities, boundaries, and the social relation of capital. Here is the dilemma. Translation is seen as the cultural op- eration par excellence, a creative act with the power to rearrange social relations whether in politically liberating or constraining ways. By contrast, logistics is widely understood as a set of tech- nical operations driven by algorithmic processes and subordinated to the imperatives of capital or war. Attempting to shift these es- tablished views is perhaps a futile exercise. The current paper holds these shibboleths in place, even as it questions them by probing the borders between the cultural and the economic, and querying the separability of the creative and the technical. The argument is de- ceptively simple: without logistics no translation, and without trans- lation no logistics. This is an analytical and political claim rather than a logical proposition or dialectical formulation. The intertwin- ing of translation and logistics comes into view with the histori- cization of these practices. Particularly in current conditions of capitalism (where cooperative networks are crucial to systems of production, and value creation depends ever more on distribution and access to knowledge), translation and logistics have developed in ways that make them increasingly indistinguishable. This article explores the terms and limits of this overlap, investigating its im- plications for the global arrangement of space and time as well as the subjective stakes of labor in the production of knowledge. Traveling Theory In an article entitled “Traveling Theory” (1983, 226), Ed- ward Said identifies “a discernible and recurrent pattern to the translation / spring / 2014 movement” of ideas and theories. Although widely read within crit- ical and postcolonial circles, the paper’s delineation of four distinct stages of “travel” reads like a familiar narrative of immigration and 131 acculturation: First, there is a point of origin, or what seems like one, a set of initial circumstances in which the idea came to birth or entered discourse. Second, there is the distance trans- ferred, a passage through the pressure of various contexts as the idea moves from an earlier point to another time and place where it will come into a new prominence. Third, there is a set of conditions—call them conditions of acceptance or, as an inevitable part of acceptance, resistances—which then confronts the transplanted theory or idea, mak- ing possible its introduction or toleration, however alien it may appear to be. Fourth, the now full (or partly) accommodated (or incorporated) idea is to some extent trans- formed by its new uses, its new position in a new time and place. (Said 1983, 226–227) Said’s essay focuses on the geographical movement of ideas and theories, which, although part of knowledge, are not the whole of it. Yet the typology he offers provides a schema by which to assess the evolution of knowledge movements across the past three decades. A distinct absence from his analysis is an account of the material forces and technical factors that compel knowledge to move. Said recognizes a “commerce of theories and ideas” but does not interrogate the economic and material processes that underlie this trade or exchange (226). The movement of knowledge, in this account, seems almost disconnected from economic forces or tech- nical parameters. It is the result of patterns of influence between prominent thinkers. Said’s primary example is the transfer of Lukács’s concept of reification into the works of Lucien Goldmann and from there into the writings of Raymond Williams. Although he examines the conditions of acceptance, pressures, and resistances that surround this transplantation of ideas, he does not explore the material con- duits that make it possible. The movement of knowledge between the works of these figures is attributed to patterns of “indebtedness” and “use” (235, 242). There is little attention to histories of publi- cation, translation, or dissemination—say, in the manner of Franco Moretti’s (1999) rewriting of the history of the European novel. Said mentions that Goldmann was Lukács’s student and that Williams heard Goldmann deliver two lectures in 1970. But in his account, the transfer of knowledge is almost entirely restricted to translation / spring / 2014 philological and hermeneutic concerns. As a result “Traveling The- ory” has little to say about how the movement of knowledge is linked to infrastructural conditions of transport, communication, 132 memory, or economy. Implicit in Said’s argument is the claim that Lukács’s concept loses its revolutionary potential as it travels, a po- sition he revises in a later essay entitled “Traveling Theory Recon- sidered” (1994) by considering Frantz Fanon’s reception of Lukács. In both of these pieces, however, the focus is on matters of concept production, reading, and reception. Transplanted knowledge is sub- jected to pressures of context and interpretation but the exact man- ner in which it moves through space and time remains obscure. This is surprising given Said’s (1978) writings on how ori- entalist knowledge practices have shaped and in turn been shaped by colonial adventures in Asia and the Islamic world. Following from this work, there has been an ongoing concern across a number of disciplines with the material and discursive practices that have led to the emergence (and maintenance) of a distinction between the West and the rest. One result of this is a/the growing attention to how the practice of translation facilitates the circulation of knowledge across geopolitical and social boundaries. As Irrera (2013, 2) explains, the “notion of translation, although rarely men- tioned by Said, is actually at the very heart of the cultural practices of Saidian humanism.” At stake is partly an emphasis on transla- tion’s capacity to create mutual understanding and reciprocity be- tween human groups. In a late article published in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, for instance, Said (2001) argues against a campaign to stop the translation of Arabic books into Hebrew on the grounds that greater availability of Arabic writings in Israel will better enable Israelis to understand Arabs “as a people.” But as a practitioner of comparative literature, a discipline that maps lin- guistic differences over bodies of expression and thought, Said would have been aware of the ambivalent position of translation as both a border-breaking and border-making practice. Although com- mitted to humanist precepts and the opening of world-historical horizons, he remained acutely aware of the politics of cultural im- perialism and the capacity for translation to serve the ends of dom- ination and separate populations into distinct identity groups. The limit of Said’s work for understanding current knowl- edge movements lies less in its muted engagement with translation translation / spring / 2014 than its neglect of what today is called knowledge management— that is, the codification and collection of processes and devices for governing the production, circulation, and utilization of knowledge. 133 “Traveling Theory” was written at a time when the rise of a knowl- edge economy oriented toward services, intellectual property rights, innovation and information technology was just getting underway. Thirty years later, the implication of translation in practices of lo- gistical calculation that pertain to the production and transfer of knowledge has become a crucial part of globalizing capitalism. There is a need to move beyond the paradigm of traveling theory with its cultural and exegetical bias and to probe translation’s role in the production of subjectivity and the making and unmaking of worlds. This means investigating translation’s entanglement with operations of capitalism. The capacity of capital to translate het- erogeneous forms of life into the homogenous language of value is only one aspect of this entanglement. Efforts to make capital’s turnover productive also invest practices of translation, whether they take a linguistic, cultural, or more generally social form. Only by disentangling translation from these efforts can we begin to dis- cern a knowledge politics adequate to the invention of new modes of social cooperation. The Logistics Revolution If Said’s “Traveling Theory” supplies an icon of thinking about knowledge movements and translation without a developed account of relevant logistical arrangements, there is a plethora of approaches that do the opposite. Logistics is a technological and pragmatic field, increasingly driven by computational modes of control and forever pushing deadlines. It is hard to imagine logis- ticians entertaining an interest in the subtleties of translation theory or its implications for issues of economy and politics. Nonetheless the transfer and sharing of knowledge is crucial to logistical processes, particularly when they connect up supply chains in which efficiencies can be established through the implementation of standards or other mechanisms of internal governance. Accord- ing to Ballou (1992, 5), the “mission of logistics is to get the right goods or services to the right place at the right time, and in the de- sired (right) condition, while making the greatest contribution to the firm.” This definition, with its identification of the firm as the translation / spring / 2014 exemplary logistical subject, registers the commercial imperatives that drive contemporary logistical practices. Yet this was not always the case. Until the mid twentieth century, logistics was primarily a 134 military practice associated with the supply of food and arms to fighting forces. This is not the occasion to explore the history of military logistics and its implications for the relation of war to politics (Neil- son 2012). Suffice it to say that logistics was considered one of the three arts of war alongside strategy and tactics. Prominent nine- teenth-century military thinkers such as Carl von Clausewitz (2007) attributed a lesser role to logistics insofar as it was understood as a preparatory exercise that established the conditions for these more warlike arts. As technological innovations such as the introduction of railways and the use of fossil fuels changed military campaigns, logistics became a central part of modern warfare. Meanwhile, with the spread of the industrial revolution, practices of transport and spatial economics drew mounting interest in the civilian sphere. In seminal publications such The Theory of the Trace (1900), the Ger- man civil engineer Wilhelm Launhardt built on the mathematical formulations of Pierre de Fermat to derive efficiency criteria for commercial transport networks with regard to topography. This work was replicated and extended by Alfred Weber, the younger brother of Max, in his Theory of the Location of Industries (1929). Weber’s book closed with a mathematical appendix, written with Georg Pick, which offered a formula purporting to derive the opti- mal location for an industrial plant based on variables such as the cost of transport, the agglomeration of industrial facilities and the cost of labor across different sites. These are among the earliest precedents for a mathematical approach to logistics. It is not until the 1960s, however, that the introduction of a systems analysis ap- proach to transport and distribution management began to remake geographies of production and circulation at the global scale, giving rise to the distinct economic sector of logistics. Scholars who study the evolution of the field call this the logistics revolution (Allen 1997). Changes in this period and its af- termath include the spatial reorganization of the firm, the perform- ance monitoring of labor, the interlinking of logistics science with computing and software design, the introduction of the shipping container, the formation of business organizations and academic translation / spring / 2014 programs for the production and dissemination of logistical knowl- edge, the building of global supply chains, and the search for cheap labor rates in poorer areas of the world. Logistics moved from being 135 an effort of cost minimization to become an integrated part of global production systems and a means of maximizing profit. The myth that production stopped at the factory gates, challenged in feminist theory and politics, was shattered in the mainstream world with the evolution of more efficient transport and communication systems. The assembly of goods across different global locations, with objects and knowledge constantly moving between them, served to blur the processes of production and distribution. Logis- tics also made the organization of global space more complicated and differentiated. Geographical entities such as special economic zones and logistics hubs sprang up to attract investment and organ- ize the business of global production. Increasingly, logistics also came to play a role in service economies and production processes not involving the manufacture of material goods. From financial operations to television production, translation services to the for- mation of global care chains, the logistical organization of work and mobility became central to the expansion of capitalist markets and logic. The technological and representational systems that en- abled this shift have seen vast changes since the 1960s. The evolu- tion of supply chain management and just-in-time production would have been impossible without the controlled feedback of lo- gistical data into production and distribution systems. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) software platforms aided efforts to digitally record, communicate, and analyze every aspect of production, transport, display, and sales. This resulted in more expansive and articulated logistical sys- tems that sought to continuously map out the position and trajectory of objects in motion. The real-time integration of these systems pro- vided an unprecedented ability to rationalize labor at every point along the chain, intensifying the pace and squeezing workers for greater productivity. But the desire to match ideals of lean produc- tion to agile and adaptable logistical processes proved elusive. The reduction of costs, elimination of waste, and optimization of flow could only be pushed so far without jeopardizing the robustness and flexibility of production systems. Issues of supply chain re- translation / spring / 2014 silience sparked efforts to minimize contingency by simulating the decisions of actors on both supply and demand sides of the equa- tion. Today complex techniques of scenario planning, sometimes 136 involving the use of software adapted from financial market appli- cations, are deployed to smooth out discrepancies and interruptions. The challenge of achieving interoperability between systems and building “fault tolerance” into them has underscored the difficulties that underlie programs of standardization. Nonetheless, the internal governance of supply chains continues to demand protocols of hi- erarchy, codifiability, capability, and coordination (Gereffi, Hum- phrey, and Sturgeon 2005). To some extent, the problem of interoperability can be con- ceived as one of translation. The attempt to coordinate discrepant systems, smooth out glitches, and exchange data via common for- mats means working across gaps and connections to relationally produce, arrange, and conceptualize information. Often this in- volves the creation of standards to which different systems must conform to enable the transfer of information between them. In such instances, translation is flattened out and directed toward a single and tightly controlled set of protocols. But such standards are hard to create, technically and in terms of the time, labor, and resources that must be invested in them. They also tend to prolifer- ate, leading to a situation where standards conflict with other stan- dards. Even in cases where technical interoperability has been established, social and cultural factors tend to interfere, making the task of translation tricky and unstable. This is not an observation made only by social and cultural thinkers such as the anthropologist Anna Tsing (2005), who writes about the “friction” that inhabits the global supply chains of contemporary capitalism. Engineers also recognize the cultural and social barriers to interoperability, writing of the need to establish “cultural interoperability” and of the imperative to establish “supply chain integration” by facilitating “the exchange of knowledge across dissimilar cultures and in dif- ferent native languages” (Whitman and Panetto 2006, 235-36). It is in this sense that logistics must reckon with the politics of trans- lation. The question is whether such a politics provides resources for smoothing out the operations of capital or whether it supplies methods for organizing against current practices of exploitation and dispossession. translation / spring / 2014 137 In the Translation Machine The proximity of the social practice of translation to the worlds of the technologist, engineer, and logistician is evident not only in discourses about “cultural interoperability” and supply chain integration. It is also present in processes of translation them- selves, which are increasingly powered by algorithmic technologies and codes. Any attempt to reckon with the politics of translation must confront the rising prevalence of machine translation, which submits the social practice of translation to logistical protocols and software routines that purport to accomplish direct transfers be- tween languages. Think of the interface of online translation plat- forms such as Babelfish or Google Translate. Two text boxes of the same size face each other. One can write (or more usually cut and paste) into the first, choose the language into which the text is to be translated, and click the button. The program has the capacity to detect the input language. Such a technique of translation pow- erfully reinforces what Sakai (1997) calls the schema of cofigura- tion. The copresence and equal size of the text boxes suggests a parallel between languages that are conceived as separate prior to and independently of the act of translation. Rhetoric and context fall away. The screen divides source from target, incomprehensible from comprehensible. As the user’s eyes are drawn from left to right, she is sealed as member of one language community as op- posed to another. As much as this is a machine for translation, it is also a machine for the production of what Jon Solomon (2013) calls the “speciation of the human”—the division of the genus human into distinct and fixed blocs of identity and culture. From philology to imperialism, comparative literature to algorithms, the movement is seamless and seemingly instantaneous. Yet there is a glitch. As anyone who has used these plat- forms knows, the results are patchy. Machine translation offers an antidote to dreams of a pure or universal language, such as that of- fered by Walter Benjamin (1968, 80) when he describes the trans- lator’s task as releasing “in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another.” Benjamin’s impulse is theolog- ical, but the dream of machine translation has equally been driven translation / spring / 2014 by a vision of universal language, albeit one that is much more in- strumental. The cyberneticist Warren Weaver (1955), a pioneer in the field, writes: “When I look at an article in Russian, I say: ‘This 138 is written in English, but it has been coded in some strange sym- bols. I will now proceed to decode’” (18). He also described the need to “descend, from each language, down to the common base of all human communication—the real but as yet undiscovered uni- versal language—and then re-emerge by whatever route is conven- ient” (23). Such an approach, which treats language as code, has proved a dead end in machine translation (see Kay 2003, Neilson 2010). Today rule-based methods have all but been replaced with corpus-based approaches, which deploy statistical techniques and huge libraries of translated texts to move between languages. The results are sketchy and often only partly legible. It as if culture has taken its revenge against logistics. But what is the politics of all this? Benjamin’s vision of a universal language may have been undermined by machine translation techniques but his writing sup- plies us with at least one powerful image to describe the fate of contemporary translation. In the first of his “Theses on the Philos- ophy of History” (1968, 253), he writes of an “automaton” that can play a winning game of chess. The contraption, which makes it ap- pear as if the game is being played by a “puppet in Turkish attire,” actually conceals an “expert chess player” who guides “the puppet’s hand by means of strings.” Benjamin uses this image to argue for the role of theology in supporting and driving historical material- ism. Today, when the theological drive toward a universal language has been displaced by machine translation, this image of the me- chanical Turk has a much more cynical connection to the business of translation. In 2005, Amazon opened its platform Mechanical Turk (https://www.mturk.com/mturk/), a web-based service that of- fers users the possibility to bid to perform paid work by completing various tasks that cannot be fulfilled by artificial intelligence. As the FAQ for the site explains, “[t]oday, we build complex software applications based on the things computers do well, such as storing and retrieving large amounts of information or rapidly performing calculations. However, humans still significantly outperform the most powerful computers at completing such simple tasks as iden- translation / spring / 2014 tifying objects in photographs—something children can do even before they learn to speak.” Not surprisingly, this model of micro- contracting, pioneered by Mechanical Turk, has also found its ap- 139 plication in the translation world, particularly via sites such as http://ProZ.com, which allow translators to submit quotes to per- form translation jobs, often cleaning up the results of machine translations. The site claims to serve “the world’s largest commu- nity of translators” and to be the “number one source of new client’s for translators.” In this way, the glitches in machine translation rou- tines have become occasions for the crowd sourcing of labor in the most precarious and flexible of circumstances. In his article “The Freelance Translation Machine,” Scott Kushner (2013, 2) explores how online translation platforms such as ProZ.com negotiate “the encounter between the computational and the human in the service of capital.” He is interested in how “algorithmic power” harnesses “human thought, precisely because it does not conform to machine logic.” The task of the translator, in the context of sites like this, is to “complete the algorithm” in a way that obscures the act of translation or makes it appear auto- mated, despite the fact that the translator exists in a social world (4). Kushner explains that ProZ features social networking tools that allow clients to rate the work of translators. The 300,000 free- lance translators who work on the platform pay for membership, bid for jobs, accumulate a record of ratings and have the opportu- nity to display credentials and qualifications on the site. Vendors are granted easy access to a global workforce by filling out a sub- mission form that specifies language pairs, number of words, and deadlines. This has allowed ProZ to emerge “as a temporary stand- in for the ultimate translation dream: friction-free machine transla- tion” (12). Platforms like ProZ reinforce what Sakai (1997) calls ho- molingual address, posing as if it is possible to translate seamlessly between languages that are conceived as always already separate entities. At stake is “the idea of the unity of language,” which makes it possible “to systematically organize knowledge about languages in a modern, scientific manner” (Sakai 2009, 73). In observing that “such an idea is essential for any standardized, automated, algo- rithmic approach to translation,” Kushner (2013) draws an inter- esting parallel. ProZ, he comments, is interested not in the contents translation / spring / 2014 of translation but rather in the protocols that allow it to occur in as frictionless a manner as possible. To this extent, translation be- comes a logistical proposition: “ProZ.com is no more interested in 140 a translation project’s contents than a barge captain is in the con- tents of the shipping containers piled upon his deck.” Furthermore, the “smooth functioning of the translation industry under global- ization demands conceptual containers (‘unified languages’) just as transoceanic transport requires uniform containers.” With this parallel between container shipping and the workings of online translation platforms, Kushner suggests a strong relation between the protocols and algorithms of the global logistics industries and the protocols and algorithms that facilitate the “do loops” of con- temporary freelance translation practice. He is fully aware, how- ever, that platforms like ProZ require humans to tease out “the finer points of language and its social wrappings” and recognizes that these “social wrappings are the stuff of Sakai’s (1997) ‘heterolin- gual address.’” He thus understands the freelance translation ma- chine to develop “an interface connecting (and simultaneously separating) the homolingual and the heterolingual, the machine and the human” (Kushner 2013, 13). But what are the politics of this implied association of the homolingual with the machine and the heterolingual with the human? Is the politics of heterolingual ad- dress something more or less than an attempt to salvage humanitas from logistical operations? On Seamlessness Writing with Sandro Mezzadra, I have posed the question of the politics of translation as one of the rubbing up of concepts against material circumstances. Taking our cue from a comment by Gramsci on a speech delivered by Lenin in 1922, Sandro and I seek to derive a political concept of translation that reaches beyond the linguistic and cultural dynamics usually implied by the term. In particular, we are interested in how the question of translation be- comes constitutive for political organization in a globalized world—an aspect of translation that is strongly evident in political struggles concerning migration and border crossing. We also seek to understand “the role of translation in the operations of capital” to provide a “framework for analysing the conditions under which translation can become a tool for the invention of a common lan- translation / spring / 2014 guage for contesting capital” (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013a, 276). Capital is a social relation that reduces all differences to a homo- geneous measure of value, and, to this extent, it functions like a 141 regime of homolingual translation. The heterogeneity of labor— which means its fragmentation beyond the figure of the waged in- dustrial worker—offers a counterpoint to this homogeneity but also poses the problem of organization across different borders and so- cial, cultural, and economic boundaries. The challenge of translat- ing between disparate and divergent struggles is one of the most pressing political tasks of the day. Logistical supply chains provide a privileged point of in- tervention for this challenge. This is because they organize and con- nect labor forces in the name of capital. The aim of supply chain management is to make the operations of such chains as efficient as possible. Software optimization is a crucial part of these efforts, which must continually balance the leanness of the chain, or its ability to eliminate redundancies and function in a responsive just- in-time manner, against its agility, or capacity to route around dis- turbances such as resource shortages or labor strikes. As Tsing (2009) writes, supply chains focus “our attention on questions of diversity within structures of power” (149). They link up dissimilar firms, distant locations, and distinct labor forces, showing “that di- versity forms a part of the structure of capitalism rather than an inessential appendage” (150). Logisticians dream of creating a seamless world, where borders and differences become not barriers to be overcome but parameters within which to establish efficien- cies. In practice, however, they know that designs and programs encounter obstacles and frictions of all kinds and even contribute to their creation, from traffic bottlenecks to unruly workforces. The analytical temptation is to associate such disturbance with the human element in logistical transactions. Society and culture be- come interruptive forces that disrupt the efficiency of capital’s lo- gistical operations, playing havoc with relations of interoperability and value creation. Earlier I outlined how the question of interoperability re- lates to that of translation, but it is important also to register the link between translation and the production of value. In the Grun- drisse, Marx famously draws a parallel between translation and the role of money in facilitating circulation and making possible the translation / spring / 2014 universal exchange of commodities. He writes about “ideas which first have to be translated out of their mother tongue into a foreign language in order to circulate, in order to become exchangeable” 142 (1973, 163). This is a familiar metaphor but it is worth considering how this logic of exchange relates to the question of capital’s turnover, or the process of circulation by which it turns through commodity production to resume its original monetary form. It is this process of turnover that logistics seeks to optimize or render more profitable. The dream of seamless production is strongly linked to that of smooth and efficient circulation. Indeed, in con- temporary global production networks, where objects and knowl- edge move constantly between distant sites, these processes become ever more indistinguishable. It thus seems to make sense to equate or draw a parallel between the homogenizing logic of capital’s ex- change and the creation of logistical standards and protocols that facilitate its turnover. The concept of homolingual translation pro- vides a powerful tool for understanding both of these movements. There is limited analytical grip, however, in equating ho- molingual translation with a mechanical action that is upset by the unpredictability of the human. The example of translation platforms like ProZ, already discussed above, shows how the social context of translation can contribute precisely to the appearance of a seam- less movement between supposedly distinct and comparable lan- guages. Perhaps here the Deleuzian notion of the machine, which describes a complex assemblage that crosses the human and the technical, is more applicable than that of the mechanism, which designates a technical apparatus. In any case, the social dynamics of translation and logistical operations appear inextricably linked. This link becomes evident in the historical context of contemporary capitalism, in which the production and transfer of knowledge is a privileged domain of value creation. I do not wish to suggest that logistics provides the primary or the only ambit of contemporary capital’s operations. As I have argued with Sandro Mezzadra (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013b), it is crucial to approach the logistical dimension of global capitalism in the context of its financial and extractive operations, which inter- sect the logistical domain in complex ways. This article points to a privileged link between the dynamics of translation and those of logistics. Doubtless it would be possible to make a similar argument translation / spring / 2014 about the workings of finance or extraction. But the case of logistics is interesting in this regard because it is a practice that enables and drives the material forms of global mobility that have made trans- 143 lation a pressing social and cultural issue. To insist on a relation between translation and subjectivity in the context of logistics is to raise the question of the labor of translation. It is to highlight the unrest, energy, and movement that are constitutive of translation as well as the bodily and cognitive relations that make it possible. It is also to emphasize the susceptibility of such labor to processes of abstraction and measure which are enmeshed in capital, state, and law. The tension between such abstraction and what Marx calls labor’s “form-giving fire” (1973, 361) not only crosses bodies and minds but also shapes the heterogeneity of global space and time. Piecing apart these tensions and uncovering their political poten- tialities requires an analytical attention to the intersection of trans- lation and logistics. translation / spring / 2014 144 References Allen, W. B. 1997. “The Logistics Revolution and Transportation.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 553: 106–116. Ballou, R. H. 2007. “The Evolution and Future of Logistics and Supply Chain Man- agement.” European Business Review 19 (4): 332–348. Benjamin, W. 1968. “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” Illuminations, edited by H. Arendt, 253–264. New York: Schocken Books. Gereffi, G., J. Humphrey, and T. Sturgeon. 2005. “The Governance of Global Value Chains.” Review of International Political Economy 12 (1): 78–104. Ierrera, O. 2013. “Edward Said’s Humanism.” Transeuropéennes. http://www.transeu- ropeennes.eu/en/articles/voir_pdf/94. Iveković, R. 2010. “The Watershed of Modernity: Translation and the Epistemological Revolution.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 11 (1): 45–63. Kay, M. 2003. “The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Machine Translation.” Readings in Machine Translation, edited by S. Nirenburg, H. Somers, and Y. Wilks, 221–232. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kushner, S. 2013. “The Freelance Translation Machine: Algorithmic Culture and the Invisible Industry.” New Media & Society 0 (0): 1–13. Published online be- fore print. Launhardt, W. 1900. The Theory of the Trace: Being a Discussion of the Principles of Location. Madras: Lawrence Asylum Press. Marx, Karl. 1973. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mezzadra, S. 2010. “Living in Transition: Toward a Heterolingual Theory of the Mul- titude.” The Politics of Culture: Around the Work of Naoki Sakai, edited by R. F. Calichman and J. N. Kim, 121–137. Abingdon: Routledge. Mezzadra, S., and B. Neilson. 2013a. Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press. ———. 2013b. “Extraction, Logistics, Finance: Global Crisis and the Politics of Op- erations.” Radical Philosophy 178: 8–18. Moretti, F. 1999. Atlas of the European Novel, 1800–1900. London: Verso. Neilson, B. 2010. “Opening Translation.” Transeuropéennes. http://www.transeu- ropeennes.eu/en/articles/voir_pdf/107. ———. 2012. “Five Theses on Understanding Logistics as Power.” Distinktion: Scan- dinavian Journal of Social Theory 13 (3): 323–340. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. ———. “Traveling Theory.” In The World, The Text, and the Critic, 226–247. Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1994. “Traveling Theory Reconsidered.” In Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, 436–452. London: Granta Books. translation / spring / 2014 ———. 2001. “Defiance, Dignity and the Rule of Dogma.” Al-Ahram Weekly. May 17–23. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/534/op1.htm. Sakai, N. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 145 ———. 2009. “How Do We Count a Language? Translation and Discontinuity.” Translation Studies 2 (1): 71–88. Solomon, J. 2013. “Another European Crisis?! Myth, Translation, and the Apparatus of Area.” Transversal. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/solomon/en. Tsing, A. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2009. “Supply Chains and the Human Condition.” Rethinking Marxism 21 (2): 148–176. von Clausewitz, Carl. 2007. On War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weaver, W. 1955. “Translation.” Machine Translation of Languages: Fourteen Essays, edited by W. N. Locke and A. D. Booth, 15–23. Cambridge: MIT Press. Weber, A. 1929. Theory of the Location of Industries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Whitman, L. E. and H. Panetto. 2006. “The Missing Link: Culture and Language Bar- riers to Interoperability.” IFAC Annual Reviews in Control 30 (2): 233–241. Brett Neilson is Professor and Research Director at the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Western Sydney. With Sandro Mezzadra he is author of Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (Duke University Press, 2013). He is currently collaborating with Ned Rossiter in coordinating a large transnational research project translation / spring / 2014 entitled Logistical Worlds: Infrastructure, Software, Labour (http://logisticalworlds.org). 146

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The Eventfulness of Translation: Temporality, Difference, and Competing Universals Lydia H. Liu ........................ Columbia University, USA [email protected] Abstract: The article seeks to develop a new angel for translation studies by re- thinking its relationship to the political. It begins with the question “Can the eventfulness of translation itself be thought?” Since neither the familiar model of communication (translatable and untranslatable) nor the biblical model of the Tower of Babel (the promise or withdrawal of meaning) can help us work out a suitable answer to that question, the author proposes an alternative method that incorporates the notions of temporality, difference, and competing universals in the reframing of translation. This method requires close attention to the multiple temporalities of translation in concrete analyses of translingual practices, or what the author calls “differentially distributed discursive practices across languages.” The author’s textual analysis focuses on a few pivotal moments of translation in global history—chosen for their world transforming influences or actual and potential global impact—to demonstrate what is meant by the “event- fulness of translation.” These include, for example, the nineteenth-century Chi- nese translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law or Wanguo gongfa, the post-World War II multilingual fashioning of the Universal Declara- tion of Human Rights with a focus on P. C. Chang’s unique contribution, and the Afro-Asian writers’ translation project during the Cold War. ______________ Imagine a poem fluttering down from the sky and somehow falling into your hands like snowflakes. You might think that this scenario comes from a surrealist movie, but I am referring to neither surrealist fantasy nor a writer’s delirium. It is related to one of the scandals of translation in modern history. The scandal gripped my attention when I first learned that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States had prepared a Russian translation of T. S. Eliot’s poem Four Quartets and airdropped it onto the territory of translation / spring / 2014 the Soviet Union in the Cold War (see Stonor Saunders 2001, 248). This minor escapade quickly passed into oblivion, but the CIA’s and IRD’s (Information Research Department of the British spy 147 agency) worldwide promotion of post-War modernist art and liter- ature appears singularly effective in hindsight—so effective, in fact, that Frances Stonor Saunders, who researched the CIA archives, came to the conclusion that the West won the Cold War mainly by conquering the world of arts and letters with weapons of the mind rather than with the arms race or economic sanctions that allegedly brought down the Socialist bloc. Critics need not accept Saunders’s conclusion to heed a few curious consequences of the cultural Cold War. One of them is that the majority of CIA-backed artists and writers—and there is a long list of them—have made their way into the modernist literary and artistic canon of the West and have systematically been translated as “world literature” around the globe where, for instance, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm are read and taught in more lan- guages than Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, even though the latter, in the opinion of a literary critic like myself, is a superior writer. And as we turn to twentieth-century poets, T. S. Eliot is perhaps taught in more languages of the world than are Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, Nâzım Hikmet, and Bei Dao combined. It seems that the bets the CIA placed on Eliot, Orwell, abstract expressionists, and other writers or artists they fa- vored—airborne or subterranean—paid off handsomely. Critics sometimes attribute their success to the sophisticated taste and fore- sight of CIA and IRD covert operators and their collaborators. There may be some truth to this, but taste or aesthetic judgment can be mystifying. It cannot explain, for example, the remarkable co- incidence whereby many of the writers blacklisted by Senator Mc- Carthy and disfavored by the CIA on non-artistic grounds during the Cold War have simultaneously been marginalized in contem- porary literary studies or dropped out of the canon altogether after World War II (see, for example, Goldstein 2001, and, on blacklist- ing in the UK, Hollingsworth and Norton-Taylor 1988). Why is it, then, that aesthetic judgment takes a backseat when it comes to ex- cluding certain writers but would play a decisive role when it comes to including other writers in the literary canon? This begs the fur- ther question of where politics stands in regard to literature, an old translation / spring / 2014 or perhaps not so old a question. Is the making of the literary canon fundamentally political? Or is it merely a case of politics interfering with literature? What role, if any, does global politics play in the 148 struggle over literary productions and their chances of survival in the modern world?1 Can such politics throw fresh light on some of the blind spots in the field of translation studies? These questions have prompted my study of translation as a political problem in this article as well as in my earlier work. The more I learn about the cultural politics of the Cold War, the less I feel inclined to treat global politics as outside interferences. Rather than closing off the boundaries of literature and politics and ren- dering them external to each other, I propose that, first, we examine the dynamic interplay of forces and circumstances that precipitate the act of translation as an act of inclusion and exclusion. Such forces and circumstances are not so much external to translation as prior to any translator’s determination of texts to be chosen and translated while excluding other works. To anticipate my argument, the study of these processes can help illuminate the meaning of the political better than citing the intentions of writers and translators, or their idiosyncratic tastes. Secondly, there is a formidable obstacle to overcome if we decide to undertake this line of investigation in translation studies. The obstacle, which often stands in the way of our understanding of the political, is the familiar mental image of translation as a process of verbal transfer or communication, linguistic reciprocity or equivalences, or an issue of commensurability or incommensu- rability. It is almost as if the promise of meaning or its withdrawal among languages were the only possible thing—blessing or catas- trophe—that could happen to the act of translation.2 I have critiqued these logocentric assumptions in translation studies elsewhere (Liu 1995, 1–42; Liu 1999, 13–41) and will not reiterate my position here. To do so would take us through another round of critiques of linguistics, philology, theology, the philosophy of language, and cultural anthropology which would take us too far afield. I should .......................... 1 Most scholars of literature who are familiar with Pierre Bourdieu’s work would probably concur that canon formation cannot but be political. I find Bourdieu’s notion of the lit- erary field useful in a national setting but limited for thinking across national borders, especially when it comes to international politics in cultural life. See Bourdieu 1993. translation / spring / 2014 2 Although more sophisticated than that of other theorists, Walter Benjamin’s concep- tion of translation in “The Task of the Translator” ultimately endorses this manner of reasoning. In his notion of Pure Language, translation holds out a promise of meaning in messianic time, if not in secular temporality. See my critique, in Liu 1995, 14-16. 149 mention briefly, though, that when I proposed the idea of translin- gual practices twenty years ago, I was grappling with epistemolog- ical issues about how we study translation and deal with conceptual pitfalls in philological methods (see Liu 1995). One question I came very close to asking but did not ask in the mid-1990s was “Can the eventfulness of translation itself be thought?” This question, as it now appears to me, may lead to a more promising approach to the study of translation than either the communication model or the biblical model.3 And in the context of my essay in this special issue on translation and politics, such a question allows me to develop a new critical method for discerning and analyzing the political in regard to translation. I have long felt that a new method and a new conceptual framework are necessary because the problem of translation trou- bles not only the study of language, literature, philosophy, and cul- tural anthropology but also cuts across other disciplines and fields. In molecular biology, for example, the idea of translation is ubiq- uitous and appears in the guise of a metaphor—unquestioned and under-theorized—that is used to conceptualize the biochemical processes of DNA and RNA. The mobility of this metaphor in the hands of scientists and social scientists has greatly outpaced our ability to think clearly about the idea, much less come up with a method to analyze its discursive behavior across the disciplines. In short, translation is no more just a linguistic matter than can lin- guistic differences be reduced to cultural differences. I believe we have reached the point where the eventfulness of translation itself must be interrogated.4 In the first section, below, I introduce my methodological reflections and try to develop some ideas about the multiple tem- poralities of translation in what I call differentially distributed dis- cursive practices across languages. This analysis leads to a discussion of universalism and cultural difference in the second sec- .......................... 3 The story of the Tower of Babel has hitherto dominated our framing of translation as a theoretical problem. I am doubtful that an endless rehashing or deconstruction of this biblical story will get us any closer to a better understanding of translation. For earlier translation / spring / 2014 critiques of the biblical story, see George Steiner 1978; Paul de Man 1986, 73–105; and Derrida 1985, 165–208. 4 In recent decades, new approaches have been developed here and there to open up the field beyond established translation studies. See, for example, Naoki Sakai 1997 and Liu 1995. 150 tion, which focuses on the multilingual making of one of the best- known documents of the post-War period: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (hereafter, UDHR) of the United Nations. Here I examine P. C. Chang’s contribution as Vice-Chair on the Drafting Committee of the UDHR document—along with Chair Eleanor Roosevelt and other members—and analyze his philosophical con- testation of parochial universalism at the UN in 1947–1948. I turn next to a remarkable vision of competing universalisms with a focus on Afro-Asian Writers, Conferences and their translation projects in the 1950s. The third section shows how some of these projects were organized and pursued in response to the post-War geopolitics of that time. I conclude with some final reflections on translation, and literary diplomacy and internationalism in the Cold War. 1. In light of my initial question—“Can the eventfulness of translation be thought?”—I would say yes, but not until we begin rethinking the relationship amongst text, interpretation, and event. If all acts of translation—and by extension, all textual work—take place within specific registers of temporality and spatiality, do all translated texts qualify as events? The answer hinges on how the idea of “event” is defined or philosophically worked out, but such is not the task of the present essay (I assume that the reader is fa- miliar with Alain Badiou’s rigorous philosophical work on the sub- ject—see, especially, Badiou 2005 and 2009). Instead of indulging in exercises of pure thought or compulsive definitions which belong elsewhere, I choose to focus on the multiplicity of differentially distributed discursive fields as the site—spatiality and mobility— of any translated text and explore their temporalities as instances of events. For no event that is worthy of the name—as naming is always part of the process—could possibly exist outside of the dis- cursive practices that organize it and make it emerge as such, much less the event of translation which always presupposes the multi- plicity of discursive fields across different languages. The first step toward a fruitful understanding of the eventfulness of translation, therefore, is to develop a conceptual framework to analyze the in- terplay of temporality and discursive practices across languages. translation / spring / 2014 Before we contemplate the possibility of such a framework, we must address a potential objection: What is to be achieved with the proposed study of the eventfulness of translation? Why not be 151 content with our good old philological methods? Is it not sufficient to analyze, say, a word for word rendering of a poem from English to Russian, or the case of a mismatched verb in translated text? I would not rule out the value of this kind of philological work so long as it does not limit our understanding of how a work of trans- lation is brought into being in the first place and why a writer is deemed worthy of translation into foreign languages more than other writers. As a matter of fact, T. S. Eliot found himself com- pelled to address these issues when he accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stock- holm in 1948, Eliot states: If this were simply the recognition of merit, or of the fact that an author’s reputation has passed the boundaries of his own country and his own language, we could say that hardly any one of us at any time is, more than others, worthy of being so distinguished. But I find in the Nobel Award something more and something different from such recognition. It seems to me more the election of an individual, chosen from time to time from one nation or another, and selected by something like an act of grace, to fill a peculiar role and to become a peculiar symbol. A ceremony takes place, by which a man is suddenly endowed with some function which he did not fill before. So the ques- tion is not whether he was worthy to be so singled out, but whether he can perform the function which you have assigned to him: the function of serving as a representative, so far as any man can be of thing of far greater importance than the value of what he himself has written. (Eliot 1948) Eliot’s disavowal of his unique accomplishment as a poet could have been motivated by real modesty but it inadvertently touches on the truth of what it means to “fill a peculiar role and to become a peculiar symbol” or to “perform a function” and serve “as a representative.” And of what is he a representative? When the poem Four Quartets leapt over the spatial, linguistic, and ideolog- ical divide of the Cold War to fall from the sky—let’s hope not di- rectly into rivers— the Russian translation was probably taken by covert operators to represent good poetry from the Free World as opposed to the dogma of socialist realism. In that case, the poet could do very little about the idiosyncratic decisions of those oper- ators who instrumentalized his work under the circumstances. It is interesting that Eliot is keenly aware of his own pas- translation / spring / 2014 sivity when it comes to being selected, being endowed, being sin- gled out, being assigned by others, and so on. To emphasize his passive role is not to extricate him from the complicity with the CIA 152 but to point out that, in spite of himself, Eliot’s name and poetry do indeed float around like a symbol, perhaps more mobile and air- borne than other symbols, but nevertheless a symbol, which is often beyond his control but which he must live up to. Furthermore, the symbol called T. S. Eliot is assigned to function in a multiplicity of languages and discursive fields that inevitably mark a literary work for translation and international distribution. This preferential mark- ing, I emphasize, holds the potential of turning a symbol into an event, or an event into a symbol, back and forth. In this sense, the question as to which translated or trans- latable text qualifies as an event, or even a global event, depends very much on the ways in which we analyze the temporality and spatiality of its discursive mobility, hence its historicity. To bring the eventfulness of translation into critical view, one must stop thinking about translation as a volitional act of matching words or building equivalences of meanings between languages; rather we should start by taking it as a precarious wager that enables the dis- cursive mobility of a text or a symbol, for better or for worse. The wager releases the multiplicity of the text and opens it up to an un- certain future, more often than not to an uncertain political future. The confluence of forces that enable the discursive mobility of a text or those forces that can mobilize the energy of translators or cause a poem to be airdropped from the sky should give us the first clue regarding the political in translation. This is something I have learned from my previous study of the first Chinese translation of international law—Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law (1836)—by the American missionary W. A. P. Martin and his Chinese collaborators in 1863- 1864. In The Clash of Empires, I analyzed the military and political conflicts of the Second Opium War to understand who determined the selection of Wheaton’s text and how its translation Wangguo gongfa (literally, “Public law of ten thousand countries”) was brought to fruition in 1863–1864 (see Liu 2006, Chapter Four). Re- flecting on the temporalities of this translation and its dissemination, I was immediately struck by its peculiar eventfulness and realized that this translated text was by no means a singular event—I saw at translation / spring / 2014 least a triple event at the moment of its creation. What do I mean, though, by the triple event of the Wangguo gongfa? The first and immediate event was the creation of the Chi- 153 nese text itself, a textual event that required a great deal of negotia- tion and compromise among the Chinese translators and the Amer- ican missionary. Words and their meanings were made up, suspended, substituted, or banished in the course of translation. Next came the diplomatic event. As a matter of fact, the textual and diplo- matic events became inextricably entangled before there was even a translated text. For example, the act of preferential marking in regard to which text of international law ought to be selected and which ex- cluded from translation mirrored the diplomatic conflicts among the imperial powers in China. The timely interventions made by the American ministers William B. Reed and Anson Burlingame and by Sir Robert Hart—the second British Inspector-General of the Impe- rial Maritime Custom Service of the Qing—all played into the hands of Prince Gong and his Foreign Office Zongli yamen in Beijing, who agreed to sponsor the translation project. Even more interesting is the third aspect of this happening, which I have called the epistemo- logical event, because the historical unfolding of the Wangguo gongfa was predicated on a certain view of the global that was yet to come. That process requires a somewhat different temporality— spanning the late Qing through the Republican era up to our own time—before the geopolitical consciousness could emerge among the Chinese elite. I attribute the rise of so-called global (and belatedly national) consciousness in East Asia to this triple event. In this sense, the multiple temporalities of the Wangguo gongfa as one of many translations of Elements of International Law vastly complicate our understanding of translation and its historicity. These temporalities were thoroughly embedded in the precarious wager I suggested ear- lier. Through the discursive mobility of the Wangguo gongfa, the wager in the realm of international politics unleashed the linguistic multiplicity of Wheaton’s text from English to Chinese, then from Chinese to Japanese, and so on to open it up to an uncertain political future. That future, in hindsight, converged in the Japanese annexa- tion of Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and other colonial enterprises, all worked out in the legal terms of the Wangguo gongfa or Bankoku kōhō (Japanese pronunciation for the kanji characters). But what about cultural differences? Are cultural differ- translation / spring / 2014 ences not more central to the work of translation than the problem of temporality and spatiality? Do these differences matter? My an- swer is yes, they do matter, but no more and no less than the uni- 154 versalist aspirations that inspire any acts of translation or episte- mological crossings through languages in the first place. As I ar- gued elsewhere (Liu 1999, Introduction), universalism thrives on difference; it does not negate difference so much as absorb it into its familiar orbit of antithesis and dialectic. The situated articulation of cultural difference has been embedded in the universalizing processes of past and present all along, which determine what counts as difference and why it should matter. Such processes can indeed tell us a great deal about how cultural differences are dif- ferentially distributed through the eventfulness of translation and how these differences undergo discursive markings—inclusion, ex- clusion, comparison, dispersion, cutting, abstraction, et cetera— before they appear as such from the vantage point of the universal. Indeed, it is the struggle over the universal where the political as- serts itself persistently with respect to cultural differences. And as we turn our attention to the twentieth century, what could be more universal than the claims of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? In the next section, I discuss the drafting of this important document at the United Nations in 1947–1948 to illustrate how the dialectic of universalism and cultural differences is played out in translations where the struggle over words and concepts across lan- guages becomes the very site of international politics. 2. The UN Commission on Human Rights began its discus- sion informally in the spring of 1947. John P. Humphrey (1905– 1995), the first Director of the UN Secretariat’s Division on Human Rights, recalls that the Chairman of the Human Rights Commis- sion, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, undertook the task of formulating a preliminary draft international bill of human rights, working with elected Vice-Chairman Peng-chun Chang (1892–1957) and the Rapporteur Charles Habib Malik (1906–1987) with the assistance of the Secretariat. On Sunday February 17, 1947, Mrs. Roosevelt invited Chang, Malik and Humphrey to meet in her Washington Square apartment for tea and discuss the preparation of the first draft of the UDHR by the Secretariat. Humphrey records a snippet of their conversation below: translation / spring / 2014 There was a good deal of talk, but we were getting nowhere. Then, after still another cup of tea, Chang suggested that I put my other duties aside for six months and study Chinese philosophy, after which I might be able to prepare a text for the Committee. 155 This was his way of saying that Western influences might be too great, and he was look- ing at Malik as he spoke. He had already, in the Commission, urged the importance of historical perspective. There was some more discussion mainly of a philosophical char- acter, Mrs. Roosevelt saying little and continuing to pour tea. (Humphrey 1984, 29) This seems to be the uncertain first moment of what would become decades of conversations and intellectual debates that even- tually gave birth to the International Bill of Human Rights in three landmark documents in the history of mankind: the UDHR (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966). Malik was a Lebanese Christian and Thomist philosopher. He had studied philosophy in Europe before World War II working briefly with Heidegger before arriving in the United States to com- plete his doctoral degree in philosophy at Harvard University. Malik was a man of strong convictions, and his Christian person- alism was the main source of his universalism, even though his life- long passion was anticommunism.5 By contrast, Chang was a secular humanist, musician, and a man of letters. Educated in China and the United States, he was thoroughly bilingual and bicultural.6 Chang and Malik had different upbringings and were steeped in very different intellectual traditions, but they both were scholar– diplomats and hailed from the non-Western world. At the UN, they were joined by other non-Western members of the eighteen-mem- ber Commission on Human Rights, including Filipino diplomat Carlos Romulo, Indian feminist educator Hansa Mehta, and Latin American delegates who made important contributions to the con- ceptualization of the International Bill of Human Rights (see Glen- don 2002, and Morsink 1999, 2245-2248). .......................... 5 Malik was Edward Said’s uncle by way of his marriage to Said’s mother’s first cousin. Said’s reminiscences show some mixed feelings about Malik’s politics and personality. See Edward Said 2000. translation / spring / 2014 6 P. C. Chang (or Zhang Pengchun, in the pinyin Romanization system) was born on April 22, 1892, in Tianjin. He was the younger brother of P. L. Chang (Zhang Boling), who was the founder of Nankai University and one of the most preeminent educators in the Re- public of China. Both brothers studied at Columbia University. For Chang’s life, see Cui Guoliang and Cui Hong 2004, 615–710. 156 Upon his election as Vice-Chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission, Chang resolved to refashion the idea of “human rights” into a universal principle—more universal than ever before—and he envisioned the ground of that universalism somewhere between classical Chinese thought and the European Enlightenment. Records of the drafting processes involving the Declaration suggest that Chang was impatient with cultural rela- tivism and engaged in a relentless negotiation of competing uni- versals between Chinese and European philosophical traditions. His method was that of a translingual reworking of ideas across these traditions—a constant back and forth—to open up the uni- versal ground for human rights. And he did so by crossing the con- ceptual threshold of linguistic differences in the face of an old conundrum of incommensurability: Does the idea of the “human” in English mean the same thing in a language that does not share its linguistic roots or philosophical traditions? On the one hand, Chang takes a pragmatic approach to the question of cultural dif- ference and incommensurability in order to bring about consensus among member states on the Human Rights Commission and on the other hand—philosophically more interesting for us—he makes a wager of commensurability through a mode of intellectual per- suasion and translation that required an unwavering commitment to his vision of universalism. The numerous interventions Chang made in the drafting of the UDHR illustrate this commitment very well. Take Article 1, for example. The language of this article reads: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” This statement is deceptively straightfor- ward; in actuality, the finalized words are the outcome of one of the most contentious debates on the Third Committee concerning God and religion. In what is known as the Geneva draft, which was produced by the Second Session of the Commission on Human Rights in the Geneva meetings on December 2–December 17, 1947, the draft article states: “All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed by nature with reason and translation / spring / 2014 conscience and should act towards one another like brothers” (ital- ics mine; see Glendon 2002, 289). The words “by nature” in the Geneva draft were introduced by the Filipino delegate as a deistic 157 reference to natural law.7 While the Lebanese philosopher Malik wanted to substitute the words “by their Creator” for “by nature,” other delegates tried to introduce similar references to God in the UDHR (see Glendon 2002, 89). Johannes Morsink’s study shows that when the Third Committee began its meeting in the fall of 1948, two amendments were proposed to insert overt references to God in Article 1. The Brazilian delegation proposed to start the sec- ond sentence of Article 1 thus: “Created in the image and likeness of God, they are endowed with reason and conscience.” The Dutch delegation came up with a similar assertion of religious faith: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, based on man’s divine origin and immortal destiny, is the foundation of free- dom, justice and peace in the world.” These amendments led to in- tense debates. In the end, neither of the amendments was voted on, although the Third Committee did vote to remove “by nature” from Article 1 (the proposal was approved 26 to 4, with 9 abstentions— see Morsink 1999, 287). Mary Ann Glendon has noted (2002, 146) that on that oc- casion it was Chang who carried the majority by reminding every- one that the Declaration was designed to be universally applicable. His intervention and reasoning were essential to the decision of the Third Committee to remove the phrase “by nature” from the Geneva draft. Chang’s argument was that the Chinese “population had ideals and traditions different from that of the Christian West. Yet [...] the Chinese representative would refrain from proposing that mention of them should be made in the declaration. He hoped that his colleagues would show equal consideration and withdraw some of the amendments to article 1which raised metaphysical problems. For Western civilization, too, the time for religious in- tolerance was over.” The first line of Article 1, he suggested, should refer neither to nature nor to God. But those who believed in God could still find the idea of God in the strong assertions that all human beings are born free and equal and endowed with reason .......................... translation / spring / 2014 7 The same theological reference also framed the language of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and the American Declaration of Independence (1776), as well as nu- merous other documents on the rights of men which were promulgated before World War II and served as templates for the UDHR. 158 and conscience, but others should be allowed to interpret the lan- guage differently. (See Third Committee, Ninety-sixth meeting on October 7, 1948, 98 and Third Committee, Ninety-eighth Meeting on October 9, 1948, 114) Obviously, Mrs. Roosevelt was per- suaded by his argument, for she adopted the same language when she had to explain to her American audience why the Declaration contained no reference to the Creator (Glendon 2002, 147). Chang urged the Third Committee not to indulge in meta- physical arguments and succeeded in sparing the Committee from having to vote on theological questions. Rather than debating on human nature again, he asked the Committee to build on the work of eighteenth-century European philosophers and ancient Chinese philosophy. From this, Morsink (1999, 287) speculates that the motivation behind Chang’s support for the deletion of “by nature” was that some delegates understood the phrase as underscoring a materialistic rather than a spiritual or even humanistic conception of human nature. I am inclined to think that Chang’s argument is remarkably consistent with what he had termed the “aspiration for a new humanism” (Twiss 2009, 110). His new humanism goes so far as to attempt to overcome the conceptual opposition be- tween the religious and the secular and that between spiritualism and materialism. That vision emerged early on in one of the most interesting interventions Chang made to the Cassin draft of the UDHR. The Cassin draft was based on the first draft of the Declaration written by Humphrey the Secretariat. Article 1 of the Cassin draft was very different from what it has since become. It states: “All men, being members of one family, are free, possess equal dignity and rights, and shall regard each other as brothers” (consult “The ‘Cassin Draft,’” in Glendon 2002, 276). In June 1947, when the French del- egate René Cassin presented this draft to the Drafting Committee, the group revised the language of Article 1 to read: “All men are brothers. Being endowed with reason and members of one family, they are free and equal in dignity and rights.” In the course of dis- cussion, Chang found the implied concept of human nature limited and biased, so he proposed that Article 1 should include another translation / spring / 2014 concept as an essential human attribute next to “reason.” He came up with a literal translation of the Confucian concept he had in mind, namely ren 仁 which he rendered as “two-man-mindedness” 159 (Glendon 2002, 67).8 Drawing implicitly on classical Chinese sources, Chang glossed this written character as a composite of the radical for “human” 人 and the written character for number “two” 二 . Interpreting ren as “two-man-mindedness” through his epi- graphic analysis of the discrete parts of the written character, Chang sought to transform the concept of “human” for human rights by regrounding that idea in the originary plurality of humanity rather than in the concept of the individual. Yes, no equivalents of this classical Confucian concept ex- isted in English or French to help Chang explicate the meaning of this important concept which can be traced back through the mil- lennia-long philosophical tradition in China. That tradition, in my view, has produced an overly abundant discourse on the concept of “human,” its ethical being, and so on, but had almost nothing to say about “rights” until the second half of the nineteenth century.9 Chang, straddling both traditions, found himself in a strange, pre- carious situation of having to use words like “sympathy” and “con- sciousness of his fellow men” to convey what he had in mind (see Commission on Human Rights 20 June 1947). That effort misfired, and it certainly fell flat on Cassin, Mrs. Roosevelt, and all other members of the drafting committee who promptly accepted Chang’s proposal but agreed to let the word “conscience” translate the idea of ren. That word was added to the word “reason” to make the sec- ond line of Article 1 read: “They are endowed with reason and con- science…” With great insight, Glendon writes that “that unhappy word choice not only obscured Chang’s meaning, but gave ‘con- science’ a far from obvious sense, quite different from its normal usage in phrases such as ‘freedom of conscience’” (Glendon 2002, 67–68). Not surprisingly, the metropolitan languages were not about to surrender themselves to the Confucian term to produce a novel concept in English or French, thus missing an extraordinary oppor- tunity to reimagine what it means to be “human” in other terms.10 .......................... 8 Chang’s epigraphic reading derived from the Shuowen jiezi (100 CE), the first dictionary of Chinese written characters compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Xu Shen. translation / spring / 2014 9 The language of “rights” and “human rights,” like “sovereignty,” was first introduced to China via the 1864 translation of Wheaton’s Elements of International Law discussed above. 10 I used the word “surrender” in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s sense. In “The Politics 160 Perhaps all is not lost in translation. Anyone who has had the opportunity to peruse the Chinese version of UDHR prepared by the United Nations will be surprised to learn that the Confucian concept has somehow worked its way back into the document through the delegation of another term, liangxin (see http://www. un.org/zh/documents/udhr/). The word liangxin is made up of two written characters 良心 , the character liang for “innate goodness” and the character xin for the “mind/heart.” This translation openly takes the place of “conscience” and interprets the English word back into Chang’s classical term ren, which articulates a more fun- damental sense of what makes a human being moral than the idea of “conscience.”11 The concept liangxin is closely associated with that of ren in Confucian moral philosophy, denoting the empathetic endowment of the human psyche toward another human being prior to the formation of individual conscience. In the Chinese version of the UDHR, Chang’s original explication of ren as “two-men- mindedness”—though lost to the English and French texts—is re- found through an associated concept.12 I have covered only one of numerous textual examples to be gleaned in the multilingual making of that historic document. In fact, a good number of languages besides Mandarin and classical Chinese contributed to the making of the UDHR, and these lan- guages opened the document to the radical multiplicity and translin- gual plurality of the philosophies and cultures of the world, first in its moment of genesis and then in subsequent translations. If we but lend an ear to the plurality of voices and substitutions across numerous multilingual editions of this document, we are bound to encounter other temporalities and universals that are waiting to be rediscovered and mobilized for the benefit of future politics. The fact that Chang’s pluralist vision of the universal “human” fails to register in the texts of hegemonic metropolitan languages and .......................... of Translation,” she argues that the translator must “surrender to the [original] text.” See Spivak 1993, 179–200. 11 The notion liangxin was elaborated by ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius (ca. 372– ca. 289 BCE) to explicate Confucius’s concept ren and was subsequently developed translation / spring / 2014 by Song dynasty philosophers for the Neo-Confucian theory of moral personhood. 12 The official languages at the UN were initially English and French, while Russian, Chi- nese, and a couple of other languages were soon added to the list of official languages, rendering the linguistic landscape extremely variegated. 161 philosophical traditions suggests that it will take more than indi- vidual scholar–diplomats, no matter how resourceful they are, to overcome the tremendous odds of East–West or South–North dis- parity in the arbitration of moral discourse. Within less than a decade after the UN adopted the UDHR, however, self-determina- tion or national independence movements swept across the globe and, suddenly, another extraordinary opportunity emerged where- upon the peoples of Asia and Africa began to stage their competing universals worldwide. Following the 1955 Bandung Conference, a number of worldwide events played a critical role in this episode of Afro-Asian solidarity to which we now turn. 3. I first developed an interest in Afro-Asian Writers, Confer- ences while researching the origins of the literary journal Shijie wenxue [World Literature] that began publication in the People’s Re- public of China in 1959.13 As I was going through the past issues of Chinese translations of poets and writers from around the world, the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe’s name caught my attention im- mediately. His novel Things Fall Apart (1958) was printed in the February issue of 1963 (select chapters) and was read in Chinese translation long before this novel became known to the mainstream readership of the West, and certainly long before Achebe’s works were relegated to so-called Anglophone literature. I was struck by the fact that Achebe had been recognized first as a distinguished Afro-Asian writer in China, Egypt, India, the Soviet Union, and other countries before he became a postcolonial Anglophone (African) writer, as he is currently known and taught in the English depart- ments of American academia and elsewhere. And there is a world of difference between these two modes of recognition. To my mind, that difference lies mainly in the forgotten history of post-Bandung Afro-Asian writers’ interactions and solidarity in 1958–1970. I should emphasize that a great deal of its politics lies in the work of translation and its organization in the name of world literature. The first of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences—an off- shoot of the newly formed Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organi- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 13 The journal was originally called Yiwen [Translations] when it was founded in 1953 and changed its name to Shijie wenxue in 1959 after the first Afro-Asian Writers’ Con- ference in Tashkent in 1958. 162 zation which had been inspired by the Bandung Conference and met in Cairo on December 26, 195714—took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in Soviet Central Asia in October 1958. Asian and African delegates and Western observers flew in from all directions and landed in the new airport of Tashkent. Reporting on the arrival of these airborne poets and novelists, one journalist observed: “[W]e had come to meet the writers of Asia and Africa, gathering for the first time. A new airport; a smiling reception committee; a drive along avenues of acacia and poplar hung with coloured lamps and banners lettered in Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi” (Parker 1959, 107–111).15 The conference was attended by leading writers of thirty-six countries, including renowned Turkish poet Nâzım Hik- met, Yashpal, Mulk Raj Anand and Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay of India, Ananta Toer Pramoedya of Indonesia, Burma’s U Kyaw Lin Hyun, Cambodia’s Ly Theam Teng, Vietnam’s Pham Huy Thong, African American writer W. E. B. Du Bois, and Mao Dun and Zhou Yang who led a delegation of twenty-one members from China. Interestingly, W. E. B. Du Bois and his wife Shirley were invited to Tashkent as the honored guests of the first Afro-Asian conference in October 1958. Long deemed a dangerous radical in the eyes of the US government, Du Bois drew the only standing ovation to an individual from the Asian and African authors at the conference. In an informal discussion of African unification prob- lems with writers from Nigeria, Madagascar, Ghana, Somaliland, Senegal, and Angola, Du Bois told them that “a socialist Africa was inevitable” (Horne 1985, 321). Such was the optimism of the Tashkent conference. Still, the Third World delegates represented a broad spec- trum of literary and political persuasions. They came together not to debate about their national or political priorities but to discuss an agenda that concerned them all. First, what role would the de- velopment of literatures and cultures in different Asian and African countries play in the progress of mankind, for national independ- .......................... 14 On the history of the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization and China’s role in it, see Neuhauser 1968. translation / spring / 2014 15 For the day-to-day events, see the diaries of Guo Xiaochuan, who served on the preparatory committee of the Tashkent conference in Guo Xiaochuan in 2000. See also Sh ichi Kat ’s (1999) reminiscence of his representation of Japan on the same prepara- tory committee. 163 ence against colonialism, for peace and freedom throughout the world? Many writers commented on how colonialism has destroyed traditional cultural ties between Asia and Africa. Efua Theodora Sutherland, representing the Ghana Society of Writers, saw that oc- casion as “a step towards the reunification of the disrupted soul of mankind,” further remarking that It is up to us to seek practical ways and means of strengthening our cultural links. There is a need to channel to our continent some of your best literary contributions. We need to know the works of Asian and African writers, to be in touch with the wider horizon which those works represent, and which have hitherto been unavailable in our country. (quoted in Parker 1959, 109) Her enthusiasm was shared by all and it was decided that a Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers would be set up for the purpose of maintaining future interaction and activities and that its headquarters would be located in Sri Lanka, then still known as Ceylon (these were moved to Cairo a few years later). Unlike the scholar–diplomat P. C. Chang, who staged a lone battle at the UN to recast the moral concept of “human” on the basis of plurality (ren, “two-human-mindedness”) before granting uni- versal validity to the concept of human rights, the Asian and African writers pursued a much more ambitious course of action. They mounted a full range of activities, forming international alliances, setting up transnational institutions, and creating journals to educate themselves and educate each other through translations, conversa- tion, and so on. In the following decades, for example, the Bureau coordinated numerous meetings, translations, and publications. There were, no doubt, attempts made by the Soviet Union and China to set the political agenda, either for the purpose of pushing the world revolution or undermining each other when the relation- ship between the Kremlin and Beijing deteriorated. But, just as in the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization over the years, these attempts often met with resistance from the United Arab Re- public (Egypt), India, and other Third World countries (on this his- tory, see Shinn and Eisenman 2012, 60–61, and Larkin 1971). Clearly, no one wanted a USSR-front organization. Egypt and India translation / spring / 2014 played a central role in the Permanent Bureau. After the second Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in Cairo, the Bureau started a quar- terly called Lotus in Arabic, English and French and launched a 164 prize for African and Asian literature—named the Lotus Prize—to honor distinguished poets and writers from Asia and Africa. Nov- elists and poets honored by this prize include Chinua Achebe from Nigeria, Ousmane Sembène from Senegal, Ngugu wa Thiong’o from Kenya, Malek Haddad from Algeria, and Mahmoud Darwish from Palestine. It is often forgotten that that these Afro-Asian writ- ers—now thoroughly canonized as Anglophone or postcolonial writers in English Departments across North America and else- where after the Cold War—first emerged within a global socialist intellectual network where their recognition by the West as “post- colonial” writers was neither necessary nor important. Instead, the Afro-Asian writers were striving toward a new humanism—a uni- versalism about life and liberty—that was pitted against colonial violence. This was unequivocally expressed by Mulk Raj Anand who led the Indian delegation to the second Afro-Asian Writers’ confer- ence in 1962. In his speech, Anand elaborated the new humanism as follows: Our literatures and arts are thus the weapons of a new concept of man—that the sup- pressed, the disinherited and the insulted of Asia and Africa can rise to live, in broth- erhood with other men, but in the enjoyment of freedom and equality and justice, as more truly human beings, individuals, entering from object history, into the great history when there will be no war, but when love will rule the world, enabling man to bring the whole of nature under self-conscious control for the uses of happiness, as against despair. (Arora 2007, 17–18) Interestingly, Garcia Lorca’s poem “Ode to Walt Whitman” was evoked to express the sentiment of the socially engaged writers from Asia and Africa: I want the strong air of the most profound night to remove flowers and words from the arch where you sleep, and a black child to announce to the gold-craving whites the arrival of the reign of the ear of corn.16 Anand states that the mission of the writer is to translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 16 Here I have substituted a translation of this poem by Stephen Spender and J. L. Gili, in Lorca and Allen 1995, 135. 165 act as the conscience of the people aware of their pain. To have a creative vision of all that affords joy in life, to release the vital rhythms in the personality, to make man more human, to seek apperceptions of freedom from all forms of slavery and to give this freedom to other people throughout the world—in fact to awaken men to the love of liberty, which brings life and more life. (Arora 2007, 18) This call for freedom was not empty rhetoric but was echoed by writers from the socialist bloc as well as from the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa. To those who had person- ally experienced slavery and racial and economic exploitation under colonialism, liberty had a specific meaning: it meant decol- onization, national liberation, and world peace in the spirit of the Bandung Conference. The Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in Tashkent made a tremendous impact on China. Almost immediately, the journal Yiwen (Translations), which used to predominantly feature Soviet and Western authors, began to shift focus and publish works by Iran- ian, Iraqi, Egyptian, and Mozambique writers. In January 1959, the journal was renamed Shijie wenxue [World literature] and began to devote its bimonthly issues to systematic translations of Afro-Asian writers, African American writers, and, later, Latin American writ- ers. By 1962, more than 380 titles from over thirty Asian and African countries had been printed in its pages. Irene Eber’s survey indicates that by 1964 and 1965, Afro-Asian and Latin American writers began to outnumber Western authors. The October 1964 issue was specifically dedicated to black literature, which included African writers as well as African American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Margaret Walker (on this, see Eber 1994, 34–54). Following the Tashkent conference, the Chinese Writers Union extended invitations to their Afro-Asian friends and, over the years, many of them visited China more than once. The great Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer made his second trip to China after the Tashkent conference. His interactions with Ding Ling, Mao Dun, Guo Moruo, Zhou Yang, and other Chinese writers were frequent and helped transform his ideas about what a writer’s responsibility was toward society. Hong Liu’s study suggests that translation / spring / 2014 Pramoedya’s contact with the Chinese delegation and the Chinese embassy goes back to as early as the 1955 Bandung Conference. After that, Pramoedya began to follow the works of Chinese writers 166 and came to admire the social prestige enjoyed by socialist writers in the PRC, “where literature is considered to be one of the political and economic forces” and where writers were paid generously for their publications, in stark contrast with conditions in Indonesia (see Liu 1996, 124). Pramoedya regarded Mao Dun and Lu Xun as the foremost writers of modern China, and he not only translated some portions of Lu Xun’s short story collection Diary of a Madman but also pub- lished his translation of one of Ding Ling’s long articles, “Life and Creative Writing.”17 Perhaps more than anyone else in Indonesia, Pramoedya took the socialist credo of “living with peasants and workers” to heart and fervently believed that writers should go into social life and live with the people. He himself “went down” to the countryside of the Banten area to investigate the lives of peasants and miners. Conclusion I began my discussion by trying to raise some new ques- tions about translation and its relationship to the political. My ap- proach has been to work through the ideas of event, temporality, difference, and competing universals as a conceptual alternative to the familiar model of linguistic communication or the theological model with which we are all familiar in translation studies. The al- ternative method I have developed involves analyzing the multiple temporalities of translation in differentially distributed discursive practices across languages. To bring such a method to bear on con- crete analyses of the eventfulness of translation, I have taken the reader through the nineteenth-century translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law in Chinese, the post- World War II multilingual fashioning of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a focus on P. C. Chang’s contribution as well as the Afro-Asian writers’ collective translation projects during the Cold War. .......................... translation / spring / 2014 17 See “Duer Fanwen Ji” (An interview with Toer), Hsin Pao (Jakarta), November 17, 1956; cited in Liu 1996, 125. It is unclear if Pramoedya’s translation of Lu Xun’s short story collection (Catatan Harian Orang Gila) was published, although his translation of Ding Ling’s “Hidup dan Penulisan Kreatif” did appear in the journal Indonesia 7,3 (March 1956): 102-110. 167 Just as I was about to bring my reflections to a close, one of Benedict Anderson’s observations about Pramoedya came back to haunt me. Anderson has been familiar with Pramoedya’s work and communicated with this Indonesian writer on numerous occa- sions. One afternoon, as I was reading Anderson’s discussion of Pramoedya in Language and Power, I was struck by this statement: “More broadly, Pramoedya gave me an inkling of how one might fruitfully link the shapes of literature with the political imagination” (Anderson 1990, 10). What could Anderson have meant by “the political imagination”? This question has led me to speculate whether Anderson’s personal correspondence with Pramoedya had touched upon the Afro-Asian Conference in Tashkent, where Pramoedya had been the leader of the Indonesian delegation. I wonder further if Ander- son became aware of Pramoedya’s extensive interactions with Mao Dun and Ding Ling and of his published translation of the Chinese writers. It is interesting that Anderson has translated Pramoedya for the English-speaking audience just as the latter had translated Ding Ling or Lu Xun for his Indonesian audience. These unexpected crossings of translations suggest that the future itself might be the ultimate preserve of multiple temporalities. I am hopeful that the legacies of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences— their political imagination, their encouragement to think differently about the fu- ture of universalism, their ambitious translation projects along with their reinvention of world literature—will live on through the tem- poralities of potential translations yet to come. translation / spring / 2014 168 References Anderson, Benedict R. O’g. 1990. Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Arora, Neena. 2007. The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors Pty. Ltd. Badiou, Alain. 2005. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. New York: Con- tinuum. Badiou, Alain. 2009. Logics of Worlds: Being and Event. Volume 2. Translated by Al- berto Toscano. New York: Continuum. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. Edited by Randal Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press. Commission on Human Rights, Drafting Committee, First Session, Summary Record Of the Eighth Meeting at Lake Success, New York, on Tuesday, June 17, 1947 at 2:30 p.m. E/CN.4/AC.1/SR.8. Cui Guoliang and Cui Hong, eds. 2003. Zhang Pengchun lun jiaoyu yu xiju yishu [P. C. Chang on education and theatrical arts]. Tianjin: Nankai daxue chuban- she. de Man, Paul. 1986. “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin’s ‘Task of the Translator.’” In Resistance to Theory. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1985. “Les Tours de Babel.” In Difference in Translation, translated and edited by Graham F. Joseph. London: Cornwell University Press. Eber, Irene. 1994. “Western Literature In Chinese Translation, 1949–1979.” Asian and African Studies 3 (1): 34–54. Eliot, T. S. 1948. Banquet Speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laure- ates/1948/eliot-speech.html. Accessed September 21, 2013. Glendon, Mary Ann. 2002. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House. Goldstein, Robert Justin. 2001. Political Repression in Modern America: FROM 1870 TO 1976. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Guo Xiaochuan. 2000. Guo Xiaochuan quanji [Complete works of Guo Xiaochuan]. Volume 9. Guilin: Guangqi shifan daxue chubanshe. Hollingsworth, Mark, and Richard Norton-Taylor. 1988. Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting. London: The Hogarth Press Ltd. Horne, Gerald. 1985. Black and Red: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Re- sponse to the Cold War, 1944–1963. Albany: State University of New York Press. Humphrey, John P. 1984. Human Rights and the United Nations: A Great Adventure. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational. Katō, Shūichi. 1999. A Sheep’s Song: A Writer’s Reminiscences of Japan and the World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. translation / spring / 2014 Larkin, Bruce D. 1971. China and Africa: 1949–1970: The Foreign Policy of the Peo- ple’s Republic of China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Liu, Hong. 1996. “Pramoedya Ananta Toer and China: The Transformation of a Cul- tural Intellectual.” Indonesia 61 (April): 124. 169 Liu, Lydia H. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Trans- lated Modernity, China 1900–1936. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2006. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Mak- ing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Liu, Lydia H., ed. 1999. Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Durham: Duke University Press. Lorca, Francisco Garcia, and Donald Allen, eds. 1995. The Selected Poems of Fed- erico Garcia Lorca. New York: New Directions. Morsink, Johannes. 1999. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Neuhauser, Charles. 1968. Third World Politics: China and the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization 1957–1967. Harvard East Asian Monographs. Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Parker, Ralph. 1959. “The Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference.” Meanjin Quarterly, 18 (April): 107–111. Said, Edward. 2000. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Vintage Books. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press. Shinn, David H., and Joshua Eisenman. 2012. China and Africa: A Century of En- gagement. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1993. Outside the Teaching Machine. London: Rout- ledge. Steiner, George. 1978. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stonor Saunders, Frances. 2001. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: New Press. Third Social and Humanitarian Committee of the UN General Assembly. 1948. “Draft International Declaration of Human Rights (E/800) (continued).” Ninety- sixth meeting, October 7, 1948, 98; Ninety-Eighth Meeting, October 9, 1948, 114; Ninety-Eighth Meeting, October 9, 1948, 114. Summary records, Official Records of the Fifth Session of the General Assembly. Lake Success, N.Y. Twiss, Sumner B. 2009. “Confucian contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Historical and Philosophical perspective.” In The World’s Religions After September 11: Volume 2 Religion and Human Rights, edited by Arvind Sharma, 153–173 Westport, CT, and London: Praeger. Lydia H. Liu is a theorist of media and translation living in New York. She is Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and has published on literary theory, translation, digital media, Chinese feminism, and empire in English and Chinese. Her English works include The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Un- translation / spring / 2014 conscious (2010), The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Mak- ing (2004) and, more recently, a coedited translation with Rebecca Karl and Dorothy Ko called The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (2013). 170

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The Postimperial Etiquette and the Affective Structure of Areas Jon Solomon ............................. University of Lyon, France [email protected] Abstract: This essay examines the role of translation in building the affective structure of postcolonial/postimperial areas, identifying ressentiment, erudition and disavowal, and homolingual address as the three main aspects to be studied. The postimperial etiquette is an agreement concerning the recognition of “le- gitimate” subjects and objects formed in the crucible of the apparatus of area in- herited from the imperial–colonial modernity. This agreement functions as an ideology for contemporary cognitive capitalism. The essay ends by suggesting strategies for transforming the postimperial etiquette and proposes that energy be redirected away from both resubstantialized objects and anthropocentric sub- jects towards social relations that are both the point of departure for and the final determination of intellectual work. ______________ Translation as a “Bridging Technology” with Ideological Functions There is a series of terms beginning with translation that needs to be mapped out and connected, end-to-end. This is the se- ries that runs through translation–culture–nation–race/species and can be rehearsed as follows: Translation is what enables people from different cultures to bridge the gaps that separate them, yet in the age of nation–states, culture has been appropriated by the prac- tices and discourse of national identity. As for the modern nation itself, none of its claims to natural, organic status can hide its birth in colonial theories of race and species (which I shall denote by the term “anthropological difference”). Though translation therefore bears some intrinsic historical connection to anthropological dif- ference, how are we to understand it today? The culture–nation–race/species nexus takes us directly to translation / spring / 2014 the heart of historical capitalism. If we follow Elsa Dorlin as she charts the birth of the French nation in colonial theories and prac- tices of anthropological difference, then we will agree that these 171 theories arose principally as a historical response to the new and accelerated practices of human migration growing out of mercan- tilism and colonial conquest (Dorlin 2009, 211). Dorlin’s analysis, which is too interested in bringing our attention to the sadly over- looked connection between gender and race to make room for a full consideration of capitalism, draws my attention for one further rea- son whose importance to this essay will become greater as we pro- ceed: the role of the body. The transition from royal to popular sovereignty was accomplished, according to Dorlin, by substituting the body of the nation, composed of supposedly natural traits (what would later be called “national character”), for the royal individual. The need for these nationalized traits to be “natural” unleashes an essential imbrication between race and gender that forms the core of Dorlin’s important account, leading her to conclude that “[t]he question of the nation constantly refers back to its corporeality” (Dorlin 2009, 208). My interest in citing this passage will be to show how translation operates today as a somatic technology, teth- ering bodies to the apparatus of area that hides the matrix of an- thropological difference by naturalizing the nation–state. Following the new and growing visibility of the “constant crisis” that is the state at the end of the twentieth century, a broad spectrum of theorists, activists, and artists have been interested in exploring the potential of a nonrepresentational politics. My interest in nonrepresentational politics is limited exclusively to its potential ramifications for disrupting the schema of anthropological differ- ence that forms the backbone of our common, global modernity. This article assumes that representational politics, that is, the poli- tics of identity, is invariably tied to the state. The state is the point of reference that makes it possible to imagine complete congruence between taxonomies of anthropological difference, social organi- zation, and divisions of knowledge without which identity politics would be meaningless. Hence, a nonrepresentational politics is by nature insurrectional, which means that it must fight against the “agents and agencies active in the invention of the ideological prac- tices of everyday life in support of the reproduction of state power” (Kapferer 2010, 5). In relation to translation I would argue, in other translation / spring / 2014 words, that it must be considered in light of the reproduction of stateness (which is a way of producing and managing “anthropo- logical difference” for the sake of capital accumulation), and that 172 it (translation) plays a crucial role in the management of the tran- sition to a new type of world order based on the “corporate–state.” While an analysis of the world order imposed among and by corporate–states is beyond the purview of this essay, it will be helpful to offer a quick review of the period prior to this time, the period of a world order constructed around the nation–state. If we follow Antony Anghie’s work on the colonial origins of the modern world system based upon state sovereignty, we are struck by his assertion that international law instantiates or “postulates” a “gap” within the global human population and then, having naturalized this gap, proceeds to enumerate for itself the task of developing all manner of techniques to bridge the gap (Anghie 2004, 37). Of course, you will immediately see the irony of a technique that is it- self responsible for the problem that it is supposed to solve. (Per- haps Anghie has found the most economical definition of humanism around.) The reason that irony has remained largely hid- den, we may conclude after reading Anghie, is to be found, with regard to the discipline or field of international law, in the ideology of cultural difference. As long as the “gap” of cultural difference was assumed, as the field of international law asserted, to preexist the practices of colonial encounter (just as the practices and insti- tution of modern state sovereignty supposedly developed in Europe were assumed to preexist colonialism), the only viable question left for the development of that field of practice concerned the appro- priate types of political and social technologies to bridge that gap. Now, this is exactly the role that translation has been called upon to play in the modern era of nation–states. Operating at a quotidian level, with a reach equal to or perhaps greater than law, translation has been a crucial technique for the establishment and consolidation of areas—that quintessential apparatus of modernity that correlates via a system of geo-mapping subjective formation to hierarchical taxonomies of knowledge and social organization. I say it is a quintessentially modern apparatus precisely be- cause of its importance to the fundamental project of modernity. According to modernity’s self-definition, the “modernity-project” should be defined through the principles of liberty, equality, and translation / spring / 2014 reason, but I think that we are now ready to admit that there is an- other side to the project of modernity, the succinct definition of which would be: a belief that technological progress and aesthetics 173 can be joined together in a single effort to develop the perfect race/species. Modernity is thus a project in species–being the work of which is manifested or located exactly in the body. This body should ideally be understood as the physical manifestation of an area, which is neither climate (Hippocrates) nor temperature (Aris- totle), but is rather an instrument of endogenous genotechnology (Dorlin 2009, 209). This “area” is hardly a unitary phenomenon, but rather a series of nodal points relayed in constantly shifting as- semblages among bodies, tongues, and minds. These assemblages are then grouped into populations. Hence, the project of perfecting the species through a concrete population of bodies grouped into areas invariably has to posit a split within the human species. This split, which was also present in Kant’s contradictory definition of “humanity” as both a universal quality shared by all members of a species and an ideal that was nevertheless unequally realized by different members or populations, has been a core component of the “modernity-project” throughout its history. I see a precursor of this Kantian strategy in Anghie’s description of Vitoria’s charac- terization of native peoples, who share universal reason but are bur- dened by a “personality” (which will later be called, once again, “national character”) that causes them to deviate from the universal norm. I do not wish to dwell on this history, but merely call atten- tion to the need to provide a critical counterhistory that will provide an account of the political and governmental technologies invented and mobilized, as translation has been, “to bridge the gap,” when they were in fact participating in the consolidation and prolongation of the entire anthropological edifice of the colonial/imperial moder- nity (a racism vaster than any phenomenon known by that name today, for it includes virtually all other manner of social difference). It is my hypothesis that we do not see (or at least have not seen up to now) the ideological effects of these technologies precisely be- cause we are (or at least have so far been) so deeply invested in the apparatus of area. These technologies, such as translation and in- ternational law, hide the essential strangeness of the areas into which the globe has been divided, as a means of population man- agement for the benefit of capital accumulation, through the history translation / spring / 2014 of colonial/imperial modernity. Ostensibly resembling the latter-day inheritors of premod- ern empires, kingdoms, feudalities, et cetera, these areas (typified 174 by the nation–state) could best be understood as an enormous ap- paratus of capture designed to subsume the productive capacity of society into the needs of capital. Within the organizational structure of the nation–state, the work of perfecting the race/species is always an aesthetic question as much as a technological one. Hence, we might refer to the anthropological work of modernity as perfiction- ing (a neologism that combines the two words “perfection” and “fiction”) inasmuch as it invariably involves a typology of fanta- sized images concentrated around, or projected upon, the link be- tween bodies and nations. As capitalism transitions to a new historical form, the role of the area–apparatus is undergoing a concomitant change. Today’s areas are designed not so much to capture as to “pool” populations within. As capitalism moves from its industrial phase to a cognitive phase, the “pooling” of population takes on its greatest significance within the emerging bioeconomy of semiocapitalism and the cor- porate surveillance state. The call-word of this configuration is “life is code, primed for transaction.” 1 Although the contemporary con- figuration draws its symbolic resources from the cultural imaginary of the imperial–colonial modernity, its greatest ideological use is to cover up the total subsumption of population into the bioinfor- matic economy. No longer a source of surplus value simply through its role as labor, population is becoming a source of value through its role as an inexhaustibly mutable source of bioinformatic code. Population is, other words, pooled not just as labor—that is, pro- ducers—nor even just as consumers, but also for its role as source- code. The reason why the corporate-state “needs” to put just about everybody under surveillance ultimately amounts to the potential of all source-code to be “pirated.” Translation today continues to play the role of ideology, preventing us from seeing how the “bridging technologies” are in fact prolonging the agony of the domination under which we live, labor, and perish. In the hope of providing elements for a critique of this ideology, I attempt in this essay to describe the affective structure of area, typified today by what I call the postimperial eti- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 1 My thanks to Julian Elam for this phrase, which he developed in our seminar “The Ap- paratus of Anthropological Difference and the Subjective Technologies of Speciation,” held at Université Jean Moulin (spring, 2013). 175 quette. I propose that one part of the insurrection-to-come against the postimperial etiquette of the corporate surveillance state will emerge out of the subjectivity of the translator–subaltern. Translation and Subjectivity Naoki Sakai has been telling us for a long time that trans- lation is a social practice (Sakai 1997). In it, the essential indeter- minacy, hybridity, and openness of social relations is evident. Yet, Sakai also tells us, the dominant form of sociality established through the regime of translation in the modern era deliberately ef- faces such originary hybridity. The technical term that is used by Sakai to denote this form of sociality is the “schema of cofigura- tion,” which is premised upon the representational practices of the “homolingual address.” The identities created out of cofiguration are posterior to the translational encounter and mutually codepen- dent, yet claim to be anterior and autonomous. This is the form of sociality that is essentially codified in the homogenizing machine of the nation–state, which would always like to present itself as an organic, historical entity when it is in fact an apparatus of posterior superimposition. The reason Sakai uses the term figuration is be- cause the figure stands for an absent totality that cannot be grasped experientially and for which the imagination substitutes a schematic figure, like a map, that is essentially aesthetic. It is important to re- member that in Sakai’s account the totality does not correspond to anything other than the schema itself. Rather than absent, it is fic- tive, in an active, generative sense. The power of this fiction is that it enables originary difference to be captured and plotted onto a grid of identifiable positions. Hence the schema of cofiguration is much more about establishing a field of representation in which identities are constructed in such a way that they appear to precede the establishment of the representational field upon which they de- pend (and within which they will certainly be organized in hierar- chical fashion) rather than being about the content of specific identities. Against representation, Sakai invites us to engage in the “heterolingual address.” Seen in light of Sakai’s critique, the dif- translation / spring / 2014 ference between the hetero- and homolingual forms of address as- sumes the character of a political choice, bearing clear ethical dimensions. The ethics of national language, which Sakai identifies 176 with racism, exemplifies the stakes involved. It might be useful to point out, however, that the ethics of national language is not a char- acteristic unique to this or that particular language but rather a com- mon denominator shared by all languages when they are “counted” according to a “Romantic Ideology” (Agamben 2000, 65) of cul- tural individuation (Sakai 2009). This understanding views both language and people as individualized, determinate entities, and as- sumes an organic link of equivalency between the two. The “schema of cofiguration,” as described by Sakai, is precisely the means by which the “Romantic ideology” of language and people is transformed into an ethics and an aesthetics of everyday, lived experience. To engage in the practice of heterolingual address con- stitutes a refusal of the aesthetico-ethical constellation of cofigura- tion and a desire for liberation from it. The Affective Structure of Area and the Postimperial Etiquette If, as Balibar writes, “the emancipation of the oppressed can only be their own work, which emphasizes its immediately eth- ical signification” (Balibar 1994, 49), then the emancipation from the apparatus of area, which oppresses all or else oppresses none, can only be undertaken collectively. Yet by the same logic, the re- pression of emancipatory movements against the apparatus of area can be expected to have a definite collective face as well. This is the difference between complicity and cooperation. Bearing in mind recent discussions that underscore the displacement of this problem at an ontological level by contrasting different forms of collectivity (often positing the state/people pairing against that of the Common/singular), I would like to direct our attention to the problem of affect, where it immediately becomes evident that the practice of ressentiment is by far the most ubiquitous response on both sides of the colonial/imperial divide to a refusal of cofiguration and an exodus from the apparatus of area. The phenomenologist Max Scheler, who devoted a mono- graph to the subject of ressentiment, argues that one of the reasons it arises is because one side or the other in a typical social dyad (such as Master and Slave, or Male and Female) experiences the translation / spring / 2014 existence of the other in terms of existential foreclosure: since I can never have/be/feel what the other has/is/feels, I am motivated by an insatiable rancor. The critique of “egalitarianism” at the heart of 177 Scheler’s work, which mistakes social equality for exchange value 2 rather than indeterminacy (and leads Scheler to see Jews, women, and socialists as representative sources of ressentiment), is not the subject of my concern here. Rather, I would like to suggest that there is another form of ressentiment undetected by Scheler, the type that arises not between the terms of a dyadic pair, but in the relation of complicity that unites them. In the midst of their differ- ence and relative struggle, they nevertheless work together. Al- though their mutual fear is undeniably real and strong, it is not as strong as their mutual fear and anticipation of the emergence of something new, something that neither falls within the dyadic pair nor is part of its trajectory. It is, rather, this form of ressentiment— a form of crisis management that aims to sustain a certain regime of biopolitical production—that is most common today. Ressenti- ment is not a personal psychological problem; it is an affective structure peculiar to the institutions of national translation in which we work, and it opens up subject positions for bodies placed within. Those who pretend that they are free from this structure are pre- cisely the ones who contribute, through their disavowal, to the structure’s reproduction—even when they are deemed to be “fight- ing the good fight.” The reasons why this form of ressentiment is now evident but was not yet visible a century ago when Scheler was writing are as much historical as methodological. Besides the revolution within phenomenology led by Martin Heidegger in the first part of the twentieth century that led to the rise of the philosophies of differ- ence in its latter half (paving the way, in effect, for the ontological shift to which we alluded above), there is also the progression of geopolitical events that brought a formal end to colonialism and destabilized the sovereignty of the nation–state, gradually replacing it with the transnational corporate–state. As the philosophies of dif- ference began to infiltrate humanistic disciplines outside of philos- ophy, the foundational oppositions of civilizational difference and national sovereignty were being thrown into disarray by the col- lapse of the Eurocentric system of international law that had dom- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 2 Ironic, since Scheler bemoans the effect that exchange value has wrought upon social relations. To understand how equality can be understood as a form of indeterminacy in the social, it is necessary to link it to liberty, forming an inherently contradictory and unstable pair that Étienne Balibar calls the proposition of equaliberty. See Balibar 1994. 178 inated the world system throughout several centuries of colonial/ imperial modernity. In other words, the “constant crisis” that is the state (Kapferer 2010) became visible. With the visibility of this cri- sis it suddenly became possible to imagine, in the concrete arena of history, subjectivities and relations that were completely unfore- seen by the old oppositions between the “West” and the non- “West,” or between the native and the foreign. Yet alongside these historical openings, we also undoubt- edly see today a reinforcement of those anachronistic oppositions that take the form of complicity. A particular feature of capitalism, one which was undoubtedly present throughout its history but which has become easily visible today, lies in its penchant for cre- ating profitable crisis. Under neoliberal “biocapitalism,” crisis has become a more or less permanent mode of operation for capitalist accumulation, so much so that there is a greater interest in the pro- longation of crisis through regimes of permanent crisis manage- ment than there is in the resolution of crisis. Within that context, academic exchange and the modes of address in today’s world are characterized by a relation that I would like to call the postimperial etiquette.3 My hypothesis is that the postimperial etiquette constitutes an affective structure, or subjec- tive technology, that plays a crucial role in the contemporary biopo- litical production. Ressentiment, as I have proposed, is the first of its essential affective structures. The second element essential to the affective structure of postcolonial etiquette is an investment in the homolin- gual address, such as I have previously analyzed in twentieth cen- tury thinkers such as Michel Foucault (Solomon 2010, Solomon 2011), Jean-Luc Nancy (Solomon 2013), Giorgio Agamben (Solomon 2014), and Ernst Cassirer (Solomon 2009). The regime of translation constructed through the homolingual address lures even these great figures of twentieth century thought into projecting between retroactive and proactive alternatives: the images of a past- that-never-happened and those of a future-that-will-have-to-be- abandoned—that is, the West as both a tradition and a destiny. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 3 Although it is a postcolonial/postimperial phenomenon, for the sake of convenience I will use the term postimperial. 179 Recently, I have been trying to work out the implications of Sakai’s critique of translation with respect to a phenomenon, which I call speculative superimposition, that is characteristic of modern postcolonial/postimperial societies in general (Solomon 2012). Here, we may refer to the affective trait of mournfulness ex- pressed by deconstructive authors such as Philippe Lacoue- Labarthe when faced with a world beyond the apparatus of area. In a 1992 conference in Strasbourg, “Thinking Europe at Its Borders,” Lacoue-Labarthe centers his intervention on the question of “after- wardsness” (l’après-coup 4): “In its most abrupt, and hence most paradoxical, definition, afterwardsness designates the belated—but recognized—manifestation of something that did not happen or did not have even the slightest chance of happening. Of something that took place, thus, without taking place” (Collectif Géophilosophie de l’Europe 1992, 74). I am hardly persuaded that the “retroactive” quality identified by Lacoue-Labarthe as the philosophically essen- tial movement of European modernity can be simply contained within and ascribed exclusively to an area called “Europe.” On the contrary, this is, I would argue, a characteristic of the modern logic of area in general. As much as the modern nation–state would like to claim organic anteriority, it is always both an internal imposition and an expropriation from the outside. (This predicament is what eventually disqualifies the distinction between constituent and con- stituting powers, forcing the search for “destitute” powers instead— see Nowotny 2007.) The same “afterwardsness” is evident in the construction of the “West,” which relies on translation to superim- pose upon the image of spatiality a temporal process that leads to “exceptionally universal,” metaphysical subjects. The deconstruc- tive school of the postwar philosophies of difference that formed the locus in which Lacoue-Labarthe and other philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, worked was steeped in an historical awareness of the “end” of the “West.” Hence it is no won- der that Lacoue-Labarthe warns us (or is it invites us to lament?): “afterwardsness can also, quite simply, take the form of regret or repentance” (Collectif Géophilosophie de l’Europe 1992, 76). Re- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 4 Lacoue-Labarthe explicitly takes up the Freudian–Lacanian theme of Nachträglichkeit. English translations of this term are either “deferral” or “afterwardsness,” neither of which is fully satisfactory. 180 gret differs from repentance with regards to the recognition of guilt and the desire for repetition. One may regret the past not just be- cause of some regrettable action, but simply because it is past, or has been fantasized as past, and hence desire its repetition without the slightest iota of contrition, much less repentance. Nostalgia for the bonds of a fantasized “lost community” that never really existed (or has been idealized and turned into an image) forms, according to Jean-Luc Nancy (1991, 9), one of the essential structures of modernity. The phenomenon of “afterwardsness” through which areas are constructed finds expression in the postimperial etiquette through the affective quality of ressentiment. The reason why we use the French term, instead of an English translation such as “re- sentment,” is because of the etymological structure of the French word, which emphasizes a temporal dimension (re-) of repetition. Re-sentir: to feel again and again what one has not really experi- enced (which is the same as turning experience into a phenomeno- logical fetish). Ressentiment plays such an important role in the affective structure of the postimperial etiquette precisely because it is intrinsically related to the temporal construction of the modern area–apparatus. The regime of translation constructed through the homolin- gual address lures subjects into projecting between retroactive and proactive alternatives: the images of a past-that-never-happened and those of a future-that-will-have-to-be-abandoned. The past-that-never-happened refers to the representation of translation as an encounter between two discrete languages. Sakai shows how this idea can only be retrospectively superim- posed upon the translational exchange as a schema or an image. What this superimposition effaces is the essential hybridity and in- determinacy seen in the position of the translator, as well as the pe- culiar interruption of linear temporality in translation. This aspect of the translator corresponds to the problem of individuation, which makes it impossible to speak of language(s) as one would speak of countable nouns (Sakai 2009). The future-that-will-have-to-be-abandoned refers to the translation / spring / 2014 way that the homolingual address guides action towards the future. Sakai explains: 181 By the schema of cofiguration, I want to point out the essentially “imaginary” nature of the comparative framework of Japan and the West, since the figure in cofiguration is imaginary in the sense that it is a sensible image on the one hand, and practical in its ability to evoke one to act toward the future on the other. (Sakai 1997, 52) The “future” that is thereby constituted is reduced, accord- ing to the figural logic of the schematism, to a spatialized repre- sentation. The dimension of future temporality as irruptive discontinuity is effaced. “This is why,” writes Sakai, “difference in or of language that incites the act of translation comes as a repre- sentation only after the process of translation. Involved in transla- tion is a paradox of temporality that cannot be accommodated in the worldly time of the past, the present and the future” (Sakai 2009, 86). Acting toward the future according to the schema of cofiguration constituted by the homolingual address produces a spatialized representation that effectively cuts off the temporality of the future as unrepresentable negation and creation. It eliminates, in other words, the possibility for new subjectivities that do not cor- respond to the oppositions installed by the schema of cofiguration. As an affective structure, the homolingual address operates exactly like that “angel of history” seen in Paul Klee’s painting and fa- mously described by Walter Benjamin as being propelled “into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward” (Benjamin 1969, 258). The “future” promised by this form of sociality, typical of the apparatus of area, is a future of ruins. One of the characteristic symptoms of this mode of cap- turing the future particular to the apparatus of area is the peculiar dialectic between historical preservation and environmental de- struction everywhere in evidence today. One does not have to look to ancient Mayan temples in the Guatemalan rain forests, regularly “mined” for gravel by developers to see the concrete nexus of this opposition. A much more potent example could be seen, for in- stance, in postwar France, one of the active world-leaders in the in- stitutionalization of historical monument preservation and which holds it to be an absolute human value essential to collective iden- tity. Yet as a nation that derives ¾ of its energy needs from nuclear translation / spring / 2014 power and is one of the main exporters of nuclear technology around the globe, France can be said to be playing an active, if ironic, role in the production of the ultimate form of “preserva- 182 tion”—the radioactively contaminated wasteland. The third element in the affective structure of area to which I would like to draw attention is erudition. In the meaning to which I would like to ascribe to this term, it refers not just to the problems of access and class mobility, but also more generally to the socially meaningful qualification of “knowledge” and the distribution of it among bodily bearers. Erudition operates through division—the di- vision of labor, to begin with, but also the disciplinary divisions of knowledge, the economic divisions of affect, and finally the indi- viduating divisions of the body. Translation and address play an important role here, too, as erudition excludes or devalorizes certain kinds of knowledge that cannot be “translated” into the quantitative forms and standardized denominations to which the definition of “knowledge” is limited. In today’s neoliberal regime, such exclu- sion is exercised through the standards set by financially motivated evaluation bureaucracies. In today’s neoliberal regime, such exclu- sion is exercised through the standards set by financially motivated evaluation/surveillance bureaucracies, intellectual property regimes, and disciplinary boundaries. Erudition is time-consuming. It signals both an unprece- dented expropriation of the intellectual worker’s time, such that one is never fully off work, as well as a consumption of time by making affective experience a direct source of value (“consumers hungry for new experience”). Working-too-much, often under precarious conditions, is fast becoming the main way in which subjective dis- avowal, a fetishism of the object under the sign of erudition, is in- stituted, even among those of us who would otherwise like to be alert to the problem of disavowal. The technical term that Marx uses for “working-too-much” is absolute surplus value, typically produced by extending the worker’s labor time. Several decades ago, Gayatri Spivak used Marx’s technical term globally to char- acterize relations between the West and the non-West in the post- colonial era (Spivak 2009b, 123). Today, it would appear that the extraction of absolute surplus value through excessive labor time is fast becoming one of the principal ways to assure not just a hier- archy of relations but the unquestioned acceptance of the field of translation / spring / 2014 oppositional terms through which hierarchies are constructed and reversed. What is being forgotten is that the terms of specific dif- ference, such as the West and the non-West, always contain a core 183 component of negativity, freedom, indeterminacy, and antagonism, and are never simply given. Due to a Cartesian habit, we might not think of erudition in terms of affect, but under the definition that I would ascribe to it, affect “sneaks” into erudition through the particular way it indi- viduates the body. Erudition constitutes a singular appropriation of the relation between body and knowledge by granting exclusive le- gitimacy to the abstract, accumulational form that we call, in Eng- lish, the body of knowledge. The affective form that is closely related to this appropriation of the multiplicity of the body is the sense of knowing. Nationalism is precisely the modern political form that turns knowing into affect. While foreigners can know about the other nation, they cannot understand it in the same way as nationals; they cannot, in other words, partake in knowledge as an affective structure of feeling that is based in “experience” and shared among members of an imaginary community. Yet the cate- gory of experience-that-can-be-shared-sympathetically is deter- mined in advance by the arena that capitalism, in the process of appropriating the state, establishes for the process of valorization. This is the arena of exchange value. Sympathetic knowledge, or national knowledge, is the form of exchange value that is being ap- plied to the act of knowing understood in terms of fantasy—the fantasy of shared experience reflected in knowledge. As an apparatus of fantasy, erudition’s most important role is found in recoding the body. It is not simply that distantiation, based on the Cartesian stance of objectivity, becomes the principle mode of relation, with all of its known symptoms. Erudition is also a means of maintaining an attitude of indifference or disavowal. The most common form of this attitude of indifference with regard to knowledge in the postimperial configuration can be seen in the institutionally sanctioned assumption that issues related to anthro- pological difference fall under the purview of specific disciplines or fields within the human sciences—what are commonly termed “area studies” in North America. The matrix of anthropological dif- ference per se as an organizing principle for the human sciences must never be brought into question at an organizational level. The translation / spring / 2014 organization must be naturalized so that participants never see their own disciplinary commitments, including language and object- choice, in terms of the history of social relations under conditions 184 of colonial population management. It is not simply that objects re- flect the desires and tastes of certain kinds of subjectivity (forming in effect a socially instituted form of prejudgment or simply preju- dice), but rather that objects become means of disavowal by which people can ignore and forget the mediations and negations that con- stitute subjectivity as a social practice. As an affective form, erudition is thus characterized by ob- ject-obsession and subjective disavowal. It is globally institution- alized and legitimized through the supposedly “natural” correspondence between disciplinary divisions in the order of knowledge and various social divisions in the order of political or- ganization. And while it may look as if the university institutions in North America, in which greater anxiety about the status of ob- jects is often seen (accompanied by all kinds of institutional inno- vations to accommodate interdisciplinary approaches), has an advantage in this respect, the truth is rather that an imperial nation- alism, such as seen today in the United States, invariably calls forth performative gestures, such as transdisciplinary object-anxiety, in order to garner the sacrifice of minority populations for the benefit of the capital-state nexus. Disciplinary rigidity and obsession with the legitimacy of “pure” objects as seen in the other nations today outside North American high academia is not a sign of their “back- wardness,” but simply the function of cultural nationalism formed in relation to imperial nationalism. In short, the regime of erudition oversees the silent articu- lation of the reproduction of cleavages (reason vs. myth, speech vs. writing) and identities inherited from the imperial/colonial moder- nity to the neoliberal production of value through affect. The bearer of various forms (racial, ethnic, national, gendered, sexual, linguis- tic, et cetera) of social domination and exploitation that have ac- companied modernity, erudition is above all concerned with bodies of accumulation. Whereas capitalist accumulation produces the bodies coded by political economy and translational accumulation produces bodies coded by civilizational and anthropological differ- ence, erudite accumulation produces normalized bodies of knowl- edge as well as bodies normalized by knowledge. translation / spring / 2014 It is through a process of identification with the body of knowledge as a site of accumulation associated with specific “areas” that intellectuals continually abstract themselves from the 185 production of knowledge as translational, social practice. In the postimperial scholar, this is seen most readily in the prolongation of disciplinary divisions and linguistic competencies and homolin- gual modes of address that form the obverse complement of the postimperial area studies specialist. The postimperial specialist of philosophy, for instance, is not expected to acquire linguistic and affective competencies associated with postcolonial areas, and typ- ically relies on the homolingual address to negotiate anthropolog- ical difference. Or again, the postimperialist specialist of racism studies does not have to negotiate the composition of her classes and articles in relation to the demands of an academia-publishing industry complex in a postcolonial language organized by a post- colonial state that is itself composed through various forms of in- stitutionalized racism. Given the recent demonstrations of admiration for public intellectuals in the “West” whose politics are characterized by their admirers with epithets such as “fuck off!” (Rancière),5 or who gain notoriety for scandalously scatological humor (Žižek), it might be necessary to explain just what we intend to get at by a critique of “etiquette.” Etiquette is part of the “immunitarian” apparatus de- scribed by Alain Brossat in his critique of modern liberal democ- racy. The English usage of the word, which is associated with “good breeding” (Merriam–Webster), underscores its relation to the theme of racial exclusion that forms the hidden backbone of liberalism (Cole 2000)—and modern sociality in general (Quijano 2000). As such, it is a biopolitical technology, for which Brossat offers a won- derfully succinct description: “the distribution of bodies in a dense space, via the mediation [truchement] of a system of rules named etiquette” (Brossat 2003, 36). In the dense space of knowledge, the trio of erudition, homolingual address, and ressentiment constitutes the affective structure according to which bodies of knowledge are constituted and areas populated. It is immunitarian to the extent that it protects the anthropological matrix that supports capitalist accumulation in the colonial–imperial modernity from being over- turned. translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 5 http://critical-theory.com/who-the-fuck-is-jacques-ranciere/ accessed on May 20, 2013. 186 Brossat uses the French word truchement to speak of a me- diating role played by a “system of rules.” Although the term’s usage here certainly refers to a general effect of mediation, it is worth noting an older, yet still current, literary usage of the term that refers to a translator and translation. We might thus take this usage as an invitation to think about what would happen were we to substitute traduction for truchement—that is, “translation” for “mediation.” Doing so, we would find that etiquette is precisely the governmental technology that uses translation as a means of dis- tributing bodies across dense space—that is, the space delineated by the apparatus of area. This definition of etiquette approximates Naoki Sakai’s understanding of translation based on homolingual address. As such, it constitutes the main operation of capture exer- cised by the apparatus of area. Can the Subaltern Translate? The importance of subjective transformation in the postim- perial/postcolonial age was highlighted at the beginning of North American postcolonial studies in 1988 by Gayatri Spivak in her fa- mous essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (Spivak 2009a). In that work, Spivak deftly displaces the practice of cultural knowledge production in the wake of colonialism and capitalism away from the image of objects, no matter how marginalized or “illegitimate” in the eyes of dominant representations they may be, towards the production of subjectivity. It is the role of intellectual elites—on both sides of the imperial/colonial divide—that is targeted by the critique of subjectivity in Spivak’s essay. As usual, translations of the postimperial discourse into a postcolonial context can be extremely helpful for understanding the stakes involved. In the discussions of Spivak’s article in Taiwan, two of the most common translations of “subaltern” are 庶民 (shu4min2) and 賤民 (jian4min2). These are classical terms that both share the same cognate min2 as part of there two-character com- pound. Skipping over the possible parallels between min2 and the Latin-derived word “people,” what the two Chinese terms share in common is a description of the people as common or low. In other translation / spring / 2014 words, what we have here are translations that add a biopolitical el- ement to the original term subaltern (which describes not a people but a quality of subjugation, and is hence technically limited to the 187 element of politics). The biopolitical translation risks resubstantial- izing the term “subaltern” through the matrix of anthropological difference—which, as I will show, is precisely what Spivak fights against. Needless to say, this resubstantialization has received priv- ileged institutionalization in the postimperial academic world, and it is precisely here that a look at translation becomes especially in- formative. Let me explain this message by citing another variant trans- lation of the term “subaltern” that I have seen circulating within Taiwan: 從屬階級 (cong2shu3 jie1ji2) , the “class of subordinates.” Once again, this translation runs afoul of the reading of Spivak’s article that I favor. The inclusion of the word “class” (jie1ji2) in the translated term effectively reintroduces the very point that Spivak’s essay problematizes: people are something else before they are a class or a type or a figure—before they are a people, which is al- ways what the state elites and their prefab minorities want them to be. “Subalterns” share aspects of the “unrepresentable”—except that they do not stand heroically “outside” the register of represen- tation guaranteed by the state form of social organization, but are rather hidden or silenced in the biopolitical warehouse of the indus- trial reserve army, the “pool” of a genetic population, or the sweat- shops and brothels of illegal migrant labor. Here, representation is not a formalistic problem, but a practice connected to capital’s ap- propriation of species–being precisely at the point where the mode of production meets the mode of subjection. Hence the necessity Spivak felt to remind her readers of the difference between relations of domination and relations of exploitation, and the need to read across both registers without conflating the two in a schema of rep- resentation. Needless to say, a recuperative reading of the subaltern that reinstates the original Gramscian formula (“subaltern class”) that Spivak had explicitly attempted to rework (by eliminating, first of all, the term “class,” which always refers us back to the state), is hardly a problem limited to Chinese translations. Indeed, the exis- tence of such a translation can only be explained by the realization that it is, of course, a translation not of “the text itself,” but rather of the way in which the North American university-publishing com- translation / spring / 2014 plex has bestowed upon it the honor of domestication by canoniza- tion. So, it is not a mistranslation at all, but a translation that is coldly accurate. The subjective effects of this domesticating canon- 188 ization become all too apparent when one considers the frequency with which the term “subaltern” becomes conflated with or simply substitutes for “the non-West,” leading to the use of nonsensical terms such as “the non-subaltern” to refer to the West. For Spivak, the precise location of this appropriation cannot be identified, it can only be reconstructed as it were, on the basis of a rift in subjective formation. Through a series of brilliant readings of Marx, Foucault, and Deleuze, Spivak shows that there exists a split in subjective formation that corresponds to the two meanings of the English term to represent (which are treated, in the vocabu- lary of German philosophy utilized by Marx, through the two verbs vertreten and darstellen). These two meanings correspond to the difference between the subjects formed in relations of domination and those formed in the relations of exploitation. The former re- quires an analysis of relations to power, the latter an analysis of re- lations to production. It is the modern state—which of course can now include suprastate organisms and nonstate ones as well—that offers the promise of “fixing” the relation between the two, offering a precise location, as it were, such that two projected images seem to merge, just as happens in the optical viewfinder of a coincident rangefinder camera. The image, or fiction, of this “place” in which location and identity, past and future, language and people coincide is an essential feature of the aesthetic representation crucial to the modern apparatus of area. Spivak’s essay thus contributes to the classic Marxist notion of class, which is summarized, as Jacques Bidet would say, by the formula “the state is always a state of class.” Spivak shows, by displacing domination and exploitation, that the notion of “class” must be expanded (without losing the specificity of “class”) far beyond the limits of political economy to accommo- date a vast tableau of dynamic, minoritarian relations (of which gen- der is only the tip of the iceberg) within the construction of anthropological difference. The “subaltern” is thus the name for the spacing that is undecidably both the concrete body of this or that downtrodden and marginalized individual and the possibility of a being that can no longer be configured through the matrix of an- thropological difference. Not “humanity,” not species–being, not an translation / spring / 2014 inheritor of the entire anthropological project of the colonial–im- perial modernity devoted to perfictioning, but a true (and truly car- ing) stranger. 189 From the perspective of a concern with translation, the rea- sons for the necessity of this expansive analytic find themselves in the correlation between the history of linguistic transformations under the auspices of the modern nation–state and the transitions of capitalist “development.” Although the creation of national lan- guage in Europe was linked to class through the rise of the bour- geoisie and their need to create a political community opposed to that of a kingdom, this narrative obfuscates that part of the Euro- pean nation that was forged, as Elsa Dorlin shows, in the colonies. There, the class element was concomitantly fused to an anthropo- logical element (beginning with race and gender). “Europe” and its nations only became “European” through this process of fusion (be- tween gender, race, class, language, ethnicity, sexuality, et cetera) that established the anthropological matrix of modernity and natu- ralized it via the apparatus of area. The crux of Spivak’s essay lies, as we have said, not with the identification of objects and their historical deconstruction, but rather with the constitution of subjects, particularly the subjects of knowledge forming under the shadow of capital and the state in the apparatus of area. For this reason, I must confess that the one thing that is strangest to me in the extraordinary reception this widely circulated essay has received is that so many commentators have looked at the subaltern as a problem to be solved or an idea to be applied, rather than, as Spivak writes in an entirely different context (one that is actually about translation), a locus to inhabit (Spivak 2005, 95)—or, as an invitation to cohabitation. We need, in other words, to develop practices of “being there” that are different from those normally catalogued under the Apparatus of Area.6 This is not a call for a new aesthetic piety of place, but rather a plea to de- finitively end the essential project of modernity: the idea that tech- nological progress and aesthetics could be allied together in the creation of a perfect species—what I want to name by the neolo- gism “perfictioning.” .......................... translation / spring / 2014 6 I do not think that I have yet compiled a complete catalogue, but there are several se- ries whose importance is evident: 1) typology: character–figure–image; 2) ontology: ori- gin–individuation–hylomorphism; 3) anthropology: animal–human–milieu; 4) economy: production–exploitation–accumulation; 5) statistics and logistics: temporality–event– control 190 While her emphasis on unrepresentability leads Spivak to conclude that the subaltern by definition cannot speak (which means that the subaltern always disappears under the weight of rep- resentation when subjects are made to conform to identities that ig- nore their constitutive, originary difference), she does not consider her startling answer from the perspective of translation. Or, more precisely, the position of the translator. The translator, of course, is in the position of someone who speaks without ever meaning any- thing herself. She is never authorized to say “I.” Strategies based on the disclosure of the “invisibility of the translator” (Venuti 1995) are important to the politics of translation, and for that very reason they ultimately amount to a reinvestment in the nexus between modes of production and modes of subjectification through the cat- egory of identity. In lieu of invisibility, Sakai (1997) calls attention to the hybridity and indeterminacy of the translator, and he proposes a practice of heterolingual address that accounts for discontinuity as a constitutive moment of the social. This outline of the position of the translator leads me to suggest that for the professional uni- versity-based intellectual the ethical response to the problem of subalternity will not be found in speaking or listening, but rather in “translating.” To suggest that an ethics of subalternity can be found in translation is quite different from suggesting either that the subal- tern “herself” translate or that intellectuals translate “for the subal- tern.” A negative example will help to illustrate my point, and prevent the confusion that might occur by modifying an idea that was first described in a remarkable text by a North American grad- uate researcher in political science, Jay Maggio, titled “Can the Subaltern Be Heard?” (Maggio 2007). This article, which demon- strates formidable familiarity with Spivak’s oeuvre, proposes trans- lation as a viable means of displacing Spivak’s original question. The genius of Maggio’s formula is, however, not well served by its elaboration. Symptomatically, the article falls into the well–populated ranks of those respectables who have assigned themselves the task of finding “a possible solution to the Spivakian puzzle” (Maggio 2007, 438). More disturbingly, the author relies translation / spring / 2014 upon a notion of cultural translation, whose presuppositions of ho- molingual address we do not share, to “advocate a benevolent trans- lator in the West who offers a sympathetic reading of the subaltern” 191 (Maggio 2007, 437). Although the rhetoric of benevolence and sympathy—as well as “respect” (Maggio 2007, 435)—offers a fine opportunity to remind ourselves about the merits of Christiane Vol- laire’s (2007) more materialist analysis of the politics and aesthetics of humanitarian aid in its relation to war, the arms trade, and the politics of “regime change,” I would like to focus our attention on this idea of being “in the West.” In spite of the unmistakable spirit of charity and humility that characterizes this text, the one reform that is not contemplated is subjective—the crucial one, as far as subalternity is concerned. If “the translator must recognize the im- plicated relationship of the Westerner and the subaltern” (Maggio 2007, 434), the translator in Maggio’s text never dislodges itself from its self-assurance about identity. In order to get a sense of the magnitude of this self-assurance, I would ask the reader to bear with a lengthy list of textual citations that refer to the “West,” in- cluding: “Western discourse,” “the Western translator,” “the West- ern academy,” “Western thought,” “the intellectual Western scholar,” “a Western critic (citizen),” “Western philosophical tra- ditions,” “the Western approach,” the “Western viewer,” “the West- ern self,” “the modern Western subject,” “Western metanarratives,” “a uniquely Western notion of the subject,” “the very Western con- cept of an active speaker,” “the careful Western [sic.],” et cetera. Such self-assurance might be taken in this postimperial era as the sign of humility and respect; countless theorists of much greater sophistication than myself and Maggio have been known to engage in the same repetitive obsession. Essentially a catalogue of trans- lational tropes, this manner of invoking the West inevitably leads the author to ask, halfway through the article, “how can the Western scholar study the subaltern?” (Maggio 2007, 431). My response to this question is to repeat the mantra “away from the study of objects and back to the formation of subjects and social composition.” The lessons that the subaltern has to teach us about representation and its objects extend equally to the translator. Even the longest list of supposed civilizational traits combined with the most well-intentioned discourse that “recognizes the conditional nature of the constitution of both the dominant group as well as the translation / spring / 2014 subaltern” (Maggio 2007, 436) cannot immunize the translator against her own essential hybridity—much less against what Fou- cault dryly terms the “form of a relation with power” (Foucault 192 2000, 162). Hence it is no surprise to find discussions of subalter- nity, among those who would like to treat it as an ethical relation to objects of study, conducted in a confessional mode whose ulti- mate effect is to reinstantiate identity as a subject of representation. Undoubtedly, there is a postimperial etiquette at work here. Given that the history of colonialism is seen as a massive project of ex- propriation, the postimperial scholar signs on to a pact (the postim- perial etiquette), in which his identification with the West is to be taken as the sign of a historic eschewal of the politics of imperialist expropriation. An overwhelming proportion of today’s postimperial scholars—even the ones who specialize in postcolonialism—have embraced this ethics of positionality associated with their respectful acceptance of the area in which they are supposed to be assigned. It is precisely at this point that Naoki Sakai’s unique ac- count of the position of the translator really shines. What is revealed here is an essential, original hybridity and indeterminacy, present in every social relation, yet whose presence can never be fully rep- resented or conveyed or captured. I would like to suggest that it is this “position” that is the only viable option for the intellectual of any location on today’s postcolonial/postimperial geocultural map who is concerned about the ethics of subalternity. So, for profes- sional intellectuals, it is a question of becoming subaltern with re- gard to the postimperial etiquette, and then of using this process of becoming to expand the ranks of subalternity without end. This process of becoming must not be viewed through the terms of sym- pathy, much less appropriation; it must not, in other words, become an aesthetic project of mimesis and figuration through which the modern project of perfictioning, or fabricating racial/species per- fection, can be realized technologically! Instead, the process of be- coming subaltern has to be directly aimed at the apparatus of area, which is the main impediment to the maximization of subalternity without end. That injunction means that intellectuals will have to undertake or commit to a series of revolutionary changes in the op- positions that structure the “area–institutions” in which they work, beginning, in the context of a discussion about translation, with the valorization of authorship over that of translation, and extending translation / spring / 2014 beyond that specific context to the affective economy that is mobi- lized in support of the apparatus of area. The invention of new forms of inhabitance outside of the apparatus of area—or, to use a 193 less jargonistic language, the abandonment of the postimperial/ postcolonial, civilizational state and the exodus from the future- ruins and past-images in which it has trapped us—is, to my mind, the only way to “adequately address the damage done by colonial- ism” (Maggio 2007, 431). Which is to say, of course, that the only form of reparation that makes any sense in the face of that unre- payable debt is to recyle the affective debris of area into a being that does not accumulate, but grows through shedding. Transforming the Postimperial Etiquette A collective pact concluded precisely over the apparatus of area could never function without an affective component. In a re- cent work, Franco “Bifo” Berardi has described what he sees as the major affective traits of “semiocapitalism” (Berardi 2009a). Chief among them is the pendulum that swings between depression and panic, from bear market to bull market. Berardi talks about in- terrupting the obsessive repetitions in order to create alternate re- frains. My very un-Spinozist response to Bifo is that we replace depression with sadness. In the context of this essay, I will define this as the positive affirmation associated with carefully observing the way in which the trio of homolingual address, ressentiment, and erudition entraps us and prevents our liberation from the ap- paratus of area. Such sadness becomes the platform not for reject- ing the affective structure of area, perhaps claiming ourselves to be liberated from it while others languish (or revel) within, but for embracing it within the transformations of the collective bodies– tongues–minds assemblage(s). In other words, while depression is individual, sadness is transindividual. Depression is the form that sadness takes as it goads us into individuating in the retroactive– proactive way that is typical of the apparatus of area. Sadness is affirmative in the sense that it restores depression to its transindi- vidual element. Undoubtedly, this transformation of affect from the indi- vidual to the noncollective transindividual is part of an ontological shift. Scheler’s text on ressentiment, for example, can be read, as Olivier Agard’s neat analysis of Scheler shows (Agard 2009), translation / spring / 2014 through the twin themes of an antihumanist problematization of hy- lomorphic anthropology and resistance to capitalist modernity. First published in 1912 and rereleased in an expanded, revised edition 194 in 1915, Scheler’s work in this text presages his incursions in the 1920s into the debates over philosophical anthropology taking place in the Weimar Republic. Agard’s excavation of Scheler’s work reveals a philosopher who stands, problematically, at the cen- ter of a paradox between an “anthropocentric tendency” and an “in- verse tendency towards a rupture with anthropomorphism” (Agard 2009, 185). As both the “measure of every reality” and a “cultural construction” or bit of “stardust,” summarizes Agard, “man is both central and decentered at the same time” (Agard 2009, 185). In Res- sentiment, Scheler bemoans the way in which modern capitalist so- ciety perverts the Christian notion of love, directing it towards humanity in its generic qualification as a species (Scheler 1994, 99). Under capitalism, “the will of the species” substitutes itself for the good, which is reduced to a function of utility. As a result, a “new man” is produced. The new man is a hylomorphic type, de- fined by his relation to animality (not God). For Scheler, it is pre- cisely this sort of hylomorphism (a word that he does not use, as far as I am aware) that creates of man a figure that oscillates be- tween the “overman” and the “overanimal” (Scheler 1994, 105; my translation of Übertier). Even as Agard warns against conflating Scheler’s antihumanist problematization of anthropology with the likes of Michel Foucault (leaving aside the details of Agard’s fas- cinating, yet brief, comparison between the two thinkers), his de- scription of Scheler implicitly recalls the Foucaultian critique of man as an empirico-transcendental doublet. Agard concludes that “[t]his dilemma remains valid today” (Agard 2009, 185). The con- clusion I take from his analysis is that, at its base, ressentiment arises when the nonhylomorphic pair “Common/singular” (Virno 2009) is diverted to serve the interest of accumulation, becoming a state–people nexus instead. When Scheler speaks of affect in terms of a contrast between being a “passive feeling” (what is translated into French as a “state”) as opposed to an “action” and “movement” (Scheler 1994, 93), he betrays the productive negativity in his an- tihumanism and falls back into anthropology. The vocabulary of state, act, and movement is political as well as physical. Behind this physics of power lies a Hobbesian anthropology. In place of translation / spring / 2014 this classical political physics and its attendant anthropology, it would be well to recall what Bifo says about power: it is not a force, but a field of relations (Berardi 2009b, 118). 195 With regard to reclaiming erudition, the most stubborn ob- stacle to a reappropriation of this relationship today is the coloniza- tion of time. I feel embarrassed to admit that the only strategies I can propose in the face of this time-consumption system are the re- fusal of work and volunteerism. The latter is undoubtedly a com- promise, and bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to the way in which “free” labor is an integral part of the neoliberal model of labor management. The former is simply not an option for many— work, in the capitalist logic of surplus population, refuses them. For these reasons and others, the liberation from the colonization of time through the refusal of work is only the beginning, and could never be an end in itself. The most important ways of reappropri- ating erudition will have to come from transformations in the rela- tion between knowledge and the body. This is another facet of permanently leaving behind the anthropological project modernity. We start by refusing to adopt an exceptional position, such as seen in the Cartesian split. For professional intellectuals, this means first and foremost that the construction of disciplinary objects must al- ways be contested, if not refused. First, by questioning codes of domination in the objects presently considered “legitimate”; sec- ond, by questioning and rejecting the institutional imperative to de- vote one’s work to disciplinary objects at all. In place of disciplines devoted to objects that accumulate in the body of knowledge, we need disciplines devoted to knowledgeable practices of subjective transformation. By way of conclusion to this section, let me quote a passage from a fascinating work on the capitalist mobilization of affect by a member of the French Regulation School, Frédéric Lordon: “[I]t is once again Spinoza who gives us perhaps the definition of true communism: exploitation of affect will come to an end when men know to direct their common desires—and form an enterprise, yet a communist one—towards objects that are no longer material for unilateral capture, or, in other words, when they understand that the true good is that which wishes that others possess it at the same time as I” (Lordon 2010, 195–196). Lordon is expressing nothing less than an ontological revolution away from possessive individualism. translation / spring / 2014 For Lordon, this means going beyond the notion of objects as “ma- terial for unilateral capture.” Yet, based on my experience engaging in and reading through a critique of the apparatus of area, Lordon’s 196 formula still leaves too much room for the subjective investment in objects that is known as disavowal. No longer taking the individual as the legitimate unit of analysis means precisely rethinking the na- ture and status of objects. Ultimately, the constative part of the in- tellectual sphere rejoins the performative part. Social relations enjoy the singular position of being the nonrepesentable, practical fulcrum between those two moments: they are both the originary point of departure and the element of determination-in-the-last instance. Armed with this sort of awareness, our interest in objects, be they disciplinary or transdisciplinary, pales in comparison to our eager- ness to embrace the realm of cooriented ontology, “neither a return to the substantial object nor a so-called necessary anthropocentrism [but] an existentialism resolutely opposed to all homogeneity, to all ontological flattening as to all foreclosure of the common—an ex- istentialism without reserve” (Neyrat 2013, 25). The critique of area studies shows that what is crucial to the transition to a world that has nothing to do with colonialism, and perhaps capitalism, is nei- ther the accumulation of critically powerful troves of knowledge about specific objects nor so-called maturation and growth in the sphere of the subject, but rather the simplicity of thinking relation before the emergence of the two terms of which it is supposedly the expression—something like what the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy calls Mitdasein.7 Once we focus firmly on relations, all those “bridging tech- nologies” can no longer operate their ideological functions. Just as the citation above is a passage from Spinoza to Lordon, now it be- comes here a passage of mine and yours. The wish to be as numer- ous as possible in the sharing of indeterminate relations is a vow that befits the practice of the translator–subaltern, and the multi- tude(s). Areas in the Age of the Logistical Population The postimperial etiquette’s function is to leave the appa- ratus of area intact. This is what “being tactful” in the era of post- colonial/postimperial globalization means: it is an affective translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 7 Unfortunately, it is precisely in the relation between the constative and the performa- tive elements that Nancy’s philosophical writings sometimes most grievously betray his ontological discovery of the importance of being-in-common. See Solomon 2013. 197 economy that obviates the need to link a radical reorganization in the mechanisms of accumulation to subjective transformation. This understanding of the postimperial etiquette is corroborated by Gay- atri Spivak’s observation that “a hyperreal class of consolidated so- called international civil society is now being produced to secure the post-statist conjuncture” (Spivak 1999, 399). Although the postimperial etiquette promises to mitigate the possibility that his- torical resentment will break out into open struggle, it does so at the cost of instituting a highly normative regime. Clothed in an os- tensibly ethical discourse of respect for “cultural difference,” the postimperial etiquette prolongs racism, in the broadest sense of the term, by naturalizing the apparatus of area. Transnational complicity is acquiring a new face in the age of global semiocapitalism and biocapitalism, while the institutions and practices that constitute areas are changing rapidly. As we move from the age of the nation–state to the corporate–state, fueled by unprecedented privatizations of state functions, one has to be con- cerned that the postimperial etiquette today may well be operating as an ideological “justification” for the political legitimacy of the neoliberal corporate–state. Given the increasing integration of biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology within the context of capitalist accumulation, the meaning and role of pop- ulation is undergoing vast change. The shift from “statistical pop- ulations” to “logistical populations” (Harney 2010) takes on its greatest significance, to my mind, in the apprehension of population in terms of a “pool.” As biocapitalism identifies life with code and code with value, populations themselves essentially become ware- houses of value–code available for the development of virtually un- limited new products to be advanced by biocapitalism. Genetic code, as seen in the expression “DNA pool,” is thus the first level of meaning that I would ascribe to the “pooling” effect of logistical populations. The second and third levels occur in the moments of production and consumption. As the products of biocapitalism will be marketed directly back to the populations from which the value– code was originally sourced, logistical populations are also com- posed of a “consumer pool” and a “labor pool,” both of which are translation / spring / 2014 essentially held captive to, or made targets for, the extraction of surplus value out of the bioeconomy. Needless to say, the mainte- nance of discipline and control within each of these pools requires 198 an elaborate security apparatus capable of monitoring in real time the movements and borders that constitute pooling as such. The utopian vision behind logistical populations considers the possibil- ity of aligning in perfect synchronicity the global supply chain with the food chain of the global biosphere, thereby realizing the tran- shumanist dream of overcoming the limits of the individual body to create the perfect species–being. Yet within the context of social action motivated by the pursuit of surplus value, this utopian vision functions in the mode of ideological alienation, covering up the separation between a present and a future whose real function is to be found not in the promised alignment of cosmic supply and de- mand, but in the temporal circulation of the capitalist circuit that transforms money into commodities and then back into money. In order to see the ways in which logistical populations function as transactionable pools for the corporate surveillance state, we will unquestionably need to develops ways of looking be- yond the ideology of cultural difference and identity that naturalizes the pooling effect. Even as the state moves away from a classic na- tional form of organization, the ideology of the nation–state con- tinues to play an enormously influential role in the mobilization of affect and the short-circuiting of collective transnational resistance to the corporate surveillance machine. In view of this situation, I expect that translation and the heterolingual form of address will play an increasingly important role in the insurrections-to-come for a coinhabitable planet. translation / spring / 2014 199 References Agamben, Giorgio. 2000. Means Without End. Translated by Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Agard, Olivier. 2009. “La question de l’humanisme chez Max Scheler.” Revue germanique internationale. http://rgi.revues.org/331. Accessed November 26, 2012. Anghie, Antony. 2004. Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Balibar, Étienne. 1994. Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx. Translated by James Swenson. London and New York: Routledge. Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken. Berardi, Franco. 2009a. Precarious Rhapsody: Semiocapitalism and the Pathologies of the Post-Alpha Generation. Translated by Arianna Bove et al. London: Minor Compositions. ———. 2009b. The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy. Translated by Francesca Cadel and Giuseppina Mecchia. New York: Semiotext(e). Cole, Phillip. 2000. Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immi- gration. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University. Dorlin, Elsa. 2009. La Matrice de la race: Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la Na- tion française. Paris: Éditions la Découverte. Foucault, Michel. 2000. Essential Works of Foucault (1954–1984), Volume 3: Power. Translated by Robert Hurley, edited by James Faubion. New York: New Press. Géophilosophie de l’Europe. 1992. Penser l’Europe à ses frontières. Paris: Éditions de l’aube. Harney, Stefano. 2010. “From Statistical to Logistical Populations.” http://transit- labour.asia/blogs/statistical-logistical-populations. Accessed May 29, 2013. Kapferer, Bruce. 2010. “The Crisis of Power and the Emergence of the Corporate State in Globalizing Realities.” Paper presented at James Cook University, Australia. Video: http://www.jcu.edu.au/cairnsinstitute/info/resources/ JCUPRD1_061065.html. PDF: http://www.jcu.edu.au/cairnsinstitute/pub- lic/groups/everyone/documents/audio_object/jcuprd1_061188.pdf. Maggio, J. 2007. “Can the Subaltern Be Heard? Political Theory, Translation, Repre- sentation, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 32 (4): 419–444. Lordon, Frédéric. 2010. Capitalism, désir et servitude: Marx et Spinoza. Paris: La Fabrique. Merriam–Webster. Dictionary of the English Language. http://www.merriam-web- ster.com/dictionary/etiquette. Accessed June 9, 2013. Neyrat, Frédéric. 2013. Le Communisme existentiel de Jean-Luc Nancy. Paris: Lignes. Nowotny, Stefan. 2007. “The Double Meaning of Destitution.“ Transversal. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0507/nowotny/en. Accessed September 24, 2011. translation / spring / 2014 Quijano, Anibal. 2000. “The Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.“ Nepantla: View from the South 1: 3. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 200 ———. 2009. “How do we count a language? Translation and discontinuity.” Trans- lation Studies 2: 1, 71–88. Scheler, Max. 1994. Ressentiment. Translated by William W. Holdheim. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Solomon, Jon. 2009. “The Proactive Echo: Ernst Cassirer’s ‘Myth of the State’ and the Biopolitics of Global English”, Translation Studies (New York & Lon- don: Routledge) Vol. 2 No. 1, Jan. 2009. 52-70. ———. 2010. “The Experience of Culture : Eurocentric Limits and Openings in Fou- cault”, Transeuropéenes, No. 1, Vol. 1, 2010. http://www.transeuropeennes. eu/en/articles/108/The_Experience_of_Culture_Eurocentric_Limits_and_O penings_in_Foucault. ———. 2011. “Saving Population from Governmentality Studies: Translating Be- tween Archaeology and Biopolitics.” 2011. In eds. Deotte, Brossat, Liu & Chu. Biopolitics, Ethics and Subjectivation Paris: L’Harmattan. 191-206. ———. 2012. “Another European Crisis? Myth, Translation, and the Apparatus of Area.” http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/solomon/en. Accessed June 5, 2013. ———. 2013. “Zai shijie shuju yushang gongcundashi: ping Nonxi ‘Lun sixiang de jiaoyi’” [Meeting the Master of “Being-In-Common” at the World Book- store: A Review of Jean-Luc Nancy’s On The Commerce of Thinking”]. Router: a journal of cultural studies 15: 498–515. ———. 2014. “Invoking the West: Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Romantic Ideology’ and the Problems of Civilizational Transference.” Forthcoming. Eds. Huang, Cory and Jon Solomon. Concentric. Spivak, Gayatri. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press. ———. 2005. “Translating into English.” Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation. Edited by S. Bermann and M. Wood, 93–110. Princeton: Princeton University. ———. 2009a. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana and Chicago: Uni- versity of Illinois Press. ———. 2009b. Outside in the Teaching Machine. London and New York: Routledge. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. Lon- don and New York: Routledge. Virno, Paolo. 2009. “Angels and the General Intellect: Individuation in Duns Scotus and Gilbert Simondon.” Translated by Nick Heron. Parrehsia 7: 58–67. Vollaire, Christiane. 2007. L’Humanitaire, le coeur de la guerre. Paris: L’Insulaire. Jon Solomon was born in the United States and trained at Cornell University. He lived in east Asia for twenty-five years before relocating to Europe to assume a position as professor in the Institute of Transtextual and Transcultural Studies, Université Jean Moulin, Lyon, France. His extracurricular interests include backpacking and Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism. His current project is to develop a discussion of “area” as an es- sential operation for the governing capacity of the state in parallel to the question of translation / spring / 2014 “population,” a form of the investment of state power within life, what might be re- ferred to as "biopower," following Foucault. Within this project, an examination of the biopolitics of translation occupies a privileged place for understanding the relations be- tween anthropological difference, geocultural area, and regimes of accumulation. 201

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Beyond the Regime of Fidelity ............................ Bauhaus University, Germany. Boris Buden [email protected] Abstract: The case of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, accused of treason by the United States, reveals its true political meaning in the context of a problem with which the traditional theory of translation is so obsessively concerned—the quasi dialectics between fidelity and betrayal. To put it more simply: to betray in trans- lation always means to break a contract in which modern society and its political container, the nation–state, is ideologically grounded, namely the so-called social contract. It is because the commonsense concept of translation, whose meaning Naoki Sakai epitomized in the notion of homolingual address, not only concep- tually parallels the social contract theory, but is, even in its most recent versions (Rawls, Habermas), directly involved in the construction of the bourgeois polit- ical sphere and the modern liberal democratic state. For the same reason, an abandoning of the regime of homolinguality—that is, traditional understanding of translation with its crude binarism and its obsession with the question of fi- delity—cannot be reduced to a simple shift in the paradigm within translation theory. It implies an agonistic—and therefore genuinely political—act of chal- lenging the very mode of sociality that is reproduced by the modern liberal dem- ocratic state. In short, it implies the traumatic betrayal of the very regime of fidelity on which it is based. ______________ Treason It didn’t take long for the infamous T-word to appear. Not only were notorious American conservatives like Dick Cheney quick to accuse the NSA leaker Edward Snowden of treason, but they were promptly joined by Democrats like California Senator Dianne Feinstein and the most prominent John Kerry, Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. Those rightly shocked by the use of such a scary word in a public discourse supposed to be governed by rational argument, a word that not only moralistically sabotages a possible debate on the problem but is itself heavily charged with translation / spring / 2014 almost mystical dimensions of guilt, crime, and punishment, just as quickly responded with a no less irrational rejection of the accusa- tion of treason. An article in The New Yorker (Herzberg 2013) pro- 104 vides a good example of how desperate such justification strategy is: first, Snowden has committed no crime. According to the Con- stitution (Article III, Section 3), the treason against United States consists only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, which, as it can be easily proved, he hasn’t done. Sec- ondly, even if he has violated a law (“he is manifestly a law- breaker”), Snowden is not a traitor. The proof: his intentions were innocent. Not only did he never intend to damage national security, but he acted, rather, on the basis of a belief that he was serving the true interests and highest values of his country. Thus, regardless of whether he has broken the law or betrayed his country, Snowden is a true patriot. And finally, guilty or not—a lawbreaker, a traitor, a patriot or not—he has already been severely punished by sentencing himself to perpetual exile. However helpless in its attempt to rationally reject the ac- cusation, this argumentation succeeds perfectly in foreclosing the problem it has touched upon. It deals with the symptoms of the in- toxication caused by the public use of the world “treason”—“the word is pure poison,” writes Herzberg in the same article—not with the toxic substance itself. What is actually so poisonous about the word “treason” is precisely the fact that its meaning transcends far beyond the moral–juridical discourse that reigns over the public of today’s liberal democratic regime. The motif of treason and fi- delity—which is intrinsically tied to it—evokes fundamental ques- tions on the formation of the social. More than a hundred years ago, the sociologist Georg Sim- mel stated that society would not be able to exist for any time at all without the phenomenon of fidelity, or Treue (Simmel 1908). He understood fidelity as a “sociological affect” that aims to foster the persistence of social relations. His favorite example is the well- known expression “faithful love.” Why is there a need for fidelity, Simmel asks, if love that once brought two people together still per- sists in their long-lasting relationship? Fidelity is obviously needed when the cause that initiated the relationship at the very beginning has in the meantime disappeared. It is, for instance, what makes an erotic relationship survive even if the physical beauty that brought translation / spring / 2014 it about diminishes and turns into ugliness. This is why Simmel sug- gests that the notion of “faithful love” simply be replaced by a more appropriate one: “enduring love.” It is precisely because of the mat- 105 ter of time, or, rather, of endurance that “fidelity and its opposite become important […] as the bearer of the existing and self-pre- serving kinds of relationship among members.” It is “one of the most universal patterns of action significant for the most diverse in- teractions among the people” (Simmel 2009, 517). “Fidelity and its opposite,” writes Simmel, where by “its opposite” he obviously means “betrayal,” which in this context ac- quires an unexpected meaning. To stay within Simmels’s example: the expression “betrayal of love” makes no more sense than the al- ready mentioned “faithful love.” Behavior that appears to us, and is often described, as “betrayal of love” is nothing other than an ef- fect of the simple absence of love. How can we say that a person who leaves his or her partner, or begins a love relationship with an- other, has betrayed the love of this person, if the fact that this love vanished before is precisely what brought about the demise of the relationship? Paradoxically, one can betray only a former love, or, more precisely, one can betray what has been brought into existence by this love—be it marriage, family, children, friendship, or similar. It is in this context that Simmel questions the well-known truism “that it is easier to destroy than to build.” It doesn’t actually hold for certain human relationships. While it is true for a relationship that it requires certain conditions to come into existence, this doesn’t mean that the subsequent loss of these conditions will necessarily cause its collapse. Once it has begun, it doesn’t permanently rely on the feeling or practical occasion without which it would not have arisen in the first place—as long as it relies on the fidelity that com- pensates for the absence of these conditions and keeps the relation unchanged in its social structure. This is why it is sometimes harder to destroy than to build. But what does this tell us about the case of Snowden’s “trea- son,” which has shocked public opinion the world over? First of all, it tells us that the whole juridical dimension of the accusation of treason, including its rejection, completely misses the point—its temporal meaning. Although juridical discourse correctly addresses the agonistic character of the problem by situating it in the relation between friends and enemies—“Treason against the United States, translation / spring / 2014 shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,” states Article Three of the United States Constitution—it understands treason and im- 106 plicitly addresses fidelity primarily in terms of belonging to a friendly inside that automatically presupposes loyalty and is op- posed to a hostile outside that deserves no such feelings. This quasi dialectic between fidelity and treason is based on a spatial percep- tion of political and cultural entities. Precisely as such, it reminds us directly of the commonsense view of translation and its obsession with the same subject. According to this view, translation takes place between two already existing languages that automatically imply two different cultures, respectively two separate social and political entities— mostly a nation and a nation–state—each enclosed in a homoge- neous, often also clearly demarcated space. The task of translation in this situation is then to bridge linguistic and other differences so as to facilitate communication between the two entities. Once we have accepted this view, the proper position of translational practice becomes problematic. It can, in fact, never occupy a location equi- distant from the two sides, one of which is always defined as orig- inal while the other is a sort of secondary production—that is, its translation.1 This circumstance is the source of an endless discussion about which side to adhere to—either the linguistic and cultural realm of the original, or the respective one of its translation. Since in either case there is always at stake more than a simple correspon- dence of linguistic meaning—namely cultural but above all social and political effects of translational practice—such discussion as- sumes dimensions of much greater importance that go back to the very formation of the social. The already-mentioned quasi dialectic between fidelity and treason is nothing but a moralistic—and in this sense ideological—expression of a simple truth according to which translation has always been more than a purely linguistic issue, and namely a social and political act. As in the case of the accusation of treason leveled against Snowden, this endless moralistic discussion about whom a transla- .......................... 1 One of today’s widely preferred solutions to this problem is to declare “inbetween- ness” as a cultural space in its own right, endowed with authentic emancipatory po- translation / spring / 2014 tential. Precisely in promising an easy escape from the crude binarism of the traditional concept of (cultural) translation, it fosters the illusion of an emancipation without a rad- ical conflict with the powers that have themselves generated this same binarism. To challenge an imposed “either/or” implies an even more decisive “either/or,” of which the case of Edward Snowden is the most cogent proof. 107 tor should be faithful to has an ideological function, which is to sup- press the problem it tackles, and in this way support the social re- lations that inform the existing reality. Security or Freedom As is well known, the public debate surrounding recent cases of leaking classified information—not only in Snowdon’s case, and not only in the USA—is generally framed by the alterna- tive “security or freedom” that is typical for the whole debate on “terrorism.” Rastko Močnik 2 compared it with Lacan’s concept of vel, or a “forced choice” (Močnik 2003, ix). Confronted with some- one who says “your money or your life,” we actually have no alter- native. If we choose money we lose both. So there is no other option than to choose life (without money). Something similar happens in the “security or freedom” alternative. If we choose security, we will have security without freedom; if we choose freedom, we will lose both. In the case of Edward Snowden, it seems at first sight that he has crossed a fine line that demarcates a proper relation between freedom and limitations to this freedom imposed in the name of se- curity. In a democratic society, such a line is supposed to be drawn as a result of a rational public debate, which cannot be decided a priori and is in itself endless. Yet we have seen that such a debate was quickly interrupted by the accusation of treason and deterio- rated into an a posteriori sophistry on individual guilt and inno- cence. So it seems that Snowden mistook “security or freedom” for a true alternative, while it was, in fact, a vel—a non alternative. .......................... 2 At this point, an editor at a typical publisher’s or journal would ask me to further specify who this name actually refers to, expecting me to provide additional information usually comprising profession and geopolitical location. In this particular case, this information would probably read “Slovenian philosopher.” This would most certainly help readers quickly orientate themselves on the map of today’s global production of knowledge, yet the question is, what sort of orientation is this in point of actual fact? It opportunis- tically follows the model of representation and classification of epistemological subjects that is fully in accordance with today’s still dominant picture of the world as a colorful translation / spring / 2014 cluster of nations and ethnicities located in their own, clearly demarcated linguistic, cul- tural, and political spaces. But this is precisely the model that supports—and is sup- ported by—the traditional concept of translation and the corresponding regime of fidelity, which are the object of criticism here. This is why I refuse—at least in the main text—to provide any such “stylistic” specification. 108 By choosing freedom, it had to end in treason. But why was his the wrong choice? The answer seems obvious: Snowden seems to be a naive essentialist. In his decision to reveal to the general public clas- sified details of the mass surveillance programs put in place by the US and UK governments, he actually addressed and claimed a value—freedom manifested as civil liberty—for which he believed to be the very essence of the society and the state he served, or as we would rather put it today, an essential part of the US American identity. The fact that the addressee responded with the accusation of treason proves that this value has already evacuated its political embodiment, the institution of the state as well as the decisive part of civil society both still claiming to have originated in this value. This is the reason why there is a need for fidelity. It alone is capable of preserving the duration of a social relation beyond the presence of the values and forces that once initiated it. Fidelity assures that this social relation, including the whole institutional edifice built on it, will outlive these values and forces with the same synthesizing effect. What Snowden did not know is that by choosing freedom instead of security he has claimed a former freedom whose place within the American imaginary has in the meantime been occupied by security. By the same token, we might say more generally that the accusation of betraying the so-called American values—or, for ex- ample, “Western values”—does not make much sense. One can only betray what has been created by and built upon those values and now persists after they have passed. The same applies to the accu- sations of betraying love of country as well as the attempts to justify such a betrayal—a claim, for instance, that Snowden in his “wrong- doings” was actually motivated by a genuine love for his country. The moment a patriotic feeling becomes a matter of fidelity, then the so-called love of country has already vanished. This, however, does not mean that an endless public debate over the proper dose of love of country or a harmonic coexistence of freedom and security makes no sense whatsoever. Such discus- sions, as Močnik argues, have a clear ideological function—to re- produce the relation between the state and individual in the translation / spring / 2014 immediacy of this relation. At stake is a situation that has been con- ceptualized in the grounding myth of the modern bourgeois state, in the so-called social contract theory. As is well known, it explains 109 the establishment of political order, above all of its most important institutional form, the state, as a result of a contract among individ- uals. It also presupposes that these individuals, before they enter into the contract, were not bound by any social relation. They enter into the contract directly, as it were, from the state of nature, as purely natural beings, so that the social character of their mutual re- lations is nothing but a retroactive effect of the contract itself. There is also an element of gain and loss in the social contract, at least in its Hobbesian form, where individuals have to surrender some of their freedoms to their ruler in exchange for protection of their re- maining rights, a meaning that brings us back to the topic of free- dom and security, or, respectively, of treason and fidelity. Seen from this perspective, treason is simply a violation of that original con- tract by which an individual egoistically usurps too much freedom, thus jeopardizing the security of others. As a response, society can- cels the contract with this particular individual and excludes him.3 Translation and Social Contract: a Parallel At this point, we should draw a parallel between the theory of social contract and the already mentioned commonsense concept of translation, whose meaning Naoki Sakai has epitomized in the notion of homolingual address (Sakai 1997, 1–17). Sakai shifted at- tention from the paradigm of communication in which translation appears as the transferring of a message from one language to an- other to the problem of address, which reveals the linguistic en- counter that takes place in translation as essentially a social relation. What he calls the regime of homolingual address is a particular rep- resentation of translation in which one side of the translational en- counter addresses the other as though both are representatives of different linguistic communities. It reduces the initial situation of not understanding, which prompts translation, to one single differ- ence between two language societies. Thus, the already mentioned commonsense notion of translation according to which translation always takes place between two separate languages perceived as enclosed, homogeneous, internally transparent linguistico-cultural spaces—and necessarily implies the whole drama of fidelity and translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 3 It either prosecutes a traitor like Bradley Manning, or leaves him in a quasi-stateless limbo by canceling his travel documents, as in the case of Snowden. 110 treason—is in fact a retroactive effect of the homolingual mode of address. At stake is a constellation that, as mentioned above, is rem- iniscent of the social contract, that fairytale regarding the formation of state and society. First of all, the relation between languages and language communities, as structured under the regime of homolin- gual address, resembles the relation between individuals in the so- cial contract. As is well known, individuals enter into the original contract directly, as it were, from the state of nature—that is, as though they have never before been involved in any sort of social relation. In other words, they become social beings only and for the first time at the moment of entering into the contract. Is this not sim- ilar to the perception of languages and language communities that enter into translational encounter? It makes an impression that they have never encountered each other before and have no traces of for- mer relations, no shared experiences, no history of mutual hy- bridizations, no memories of being in the past mere moments of same linguistic continuities. Like individuals at the moment of en- tering into the social contract, languages and language communities appear at the moment of translation in their absolute isolation and solitude, a condition that is constantly reproduced under the regime of homolingual address. It is therefore probably even wrong to say that this regime suppresses the fact that translation is a social relation. Rather, it completely usurps and monopolizes the very sociality of linguistic practice. Translation appears as the only social relation a language is able to articulate, but as a relation between languages not between humans. Now there are languages that, as isolated monads, socialize freely among themselves thanks to translation. Humans who speak these languages, who understand, misunderstand, or do not under- stand them, who therefore cannot but constantly translate and hence reproduce their linguistic praxis (a praxis of which translation is an unavoidable element) and themselves through it, are supposed to socialize too—but only within the enclosed space of one single “own” language. Do they have any social life beyond that? No. Out- side of this space there is nothing but a (linguistic) wilderness, a translation / spring / 2014 presocial state of language qua nature. Once again, we are describ- ing a reality that is retroactively structured as such through a certain, historically particular, and ideologically framed perception of trans- 111 lation based on the paradigm of homolingual address. It would be wrong to say that it simply desocializes translational praxis. Rather, it seizes the social truth of translation and redistributes it according to its ideological function. Its modus operandi is dehistoricization. In order to achieve its ideological goals, the homolingual address imposes a sort of structural oblivion on the translational praxis. It is only after having got rid of its history, which is the his- tory of its social relations, that translation in the homolingual mode of address can feature its three main characteristics, typical of a commonsense understanding of translation. The first is its posteri- ority, the impression that translation enters the scene only after the two languages have already completed their development and reached their final form—that is, as though they meet for the first time without having had anything to do with each other before. This automatically has another effect: the externality of translation. It appears that it confronts an already existing, enclosed, and internally homogenous linguistic space from its outside. So the perception of such a language–space excludes translational praxis in both way temporally and spatially. Finally, these two features merge into one for the traditional understanding of translation’s essential feature, its secondary character. At stake is the notorious binary relation be- tween the so-called source and target language, which implies a qualitative difference between the original in one language and its secondary production in another. It is also on the grounds of this same dehistoricization that the regime of homolingual address in principle doesn’t recognize any qualitative difference between and among languages. Rather, it presupposes an abstract equality of all of them and grants each the freedom to enter into relation with any other language according to its own need or will. In this sense, too, it repeats the logic of the modern bourgeois political sphere that is imagined as emerging out of the social contract and consisting of abstract, mutually separated individuals that are all “free and equal.” In fact, we can think of the regime of homolingual address as a linguistic pendent to the bour- geois political sphere. It also creates a homogeneous space, clearly differentiated from other spheres of life, in which, instead of indi- translation / spring / 2014 viduals, languages and respective language societies appear in trans- lational encounter as free and equal—only after and because they have been radically separated from each other, which actually 112 means separated from their social relations and the history of their social interactions. But beyond the abstract postulate of equality among lan- guages, the reality of translational praxis looks quite different. The statistical data on international flows of translated books show how the world system of translation is hierarchically organized (see, on this point, Heilbron 2010). The so-called hypercentral position is occupied by one single language. Almost sixty percent of all trans- lated books in the world are translations from English. Only two languages, German and French, have a central position each with a share of about ten percent of the global translation market. It is fol- lowed by seven to eight languages in a semicentral position, each with one to three percent of all translated books (Spanish, Russian, Italian, etc). The remainder of almost two hundred languages, among which quite large ones such as Chinese or Arabic (from which less than one percent of all translations worldwide are un- dertaken), are peripheral (Heilbron 2010, 2). As in the case of the social contract, the regime of homolin- gual address does not simply hide the reality of hierarchies, hege- monies, and relations of domination and submission. It is, in fact, like the bourgeois political sphere that is retroactively constructed by the social contract, an institution of domination itself. The rela- tion of domination is intrinsic to the very formation of such a sep- arate homogeneous sphere of abstract linguistic equality, which is why there is no space for an alternative within its horizon. Good, Bad, Faithful The conceptual and ideological alliance between the regime of homolingual address and the social contract theory can also be historically traced down to German Romantic translation theory. As is well know, it is still praised for its so-called welcoming of the foreign (see Berman 1992). In the perspective of German Roman- tics, the foreign (das Fremde), which should be clearly perceptible in translation, is a sort of added value that is supposed to refine the language of the translator and the spirit of his or her nation, or as we would say today, its culture. Concretely, in their case it was a translation / spring / 2014 classical quality that German originally lacks and can acquire only through translations from the classical languages—Greek and Latin. This, however, implies a certain original form of the German lan- 113 guage that could be imagined as a kind of linguistic state of nature, a condition of language before its first encounter with other lan- guages. We can think of it as a state of language prior to its first translation. Precisely as such it again clearly resembles the concept of an individual existing before its first encounter with other indi- viduals in the abstractness from any social relations, that is, before the emergence of society—a constellation akin to the concept of the social contract. In relation to the principle of fidelity that implies a for- eignizing of the language and culture of translation, both emphati- cally preferred by German translation theorists—in contrast to the so-called French school, which proclaimed the principle of license and domestication—the German Romantic concept of translation operates according to the following scenario: a language, respec- tively a language community, represented through the figure of the translator, gives up a part of its natural originality and accepts con- tamination by the foreign in order to achieve the state of culture. But the translator, in accomplishing this cultural mission, must therefore also sacrifice part of his or her freedom and stay faithful to a certain cultural task, which is always already a social and po- litical one—the task of nation-building. Accordingly, the fidelity of translation is not a matter of its quality in terms of a degree of faith- fulness to the original, but, rather, a matter of loyalty to the linguistic community, and, concretely, to the nation. It refers directly to a so- cial relation that must be preserved and developed beyond any given essence, or to recur to Simmel’s notion of fidelity, it refers to a social relation that must be constantly cultivated after the pregiven origi- nality—as it is retroactively projected into the state of nature—has been replaced by culturally generated sociality. Thus, not being faithful in translation does not mean betraying the original text, or any sort of original essence, but betraying the social relation that has been cultivated upon and beyond this originality. In the final analysis, this means betraying a very specific and a very specifically binding political commitment. The consequences of such a betrayal, of course, run far deeper than the consequences of an inaccurate or bad translation. translation / spring / 2014 In fact, the differentiation between a good and a bad translation is itself ultimately a political issue. So, Antoine Berman (1992, 5) de- fines bad translation as an ethnocentric translation that systemati- 114 cally negates the strangeness of the foreign work. It is clearly the fidelity to a particular political cause—here, obviously, a commit- ment to what we may call liberal inclusivism—that makes such an assessment possible. However, Berman cannot admit a political and ideological bias. Rather, he insists on a purely ethical position, ar- guing that translation gets its true sense only from the ethical aim by which it is governed. Moreover, he is convinced that defining this ethical aim will liberate translation from “its ideological ghetto,” which is for him one of the tasks of a theory of translation. For Berman, ethics is what translation is all about, not politics or ideology. What he calls the “ethics of translation” consists of deter- mining the pure aim of translation as such. It consists, finally, “of defining what ‘fidelity’ is” (Berman 1992, 5). That such an expansion of the ethical dimension of transla- tion has itself an ideological function, namely to avoid confrontation with the political meaning of translational praxis and the role fi- delity plays in it, is already revealed by opening the historical di- mension of translation. Referring to Leonard Forster’s research on multilingualism in literature, Antoine Berman reminds us himself that the lettered public of the sixteenth century used to read a literary work in its different linguistic variants, which is why it ignored the issue of fidelity and treason (Berman 1992, 4). How, then, has this issue become, since the eighteen century, of such crucial importance for different translation theories and is even believed to determine the very essence of translational praxis? People started to hold their mother tongue sacred, says Berman. Not only that, we can add. Peo- ple began to think of the origins of their social order, the state, and their very sociality in terms of contractual relationships, which sig- nificantly raised the importance of the ethical dimension of social and political life including the issue of fidelity and treason. More- over, people started to imagine their common being in cultural terms. They began to create nations, unique national cultures, and languages enclosed in homogeneous, clearly differentiated spaces. It was in the age of Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth century that the ground was laid for the most important political in- stitution of our time, the nation–state, and for the political structure translation / spring / 2014 of the modern world, the so-called Westphalian order. Needless to say, both translation and fidelity have important roles in this process, which they have played up to the present. The best example 115 is one of the most prominent political philosophies of the liberal age—John Rawls’s theory of justice, a modern revival of the clas- sical social contract theory. No Justice Without Translation: a Proviso John Rawls introduces the notion of translation at the most traumatic point of his concept of a liberal democratic society, at the dividing line between the private and the public, which in our age of radical desecularization has become a true frontline along which today’s societies threaten to break apart and fall back into the con- stant war of all against all, as is the case today with the sinister af- termaths of the so-called Arab spring. This historical event is in a way a double failure of transla- tion. First, the translation of an allegedly universal concept of West- ern democracy into a local, “predemocratic” idiom of a non-Western world, supposed to be deeply contaminated by tribalism, ethnocen- trism, religious fundamentalism, and authoritarianism—a transla- tion that undoubtedly follows the track of the old imperialist expansionism—resulted in chaos and violence. It only rearticulated this particular non-Western location as historically belated, con- cretely, not yet mature for democracy. But at the same time the po- litical concept of translation that was built into the very project of Western liberal democracy as the instrument of its universal trans- latability, designed to deal with particular claims of all sorts, espe- cially with those of different religious communities, has also failed, revealing a corrupt element within the original itself that renders its translation impossible. As is well known, in his conceptual reenactment of the old social contract theory, Rawls constructed the so-called original po- sition, an imaginary standpoint projected behind what he calls “the veil of ignorance,” an imagined boundary that makes all particular facts like ethnicity, gender, class, religion, and so forth external to our reasoning that now, protected from and cleansed of all the par- ticularities, can arbitrate between rival parties out of the only knowl- edge available within this sphere—the knowledge of the general principle of justice. translation / spring / 2014 Rawls later revised this argument—making concessions to the ever stronger ideology of liberal multiculturalism—and included the so-called proviso, which allows for the expression of religious 116 arguments in public debates so long as they can be translated into the language of public reason (see Rawls 1997). Thus, the bourgeois political sphere falls apart into two lin- guistic spaces that are at the same time separated and connected through translation, which articulates and controls the divide within this sphere and at the same time provides for its homogeneity. In his own dealing with the problem of desecularization, Jürgen Habermas (1989) basically adopted Rawls’s “translational proviso.” He, too, believes that religious citizens—whom he calls “monolingual citizens” (!) since their religious language is the only one they understand—should be allowed to use their religious ar- guments in the public sphere as long as these are translated into a language that is accessible to all citizens. But he also explicitly states who is supposed to undertake this translation, namely the sec- ular citizens, and precisely where it should occur—at what he calls the “institutional threshold,” a boundary that separates the so-called informal public sphere, which allows for articulation of religious arguments and which is therefore contaminated with private rea- sons, from another that informs a sort of pure, or primal, public sphere, the sphere of parliaments, courts of justice, ministries, pub- lic administrations, et cetera. Within the informal public, which we can imagine after the multicultural model as a sphere of linguistic diversity, prevails a ca- cophony (Habermas calls it the “babble of voices” of public com- munication) of mutually incomprehensible languages of different religions, or, as Rawls would put it, comprehensive doctrines. Placed on the threshold to the institutional part of the public sphere, where no religious arguments are allowed, translation, which Habermas explicitly compares with a filter, lets pass only secular inputs, cleansing the language of religious particularities and turning it into a homogenous, totally transparent language of the secular state. The political sphere of a bourgeois democratic society is thus multilingual. It speaks many languages, of which only one is considered to be its original language—the mother tongue of a lib- eral secular state. From the point of view of this proper language of the state and society, all its other languages appear foreign, which translation / spring / 2014 is why they must be translated. And yet this translation is a one- way translation. Is the proper language of the public sphere sup- posed to be accessible to all, thus requiring no translation? 117 The source of this ambiguity actually lies in the fact that Habermas understands translation according to an a priori, given homolinguality—that is, in terms of a preexisting linguistic unity. He thus reduces its meaning to the function of linguistic purification and homogenization. This is only possible on the assumption of a homogenous target language, the language of a public reduced to an exclusively institutional realm. However, this language doesn’t seem to preexist translation. Rather, it appears to be its product, a performative result of the homolingual address, in which Haber- mas’s idea of translation is grounded. This is why this ultimate lan- guage of the political public—purified from any sort of religious or doctrinaire particularity, a language into which all the languages of the “informal public” can be and should be translated—itself eludes any further translation. It is a language in which all foreignness is finally sublated, which makes it the mother tongue of a society en- closed in a democratic, secular state. It alone is able to generate a total transparency of the political public in which, in the sense of an act of self-reflection, society as society is grounded. We should not forget that Habermas, in his Structural Transformation (1989, 24–29), already starts from the assumption that public debates are fully comprehensible and linguistically transparent. On the other hand, the linguistic heterogeneity that is as- cribed to the informal public turns out to be a mere plurality of the already existing, homogenous languages of a particular religion, a political doctrine, or a Weltanschauung. From the point of view of the mother tongue of the society—that is, on the part of a presumed total transparency of the proper, institutional political public—the linguistic diversity of the informal public appears as a domain of a specific clandestinity, the clandestinity of the so-called alien word. Translation: a Return of the Repressed We should, at this point, recall the “grandiose organizing role of the alien word” of which Vološinov writes in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (1973).4 He defines the “alien word,” or the “foreign-language word,” primarily as a word that eludes gen- translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 4 In this section, I rely on Nowotny’s “Kontinua der Verwandlung. Sprachphilosophische und linguistische Aspekte der Übersetzung.” See Nowotny 2008, 95–131. 118 eral use; it hides within itself a secret that can be deciphered and is administrated by “rulers” or “priests” who alone have at their com- mand its “true meaning.” It is not difficult to recognize here a ho- mogenous religious language of Habermas’s informal public. This also explains his translational proviso. What religion has alienated from general use must now be made “generally accessible” again through translation at the institutional threshold. This becomes clear if we remember that Habermas, in fact, conceives of translation according to the psychoanalytic model (see Habermas 1987, and, for a more detailed consideration, Buden 2005, 85–89). Its primal task is not simply to enable understanding between two partners who speak different languages, but rather to sublate the suppression (Verdrängung), which he understands as the splitting-off of one part of the language from public communica- tion—in other words, the privatization of one part of its meaning.5 The goal of psychoanalytic cure, which Freud already explicitly compares with translation, (see Freud 280) is to enable the self-re- flection, that is the reappropriation, of a previously privatized part of public language—made foreign and clandestine due to mental illness—so that the self can restore itself in its totality and trans- parency. This generally explains Habermas’s model of seculariza- tion: religious language is allowed to take part in the articulation of the public sphere because it is in principle understood as a split-off part of this same public sphere, a language that is alienated from society, which, precisely as such, obscures one part of the social self-formation process (Bidlungsprozess) that is closely connected with the public sphere. Just as the patient reappropriates alienated parts of the history of her development in performing translation/ self-reflection together with the analyst, so too does society recon- struct its own self-formation process in performing translation/self- reflection cooperatively via secular and nonsecular citizens, thus establishing itself in its totality and transparency. This clearly confirms that translation for Habermas has a primarily socially formative function, concretely playing a crucial translation / spring / 2014 .......................... 5 Here, we should not forget that psychoanalysis is not an auxiliary means of commu- nication for Habermas, but rather the paradigm of communicative self-reflexion. 119 role in the Bildungsprozess—not only a process of both collective and individual self-creation, but also a process in which society and culture inextricably merge. However, precisely in fulfilling its social function, transla- tion opens up a paradox similar to the one of the theories of the so- called social contract, in which liberal political concepts still try to ground society. Louis Althusser has pointed to this problem in deal- ing with Rousseau’s contrat social concept: at the moment of the conclusion of the contract, as a contract between individuals and the community, the second contractual partner, the community, doesn’t exist since it is only its product (Althusser 1987, 146 and following pages). Thus, the result of the contract—the community that does not preexist the contract—is preinscribed in the very con- dition of the contract. This completely applies to Habermas’s translational pro- viso, which presupposes that translation occurs between two lan- guages—a religious language articulated in the so-called informal public and the language of the proper political public that is spoken behind the institutional threshold. Namely, at the moment of trans- lation one of these languages, the “mother tongue” of the liberal, democratic state, does not exist yet since it should first emerge as the product of this translation. In terms of the filter metaphor—as has been said before, Habermas explicitly compares the institutional translation with a filter that extracts only secular reasons—this lan- guage has the form of a “language filtrate.” The perception that it was already there before the translation is, in fact, an effect of a par- ticular representation of translation that necessarily compels us to the assumption of preexisting, distinct, and closed linguistic enti- ties—in short, the performative effect of what Sakai calls the ho- molingual address.6 So both the existence of homogenous religious communities and the existence of a secular, liberal democratic so- ciety are grounded in the ideological perception of a homogenous linguistic unity. This is the reason why we say that translation has .......................... translation / spring / 2014 6 See Nakai (1997, 2): “[I]t is not because two different language unities are given that we have to translate (or interpret) one text into another; it is because translation artic- ulates languages so that we may postulate the two unities of the translating and the translated languages as if they were autonomous and closed entities through a certain representation of translation.” 120 a socially formative function. It is translation that finally makes out of a diversity of different, religious, ethnic, doctrinaire, and so forth, linguistic communities a homogenous secular society. This society, too, is a linguistic community, yet it does not originate in “natural”—or, from the perspective of the secular state, alienated, privatized—languages, but in a linguistic extract filtered out of these natural languages, which is considered the mother tongue of a liberal democratic society enclosed in the secular state. The nature–culture difference, which is clearly heard here, again evokes the theory of the social contract. One can easily imagine what Habermas and liberal theory would expect to happen to a so- ciety that ignores the translational proviso and does not properly guard the boundary between private and public—a regression into the state of nature, into a Babylonian confusion of tongues and lin- guistic communities that can no longer agree on any common in- terest, since they only speak languages that are foreign to one other. In short, a society without the internal border between private and public, without a borderline drawn by the translation–filter would collapse and end in some sort of Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes. Come Home and Face the Consequences Referring to the impossibility of literally translating the fa- mous Italian aphorism on translation traduttore traditore into Eng- lish as “the translator is a betrayer,” Roman Jakobson suggests that this rhyming epigram be translated in the form of “a more explicit statement and to answer the questions: translator of what messages? betrayer of what values?” (Jakobson 2000, 143). Let us avoid being seduced by the allegedly high stakes of “messages and values.” There is more at stake here: fidelity and be- trayal in translation refer directly to the socially formative role of this linguistic practice. As we have tried to show here, under the regime of homolingual address—which is precisely the name for a historically contingent, ideologically functional, and politically pragmatic form of translational practice—the meaning of linguistic translation, as well as the meaning of fidelity and betrayal in trans- translation / spring / 2014 lation, cannot be separated from the concept of social contract. To betray in a translation does not mean to send a wrong message or to violate a precious value but to break a social contract and in this 121 way jeopardize the existing form of social being—that is, con- cretely, a particular society enclosed in a nation–state and defined primarily through its identity that implies a unique culture, history, ethnicity, and language. The regime of homolingual address, which almost uncon- testedly dominates present-day understanding of translation, struc- turally and historically corresponds to the formation of the bourgeois political sphere, which still provides the backbone for the system of actually existing democracy. Moreover, the concept of translation, forged under the same regime, plays a crucial role—as we have seen in Rawls’s and Habermas’s theories of the secular state—in the way this system creates and maintains the values in which it sees itself grounded: the rule of law, civil liberties, legal equality, secularity, human rights, et cetera. In other words, what is at stake is not only how the concept of translation based on homolin- gual address performatively reproduces the social and political con- ditions of its possibility, the “objective reality” of separate languages, linguistic communities, and nation states, but rather how the system of actually existing democracy—which implies this “ob- jective reality” of separate languages, linguistic communities, and nation–states as the condition of its possibility—ideologically re- produces itself through this same concept of translation. It plays a crucial role in the strategy of its self-legitimation. We would prob- ably not be exaggerating if we were to say that removing this con- cept of translation from the ideological construction of the liberal democratic state—abandoning, for instance, the homolingual mode of address implied in it—would bring the whole edifice down. Can we imagine a secular democratic state without translation at the threshold between its separate spheres that is a necessary precondi- tion for its values claims? Can we imagine a democracy without the claim to transparency and rationality of its political sphere that is provided through translational filtering on its boundaries? Can we imagine a society and its nation–state without its mother tongue that is created through homolingual translation, both in linguistic and political terms? And, finally, can we imagine a democracy, or what- ever might replace it for the better, beyond the homosociality of the translation / spring / 2014 nation–state and its claims to a unique cultural, linguistic, or ethnic identity? No we cannot—as long as we obey the regime of homolin- gual address. It has captured our (political!) imagination, disguised 122 as a natural, self-explanatory concept of a relative humble form of linguistic practice called translation. It has also morally blackmailed our political will, pressing it into the irrational and terrifying limbo between fidelity and treason. There is therefore no other escape but to betray it. And face the consequences. This is precisely what American television journalist Bob Schieffer said in his commentary on CBS News to Edward Snow- den: “Come home and face the consequences.” In his view, Snow- den is not a hero like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. who led the civil rights movement, broke the law, and suffered the con- sequences. They didn’t put the nation’s security at risk, run away and hide in a foreign country, like Snowden did. For Schieffer, there is no value—such as civil rights for in- stance—without “home.” One cannot claim one without claiming the other. His heroes of the civil rights movement sacrificed them- selves for their home, or more precisely for a value they believed would make this home better. For them, therefore, the whole drama of fidelity and treason was not an issue. But it has now become an issue in the case of Snowden, where the value he claimed has de- tached itself from “its” home. Now fidelity is needed—to preserve a home without value, or, as Georg Simmel once put it, to preserve a social relation after the reasons that initiated it have disappeared. This is why Schieffer calls on Snowden to come home. He wants him to reconcile value and home and to revive the old harmonic unity of both from the time of the American civil rights movement. And this is also why Schieffer maliciously accuses Snowden of being motivated by his private pathology: he is “just a narcissistic young man who has decided he is smarter than the rest of us.” Not only does he deny any social relevance to Snowden’s act, he sees nothing socially relevant outside of home. So he could easily stage the drama of fidelity and treason and cast the NSA leaker in the role of repentant traitor. “Come home and face the consequences” is merely an empty, moralistic blackmailing ploy that relies on no val- ues whatsoever, except on an equally empty appeal to honor. Yet, brought together, honor and fidelity make for a poisonous mixture: Meine Ehre heißt Treue (“My honor is fidelity”) was the motto of translation / spring / 2014 the Nazi Waffen Schutzstaffel (SS) organization, and was engraved on its members’ belt buckles. 123 Dare to Betray! Before bringing this story to an end, we should not forget to ask ourselves what actually made Snowden a traitor. Was he truly a freak who naively mistook public transparency for an essential American value? In fact, as a person working for state institutions (the NSA and the CIA) he occupied—in terms of the languages spo- ken in the public sphere—a contradictory position. On the one hand, he was clearly situated in the midst of what we have called the mother tongue of the liberal democratic state, the language of the state institutions that is, according to Habermas, supposed to be un- derstandable by all citizens. At the same time, it was a place of total clandestinity, of a language that is completely excluded from public use since it originates in a secret that can be administrated only by the rulers themselves, regardless of whether they are democratically elected or not. Kant was already familiar with the contradictory character of such a position. In his famous essay on the nature of the Enlight- enment (Kant 1996), he states that those who occupy a civil post or office entrusted to them are actually destined to use their reason pri- vately, meaning not freely, since they are bound by the interest of the community whose affairs they have to deal with. So it is pre- cisely the position within a state institution that automatically pre- vents a person from using their reason publicly. What Kant calls the public use of one’s reason takes place only when a person as a scholar (Gelehrter) makes use of it before the entire public of the world of readers (Leserwelt). Only this public use of reason is free, precisely in terms of a freedom that is required for the Enlighten- ment. But the difference between private and public use of reason can also be understood in terms of a difference in the mode of ad- dress. One makes private use of reason insofar as one addresses one’s own political community and its particular interests. In polit- ical terms, we might call it a homosocial mode of address, and it consequently implies its linguistic correlate, homolingual address. The use of reason in this case is limited within the scope of one par- ticular society that is almost automatically perceived as a particular translation / spring / 2014 language society. So it is limited within one—mostly national— language and within the idea of its exclusive transparency as well as its exclusive political impact. In other words, one addresses the 124 public privately when, in doing so, one assumes a position that is representative of a particular political and linguistic community. It is this limit that not only renders our addressing the public private, but also deprives it of freedom. A public use of reason, on the contrary, knows no such lim- its. We use our reason publicly when we address the world of read- ers beyond any particular society or language. And we do so, as scholars, not as representatives of this or that political or linguistic community, and not even as representatives of this or that academic community. It is the mode of address here that defines scholar, not a particular professional competence. A scholar is someone who ad- dresses an entire world whose boundaries are drawn only by liter- acy. Since the literacy in this case is supposed to transcend all linguistic and cultural differences as well as political demarcations, it obviously presupposes the praxis of translation. This then also means that we have to deal, here, with some sort of translational lit- eracy that is performatively evoked in the scholar’s mode of ad- dress. This throws new light on Snowden’s treason. It certainly consists in his breaking the social contract in which today’s norma- tively dominant political form of sociality—the liberal democratic nation–state—is still ideologically rooted. The question is, however, how has he done it? Obviously, by performing another mode of ad- dressing the public that transcends the limits of his own political community and its interests as well as the limits of one single lan- guage. Concretely, Snowden has addressed a value, which has aban- doned that particular universe called home—a transparency that has spilt over from the enclosed space of a single society, from a clearly demarcated area of an alleged cultural originality, from the concep- tual frame of a democracy locked up within the container of the na- tion state, from the vocabulary and the grammar of a single national language and its respective community. But he has addressed a transparency, too, that has liberated itself from the quasi-dialectical clinch with its “mirror-value,” the secrecy that is constitutive of any institutional articulation of the so-called national interests; a trans- parency that at the same time liberates both him as the addresser translation / spring / 2014 and his addressee, the Kantian “world of readers” or what Naoki Sakai nowadays calls the “nonaggregate community of foreigners,” from the confines of a privately enclosed public. 125 In radically going public, Snowden’s treason also clearly consists in his using reason publicly in the original Kantian sense. Does this then mean that precisely in committing his treason he also acted as a Kantian scholar? Why not? His treason is a political act par excellence, yet such that it simultaneously produces and dis- seminates knowledge. It implies and fosters an emancipatory hy- bridization of a radical democratic politics and knowledge production whose effects recall the forgotten ideals of the Enlight- enment. It is a treason that performatively evokes what it norma- tively addresses—a translational literacy: an ability to act politically and comprehend cognitively beyond the homosociality of the na- tion–state, beyond the homolinguality of a language society but also beyond the gated communities of cognitive competence. As is well known, for the Enlightenment project to work, it had to rely on what Kant called maturity (Mündigkeit). He defined it as the emergence from self-imposed immaturity and dependence whose cause lies not in a lack of intelligence but in a lack of deter- mination and courage to use one’s own intellect freely and inde- pendently, without the direction of another. Kant summed up this idea in the famous slogan of the Enlightenment: Sapere aude!, or “Dare to know! Dare to think independently!” It is precisely in terms of Kant’s maturity that we should think of Edward Snowden’s treason. It presupposes his liberation from a self-imposed regime of fidelity. However, to accomplish it, determination and courage are needed. The slogan of the emanci- patory transformation the leakers like Manning and Snowden have announced would therefore read: Prodere Aude!—“Dare to betray!” (see Buden 2008). translation / spring / 2014 126 References Althusser, Louis. 1987. “Über Jean-Jacques Rousseaus ‘Gesellschaftsvertrag’. Die Verschiebungen.” In Machiavelli - Montesquieu - Rousseau. Zur politischen Philosophie der Neuzeit, Schriften volume II, translated by Henning Ritter and Frieder Otto Wolf, 131–172. Berlin: Argument. Berman, Antoine. 1992. The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Translated by S. Heyvaert. Albany: State University of New York Press. “Bob Schieffer To Snowden: Come Home And Face The Consequences.” 2013. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/16/bob_schieffer_to_snow- den_come_home_and_face_the_consequences.html. Accessed August 2013. Buden, Boris. 2005. Der Schacht von Babel. Ist Kultur übersetzbar? Berlin: Kadmos. ———. 2009. “A Tangent that Betrayed the Circle: On the Limits of Fidelity in Trans- lation.” http://translate.eipcp.net/transversal/0608/buden/en. Accessed Au- gust 2013. Freud, Sigmund. 1982. Traumdeutung. Studienausgabe Band II, edited by Thure von Uexküll and Ilse Grubrich-Simitis. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. Knowledge and Human Interest. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. ———. 1989. Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Translated by Thomas Burger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Heilbron, Johan. 2010. “Structure and Dynamics of the World System of Translation.” http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/40619/12684038723Heilbron.pdf/H eilbron.pdf. Accessed May 10, 2013. Herzberg, Hendrik. 2013. “Some Dare Call It Treason.” The New Yorker, June 28. Jakobson, Roman. 2000 [1959]. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In The Trans- lation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 138–143. Oxon–New York: Routledge. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” In Im- manuel Kant. Practical Philosophy, translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. http://www.marxists.org/ref- erence/subject/ethics/kant/enlightenment.htm. Močnik, Rastko. 2003. Tri teorije: Ideologija, nacija, institucija. Translated by Branka Dimitrijević. Beograd: Vesela nauka. Nowotny, Stefan. 2008. “Kontinua der Verwandlung. Sprachphilosophische und lin- guistische Aspekte der Übersetzung.” In Boris Buden and Stefan Nowotny, Übersetzung: das Versprechen eines Begriffs, 95–131. Vienna: Turia und Kant. Rawls, John. 1997. “The idea of public reason revisited.” The University of Chicago Law Review 64 (3): 765–807. Sakai, Naoki. 1997. “Introduction: Writing for Multiple Audiences and the Heterolin- translation / spring / 2014 gual Address.” In Translation and Subjectivity. On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism, 1–17. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Simmel, Georg. 1908. “Treue: Ein sozialpsychologischer Versuch.” Der Tag n. 225, Erster Teil: Illustrierte Zeitung (Berlin), June 10. 127 ———. 2009. Sociology: Inquiries Into the Construction of Social Forms. Translated and edited by Anthony J. Blasi, Anton K. Jacobs, and Mathew Kanjira- thinkal. Leiden: Brill NV. Vološinov, V. N. 1973. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Translated by Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Boris Buden is a writer, cultural critic, and translator based in Berlin. He studied philos- ophy in Zagreb (Croatia) and received his Ph.D. in cultural theory from Humboldt Uni- versity, Berlin. His essays and articles cover topics relating to philosophy and politics as well as art and cultural criticism. He has translated some of Freud’s most significant works into Croatian, and has authored several books, including Der Schacht von Babel [The Pit of Babel] (2005) and Zone des Übergangs [The Zone of Transition] (2009). Buden translation / spring / 2014 is currently visiting professor at the Faculty of Art and Design, Bauhaus University, Weimar. 128

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translation speaks to Vicente L. Rafael translation editor Siri Nergaard met with Vicente Rafael in Misano Adriatico, Italy in May 2013 at the Nida School of Translation Studies where he gave a series of three lectures. During the conversation, Rafael explains how he, as a historian, became interested in translation and how he sees translation in connection to war and weaponization. The imperial ideology of translation to gain control over linguistic plurality and diversity is threatening translation, he says, and can be seen as a war of both and on translation. The control over linguistic plurality through English is our own contemporary example of the United States’ imperial project of dominating the world, according to Rafael. The conversation continues with Rafael’s telling about his interest in translation play as an opposite mechanism to war, enabling an undoing and reconfiguration of the power relations between languages and cultures. Via the example of the Philippines, the talk touches upon the role colonial education plays in regulating language, creating a linguistic hierarchy, and how translation nevertheless appears in surprising forms and expressions. The interview with Rafael was recorded and can be accessed at the journal’s website: http://translation.fusp.it/interviews NERGAARD: Hello, Vicente RAFAEL: Good Morning NERGAARD: Since our journal translation has the subtitle “a transdisciplinary journal,” you are really the perfect person for us to talk to in this interview for our journal: you are not a traditional scholar of translation studies, but you work deeply on translation from your perspective as a historian. Translation offers a unique perspective on, or a new way to analyze, colo- nialism, power, and language, especially in the Philippines, and even today in the United States. I would like you to tell the story of how trans- lation became such a central theme for you. RAFAEL: Well, like all good things in life it happened quite accidentally. By accident I mean that when I was in graduate school two things—one I [was] looking for a topic to do and I got interested in the early modern period, sixteenth century, looking at the Spanish colonization of the Philippines among other things. I noticed that there were very, very few sources written by colo- nized natives themselves. Most of the history was written by Spanish missionaries. I was also quite surprised to see that a lot of the writings of Spanish missionaries had to do with problems translation / spring / 2014 of translating the gospel because they had to preach in the native languages in order to be understood, which is much easier than translating the native languages into Spanish. It is much easier for the missionaries to learn the local languages than for the na- 203 tives to learn Spanish. And this is, of course, a practice consistent with what they had been doing in Latin America, so I got very interested in this topic and asked myself what would happen if one were to take a look at native languages as historical agents. Because we often think of historical agents as human beings, but there is a certain way in which you can also think of language as a historical agent that is somehow free of human control, in excess of human control, and that’s exactly what happened. One result is that I wrote my book, Contracting Colonialism, where I talked about the centrality not just of translation, but the relationship between translation and Christian conversion. And it turns out that in the missionary tradition the two are in fact almost syn- onymous. To translate and to convert are very closely related. And these in turn were absolutely essential for carrying out a kind of imperial project of colonization. So from then on it seemed like translation, conversion, and colonization seemed to all resonate with each other as part of a continuum, and that has been a re- curring obsession on my part, where I started looking at my sub- sequent work. In my later work I started looking at the American empire and the American colonization of the Philippines. But I also became very, very interested lately in the emergence of Eng- lish as a kind of hegemonic language. So those are the things that have led to my becoming very interested in translation. Origi- nally, the interest in translation grew out of my interest in larger historical issues relating to empire and colonialism. NERGAARD: As a historian this attention to language and translation in relation to history became a kind of obsession, as you said. How did the institu- tions, the universities react to this? The departments of history have not paid so much attention to language—the role of language and translation. So how was your work accepted, how was it received in the universi- ties? RAFAEL: First of all I think you are absolutely right. Not just history, but in many other Social Sciences, even in the Humanities, trans- lation has been ignored. NERGAARD: Even Comparative Literature ignored translation for many years… RAFAEL: It is for the same reason that there is a tendency to see language in purely instrumental terms, as a means to an end, as if thought was possible without language—as if actions were possible with- out language. I was very, very lucky again to be at the conjunction translation / spring / 2014 of things. I started my graduate training in the late ’70s and I went to Cornell, which is in upstate New York, and at that time the United States was just opening up to a fresh wave of Conti- nental theory, mostly from France and Germany. Everything 204 ranging from Hermeneutics to Deconstruction, to French Fem- inism—all of which paid close attention to the workings of lan- guage. So it was a time that was very hospitable to what they used to call the Linguistic Turn and so it allowed me space and re- sources to do my own work. But it is still a struggle. In other words, the question of language is not something that is easily thought about in the historical profession. In that sense, my work is still sort of idiosyncratic, but that is OK because then I always feel like I have something different to say than what most other historians have to say. I am not doing the same old thing. I have got something different to contribute. There are certain advan- tages to being on the margins. One just has to know how to take advantage of that position. NERGAARD: You are speaking about a period in which the so-called Linguistic Turn took place in philosophy, but it also ignored translation. RAFAEL: There is another aspect in my case to what I was doing that made translation absolutely essential—that I was involved in the US in what was called Area Studies, which is this thing that emerged in the post-Cold War period. The United States was very interested in competing with the Soviet Union, and one of the things that they did was try to extend not just their military influence, but their cultural influence around the world. Part of that was to fund universities to put up what they called Area Studies so they would study different regions of the world and develop a kind of scholarly expertise in these areas. Very similar to what Britain and France and Holland and all the other Euro- pean countries had done. And in the process of funding these Area Studies programs they began to emphasize language training and of course that brought out the question of translation. So people became very adept, or at least there was a whole generation of Area Studies experts that emerged from these centers that de- veloped fluency in the languages and some of them became in- terested in the problem of translation. This included two of my advisors at Cornell—one of whom was Benedict Anderson, an- other of whom was James Siegel—and they had written particu- larly on problems of translation around the emergence of things like nationalism, the emergence of authoritarianism in various parts of Southeast Asia. So, in a way, again I was very fortunate to be working with people who already assumed the importance of translation. In my case, as I said, translation emerges organi- cally from the very sense of the problems I was looking at, be- translation / spring / 2014 ginning with religious conversion and then later on with... more lately thinking about problems of counterinsurgency and milita- rization and so forth, where once again language and the attempt to tame language through translation becomes absolutely crucial. 205 NERGAARD: In the last works you mentioned, you introduced new terms and a new vocabulary with which to discuss translation studies. War of trans- lation, translation in wartime, weaponization of translation, targeting translation in the counterinsurgency. This is really a new vocabulary and it is quite strong. RAFAEL: Well it’s not so much that it is new. The other day I was reread- ing The Translation Studies Reader by Lawrence Venuti. It is very interesting to read his historical introduction about translation studies in which he talks about, for example, Roman Antiquity and the status of translation as it was understood by the late Roman writers—Cicero and Horace and others. I am not very familiar with that history, but I was very surprised to realize that even then there were competing notions of translation. For ex- ample, a part of the idea of translating Greek authors into Latin in part had to do with the late Roman desire to rival the legacy of Greece. Not only were they appropriating Greek literature and Greek writing and Greek thought, they also wanted to, as it were, conquer it in the sort of imperial vein and so you realize that the idea of translation, at least in the West, was always implicated in the idea of rivalry, competition—which is another word for war. Not only that, but there has always been a contest between rhetorical approaches to translation and grammatical approaches to translation—word-for-word, sense-for-sense—and that ten- sion has animated, for example, translations of the Bible from St. Jerome to Luther. And, of course, it has figured in the history of missionary translations of the gospel all the way up to today. At the Nida School of Translation Studies we are talking about this. So it is not surprising translation should figure in imperial proj- ects of all sorts including the latest one, which is the United States’ project to maintain their dominant position in the world. So in a sense what I am doing is simply reminding people of a feature of translation that tends to get lost, which is it tends to turn on not just the transfer of meaning, but also on the struggle to control that process of transferring meaning. It relates to all sorts of tensions around procedures, around the limits of what can be translated. In that sense, translation is always fraught, so it is always at war, as it were. And, finally, something I was trying to talk about yesterday is that there is what Derrida calls a kind of logocentric tradition in Western thinking, which tends to priv- ilege thought over speech and then, of course, speech over writing and so, for instance, there is this hierarchical chain of signs. And translation figures very prominently there because within the lo- translation / spring / 2014 gocentric context, as I have tried to argue, translation becomes a means to an end. And that end, at least in the Western logocen- tric context, is the end of translation, so you can say the end of translation is the literal end of translation—the point where peo- 206 ple will feel like everything is so transparent that there is no need to translate. That itself is part of this war of domination that is going on. NERGAARD: And it is almost always there as a ghost, as if that transparency was the ideal, where translation is not necessary any more. RAFAEL: Yes, exactly. NERGAARD: With that transparency—the end of translation—we would lose everything. We would lose plurality. We would lose meaning. We would lose everything. Nevertheless, that’s the kind of ideal ghost right there. RAFAEL: Right. NERGAARD: As if we could avoid difference. RAFAEL: And it not so much, really, to avoid difference or to avoid plu- rality. It is to be able to have total control over linguistic plurality, to make this control totally mechanical. And that is the dream, for example, of automatic translation systems. Now, the attempt to develop automatic translation systems, which I have also writ- ten about, is precisely to make everything perfectly equivalent to everything else, which of course is the dream of capitalism. This would be a perfectly capitalized world where everything could be exchanged for a single medium and measure of exchange, and in this case that medium and measure of exchange is increasingly English. English is now becoming the equivalent of the dollar, the capitalist “sign par excellence.” So, again, it is not so much the disappearance of difference—it is about the ability to control the production and circulation of differences that this imperial ideology of translation, in my opinion, has set out to do. And, of course, there are all kinds of resistances to that, and that is part of the story that I am very, very interested in: to try and plot the way in which not only this war on translation is progressing— that is, the war of as well as on translation—but also the way in which this war is being evaded, the way this war is being dis- placed, the different responses to this war in such a way as to make the kind of final victory impossible. So what you get, in- stead, is the emergence of what I call ongoing insurgency, lin- guistic insurgencies of all sorts: puns, jokes, the creation of slang. And there is, of course, the most important arena for linguistic insurgency, which I believe to be literature. So long as you have translation / spring / 2014 literature you have hope. Because so long as you have literature, you have the need for translation. It works both ways: to the ex- tent that you have translation, literature becomes possible, and to the extent you have literature, translation becomes essential. 207 NERGAARD: Necessary and essential. RAFAEL: Right, to that extent you cannot have a single ideology of trans- lation controlling the production of difference, because differ- ence will always proliferate beyond the control of any particular translation ideology, thanks to literature. NERGAARD: Thanks to literature… RAFAEL: Yes, so literature is a principle of hope as far as I am concerned, or I should say a resource, a resource of hope in a world where translation tends to get reduced to merely instrumental terms, such as, for example, when the US Department of State calls translation a complex weapons system. NERGAARD: Very interesting. And the connections to other areas in translation studies becomes clear. But I still suggest that you introduce a new vo- cabulary. With postcolonial criticism we are familiar with concepts like “power” and “conflict,” but you use “war.” You use other concepts, too, such as “weaponization”... RAFAEL: In part, that grows out of the influence of the events of the last ten years, including the “Global Wars on Terror,” the kind of brazen attempt at colonial occupation on the part of the United States in Afghanistan and in Iraq as well as interventions in places like Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and so forth. Not to mention, of course, the occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel, which would not be possible without the aid of the United States. All of that has placed the question of war, I think, in a lot of peo- ple’s minds, and my attempt to talk about translation in terms of war grows out of my concern with more recent events. There is also another aspect to it, which is that there is a way in which war has always played a central part in the formation of social re- lations and the formations of society. When you think about how, for example, modern national states have arisen, almost every sin- gle modern state has arisen precisely in the wake of, or in the process of, engaging in war both against other nation–states, as well as against certain peoples within that particular nation–state. So I would think that, to the extent that war is constitutive of social relations, it would then also have a constitutive role in the processes of translation, as indeed one can see by looking at the history of translation, showing how it is always fraught, it is al- ways involved in all sorts of conflict. That there is, just as Derrida translation / spring / 2014 many years ago said about the violence of writing, so too I think there is a violence that is intrinsic to every act of translation. I think in certain cases it helps to think about translation in those terms. I do not, of course, assume it is an appropriate way to 208 think about translation in every possible context, but, especially in contexts I have been looking at, I think the connection be- tween translation and war is very useful. NERGAARD: You probably could relate this to what Antoine Berman says— that all translation is naturally ethnocentric. So you sense this violence again, because you want to change what is foreign and make it look more like what you are familiar with. RAFAEL: I mean, I agree with that to a certain extent in that the trans- lation might begin in a sort of ethnocentric vein, but to the extent that translation also signals a kind of ineluctable opening to the other, it also initiates a kind of ongoing alterity. Its war-making powers, as it were, invariably become attenuated. Again, as I sug- gested yesterday in my talk, the other possibility in thinking about translation as war is translation as play, and the question of play then turns conflict, violence, and so forth in a different direction. It is about the displacement of conflict. It is not the banishment of conflict, but the reformulation of conflict as a kind of indeterminate, ceaseless displacement that allows for the desta- bilization of any particular power relations. And play, this is something I would like to explore further. I have only just begun to think about this question of play and of course there is an enormous literature about this. But the question of play as that which attenuates, not just a particular kind of dialectical conflict, which is at the heart of war, but the question of play is that which opens up into other possibilities, the possibilities of the literary, for example, as I was trying to suggest yesterday. Play as that which is connected to the question of freedom. Why do we play? We play because in some sense play offers a kind of escape. It of- fers a kind of release. It opens up an alternative world where noth- ing is stable, where no one is permanently on top, no one is permanently on the bottom, where there is a certain kind of joy and happiness in being able to not just control the world, but also in allowing oneself, as it were, to be controlled by the world; so there is a kind of delight in the loss of identity, or the fluidity of identity. NERGAARD: But you have to be empowered with language before you can allow yourself to play in such a fashion. RAFAEL: Well, you have to know the rules, of course, you have to know the rules before you can play the game, so it also brings in a cer- translation / spring / 2014 tain kind of discipline, but a discipline that is not about surveil- lance. It is a discipline that is not about submitting to a particular power. It is a discipline that enables you precisely to participate in the loss of power, if you will. So much of play is predicated on 209 this loss of power, and, as I said, a kind of opening up to a certain kind of freedom. It is to think about translation as that which is connected to an emancipatory project. That is the other side. So on the one hand translation is war, which is to think of transla- tion as ineluctably implicated in power relations, but on the other side of it is translation as play, which is to think of translation as that which also has the potential to undo and reconfigure, and perhaps do away with these power relations in the name of a more just and a more free world. NERGAARD: Yesterday, during your talk at The Nida School in Misano Adriatico, you were discussing the school system back in the Philippines. Can you tell us a bit more about that situation in which local languages are pro- hibited and the use of a foreign language is imposed? RAFAEL: What I was talking about yesterday was colonial education and the role colonial education plays in regulating language and in the creation of what I have been calling a linguistic hierarchy. I think this is typical with all, not just in a colonial context. I think this is typical of all schools, the majority of schools, where the idea of going to school, among other things, is the idea of learn- ing how to behave in a certain socially acceptable way. And in- trinsic to that mode of behavior is the ability to be able to speak in a certain accessible way. So one is educated, but one is educated in a particular way, so one becomes recognizably “grown up,” be- comes developed. There is this whole developmentalist philoso- phy that is, I think, intrinsic in all modern educational systems, colonial and postcolonial. And that has to do with being able to speak in a certain way. Speaking in a certain way, speaking in a way that is educated, as they say, and this is something that can be empirically verified in lots and lots of different situations. But this idea of appearing to be, or sounding to be, educated means being able to speak language in a kind of standardized conven- tional way. That often entails repressing the more idiomatic, more colloquial, more dialectical versions of that language. So one speaks Italian correctly, which means not speaking the local di- alects. This is intensified and amplified in the colonial situation. The colonial situation I was talking about yesterday, where Fil- ipino students were expected to speak English, but in the process of speaking English, they were expected to repress the vernacular. And then, of course, the question becomes to what extent is this repression successful? Or does the repressed always return? And obviously in the case of the Philippines that is what happens. It translation / spring / 2014 returns to haunt, as it were, various attempts to speak in a stan- dardized conventional fashion. How do we know this? Very sim- ply, we know this because of the persistence of accents. To the extent that people still speak with accents is the extent to which 210 their speech is always marked by the very thing they were sup- posed to suppress. And what is that very thing they were sup- posed to suppress? They were supposed to suppress their mother tongue, which is their origin, right? So the origin always comes back, as it were, in displaced fashion. In the form of an accent, and I think this is true every time people speak, they always speak with accents and those accents always betray where they came from, their accents always betray another speech. Deleuze has this wonderful short essay called “He Stuttered,” where what he says about stuttering we can say about accents. Stuttering, he says, re- veals the existence of another language within language. And he goes on to talk about this in another register when he talks about style. He says style is the foreign language that dwells within con- ventional speech, and to the extent that we all have our own style of speaking, that we try to develop our own style of speaking when we speak with an accent, is the extent that we are always speaking another language within the language that is socially ac- ceptable. So that means we are always translating whenever we speak, whether our own or another’s language. NERGAARD: And can I use the accent because I want to keep my identity, too? It is not that I am not able to speak proper English, but I keep my accent because that is part of my origin. RAFAEL: Yes, perhaps, perhaps. As you know the sounding of accents is always the sign of translation at work, so another way of thinking about accents is that accents are always the points where transla- tion occurs, where it fails or it succeeds, right? Now, I don’t know how you do this, but for example in my case, my English would be standard American English, but when I go to the Philippines I cannot speak like this. If I spoke like this people would have difficulty understanding me, or they would think that I was put- ting on airs, that I was trying to be better than them because I spoke a different, more Americanized English, and so they would expect me to speak in the local register. I would have to change accents and usually within a day or two I am speaking entirely, as it were, “native.” I have to “go native,” right? Perhaps this hap- pens to you too when you go to Norway? And this usually is the case, so we are always translating back and forth, not only be- tween languages, but between accents, because accents are ways of marking our identity, which is to say, difference, right? NERGAARD: Exactly, exactly. I was thinking about the history of Norway when translation / spring / 2014 the Danish dominated Norway and the official language was Danish. Our written language was Danish, but the accent persisted: no Norwegian speaker used the Danish pronunciation. These languages are very close, so you have the language, the nonlanguage and the in-between, and the 211 Norwegians were still always in-between—they wrote in Danish, but the pronunciation was Norwegian. RAFAEL: Fantastic, fantastic. And there is a question of whether or not it is a matter of intention. We like to think it is a matter of in- tention. We like to think we are in control of our accents, but in fact, to the extent that we always speak with an accent, is the ex- tent that we cannot help but speak with an accent. That suggests that there is something physiological about speech that is beyond intentionality. Which is to suggest, if you take it one step further, that there is something about translation that is beyond our in- tention. There are different ways to think about it. One can think maybe translation is hardwired into our body. We must translate, we have no choice but to translate within language, across lan- guages, within accents, across accents. It is precisely something that we are compelled to do, which is to say it is compulsive. It is beyond our intentionality. That is the other interesting thing, too, about accents: we find it is not just the sign of translation at work, it is also the sign of a certain kind of resistance to inten- tionality. Right? NERGAARD: That’s very interesting. That’s another area that has not been ex- plored in translation studies at all. The psychological aspect of it, too, de- serves study, so I will look forward to your next book, Vicente. RAFAEL: It will be on accents. NERGAARD: Of course. Thank you very much. RAFAEL: You are very welcome. It has been a pleasure. NERGAARD: Thank you. Vicente L. Rafael, is Professor of History at the University of Washington in Seattle. Much of his work has focused on such topics as comparative colonialism and national- ism, translation, language and power, and the cultural histories of analog and digital media especially in the context of Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and the United translation / spring / 2014 States. His books include Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (1993); White Love and Other Events in Filipino Histories (2000), and The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines (2005). 212

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Introduction After an interruption of almost two years, due to a change of pub-lisher and additional complications, I am delighted to announce that translation: A transdisciplinary journal is back— stronger and better than before. Thanks to a collaboration with the publisher Eurilink University Press located in Rome in Italy, we are finally able to take up all the threads we had fashioned and, more importantly, are creating anew. We owe all our readers sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay has caused many of you—readers who have been wait- ing for new articles and issues to peruse; authors who have been waiting to see their articles published; subscribers who have paid to receive the journal in print, online, or both; the community fol- lowing us online. Thank you for your patience and faith in our shared project that is translation. To get back on schedule as soon as possible, we will be pub- lishing issue 6—a special issue devoted to Memory and guest edit- ed by Bella Brodzki and Cristina Demaria—immediately after the present one. Before I introduce the exciting content of this issue, let me pres- ent a few new entries and changes in the journal’s staff. Carolyn Shread (Mount Holyoke College, USA) is the journal’s new assis- tant editor, and Giuliana Schiavi and Salvatore Mele (both Scuo- la Superiore Mediatori Linguistici, Vicenza, Italy and members of FUSP—Fondazione Universitaria San Pellegrino) are new mem- bers of the editorial board. In truth, they are not really new, since all three have served at the journal since 2014; but this is the first time they are officially connected to a new issue of the journal, and are presented to the readers. It is also thanks to Carolyn, Giuliana, and Salvatore that the journal is now reappearing. Loc Pham Quoc (Hoa Sen University, Vietnam), who has al- ready appeared in the journal as author, will in the future serve as translation / 9 the journal’s new reviews editor. He will be responsible for the reviews published on the journal’s website (translation.fusp.it). Reviews will include not only books, but also events, conferences, and other initiatives and publications related to translation. I look forward to a stimulating collaboration with these four fine scholars and friends. (Please find their bio presentations in the last pages of this issue, and on the journal’s website. A journal’s board is important to establish its editorial identity, to guarantee continuity, and to conceive innovative and original issues, but what gives a journal its body is its content. This is en- sured by the authors and their articles and contributions, and I am proud to present this new issue’s particularly strong and innovative content. First of all, we are happy to continue the tradition of hosting lectures presented at the yearly Nida Translation Studies Research Symposium in New York. The current issue is therefore publish- ing Bella Brodzki’s “Autobiography, Memory, and Translation” and Suzanne Jill Levine’s response, “Autobiography/Translation: Memory’s Losses or Narrative’s Gains?” It is a particular pleasure to include these two scholars’ contributions, since both serve on the journal’s advisory board and have sustained the journal since its foundation. From the same symposium, we also publish an article by Christi Merrill presented below. Bella Brodzki’s point of departure is a strong statement: She argues that “autobiography is a modality of translation” since it translates “experience.” The autobiographer, in other words, is a “translator of her own life experience or past, whose meaning is created through the interpretive act of remembering.” Brodzki’s essay develops ideas presented in her groundbreaking Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival and Cultural Memory (2007), in which she so convincingly demonstrates how connected mem- ory and translation are, since all translations reconfigure, redefine, and excavate a past, relying on memory and remembering. As mentioned above, Brodzki will be developing the theme of Mem- ory for our next issue as guest editor with Cristina Demaria. In this issue she looks at one special form of memory—autobiogra- phy—and analyzes three very different examples of autobiography translation / and their special mode of creating a memoir, conceived here as a self-reflexive mode of translation. The subject of autobiography is 10 therefore both a translator and a translation; the autobiographee is being displaced, carried over, “shifting shape and form, becoming other to herself.” As the translation process of the psychic content of self-re- flection and memory is a characteristic for autobiography, and “all memory is mediated and motivated,” Brodzki turns to Freud, electing him as a guiding spirit in her inquiry. Freud, himself a paradigmatic figure of translation, provides an interpretive frame- work for her analysis. The role of autobiography and translation in Freud is present in the essay as a kind of fil rouge, and, as Suzanne Jill Levine puts it in her response to Brodzki, “Autobiography and Translation come together logically and intuitively in Freud whose early work as a translator helped create his career as a scientist and hence the persona whose theoretical work was practically based on autobiographical as well as clinical reflection.” Brodzki’s first example is Nabokov’s Speak Memory, a book that in itself is particularly interesting also because it is a result of multiple translation processes between Russian and English. Brodzki’s next example is the Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé, whose texts are translated into English by her transla- tor–husband Richard Philcox. Here, Brodzki demonstrates how the couple “enact the ongoing, defining, and productive tension within translation studies, of the paradox of untranslatability on the one hand, and translatability on the other.” Alison Bech- del’s graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) is Brodzki’s final example of another variation on the theme of “how techniques of translation are implicated in the act of mate- rializing, textualizing, and visualizing the autobiographical sub- ject.” In her response to Brodzki’s lecture, Levine draws attention to parallels between autobiography and biography, asking wheth- er both of these forms of biographical writing, as well as other forms of narrative—fictional and nonfictional—can be considered as having a translational nature. “Are we perhaps speaking of a translational paradigm for narrative in general?” she asks. Analyzing the case of Dalit literature, “a phenomenon in and of translation,” Christi Merrill suggests we “think more carefully about the relationship of translation studies to postcolonial theo- ry.” Her article explores the ways Dalit consciousness is a multi- translation / 11 lingual issue, connecting it to the multilingualism that is so central in India that one can speak about a “translating consciousness” consisting in an “‘open’ daily negotiation along a continuum of mutual understanding.” Let me add a personal note here: for me, as a European grow- ing up in an ideologically monolingual society, going to India for the first time last year to attend the international conference on Plurilingualism and Orality at the Indraprastha College for Wom- en, University of Delhi, organized by Babli Moitra Saraf, one of our board members, and with the participation of this journal, it was an incredible surprise to experience how people used several languages simultaneously in a continuous translation movement. It struck me that if the dominating Eurocentric Translation Studies discourse had looked further outside its boundaries, and specifical- ly to the Indian tradition, it would have developed very differently and might have freed itself from the shackles of a binary hierarchy grounded in monolingualism, and the very idea of one necessary original of which any translation is derivative would not have had such a dominating position. The “translating consciousness” of which Merrill speaks is inherently multilingual, which automati- cally opens an alternative vision of what translation is about. In regard to Dalit literature, Merrill demonstrates how this multilingual negotiation is all but simple and peaceful; rather, it is connected to domination and repression. Since the language of dominance is predicated on caste, Merrill agues the translating consciousness is a more complex one then the colonizer–colonized binary. Merrill’s interesting contribution originated as a response to Robert Young’s lecture “Freud on Translation and Cultural Trans- lation” at the same New York symposium at which Bella Brodzki presented her paper. Young’s lecture—not included in this issue since it was committed to another publication—was dedicated to the concept of translation in Sigmund Freud’s work. Merrill works Young’s thematics into the problematic of the translating con- sciousness of Dalit literature in fascinating ways. For instance, in discussing catharsis as a multilingual project, she creates a parallel to Freud’s idea of psychoanalysis as a translation not only into an- translation / other language, but as a translation of the unknown. If the job of the psyche is to “translate” or displace traumatic 12 experience into a language foreign to the individual subject, the work of psychoanalysis is then to interpret that idiosyncratic lan- guage and “de-translate” it back into a language shared with the analyst. Merrill also sees clear parallels between the idea of cultural translation as explained by Young and Dalit literature, in that “it offers, for example, a possible way of reading the invisible, the subaltern.” Valeria Luiselli’s essay “Translating Talkies in Modernist Mexico. The Language of Cinemas and the Politics of the Sound Film Industry” represents a new and innovative way of looking at how translation may occur through cultural models such as ar- chitecture and movies, and how different “translation practices” represent cultural production and exchange. She tells the story of when the first talkies appeared in Mexico, and analyzes the way in which the introduction of sound movies represented a twofold translation, both spatial and cultural. In examining the arrival of sound film technology, Luiselli looks at the relationship between “the modern architectural language of movie theaters and some of the dominating cultural politics of the burgeoning sound film industry in Mexico.” Her question is whether there was a conso- nance or a dissonance in the relation to the discourse of modernity between sound film technology and architectural perspective, and how they contributed to the formation of ideas of modernity. What emerges is that modernist translation was actually “a way of ap- propriating new forms and thus a creative locus of innovation.” Luiselli discusses different forms of translation, from dubbing and the politics of film translation to the movie theaters as concrete spaces of translation, or even as translators, thus operating with a refreshingly broad concept of translation. Although Luiselli’s essay does not discuss this theme, I would suggest that this modernist translation practice was particularly prosperous in South America. The parallels between the thinking on translation expressed by authors such as Borges, De Paz, and especially Haroldo de Campos with his idea of translation as tran- creation and even “irreverently amorous devouring,” invite further investigation. Luiselli describes the fascinating story of how Spanish-speak- ing dubbers and voice actors were introduced in Hollywood films translation / 13 to counter the threat of English-language domination not only with their voices but also with “their entire body.” The introduction of American films in Mexico was complicated, however, and all man- ner of different options were explored in the process—including subtitling, dubbing, simultaneous “remakes,” and printouts of film dialogue. All of this cinematic innovation took place in buildings that were also subject to translational practices, such as the famous Teatro–Cinema Olimpia, for example, which was originally a con- vent. This movie theater plays a central role in the introduction— translation—of the modern experience to the Mexican audience, and was, in Luiselli’s words, a “translator made of concrete and stone.” Luiselli’s essay anticipates and opens a discussion that will be pursued in the future issue of this journal devoted to spaces and places, guest edited by Sherry Simon and Federico Montanari. Enquiries about translation in connection to places are also present in Sherry Simon’s essay “At the Edge of Empire: Rose Ausländer and Olha Kobylianska,” in which she examines “the work of translation at the edge of empire” through the two Czer- nowitz authors—the Ukrainian Olha Kobylianska (1863–1942) and the German–Jewish Rose Ausländer (1901–1988) viewed as translators of their border city. Luiselli’s broad concept of transla- tion, applied to cultural practices and movements, are developed by Simon in other both social and physical directions, for instance in the political and geographical borders of a multilingual city. To translate at the edge of empire—of which Czernowitz is an example in relation to the translational relationships developed through German—is to be especially aware of the ways in which boundaries can accentuate or attenuate difference. Political borders hypostatize cultural and linguistic differences, while geographical borders often show difference to be gradual. The multilingual- ism of border zones problematizes the activities of translation as source–target transactions. Drawing on a suggestion in Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians, in which the distinction between enemy and citizen, alien and human beings is blurred, Simon looks at “another site of translation at the edge of empire,” a border city that has represent- ed a wall against the alien, discovering similar elusiveness and in- translation / stability of the borders. Czernowitz is intensely multilingual with the particularity of German as prominent and autonomous, and no 14 language apparently dominating over the others. In the search of a more realistic—and less idealized—understanding of the multilin- gualism of Czernowitz, Simon starts by defining it as translation- al, thus underscoring the “connections and convergences across language and communities” that might be much less peaceful and friendly than expected. Literary transactions express this translational terrain, and one of them is the tendency among many authors at the beginning of the twentieth century to move away from German to other minor languages. One such writer is Olha Kobylianska, who embraced the Ukrainian national cause and translated her texts from German. Her writing can be referred to as “translational writing—a product of the particular mélange of cultures particular to the Bukovina and Czernowitz.” The other author analyzed by Simon, Rose Ausländer, on the contrary, “returns” to German after her permanence in the writing in English. But this choice “is less a one-way and definitive em- brace of the authentic tongue than a renewed practice of translation, as she brings back to Germany the long experience of exile, expe- riencing new forms of displacement within the German-speaking world.” The eternal question of the relation between original and trans- lation is discussed in Alfred Mac Adam’s “Translating Ruins.” In an interesting perspective, he analyzes three sonnets that are direct or indirect derivations of Ianus Vitalis’ (1485–1560) epigram De Roma (1552) on the theme of Rome’s ruins. The “poem is a fasci- nating irony,” Mac Adam argues: “A poem in Latin on mutability that seeks to avoid the mutability of vernacular tongues” results in vernacular translations and imitations of which there exist over a dozen. The three sonnets compared by Mac Adam are Joachim du Bel- lay’s 1558 version and the two of which is progenitor or source, namely Edmund Spenser’s 1591 version of Joachim du Bellay and Francisco de Quevedo’s 1648 sonnet. The three sonnets are “si- multaneously the same and different, translations and originals” while they are in different relations to the distinction between translation and adaptation. They are all new poems, “appropriate for their language and culture, but none replicates De Roma in a vernacular language.” translation / 15 Each of translation’s issues includes an interview. We are hap- py to continue this tradition since interviews permit a different form of reflection from essays in that they are dialogic, “thinking- out-loud” texts. Lydia Liu—who has already published an article with us in our special issue on Politics guest edited by Sandro Mezzadra and Naoki Sakai (issue 4) and who will be present in a future issue (issue 7) with the lecture she gave at last year’s New York symposium—was interviewed by Carolyn Shread, transla- tion’s assistant editor. In the course of their conversation, Liu’s work against nationalism emerges as a strong starting point for her thinking on translation, which in many respects runs count- er to current ideas circulating in translation studies. Not only vo- cabulary, but intellectual discourse, political theory, and script are among the “foreign” elements that interrogate national literature and national identities in general. Script, and the technology con- nected to its reproduction such as the telegraph and the typewriter, actually “put pressure on all East Asian societies to reform their scripts.” The paradox consists in the fact that the typewriters’ lim- itations “[l]ed to campaigns that targeted the native script [. . .] as a backward writing system.” In regards to Liu’s ideas on the political dimension of trans- lation, this conversation with Liu offers an excellent explanation of the ideas she expressed in her article in issue 4 of this journal: Liu recalls her research on the Opium Wars through which she discovered how translation “could provide an illuminating angle for understanding international politics.” Contrary to what people generally think, Liu argues that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a Western docu- ment. It is, rather, a document that registers “competing univer- sals.” According to Liu, translation is an event, not just reduced to one instance of textual transfer, and needs to be reconceptualized in terms of situatedness in time and place. “Eventfulness allows temporalities to give any particular text a new mode of life in a new language,” she argues. I hope you enjoy reading this issue’s articles! SN translation / 16

Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15516

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Autobiography, Memory, and Translation Bella Brodzki Sarah Lawrence College, USA Abstract: The article traces a range of ways in which autobiography (self/life/ writing) and translation are mutually implicated in processes of displacement, recontextualization, mediation, and even comparison. Freud, paradigmatic fig- ure of translation and archeologist of memory, is the guiding spirit of this study. Its broad psychoanalytic framework situates three exemplary autobiographi- cal narratives and the modes of translation they perform: Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, Maryse Condé’s La vie sans fards, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. The point of departure of my talk today is that autobiography is a modality of translation. Both autobiography and translation propel change, involve movement, recontextualization, mediation, even comparison. What is aptly named and fits under the rubric of auto- biography—meaning self/life/writing—refers to a broad range of self-referential maneuvers and practices, and is at base a Western genre predicated on a notion of the individual self as at once au- tonomous and relational, and capable of being both “the observing subject and the object of investigation” (Smith and Watson 1998, 4). Autobiography claims a venerable and variable tradition that begins roughly with St. Augustine’s conversion narrative Confes- sions and includes slave narratives, testimonios, and such recent examples of the Küntzlerroman as Patti Smith’s Just Kids. A useful working definition (if joyfully and consistently revised) of autobi- ography for scholars in the field comes from Philip Lejeune: “a ret- rospective narration produced by a real person concerning her/his own existence, focusing on the development of her/his own life, in particular the development of her/his personality” (Lejeune 1989, 4). What the French theorist calls “the autobiographical pact” is the assurance given the reader by the signature on the autobiogra- translation / 17 phy’s cover that the author, the narrator, and the protagonist of this narration share a common identity. Autobiography—or what is re- ferred to quite commonly, in the wake of post-Enlightenment the- ories of the subject and postcolonial discourse, as “life writing” or “life narrative”—is, in any case, not limited to the written, but can be performative, visual, filmic, or digital. What is interesting in all modes of life narrative is that the referential relationship between the origin and the translation, as it were—as well as between the autobiographer and the reader—is contractual. Please keep in mind as well that even, or especially, in autobi- ography studies, the very elements that comprise the constellation of self/life/writing are all culturally contested and problematized today. Put another way, and critical rigor notwithstanding, the va- lence of the various theoretical terms relevant to the autobiograph- ical enterprise, including such marketplace labels as “memoir,” changes depending on the specific discursive context. Much can be at stake ideologically, at least for literary critics and scholars of autobiography; what is a nuanced distinction in one instance is a major conceptual marker in another, a most obvious example of which being the ontological/epistemological difference between a “self” and a “subject”. The former term has metaphysical conno- tations, the latter is a discursive construction, and my view lies somewhere between the two—I don’t link “selfhood” with pleni- tude, transcendence, or authenticity, but nor do I consider the “I” to be merely a linguistic effect. How terms are implemented and in- terpreted, then, is itself a matter of translation, and heavily depen- dent on reception, on audience, on readership. Though I will use a variety of terms today, most of which are modifiers of “self,” this is not an indication of their interchangeability within a prescribed category or lexical field; rather it is an effort on my part to gesture towards the richness of the genre and its ongoing generativity. Returning to my opening assertion that autobiography is a modality of translation, let us consider that the autobiographer or producer of an autobiographical event is engaged in a process of subjective displacement, a carrying over of an idea or a notion of a life and/or selfhood. In the act of being inscribed or narra- tivized, the autobiographer is being translated. Being translated translation / for an autobiographer means shifting shape and form, becoming other to her/himself, as s/he distinguishes her/himself from others 18 through language. Another critical dimension of the autobiogra- phy/translation nexus is that translators inscribe their subjectivity into their versions, most acutely, into the views on translation they espouse and the strategies they deploy. Just as the autobiographer is reading herself/himself otherwise, so is the translator inscribing herself/himself through an other’s voice and text, into another lin- guistic or signifying form. To write is to be written, to narrate is to be narrated, to translate is to be translated. In my talk I shall be exploring a few of the myriad ways a subject verbalizes, materializes, and textualizes the process of self-analysis, self-reflection, and self-inscription in both autobiog- raphy and translation, as reflections on each other. I do not mean to suggest, however, that the self—as source material—is a giv- en, that it is transparent to itself, or that it is anterior to any act of interpretation. Precisely, I shall explore how various facets of the translation complex play out in three dissimilar and distinctive autobiographical projects. My literary examples are modern and contemporary, yet they differ widely from each other. As a com- paratist, I take seriously the conceit that seemingly strange juxta- positions can be most productive and illuminating. My first liter- ary example is text based: Russian polyglot Vladimir Nabokov’s exemplary, self-translated autobiography Speak, Memory (1947). The second concerns the intriguing and divergent autobiographical positions of Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé and her British translator–husband Richard Philcox regarding their embedded sit- uation (although I will make some reference to La vie sans fards, published in 2012, her most recent, and as yet untranslated autobi- ography), where most of my commentary will concern them as a translation couple and its implications for the global literary mar- ketplace. The third is also text based, but transgeneric: American cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home (2006). In each case, the autobiographer is implicitly, and often explicitly— depending on the various modes and languages involved—a trans- lator of his or her own “life experience” or past whose meaning is created through the interpretive act of remembering. As a paradigmatic figure of translation, Freud is my guiding or informing spirit into this area of inquiry: Freud as an object of translation; as a translator himself; and as a theorist, especially in the early essay “Screen Memories” (1899), in itself a selection translation / 19 of his own childhood recollections, disguised in dialogic form. The translation history of the writings of Sigmund Freud is one of the most fascinating, controversial, and overdetermined instanc- es of the power of a particular translator to influence indefinitely a target culture’s reception of a major body of thought. As some Anglophone readers of Freud are aware, the copyright on James Strachey’s twenty-four volume Standard Edition expired in 1989, provoking debates worldwide on the consequences of retranslating Freud’s works, not only for those reading in English, but in all foreign versions, since many are translations from the English and not the original German. On the one hand, Strachey’s monumen- tal endeavor has been admired for its homogeneous lucidity and consistency; on the other, it has been excoriated for effectively in- tegrating and synthesizing what Freud left fragmentary and “pro- cessive,” most glaringly for imposing Ancient Greek and Latin ter- minology onto everyday German words in the service of making Freudian discourse sound more “scientific.” Even as Freud (and his daughter Anna) approved of Alix and James Strachey’s, along with Ernest Jones and A. A. Brill’s, systematizing of psychoanalyt- ic terminology, however, he continued up until his death to use the same rich range and variety of ambiguous, and often contradictory, terms to describe the most elusive and intimate workings of “psy- chic life”—as he had always done. At the risk of committing the intentional fallacy, can we in- fer that Freud privileged dissemination over fidelity in translation, that his conception of language as figurative and fluid, and transla- tion as a pervasive medium of human experience, was broadly in- tercultural and transhistorical, consonant with his desire to attract the widest possible foreign readership for his radical creation— psychoanalysis—thus securing its status in history, as he put it, as the third revolution, after those of Copernicus and Darwin? As we well know, if it is almost impossible to overstate Freud’s influence on modernity, it is not in the realm of science that he made his im- pact (though this may be changing again, as neuroscientists uncov- er the brain’s relationship to the unconscious), but in the domain of culture, and the individual’s relation to it, as evidenced by the way those very archaisms for which Strachey was criticized have infil- translation / trated every aspect of our speech. All the more interesting, then, that the Freud who is universally invoked is, in fact, linguistical- 20 ly and culturally specific. As the essays in Darius Gray Ornston Jr.’s edited study Translating Freud show, many of the challenges raised by translating Freud are not only theoretical or conceptual in nature, but have to do with his extraordinary gifts as a stylist who enjoyed and exploited the rhetorical, aesthetic, and expressive qualities of language, especially that of his native German, which was inflected by his inveterate erudition and cosmopolitanism. Freud was an autobiographer, too, drawing on his own inte- riority as a source text to be interpreted and analyzed as he wres- tled with his developing “science of the mind“ (Freud 1995a, 30), whose purview, he claimed, was no longer only psychopathology, but its relevance to what we now call “the neurotic normal.” He wrote “An Autobiographical Study” in 1924, at the age of six- ty-eight. An account of the internal development of psychoanal- ysis as well as its external history (Freud 1995a, 30), the autobi- ographical essay was published as a contribution to a volume of “self-portraits” by prominent physicians. Far less personal than his case studies, his correspondence with Fleiss, the seemingly minor “Screen Memories” (1899), the monumental The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), or The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), “An Autobiographical Study” is nonetheless a revealing document and has substantial explanatory power. Freud used this essay as an occasion to present an introduction or overview of his ideas as they evolved, and of their reception in the international scientific com- munity. As a self-portrait of the investigator, it tempts the reader to surmise that in Freud’s mind “la psychanalyse, c’est moi!” Translation is central to the story Freud tells. In the early days of his career, he recounts, the planes shifted considerably when, as a foreign student and auditor in Paris, he offered to translate “a new volume of [Charcot’s] lectures into German.” Freud translated not only the third volume of Charcot’s Lessons on Diseases of the Nervous System (1886) and Tuesday’s Lessons at the Salpêtrière (1887–1888), but five entire books in all, from French and English into German. Though he had a position as a lecturer in pathology in Vienna, it was his work as a translator that gained him entry into Charcot’s circle of personal acquaintances and full participation in the activities at Salpêtière Clinic (Freud 1995a, 6). According to Patrick Mahony, “Freud made translation a uni- fied field concept” (Mahony 2001, 837). Mahony elaborates that translation / 21 in psychoanalysis the patient may be psychically conceived as a succession or accumulation of translations, with the analyst as- suming the complementary role of a translator. By means of trans- lations—psychic material is itself already a translation in need of a second order translation—“the analyst effects a translation of what is unconscious into consciousness” (Mahony 2001, 837); that is, dreams translate what the dreamer dreams to what the dreamer re- members and reports, translates from mental image to verbal nar- ration. Mahony also gives the following specific examples of what Freud deemed to be translations: dreams; generalized hysterical, obsessive, and phobic symptomatology; parapraxis (this term for a slip of the tongue is itself a wonderful example of a Strachey clas- sical archaism); fetishes; the choice of suicidal means; and the an- alyst’s interpretations (Mahony 2001, 837). Freud’s autobiograph- ical study is also a form of translation of his life and career as a scientist and a defense, even an apologia, of his intellectual legacy. I hope that these broad psychoanalytic insights will provide us with an interpretive framework for thinking figuratively and rhe- torically about the autobiographers and translators we are about to discuss. Vladimir Nabokov Nabokov’s Speak, Memory (1947) is a virtuosic synesthetic, trans- lingual, transmodal, transcultural performance. I will barely pierce the surface of its many layers and textures today. By making the reader of the foreword privy to the many stages of rewriting, reframing, and recasting of what he calls “a systematically cor- related assemblage of personal recollections ranging geographi- cally from St. Petersburg to St. Nazaire, and covering thirty-sev- en years, from August 1903 to May 1940” (Nabokov 1947, 9), Nabokov might be giving us too much, before the first page of the autobiography proper has even been accessed. The detailed paratextual information, much like the exquisite meditation on the nature of a privileged life as only a consummately privileged polyglot consciousness could render it, is daunting and some- what overwrought. Translated into French, German, Spanish, and Italian by other translators, Nabokov explains that “for the translation / present, final edition […] I have availed myself of the correc- tions I made while turning it into Russian. This re-Englishing of 22 a Russian re-version of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place” (Nabokov 1947, 12–13) is likened to the kinds of multiple metamorphoses familiar to but- terflies, but previously untried by humans. If in the foreword he posits himself as remarkable among his species, those very liter- ary and linguistic feats are grounded in a principle of translation that treats every change in form as a new thing to be celebrated, but not at the expense of preserving or immortalizing moments or stages of perfection. And yet, the exiled writer’s essay on the challenges of translating Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin into English reveals a translator hostile to a free-form, target-friendly version of a classic. His rarefied, academic, heavily annotated translation privileged its own elite audience, reflecting, as Lawrence Venuti puts it, Nabokov’s “deep nostalgic investment in the Russian lan- guage and in canonical works of Russian literature while disdain- ing the homogenizing tendencies of American consumer culture” (Venuti 2012, 110–111). Is there a connection between Nabokov’s protectionist views of the role of a literary translator and the way he translated his own life? A self-declared “chronophobiac” (Nabokov 1947, 19), his disclaimer about any affection for the psychoanalytic method might suggest there is: I have ransacked my oldest dreams for keys and clues—and let me say at once that I reject completely the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world of Freud, with its crankish quest for sexual symbols… and its bitter little embryos spying, from their natural nooks, upon the love life of their parents. (Nabokov 1947, 20) Doth he protest too much? It is not my intention here to put little Vladimir’s psyche on the couch, despite the wealth of ma- terial he provides throughout this text (and elsewhere in his oeu- vre), only to indicate that while Nabokov is reacting to the most reductive and vulgar version of Freud in terms of symbolic con- tent, he is also using hermeneutic instruments in ways that strongly resemble Freud’s methods. Each embodies qualities of both the scientist and the poet, and both are formalists of the first order. Indeed, as masterful interpreters of signs and symptoms, and de- coders of patterns, both are drawn to structural repetitions, as well as to what escapes those structures and strictures. Critics, among them Jeffrey Berman and Jenefer Shute, have addressed why the translation / 23 figure of Freud looms so large—and so negatively—for Nabokov, as well as the implications for an understanding of his fiction, es- pecially Lolita. It seems to me that what Nabokov rejects in Freud is his primordial pessimism about human nature, and that what he negates is the general principle that he—that is, Nabokov—might not be master of his own mind. If the opening chapter of Speak, Memory is about anything, it is the eros/thanatos dialectic, as is the book’s final chapter, which focuses on intergenerational transmission and the transcendent or redemptive power of the aesthetic imagination. But my aim now is to direct attention to the associative method of forming com- posite events that Freud and Nabokov share, and which serves as Nabokov’s template or creed for turning one’s life into a work of art. What Nabokov calls “the match theme”—the Freudian germ of which is a verbal or imagistic link revealing a thematic or sym- bolic correspondence—is exemplified in two fabulously dramatic events drawn from his childhood. One of those themes is the tragic irony of history, as illustrated in the destiny of a certain General Kuropatkin, a friend of Nabokov’s father, who in one scene, while playing a “match” game with young Vladimir in which he “depicts the sea in calm and stormy weather,” (Nabokov 1947, 27) is in- formed that he will lead the Russian Army against the Japanese in the 1905 War. Fifteen years later, disguised as a peasant, he comes across Nabokov’s father in flight from the Bolsheviks, and asks him for a match. Though his childhood was indeed blessed, Nabokov’s message to his attentive reader above all is that the art of living is less a mat- ter of being endowed with rich original content than it is a matter of a perceiving intelligence imposing sensorial and cognitive mas- tery over the flux and chaos of the world. “The match theme” is a lesson in how to work with one’s source material: tracking, tracing, and linking across time and space seemingly unrelated episodes or events through a metonymic/metaphorical leap that brings them together and thereby raises them to a higher level of meaning, a threshold for further reflection, interpretation, and commentary. (It is, for example, a lesson in linking the moves on a chessboard with the assassination of his beloved father, not as the outcome of translation / a duel the child dreads, but at a public lecture, when it was least expected and he was shielding the body of a more likely politi- 24 cal target.) Nabokov’s technique for critical reading is the model for translating a life, and it is, then, primarily aesthetic in nature. That is, it foregrounds the structural and formal aspects of even the most spectacular and catastrophic of human experiences without divesting the events of any of their wondrous or devastating force, identifying—or, rather, creating—patterns, establishing affinities and thematic correspondences amidst/across what would other- wise remain inchoate, separate, isolated ephemera. “The following of such thematic designs through one’s life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography” (Nabokov 1974, 21). After Speak, Memory, not only is it impossible to read autobiography the same way again, but it is impossible to live autobiographically—that is, to think about one’s life as a thematic design—in the same fashion once one has internalized Nabokov’s model. The opening passage of Speak, Memory—beginning with “The cradle rocks above an abyss” on page 19—offers one of the most striking images and meditations on mortality to be found in the annals of autobiography. Yet the genesis of Speak, Memory was what is now the book’s fifth chapter, written originally in French and titled “Mademoiselle O.” That Nabokov was both worldly lit- erate and deeply imprinted by Russian literature is made manifest in the portrait which serves as the premise for this chapter. Its de- clared purpose is to reclaim through memory the destiny of his old French governess, whom he felt he had betrayed by having previously turned her into a fictional character, thus denying her the independent existence that rightfully belonged to her. Nabokov’s revisitation of the Swiss governess “Mademoi- selle” begins with her arrival by sleigh to the Russian country- side in the winter of 1905–1906. Though of his many tutors and governesses she was the object of some ridicule and derision, he now pays selective tribute to her “lovely” French and its impact on his appreciation for French literature. I have chosen to focus on this recontextualized portrait of the hapless, enormous, miserable figure, because indeed she may not be substantial enough on her own terms to support the attempt “to salvage her from fiction” (Nabokov 1947, 117). And this is not, despite the reasons he ini- tially gives, Nabokov’s prime motive for memorializing her. The autobiographer announces straight away that he is imagining the scene, that he is seeking recourse in fiction once again: “I was not translation / 25 there to greet her; but I do so now as I try to imagine what she saw and felt at that last stage of her fabulous and ill-timed journey” (Nabokov 1947, 98). The memorialist’s conjuring of poor Mademoiselle—who remains a rather disdained and pathetic character in this portray- al—has been culturally, linguistically, and, of course, physically displaced to the Russian steppes from her native Switzerland. The overarching image is of snow. Very lovely, very lonesome. But what am I doing in this stereoscopic dreamland? How did I get here? Somehow, the two sleighs have slipped away, leaving be- hind a passportless spy standing on the blue-white road in his New England snow- boots and stormcoat. The vibration in my ears is no longer their receding bells, but only my old blood singing. All is still spellbound, enthralled by the moon, fancy’s rear-vision mirror. The snow is real, though, and as I bend to it and scoop up a handful, sixty years crumble to glittering frost-dust between my fingers. (Nabokov 1947, 100) A symbolic identification grounds Nabokov’s authorial/auto- biographical position in this classic Russian novelistic scene in which, laying his devices bare, he inserts himself at the end as both observing subject (“passportless spy”) and object of reflec- tion (“But what am I doing […] ? How did I get here?”) through the temporal and spatial displacement of “snow,” and Nabokov and Mademoiselle, who now occupy virtually equivalent or trans- posable positions in relation to the other’s estrangement. His un- derlying resistance to the idea that perhaps there was more to Ma- demoiselle than her lack if finesse is made clear to him belatedly, through his own experience of exile and loss, primarily as a result of the Russian Revolution. In an act of literary mediation and em- pathic projection he comes to understand the gravitas of her life story as a key to understanding his own. With retrospective insight he says at another point in the chapter that this is something “I could appreciate only after the things and beings that I had most loved in the security of my childhood had been turned to ashes or shot through the heart” (Nabokov 1947, 117). Nabokov’s insight, shared with Freud, is that all memory is mediated and motivated, and dependent on a dynamic imagina- translation / tion; because the psychic content of original memory is not avail- able, whether because of absence or inaccessibility, it cannot be 26 restored without being translated to later experiences, desires, and needs. Maryse Condé Maryse Condé, Guadeloupean author of several novels about Ca- ribbean heroines in Africa, slavery in the Antilles, the Salem witch trials, and even a revisionary reading of Wuthering Heights, has written two autobiographies: Tales from the Heart: True Stories From My Childhood,1 and the recently published—but still un- translated—La vie sans fards (2012). Self-identified as a classical- ly-schooled Francophone Caribbean writer, by which I mean that her readership would typically comprise Continental French and Antillean readers, she has attained preeminent status in the literary marketplace as a global Caribbean writer—in the company of Der- ek Walcott, Caryl Phillips, Edouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Rafael Confiant, and Edwidge Danticat—as a result of translation. Being translated, especially into English, has enabled Condé’s work—albeit in altered form—to exceed its linguistic and cultural boundaries and live beyond its own spatial and temporal borders, however they have been constituted. In short, it has brought her the widest possible reception. And yet Condé’s translation complex is of a special order, espe- cially when read in a context—familial and erotic—that so readily invites a psychoanalytic interpretation; I am not going to undertake such a reading here. La vie sans fards is devoted primarily to the years she spent in West Africa during the politically promising pe- riod of decolonization, and then the corruption, hypocrisy, and re- pression of the postindependence regimes. This experience, which she consistently recounts in amatory language, “occupied a central place in my life and in my imagination” (Condé 2012, 16; transla- tion mine); but it was a painful disappointment, a doomed affair. Her less than positive depiction of African life, as seen in both her fiction and memoir, has made her a provocative and somewhat controver- sial figure in postcolonial literary circles. The continent couldn’t at- tract her sufficiently or compel her enough—despite long and varied opportunities during her sojourns in Guinea, Ghana, Ivory Coast, 1 Originally published in French in 1999; translated into English by Richard Philcox in 2001. In-text reference will be to the 2001 English edition. translation / 27 and Senegal—to learn to speak Malinké, Fulani, Peulh, or Wolof. In this failed intercultural encounter in which France, the Caribbean, and Africa are not reduced to the points they occupy in a colonial constellation, Condé represents herself as untranslatable, unable to be taken on her own terms in a different context. Conversely, her inability to find reflections of herself in Africa, to be recognized as herself and not a “toubabesse” [white woman, because Antillaise, for example], reinforces her sense of isolation and exclusion, wheth- er it be a result of history, racial identity, and/or cultural and class values. It is an otherness to which she clings and which she reads as immutable. This paradoxical sense of her own untranslatability drives the narrative, as the autobiographer depicts herself struggling against forces and structures that threaten her integrity, as metaphorically and literally understood. The critical matter pertaining to translation and memory here is not the authenticity or veracity of the self-por- trait as the autobiographer renders it, but the conditions of its re- ception, as she has experienced it. Distinguishing her motivations from the idealizing ones most often attributed to the conventions of recounting a life, Condé proclaims her passion for “unvarnished” truth-telling in the introduction, as she stakes a claim for her sin- gularity while also invoking a more abstract, albeit gendered, uni- versality. She inscribes herself squarely within the French Enlight- enment and Romantic traditions from the outset: “I want to display to my kind a woman in every way true to nature, and the woman I portray shall be myself” (Condé 2012, 12; translation mine). Despite Condé’s resolute individualism, feisty independence, and political risk-taking, her lively and sometimes harrowing nar- rative is framed, on its first and last pages, by her two husbands, the Guinean Mamadou Condé and the English Richard Philcox, whom she met in Senegal. Her marriage to Philcox will take place out- side the narrative, but she pays homage to their first meeting and telegraphs what is to follow. “He was the one who would change my life. He would take me to Europe and then to Guadeloupe. We would discover America together. He would help me gently sep- arate from my children and resume my studies. Above all, thanks to him, I would begin my career as a writer” (Condé 2012, 334; translation / translation mine). Condé herself is an accomplished English speaker and scholar 28 of English literature, who taught for many years at Columbia and other esteemed universities; but she seems to consider translation at best as a mechanistic exercise or practical necessity, not a cre- ative practice worthy of her critical attention. Her manifest lack of interest in translations of her work, when the stakes are, ironically, so high, sound disingenuous for many reasons—not the least of which is that she lives on such intimate and privileged terms with her translator. One could conceive such indifference as a matter of blind trust, and a convenient division of labor, since—in addition to being her translator—Philcox also handles all of her negotia- tions. Ironically, however, their embedded relation seems to ensure that instead of being on the same page regarding translation, their perspectives as a translational couple remain absolutely divergent. As is evidenced in a fascinating 1996 interview with Doris Kadish and Françoise Massardier (the authors of Translating Slav- ery) conducted in French with Philcox (with Condé present) in which he describes his training, strategy, and evolution as a trans- lator, Philcox sees his role as quite important. He valorizes the complex process of “recreating” a text and bringing the writer to a different cultural—that is, Anglophone—audience (Kadish and Massardier, 751). Not only does he believe there is an affinity be- tween the original and the translation, but he also maintains that he is “communicating the author’s writing in another language, in another culture” (Kadish and Massardier, 751; translation mine). Moreover, his translation practice is patently target-oriented; he seeks to make the author, as he says, more “transparent” to the reader, but not at the price of displacing “the geography of the text,” whatever it may be. The challenge for him may be less a question of linguistic specificity than of Condé’s “esoteric” cul- tural references; he even acknowledges being “market-driven” on her behalf. Rather than feeling diminished or constrained, Phil- cox concedes that he feels liberated by Condé’s indifference to his practice, as well as his product (Kadish and Massardier, 755). And he ultimately attributes his progress over the course of his career as a translator, interestingly enough, not to years of living with Condé, his author–wife, or to the cumulative experience of translating her work, but to studying translation theory (Kadish and Massardier, 755–756). That Philcox is sensitive to the gender question—“Do I have the right to translate a novel written by a translation / 29 woman? This question has greatly haunted me” (Kadish and Mas- sardier, 756)—reveals not only a great deal about his own refined and acute sensibility, but also attests to the primacy of gender as a marker of identity for Condé; whereas race seems to figure little, if at all, as a factor of difference for either of them. It is, of course, quite possible that Condé’s antitranslation posture is purely performative; but, if so, what is its value and what are its implications? What Condé stands for in this trans- lation couple is the irreducible difference between languages. Thus, whereas the translator, invested in global transmission and reception, considers his work to be coextensive with the origi- nal author’s work, she—dedicated to perfecting her own liter- ary style in her own tongue—considers them to be distinct. As I have said, Condé has stated her position on many occasions: that translation, being a transforming principle, doesn’t regard her, that she is “othered” in translation, both culturally and linguis- tically. Her insistence on this fact is consonant with what would seem to be the overarching message of her autobiographical oeu- vre. In a conversation with Emily Apter, which was conducted in French—“transposed,” not “transcribed” (Apter’s words) and translated into English, and which appeared in 2001—Condé puts a fine point on what I have described above: I have never read any of my books in translation… In translation, the play of lan- guages is destroyed. Of course, I recognize that my works have to be translated, but they are really not me. Only the original really counts for me. Some people say that translation adds to the original. For me, it is another work, perhaps an interesting one, but very distant from the original. (Apter, 92) Beyond the intriguing and alluring personal and domestic im- plications of Condé and Philcox as a translation couple, together they enact the ongoing, defining, and productive tension within translation studies, especially in relation to world literature and the global marketplace. Whatever the psychological source of Condé’s alienation or iconoclastic individualism, her view of translation as (1) radical difference and of untranslatability as (2) an act of per- sonal or even political resistance, actually coexists, of course—as it has throughout history—with the enduring, competing reality translation / of multilingualism. The inherent paradox of untranslatability in translation is what makes cultural memory possible. What this 30 translation couple reminds us of is that we must remain vigilant in the face of world literature’s instrumentalist, ever-serviceable view of translatability as an unproblematic given. Alison Bechdel Translation is the major operative principle in comics, defined for our purposes today as a juxtaposition of words and images that create a sustained narrative within deliberately sequenced bor- dered panels. In its particular interplay of the visual and the verbal, comics are not the verbal representation of visual art—ekphrasis— nor a representation of the world, but an interpretation; indeed, as Douglas Wolk puts it in Reading Comics, “Cartooning is a meta- phor for the subjectivity of perception” (21). Perhaps it is the pre- mium placed on personal drawing style, indeed of handwriting, in comics that makes it an especially interesting instance of autobi- ographical memory as a process of translation; since the object of our attention is self-perception and self-inscription across different cultural, social, and discursive contexts. I shall not be discussing comics or graphic narrative generally here, but graphic memoir, or what Gillian Whitlock calls “autographics” or “autographies” (Whitlock 2006, 966) as yet another variation on the theme of how techniques of translation are implicated in the act of materializing, textualizing, and visualizing the autobiographical subject. In chapter 4, which is roughly the center of Alison Bechdel’s critically acclaimed, densely and riveting inter/intratextual graph- ic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006), the author foregrounds the book’s metaperformative processes, making ex- plicit what W. J. T. Mitchell describes as “the relation between the seeable and the sayable, display and discourse, showing and telling” (Mitchell 1986, 47). The astute reader already recognizes that comics are a language; this chapter declares that the memoir is a self-reflexive mode of translation, which also situates its autobi- ographical project within a comparative network of signifying sys- tems, most overtly Modernist literature and family photographs, but also the künstlerroman and lesbian coming-out stories. The canon of references comprises Camus, Fitzgerald, James, Stevens, Wilde, Joyce, Colette, and Proust. What characterizes such a nar- rative as “intra-” as well as “inter-” textual is that the images do not only transact with words, but they also engage with each other. translation / 31 In what Hillary Chute describes as a “cross-discursive” medium, intertextuality itself is rendered figuratively/pictorially as well as literally/verbally, showing how textual and visual forms and rhe- torical strategies interact to make latent psychic matter manifest, as in dreamwork. With her deft deployment of displacement and condensation, metaphor and metonymy, Bechdel makes the reader wonder, in the spirit of Jacques Lacan, if the unconscious isn’t structured like a cartoon. Bechdel’s intricately drawn, hyperliterary account of growing up in Middle America in a hothouse of aesthetic expression and erotic repression is constructed around her complex, ambivalent relationship with her authoritarian, fastidious, secretive father who bonded with her over books—while he slyly eludes another primal identification they also shared. An expert in historic architectural preservation, director of a family funeral home business, and high school English teacher, her father Bruce died when Bechdel was nineteen, leaving her to decipher the rich but troubling legacy of similarity and difference that defined their relationship—left her, in other words, to translate the scrambled codes she inherited from him. Indeed, Bruce’s closeted homosexuality and the circumstanc- es surrounding his ambiguous death—was it an accident or sui- cide?—generate this multilayered work. If in verbal autobiography “a lived life” as mediated through memory is the source text, in an autographic work—because its medium is patently visual—the source text would be assumed to be the same; however the relation between content and form is not integrated, synchronous, or organic in comics. If anything, the contiguity between content and form calls attention to the gap between them, to the space between image and words. Indeed, a graphic memoir challenges the primacy of verbal language as the source material, however coded or abstruse, or conveyer of both self-referential and extrareferential truth about that life. Comics are certainly a form of intersemiotic translation, as defined by Ro- man Jacobson: “transposition from one system of signs into an- other, e.g. from verbal art into music, dance, cinema, or painting” (Venuti 2012, 118). But that formulation seems too one-sided for this case. Though there are clearly two systems of signs, it may translation / be impossible to determine which is the source text and which the target, on the level of verbal versus visual signs. 32 Understanding the deceptive simplicity of comics is counter- intuitive for serious readers of literature who are unaccustomed to having to process words and images within the same bounded space in a self-conscious, extensive fashion. What determines the order of reading of the panels, and how does size and shape matter? Horizontal or vertical? What about the blanks between the panels? How are they to be understood? While not exactly functioning as negative space, these blanks, called “gutters,” are also the borders outlining the images. What happens in that space? And, how is that space to be filled in? These elements are—pardon, the expres- sion—graphic reminders that comics, like verbal narrative, leave out more than they put in. It may initially seem as though the pic- tures are easier to grasp than the text, thus requiring less critical scrutiny, but this assumption does not take into account the density of information the pictures actually convey, some of which might be purely aesthetic or formalist in nature, and not content-driven or plot-enhancing at all. (No less so than in literature, virtuosity is a virtue in comics.) Thus the reader of comics who privileges the words at the expense of the images has failed to understand what is intrinsically, internally translative about comics; and, conversely, though it is necessary to possess what is known as “visual litera- cy,” that alone is also terribly insufficient for understanding com- ics. Comics are dependent on the dynamic, irreducible interplay between its verbal and visual components. Bechdel’s precise, fine-line, cross-hatch pictorial style, espe- cially her drawing of interiors, corresponds to her verbal dexterity. In terms of overall conceptual structure and design, the autobi- ography is relentlessly interpretive; experiences presented as dis- tilled or symbolic abstractions are mined not for their retrospective meaning, but for their present value as sources of speculative po- tential. “What if” begins many a sentence. Critics Hillary Chute and Julia Watson call Bechdel’s narrative strategy “recursive,” meaning that it is distinctly nonlinear, turning back in on itself, finding its closure in reversals, transversals, and coincidences (Chaney 2011, 149). In the service of creating a sustained narra- tive, not to mention a satisfying story, an autography selects and combines the panels that relate to one another associatively (that is, metaphorically) and/or temporally (that is, metonymically), as in memory. Following a series of events that Bechdel recalls, one translation / 33 of which includes an encounter with an actual snake, a panel in which she ponders the symbolism of phalluses and their creative and destructive powers, leads next to the scene, as she imagines it, of her father’s death, which occurred as he crossed Route 150 carrying a large bundle of brush and was hit by an oncoming truck. The image in the wide panel is of lush foliage—foliage is perva- sive in this narrative—lining an empty stretch of road with one lone leaf lying in the middle, suggesting her father’s last trace. The text box reads, “…You could say that my father’s end was my beginning. Or more precisely, that the end of his lie coincided with my truth” (Bechdel 2007, 117). In an interview with Hilary Chute, Bechdel refers to the entire enterprise of Fun Home as “involuted introspection,” pointing out that with the exception of the subplot of her own coming out story, “the sole dramatic incident in the book is that my dad dies” (Chute and Bechdel 2006, 1008). In other words, “the end of his li[f]e” compels a psychic and artistic internalizing process of ghostly re- membrance that can be regarded as a “retranslation of the self.” As I have elaborated elsewhere, translation in such a context of intergenerational transmission, whose knowledge is posthumous and always belated is, in the Benjaminian and Derridean sense, a passing down, a passing away, and a passing over of the foreign as well as the familiar, a living on through others, differently. The panel below the drawing of the road invoking her father’s death shows Alison and her father traveling in the family car (which is a hearse); Bruce’s eyes are on the road, while Alison’s head is barely visible as she peers out the window. The caption or text box reads, “Because I’d been lying too, for a long time. Since I was four or five” (Bechdel 2007, 117). What is the connection between these two panels? Everything hinges on the word “be- cause,” suggesting both causality and motivation. Bechdel’s mem- ory of accompanying her father on a business trip to Philadelphia, and stopping at a luncheonette, is a motivated one because, as she says, “WE [emphasis mine] saw a most unsettling sight.” Initially deprived of authorial perspective, the reader/viewer has no idea what the object of their gaze might be. On the following page, there are two unequally-sized panels. The dominant one shows translation / a masculine-looking woman wearing men’s clothes. Both father and daughter gaze at her; Alison expresses to the reader/viewer 34 the great surprise she experienced at this phenomenon. The text box below turns it into an instance of uncanny translation: “But like a traveler in a foreign country who runs into someone from home—someone they’ve never spoken to, but know by sight—I recognized her with a surge of joy.” In the panel below, Bechdel recounts, “Dad recognized her too.” In her memory, he challenges her: “Is that [author’s emphasis] what you want to look like?” (Be- chdel 2007, 118). In the next panel, on the following page, with the image of the woman writ large, she asks rhetorically, “What could I say?” But to her father, she replies, “No.” This is followed by a panel in which father drags daughter, who is still looking back, out of the luncheonette. This instance of perfect translatability—a memory trace in which both Alison and Bruce, displaced from their own familiar/ familial context, recognize another outsider not as a stranger but as someone familiar to them on the basis of an implicit, shared sexu- al/gender difference—is reconstituted as a primal scene from Be- chdel’s childhood, and one of the most charged in the entire auto- biography. The cartoonist puts a fine point on it in the next panel when she discloses to the reader, “But the vision of that truck-driv- ing bulldyke sustained me through the years” (Bechdel 2007, 119). At the moment of Alison’s “recognition,” she didn’t know what a bulldyke was; the signifier may have “sustained” her, but its sig- nification eluded her until later in life. Of course, Bechdel is pro- jecting backward: her superimposition of the term bulldyke onto the genre-bending truck-trucker announces itself as belonging to a cur- rent linguistic/cultural/political context in which gender identity is understood to be performative and provocatively appropriated. This is a current context her father did not live to fully appreciate, but one she wishes him to assume now. As Madelon Sprengnether puts it, in- voking Freud, “[M]emories from childhood vividly recalled in adult life bear no specific relation to what happened in the past. Rather, they are composite formations—elements of childhood experiences as represented through the distorting lens of adult wishes, fantasies, and desires” (Sprengnether 2012, 215). Freud’s final paragraph in “Screen Memories,” which is an in- ternal dialogue or self-analysis, an example of life-writing mas- querading as a narrative with an interlocutor, views memory as a process of construction: translation / 35 the concept of a “screen memory” as one which owes its value as a memory not to its own content but to the relation existing between some other that has been sup- pressed… It may indeed be questioned whether we have any memories at all from our childhood; memories relating to our childhood may be all that we possess. Our childhood memories show us our earliest years not as they were but as they appeared at the later periods when the memories were aroused. In these periods of arousal, the childhood memories did not emerge; they were formed at that time. And a number of motives, with no concern for historical accuracy, had a part in forming them, as well as in the selection of the memories themselves. (Freud 1995b, 126) What is at stake in this primal scene which Bechdel has recon- structed because it comes to play a determining role in her com- ing-out story, is relationality of all kinds, grounding all autobiogra- phy and translation: the relation between the visual and the verbal (between what is seen and what is not said); between a father and a daughter who witness together, and who share a sense of complic- ity, but then suppress that bond of knowledge and affinity; between recognition and self-recognition; between lying and truth-telling. It is above all the circuits of deception and self-deception that Be- chdel seeks to rewire and overwrite. Coyly titled “In the shadow of young girls in flower,” after the French title of the second volume of Proust’s Recherche, the end of the chapter calls the reader’s attention to the fact that the previous translation of À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs— Within a Budding Grove—shifts the emphasis from the botanical to the erotic. However, Bechdel interjects, “As Proust himself so lavishly illustrates, the two are pretty much the same thing” (Bechdel 2007, 109). That cavalier conflation serves Bechdel as a metaphor for her father’s love for flowers and her own devel- oping identity as a lesbian, unleashing a cluster of critical con- vergences interpreted from a current vantage point. Chapter 4, in as much as it invokes Proust’s term “inversion,” is about reading generic and gender indeterminacy, but if Proust serves as the the- matic intertext, Freud has certainly provided us with the method for understanding how the bulldyke scene functions in the nar- rative and why resurrecting this memory now is so critical for Bechdel’s enterprise. Bechdel’s father started reading Proust the year before he died, translation / and it was after his death that Lydia Davis’s retranslation of À la recherche du temps perdu came out; though she prefers the “liter- 36 alness” of In Search of Lost Time, Bechdel laments the fact that perdu and lost are not simple equivalents: that perdu also connotes “ruined, undone, wasted, wrecked, and spoiled” (Bechdel 2007, 119). Bechdel’s point about what is literally as well as figurative- ly “lost in translation” when this source word in French is trans- ferred to English, is a metacommentary on what is irretrievable. “The complexity of loss itself” (Bechdel 2007, 120) is lost, despite translation’s capacity to recuperate and redeem difference over time and even space. Some differences are irreducible variants; they belong to the realm of the untranslatable. The translation strategy that propels Fun Home, however, ul- timately valorizes affinity and proximity by domesticating differ- ence through regeneration. The last page of chapter 4 comprises two unequally sized panels, both devoted to drawings taken from a box marked “family photographs” that Bechdel found after her father’s death, including one revealing her father’s transgressive past activities with a former male babysitter. (In her interview with Chute, she attributes the genesis of this book to the discovery of this photograph.) The reader remembers the smaller top photo- graph as the snapshot of an adolescent girl posing in a bathing suit which is the chapter head image; it serves as a kind of illustration of its title, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.” This time, however, Bechdel alerts the reader that the image in the redrawn photo is not of a girl (Alison, one might have speculated), but of her young father in drag, and looking, as she says, “not mincing or silly at all. He’s lissome, elegant” (Bechdel 2007, 120). In the large panel, that top photo is mostly obscured by the text box. What grabs the reader’s attention is the juxtaposition of two portraits, and their striking similarities: one of her twenty-two- year-old father sunbathing on the roof of his frat house, the other of Alison on a fire escape on her twenty-first birthday. She won- ders if this was taken by his lover, as hers was. For Bechdel, the autographer, the uncanny resemblance between the two figures and their two poses—“the exterior setting, the pained grin, the flexible wrists, even the angle of shadow falling across our fac- es”—is “about as close as a translation can get” (Bechdel 2007, 120). Where is the original or source? What, about the structur- al or formal aspects of this strategic arrangement, calls up an act of translation, one in which the points of contact are so acutely translation / 37 identifiable? Obviously, in this visual commentary there is some- thing beyond a merely shared physical, familial resemblance, even across gender lines. Indeed, it is precisely the fluidity of sexual ori- entation, gender identification, and polymorphism à la Proust that reveals the configuring of father and daughter identities here as a transposition or displacement, alternatively, of a simple replication of difference (which is one definition of translation). Rather, Bruce and Alison are to be recognized on the page as “inverted versions of each other in the family” (Watson 2008, 135). In this particular act of intergenerational transmission which celebrates the materi- ality of self-presentation, Bechdel is memorializing a connection that was often resisted in life by both Alison and her father, but which is now reenvisioned through art. Conclusion By identifying Nabokov’s, Condé’s, and Bechdel’s autobiograph- ical projects as distinctive modes of translation, I have hoped to show that translating a life requires a particular strategy or tech- nique of self-reflexiveness. The art of self-translation, with its perils and projections, is a highly mediated and motivated act of intimacy that takes place not in a vacuum, but within a set of cul- tural determinants. By wrestling with questions of familiarity and strangeness, assimilation and resistance, appropriation and deflec- tion, the autobiographer/translator and the translator/autobiogra- pher remind us that neither life nor language is self-contained. In their very existence, autobiographies—which are translations of “experience” and, therefore, subject to infinite and relentless in- terpretation—serve as testimonies to existential lack and linguistic incompleteness. Invocations of other lives and other voices—re- pressed, resisted, and reclaimed—autobiographies are translations in search of an original. Thus it is the drive to recuperate what may be always utterly lost—because of the foreignness in ourselves as well as in languages—that endows the autobiographer/translator with the greatest agency of all. translation / 38 References Apter, Emily. 2001. “Crossover Roots/Creole Tongues: A Conversation with Maryse Condé.” Public Culture 13, no. 1: 1–12. doi:10.1215/08992363-13-1-1. Bechdel, Alison. 2007. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. New York: Houghton Mif- flin. Chaney, Michael, ed. 2011. Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on Autobiography and Graphic Novels. Madison: University of Wisconsis Press. Chute, Hillary L., and Alison Bechdel. 2006. “An Interview with Alison Bechdel.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 4: 1004–1013. doi:10.1353/mfs.2007.0003. Condé, Maryse. 2012. La vie sans fards. Paris: JC Lattès. Freud, Sigmund. 1995 a. “An Autobiographical Study.” The Freud Reader. Edited by Peter Gay. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 3–41. ––––––. 1995 b. “Screen Memories.” The Freud Reader. Edited by Peter Gay. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 117–126. Kadish, Doris Y., and Françoise Massardier-Kenney. 1996. “Traduire Maryse Condé: Entretien avec Richard Philcox.” The French Review 69, no. 5: 749–761. Lejeune, Philippe. 1989. On Autobiography. Translated by Katherine Leary. Madi- son: University of Wisconsin Press. Mahony, Patrick. 2001. “Translating Freud.” American Imago 58, no. 4: 837–840. doi:10.1353/aim.2001.0022. Mitchell, W. J. T. 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nabokov, Vladimir. 1947. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. New York: Random House. Ornston Jr., Darius Gray, ed. 1992. Translating Freud. New Haven: Yale University Press. Smith, Patti. 2010. Just Kids. London: Bloomsbury. Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson, eds. 1998. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Sprengnether, Madelon. 2012. “Freud as Memoirist: A Reading of ‘Screen Memo- ries.’” American Imago 69, no. 2: 215–239. doi:10.1353/aim.2012.0008. Venuti, Lawrence, ed. 2012. Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Watson, Julia. 2008. “Autobiographical Disclosures and Genealogies of Desire in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” In Michael Chaney, ed., 2011. 123–56. Whitlock, Gillian. 2006. “Autographics: The Seeing ‘I’ of the Comics.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 4: 965–979. doi:10.1353/mfs.2007.0013. Wolk, Douglas. 2007. Reading Comics: How They Work and What They Mean. Phil- adelphia: Capo Press. translation / 39 Bella Brodzki is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches courses in autobiography; modern and contemporary fiction; literary and cul- tural theory; and translation studies. Her articles and essays on the critical intersec- tions with and impact of translation on other fields and disciplines have appeared in a range of publications, most recently in the collection, Translating Women, edited by Luise von Flotow (2011). She is the co-editor of Life/Lines: Theorizing Women’s Autobi- ography (1989) and author of Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory (2007). Her current project is co-editing a special volume of Comparative Literature Studies entitled Trials of Trauma. translation / 40

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Autobiography/Translation: Memory’s Losses or Narrative’s Gains? Response to Bella Brodzki’s Lecture Suzanne Jill Levine University of California in Santa Barbara, USA “We translate to be translated”—translation transports the transla- tor, but also the reader and the writer, in an act that transforms one text into another. Professor Brodzki uses this quote (which was a rejoinder in my book The Subversive Scribe (1991; 2009) to “thou art translated,” a line uttered by Quince to Bottom in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream), to move onto a broader stage. From the diverse scenarios of Russia and the Francophone Caribbean, from psychoanalysis to graphic memoir, Bella (I use her first name as we are old friends) analyzes parallels between the practice of autobiography and of translation, seeking to expand the definition of autobiography by means of the code of translation. Mediating these two practices she sets out to understand the screening process of memory, how or to what extent memory both distorts and creates the truths it seeks, and especially narratives that propose to reenact memory and to represent the truth. In her lecture, Bella discusses how autobiography, like transla- tion, is a rewriting, a re-presentation. At first glance we might find this argument farfetched. After all, unlike autobiography, a transla- tion is normally a rewriting of a whole and visible text. It is not, at least on the surface, the reconstruction or restaging in coherent form of the fragments of memories of a life lived. If we look further, how- ever, we can see that a translation performs a comparable artificial resuscitation. The original language has vanished in the text’s new version; the language that replaces it works to resurrect words and phrases, wordplays and metaphors, fragments of the translator’s lan- guage and mnemonic associations, that will bring to life the original, one hopes, as one expects the same from an autobiography. Bella’s discussion departs precisely from the readerly expecta- tion that the autobiographer’s pact with the reader—like the trans- translation / 41 lator’s “sacred duty”—is to be candidly true to an original. And yet, from an essentialist perspective, the end products of both prac- tices can easily become Faustian Frankensteins. Under the aegis of Freud, who made the unconscious betrayals of the omniscient narra- tor visible to us, these betrayals are parallel to those of the translator, who can only give us approximations, never the thing itself. The first question that jumps out at me, then, is: Are we talking only about autobiography in relation to translation, or are we talking about all narrative in general? That is, is Bella’s proposal in her paper suggest- ing a narrative theory that could be applied to any narrative form, beyond verbal language and written texts? No two narratives are the same, as Borges’s very first ficcion, “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote,” his famous parable about the “anachronistic” practice of reading, written in 1939, so spectacularly tells us. This devilish commentary on commentary (as George Steiner called it) is at the center of Bella’s topic. Pierre Menard, avant-garde poet who, among his many daring experi- ments, attempts to rewrite a Don Quixote completely identical to the original, is Borges caricaturing himself as a young Ultraist. Borges’s story—supposedly written in French by an admiring dis- ciple of Menard—is a fiction that pretends to be a biography while it is (like all fiction, one could argue) autobiographical, and is not only about the absurd impossibility of the totally faithful transla- tion but also implies and reveals that it is in itself a translation. My question to Bella is, in this discursive context, is there a significant difference here between autobiography and biography vis-à-vis translation? I ask this coming, also, from my own work on a biography of Manuel Puig. The author of Kiss of the Spi- der Woman, Puig’s novels pay homage with their “dollar book” Freudianisms to Freud’s invention of the modern novel, that is, the decidedly nonobjective narrator. As both translator and biographer I have dealt with the challenges of subjectivity, memory, and inter- pretation, haunted by the pact of fidelity that such nonfiction writ- ing involves. Autobiography, biography, and creative memoir are evaluated, however, by the strength, intensity, and inventiveness of their narrative structure, of the story they construct, just as transla- tion is evaluated by its fluency, its persuasive rhetorical effect. The translation / writer of nonfiction is as dependent on literary conventions, plot, theme, character development, climax, and denouement as the fic- 42 tion writer. Truth is less of a consideration than the appropriateness of form and the success of style. Autobiography differs from biog- raphy because, as the subject and the writer/producer of the former is the same, we assume a much higher/deeper level of fidelity to the subject. However, considering that “the self is constituted by a discourse that it never completely masters”1 how different, really, are these two genres? We might define the difference this way: the biographer is situated outside of the life he or she wishes to represent and wants to work his or her way into it, while self-writing, autobiog- raphy, presents its author with the problem of being too much of an insider, needing to distance her or himself, to get far enough away to see what’s happening and what it is one actually wants to represent. My possible response to the question above can perhaps be aid- ed by my own experience. I have written an authorized biography and am attempting to write a translator’s autobiography. While the research for the biography was different from the current research for my own history, I also had to realize that my subjectivity influ- enced the biography as if it were in some way an autobiography; or, whether narrating an autobiography or a biography, I was and am never totally subjective or objective. Hence, can we agree on the translational nature of autobiography and also of other forms of narrative, fictional or nonfictional, and are we perhaps speaking of a translational paradigm for narrative in general? In “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography” Georges Gus- dorf2 examines Paul Valéry’s radical proposal that biography in or- der to be true must go beyond its traditional limits.3 I cite these thoughts on this topic here because, among other things, they also relate to Bella’s provocative discussion of autobiography and trans- lation. They also reveal an important source of Borges’s fictions and essays that highlight narrative theory and feature his antirealist the- ories of narrative art as well as his poetics of writing as translation. According to the theory of biography proposed by Valéry—whose Monsieur Teste was a direct Borgesian model, fondly parodied by 1 Michael Spinker, “Fictions of the Self: The End of Autobiography,” in James Olney, ed., Autobi- ography: Essays Theoretical and Practical (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980) 342. 2 Georges Gusdorf, “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography,” in James Olney, ed., Autobio- graphy: Essays Theoretical and Critical (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980) 41. 3 Paul Valéry, “La Vie est un conte,” Tel Quel II (1943): 348-349. The entire issue is available online at https://archive.org/stream/telquelv02valuoft#page/n7/mode/2up. translation / 43 Borges’s famous Pierre Menard as a kind of absurdly avant-garde intellectual artist—a biographer, moving between the actual life and his life-writing, would have to see through the eyes of the subject. The biographer would have to attempt to know as little of the fol- lowing moment as the subject himself would know about the cor- responding instant of his career. This would be to restore chance in each instant, rather than putting together a series that admits of a neat summary and a causality that can be described in a formula. Causality was, as we know, one of the core issues of Borges’s “Nar- rative Art and Magic.”4 Valéry’s point, as Borges sees it, is that the so-called real truth is nothing, unformed, blurred, and that therefore the original sin of biography—which we could compare with the original sign of autobiography—is to presume the virtues of logical coherence and rationalization. That is, we can extend Valery’s discussion of the prerogative of biography to that of autobiography in that the task at hand is not to show us the objective stages of a career, but to reveal the efforts of historian/biographer/autobiographer to discover or reveal the effort of a creator to give the meaning of her (or his) own mythical tale. This latter statement basically describes Freud’s attempt at autobi- ography in his “study.” On the surface he “objectively” appears to summarize his career—giving us much valuable information—but in reality he is creating his own self-myth as intuitive scientist, a myth in which, it so happens, his early work as a translator plays a major role. Bella reminds us that for Freud “la psychanalyse c’est moi.” Through her discussion we read his “autobiographical study” which reveals his influences, Goethe on Nature, and notably the Bible, which impacted him precisely because he belonged to an oppo- sitional minority as a Jew. What he read or experienced or what influenced him is more about his real feelings or interests; what he actually says about himself, is all about his ego and need for cultural power. For Freud translation was a power play, or as Bella writes, “Though he had a position as a Lecturer in Pathology in Vienna, it was his work as a translator that gained him entry into translation / 4 Jorge Luis Borges, “Narrative Art and Magic,” in Selected Non-Fictions, edited by Eliot Wein- berger, translated by Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, Eliot Weinberger (New York: Viking, 1999) 75–82. 44 Charcot’s circle of personal acquaintances and full participation in the activities at Salpêtière Clinic” (AS, Freud R, 6). (infra, 21) Ironically this personal essay says less about the man beneath the persona than his essay on screen memories or any of his funda- mental books such as The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud’s “Au- tobiographical Study” is a prime example of an omniscient narrator blind to his own subjectivity. What I personally found fascinating is that Freud, as Jewish outsider, gained entrance to the circles of cul- tural power as a translator. Curiously, I could see a similar trajectory in my own life, as a woman gaining entrance to the Latin American Boom literary circles, a world of cultural significance in my time and context, in which I took on an identity as translator and even muse, more glamorous than my own modest “outsider” Washington Heights Jewish origins. As Manuel Puig (the author whose literary texts I translated and whose life I ultimately translated into a biography) aptly put it, Freud invented the modern novel: that is, he exposed the unavoid- able limitations of the omniscient narrator, hence his importance not only to autobiography but to all writing. In Bella’s discussion, Au- tobiography and Translation come together logically and intuitively in Freud whose early work as a translator helped create his career as a scientist. By extension, his role as translator helped create the persona whose theoretical work was practically based on autobi- ographical as well as clinical reflection. Suzanne Jill Levine is a leading translator of Latin American literature, and Professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara where she directs a Translation Studies doctoral program. Her scholarly and critical works include her award-winning literary biography, Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman (FSG and Faber & Faber, 2000) and her groundbreaking book on the poetics of translation, The Subversive Scribe: Trans- lating Latin American Fiction (published in 1991 and reissued by Dalkey Archive Press in 2011), along with her classic translations of novels by Manuel Puig and her 2010 Penguin Classics editions of the works of Jorge Luis Borges. Aside from numerous volumes of translations of Latin American fiction and poetic works, she has regularly contributed articles, reviews, essays, and translations of prose and poetry to major anthologies and journals, including the New Yorker. Her many honors include National Endowment for the Arts and NEH fellowship and research grants, the first PEN USA West Prize for Literary Translation (1989), the PEN American Center Career Achieve- ment Award (1996), and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. For the translation of Jose Donoso’s The Lizard’s Tale, she was awarded the PEN USA West Prize in 2012. translation / 45

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Dalit Consciousness and Translating Consciousness: Narrating Trauma as Cultural Translation Christi A. Merrill University of Michigan, USA Abstract: How do we understand literary catharsis as a multilingual project? This paper focuses on scenes from Ajay Navariya’s short story “Subcontinent” (in Laura Brueck’s translation from Hindi) to ask about the responsibility of writers, translators and scholars in grappling collectively with the trauma of caste-based sexual violence (or what Sharankumar Limbale calls “injustices done to Dalit women.”) Put in conversation with Robert Young’s reading of Freud on cultural translation, Navaria’s story complicates straightforward understandings of consciousness as monolingual. Instead, the Hindi story in English reveals a complex connection between what Limbale and others refer to as a distinct “Dalit consciousness” and G.N. Devy’s notion of “translating consciousness” by asking us to redefine how the languaged self responds to the original trauma of being read as untouchable in the dominant vernacular. For Devy translat- ing consciousness involves rejecting binaristic colonizer–colonized hierarchies, whereas for Limbale Dalit consciousness works to fight caste hierarchies operat- ing primarily within India itself. This paper takes up Rita Kothari’s suggestion that the dominant vernacular might be just as foreign as the colonial language in order to radically rethink the dialectical relationship between the languaged self and cultural transformation. What is literature’s role in responding to the trauma of caste-based sexual violence a language away? I ask as a Hindi translator as well as a scholar and teacher of Dalit literature—of work, I should explain, that very openly claims to write from the perspective of those “oppressed” or “ground down” (as “Dalit” is usually glossed) by the entrenched system of untouchability in India.1 Dalit writers in India have been asking versions of the question I have posed 1 I gratefully acknowledge the support of a Senior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the National Endowment for the Humanities that allowed me to complete the work on this paper, as well as the NIDA/FUSP Symposium organizers and Robert Young for providing the original impetus for investigating this material. translation / 47 here within their own language traditions, and as a group seem to agree that the main purpose of Dalit literature should be to raise awareness—or as the well-regarded Marathi writer Sharankumar Limbale puts it more vividly, “to inform Dalit society of its slavery, and narrate its pain and suffering to upper caste Hindus” (Limbale 2004, 19). It is not beside the point here that I quote Limbale from his book Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature, which has been translated into English by (avowedly upper-caste Hindu and Cana- da-based postcolonial studies scholar) Alok Mukherjee. Dalit liter- ature, publisher S. Anand has pointed out, is a phenomenon in and of translation—from, to, and via English, as well as many other official Indian languages (Anand 2003, 4). Given current realities, I am suggesting here that we include postcolonial studies scholars and translators such as Mukherjee and myself in the project Lim- bale and others have begun when theorizing the purpose of Dalit literature. I propose here that we examine examples of Dalit liter- ature to think more carefully about the relationship of Translation Studies to postcolonial theory. Like many activists writing on the subject, Limbale contends that the work of Dalit literature is inspired directly by the revolu- tionary leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and can only be done by those with an explicit Dalit consciousness. A few pages later in his book on Dalit aesthetics—in a section devoted to the topic of Dalit con- sciousness—he explains: The Dalit consciousness in Dalit literature is the revolutionary mentality connected with struggle. It is a belief in rebellion against the caste system, recognizing the hu- man being as its focus. Ambedkarite thought is the inspiration for this consciousness. Dalit consciousness makes slaves conscious of their slavery. Dalit consciousness is an important seed for Dalit literature, it is separate and distinct from the conscious- ness of other writers. Dalit literature is demarcated as unique because of this con- sciousness. (Limbale 2004, 32) To ask about literature’s role in raising awareness about un- touchability as a human rights issue akin to slavery raises fun- damental questions about these points of comparison, especially when expressed across multiple languages. How might we adapt current theoretical models to understand Dalit consciousness as a translation / multilingual issue? G.N. Devy has argued that multilinguality is so central to the 48 Indian context that it requires its own theorization, one that he dis- cusses—serendipitously—as “translating consciousness.” Writing in the 1990s, Devy was primarily interested in developing a dis- tinctly postcolonial “aesthetics of translation” (Devy 2014, 163) that would inform “a more perceptive literary historiography” (165) responsive to the perspective of the multilingual user (“such as a translator” he notes) who “rends. . .open” the multiple sign systems converging in a single consciousness (164). If aesthetic production is figured in Devy’s writing with the violent imagery of rending open, “translating consciousness” itself is imagined in a friendlier fashion, as an intuitive “open” daily negotiation along a continuum of mutual understanding, that he contends—most crucially here—our monolingually-minded, European conceptual tools have not been able to theorize properly: In most Third World countries, where a dominating colonial language has acquired a privileged place, such communities [of translating consciousness] do exist. In India several languages are simultaneously used by language communities as if these lan- guages formed a continuous spectrum of significance. To conceptualize this situation is beyond European linguistics, which is based mostly on a monolingual view of language. The use of two or more different languages in translation activity cannot be understood through studies of foreign language acquisition. (165) Both Devy and Limbale suggest independently that the de- velopment of any literary aesthetic (perceptive or no) is neces- sarily ideological; moreover, when explaining how each of their approaches to the project of literary historiography differs from the mainstream, each uses the term “consciousness” to describe an alternative to the demeaning hierarchical forms of discrimina- tion a random language user encounters on a daily basis, that have become written into our own disciplinary conceptualizations. As a result, Devy and Limbale each call for a corrective literary his- toriography based on such a consciousness. For Devy, the crucial ideological difference informing a translating consciousness in- volves rejecting binaristic colonizer–colonized hierarchies, where- as for Limbale the crucial ideological difference Dalit conscious- ness works to fight is informed by the caste hierarchies operating primarily within India itself, both during the colonial period and after Independence. How might these two theories of conscious- ness be put in productive conversation with one another when translation / 49 focusing on postcolonial literary engagements with human rights struggles? I will attempt to address this larger question by reflecting on the inherent multilinguality of the translating consciousness Devy describes—whereby “several languages are simultaneously used by language communities as if these languages formed a contin- uous spectrum of significance” (65)—when it encounters caste- based discrimination. I will do this by analyzing a piece of postco- lonial fiction that details a series of shocking events experienced by a Dalit family: the short story “Upmadwip” written in Hindi by the Dalit writer and activist Ajay Navaria. I will quote primarily from the version translated into English by Laura Brueck (2012) as “Subcontinent” in an effort to vex perceived limits of language when describing violent encounters in translation. Only a few pages into “Subcontinent,” the narrator recalls a traumatic scene from his childhood in which he watches, help- less, as a gang of upper-caste men beat up his father to within an inch of his life, incensed that an “untouchable” (“achut” in the Hindi) would have the audacity to return to the village for a rela- tive’s wedding in a clean new kurta, rupees in his pocket, greeting friends comfortably, and holding his head high. Significantly, the story is framed by a tranquil domestic scene of the narrator as an adult living in an unnamed city struggling to wake from a night- marish sequence of horrific childhood memories, prompted by an impending decision over whether to return to the village once again for another relative’s wedding. The framing device is crucial for establishing two distinct perspectives on the same event: one of the adult looking back with a mixture of indignation and apprehen- sion, and the other of the innocent child offering direct testimony (albeit fictionalized) of a series of traumatic events that in their ancestral village seem to be lamentably routine. The structure of the story thus invites us to read this as a scene of initiation—into a kind of consciousness that we might not immediately recognize as a translating consciousness but are led to infer will eventually become a Dalit consciousness. How? Soon readers are introduced to a liminal dream state between waking and sleeping, past and present, city and village, and led translation / down a stepwell at the edge of what appears to be the adult nar- rator’s consciousness, invited to witness a childhood scene from 50 the young boy’s point of view as a group of high-caste villag- ers confront the father and his father’s aunt (whom the boy calls “Amma”) for forgetting “the rules and regulations of the village” (Navaria 2012, 87). The narrative structure allows readers to re- main cognizant of the adult narrator’s judgment on these “rules and regulations” while following the boy and his family through the village; this structure enables the implied author to call into question the entire system of signification the boy is being initiat- ed into. The story dramatizes why what Limbale terms “rebellion against the caste system” (2004, 32) would entail so much internal struggle, starting with the fundamental act of recognizing oneself and other Dalits as human beings equal to all others. As the scene continues, readers of the translated story are in turn asked to distinguish between the language of the past and of the present, of the village and the city, marked by the boy’s dis- comfort at the time and the adult narrator’s outrage looking back as his great aunt bows down at the high-caste villagers’ feet, assur- ing them, “They’ll never do it again in my life. They erred, having lived in the city” (Navaria 2012, 86). The narrative makes strategic use of the distance in perspective between the adult narrator (who is very conscious of the historical implications of this discrimina- tion) and the boy (who is at first shocked by what he witnesses and seemingly unable to interpret it) to map consciousness as a series of encounters with others where imperfect (even horrifying) com- munication regularly takes place. In the consciousness of the young boy these rules and regula- tions are as startling as they are incomprehensible: “Oh God, I’m done for! Maaaa! Forgive me, master, kind sir! It won’t happen again!” As Amma wailed, one of them struck her head hard with a shoe, and she cried out again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Now they were all laughing. Seeing them beat Amma with their shoes, Father tried to get up again. When they noticed him moving, they fell on him afresh. Sticks, fists, shoes—flailing without stop. I stood trembling. One of them slapped me across the face. Father was lying on the ground. Unconscious. Blood dripping, thap-thap-thap, from his forehead. A streak of blood spread all the way down his pyjama. My lip had been split open. It was still bleeding. I stood there quaking. I almost pissed my pants. It seemed like it would never end. Father lay at peace. His new white kurta was torn from his chest to his stomach. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Father’s dead, I thought. Seeing a body drenched in blood, that’s the only thing an eight-year-old can think. (Navaria 2012, 86-87) translation / 51 Here the boy is presented as being unable to interpret the phys- ical details he witnesses, even while we can feel the pressure of the adult narrator’s judgment about the situation. And the admis- sion about the limitations of the boy’s own awareness, narrated suddenly in the third person—“Seeing a body drenched in blood, that’s the only thing an eight-year-old can think”—is all the more moving knowing that the adult narrator in the present tense of the story is picturing himself in a similar situation, anticipating trying to protect his own child from similar degradations, if he decides to travel back to the village with them for an upcoming wedding. The strategy of third-person narration thus generalizes the experience of the Dalit subject. Implicitly, the story asks the reader why I, why he, why anyone should have to learn how to interpret the blood stains on their father’s still body. This is not a postcolonial translating consciousness to cele- brate. There is no triumph a few paragraphs later when the boy be- comes more adept at speaking the village language of caste-based violence: I quietly wiped the blood off my lip with my torn collar. There were no tears in my eyes. But I kept making small crying sounds, hoo-hoo, for fear of getting thrashed again if I stayed quiet. I’d quickly realized that it was better to keep up the whimper- ing in front of them. (87) How might attention to translating consciousness here help us better conceptualize Dalit consciousness as a multilingual project beyond the monolingual limitations Devy warns against? In Hindi, we can imagine this scene of calibrated whimpering is playing as much to the upper-caste Hindu readers and fellow Dal- its Limbale identified as the target audience for Dalit literature; in English translation, the readership is expanded even further, since the elite English-speaking reader in India as well as the reader abroad are similarly put on notice about the demeaning effects of the caste system, and in such a way that challenges the received colonizer–colonized binaries of postcolonial studies. Here the language of dominance we must theorize is predicated on caste, and thus suggests a more complex mapping of translat- ing consciousness than the colonizer-colonized binary. We see in translation / the English translation as well that the narrator’s perspective is multiply displaced—both at the top of the stepwell and below, in 52 the past, present, and even future of the story. Bringing together the concept of translating consciousness with Dalit conscious- ness invites us to think afresh about the ways we might map such literary language, starting with the ways we theorize the very idea of “language” in literary work. In Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature, Limbale puts par- ticular emphasis on what he calls—in the section title—“The Lan- guage of Dalit Literature,” explaining: The view of life conveyed in Dalit literature is different from the world of experience expressed hitherto. A new world, a new society, and a new human being have been revealed in literature, for the first time. The reality of Dalit literature is distinct, and so is the language of this reality. It is the uncouth-impolite language of Dalits. It is the spoken language of Dalits. This language does not recognize cultivated gestures and grammar. (33) Limbale’s assertions apply to many of the works of Dalit litera- ture published prior to this book on aesthetics, including Limbale’s own prose. In Navaria’s story, however, the hierarchies are tipped once again, since the “new world, . . .new society, . . .new human being” is waiting at the top of the stepwell in the consciousness of an urbane, multilingual Dalit man while the boy is left to grapple with the old world, old society communicating in the horrifying idiom of caste-based discrimination. However shocking this lan- guage may be to the boy as well as offensive to the narrator and ostensibly to his readers in turn, it is especially horrifying that it is not considered “impolite” in the village context of the story—the upper-caste villagers do not grant their “untouchable” neighbors that kind of respect. It is precisely the standardization of this de- grading idiom that Navaria’s story is asking us to consider. The narrative is offering a critique of this particular kind of language use, and thus we might say of the village translating consciousness depicted in the story. To understand how this critique might be inviting readers of both the Hindi story and the English translation to take part in a fraught project of recalibrating consciousness as a way of coming to terms with collective trauma, we must first think more carefully about the roles we play in the process of literary catharsis. I should admit here that I am grappling with a more specific version of the question of trauma and literary language, occasioned translation / 53 by a provocative encounter at a conference on the historiography of Dalit literature held in Delhi at Jamia Millia Islamia University in December, 2013. The conference was organized by members of the English Department and it brought together scholars from a number of different disciplines and areas of expertise along with creative writers working in a host of Indian languages.2 There were three days of sessions starting with a keynote speech by Kancha Ilaiah, academic panels, and several roundtable discussions with published writers such as Limbale and Navaria, including one de- voted to the place of translation in the reception of Dalit literature. On the particular panel I have in mind an English literature profes- sor gave a polished, impassioned paper invoking a lineup of US- based scholars on trauma and testimony urging us to acknowledge the importance of autobiographical writing as an act of individual catharsis that ultimately leads to healing; she described this pro- cess as “translating pain into language” (Abidi 2013). At the time, I see from my notes, I wondered about the relation- ship of catharsis to activism. I knew from reading Laura Brueck’s scholarship that a writer like Ajay Navaria thought of catharsis in much more politically engaged terms, as a collective, embold- ened confrontation with society. In a discussion on aesthetics in her recent book, Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Contemporary Dalit Literature (2014), Brueck explains: Dalit writer Ajay Navaria colorfully compares the realist aesthetic of Dalit literature to the necessity of lancing a cyst on the body of Hindu society. While the substance that the cyst releases may be unpleasant, its cathartic release is said to be necessary for the healing of the social body. (85)3 The difference between the two types of catharsis proposed here is crucial: in the model the conference paper presenter was looking towards, it is the individual writer who has suffered the trauma, and so it is the writer not the social body who is sick and requires healing. What difference does this make in thinking about the role of literature in healing trauma? 2 International Conference on Dalit Literature and Historiography, Department of English, Jamia translation / Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India, December 19–21, 2013. 3 Ajay Navaria’s original quote was from “Dalit Saˉhitya kaˉ Vigat Aur Vartamaˉn,” Praˉrambh (Dalit Saˉhitya Visheshank) 1, no. 3 (2004): 44. 54 In the ensuing discussion, the presenter was assailed by one imminent personality after another (speaking alternately in Hindi and in English): How does this model of therapy help us reduce intercaste violence? Are you trying to individualize Dalit experi- ence? What is the role of the reader’s subjectivity in this model? And, most vividly to me, Limbale shouted in frustration, “If my mother is being raped then I shouldn’t be crying but crying out to stop it!”It is in this context that I am left wondering—alongside the presenter and others in attendance at that conference, I am sure— about the role of literature in responding to trauma. What type of catharsis do we seek through literature, and what is the role of a translator and literature scholar in that process? Often scholars metaphorize the project of writing trauma as an act of speaking out against injustice. The assumption is a thera- peutic one, that repressed trauma and other forms of silencing are unhealthy for the subject, and that she will be free of her resulting symptoms only once she has successfully narrated and fully an- alyzed these painful memories. Robert Young has recently sug- gested that Freud consistently described such work as a process of translation—he points out that the word for “translation” in Ger- man (übersetzung) appears at least forty-five times in Interpreta- tion of Dreams alone, for instance—but in such a way that radical- ly rethinks the dialectical relationship between the languaged self and what Freud (“tantalizingly,” Young adds) calls “cultural trans- formation” [kulturelle Wandlung] (Young 2013).34 This version of “cultural translation,” Young contends, is not a simple, straightfor- ward task of “moving from text A to B, leaving text A behind, but rather moving to text B by making text A unconscious, repressed, but with A still haunting text B as its shadow and liable to reappear in disguised form at any moment” (17). I will spend a moment detailing this insight, for it has important implications for catharsis as a multilingual project, and the role of culture in mediating such a catharsis collectively. Young explains that in Freud’s writing, dream thoughts are like an “unknown language that we have to decipher on the basis of the translation” (9). Young likens the process to cracking the code of the Rosetta Stone, where you work backwards, comparing the Here Young is citing Freud 2005, 224. translation / 4 55 language you know against the one you do not, until you begin to understand the system by which meaning is made in the language unknown to you. This because for everyone—in Young’s reading of Freud—“the psyche is multilingual, alert to the constant possi- bility of using translation as a mechanism of displacement in the face of repression” (4). Even in a healthy, nontraumatized subject the psyche engages in such a process, he explains, and culture’s role is to tame a person’s natural instincts. Thus the psyche, in Young’s words, keeps itself “busy trans- lating into a foreign language that is unreadable to the indi- vidual subject him or herself” (5). Young understands Freud as suggesting that there are a number of languages converging in a single psyche, including the distinction between “dream thoughts” (in the unconscious) and “dream content” (in one’s consciousness), both of which are individual and idiosyncratic, even if internally consistent enough for an analyst to begin to recognize a pattern. Young quotes Freud as writing in The In- terpretation of Dreams: Dream-thoughts and dream-content lie before us like two representations of the same content in different languages—or, rather, a particular dream-content appears to us as a version of the relevant dream-thoughts rendered into a different mode of expres- sion, the characters and syntax of which we are meant to learn by comparison of the original with the translation. (Young 2013, 8) The role of multilingual performance is crucial in Freud’s theorizing, Young points out, given that Freud himself compared the process of decoding and deciphering dream content to Egyp- tian hieroglyphs, “whose characters need to be translated one by one into the language of the dream-thoughts” (2013, 9). The analyst is able to crack the code only after he sees how the indi- vidual, multilingual subject moves between other (conventional) languages, a technique he and Breuer began to pioneer in Studies in Hysteria, with the case of “Katharina.” Young quotes Freud as writing: “We had frequently compared the hysterical symp- tomatology with a pictographic script, which we were able to read once we had discovered a few cases of bilingualism” (132). This is a highly unusual “original”, however, when viewed in the translation / broader history of translation. “What makes psychoanalysis more than just translation into another discourse,” Young adds provoc- 56 atively, “is that psychoanalysis is translating the unknown” (8). How might such a comparison enable us to rethink Dalit con- sciousness as a multilingual project? If the job of the psyche is to “translate” or displace traumatic experiences into a language foreign to the individual subject, the work of psychoanalysis is then to interpret that idiosyncratic lan- guage and “de-translate” it back into a language she shares with her analyst, as Young explains: Psychoanalysis finds the meaning of dreams not in dreams themselves but in their invisible origins. In dreams we have only the translation: the patient and analyst’s job is to translate the incomprehensible dream-content back into its original, and then to analyze and repeat in reverse the work of translation which has transformed the first into the second. Dream-interpretation, therefore, as Jean Laplanche has suggested, is more a question of de-translation, trying to de-translate the dream back into an orig- inal that remains hidden. This is where and why the work of interpretation through association must come into play: breaking the dream-content down into its constit- uent parts one by one, and working through the dreamer’s associations, analyst and dreamer engage in the laborious work of de-translating the dream-content back into its original dream-thoughts. (10) Young’s reading of Freud insists that translation practice is at the core of our work as languaged beings (regardless of how many official languages we are said to speak), and that one of the central roles of culture is to train an individual to interpret to themselves, in a language that they share with others, the most hidden parts of themselves, such as traumatic events in the past. The case of Dalit literature is especially potent here because “culture” itself is accused of legitimizing the agents of that original trauma—not incidentally, but fundamentally. While he does not name Dalit literary examples specifically, Young does suggest that such cases are central to Freud’s work on cultural translation. Young reads Freud as a major theorist of cultur- al translation whose contributions to translation theory have import- ant implications most particularly for those translated subjects—like Dalit writers—until now often left out of our theorizing: Freud’s. . .theoretical paradigm [on translation]. . .remains infinitely suggestive. It of- fers, for example, a possible way of reading the invisible, the subaltern, those whose forms of public representation distort their fundamental being, where the invisibility or repression of subalterns in official discourses and documents from the past require translation / a de-translation exercise to make them visible in their own terms. (11) 57 Bringing together theories of Dalit consciousness with trans- lating consciousness suggests that the very prospect of shared lan- guage is exceedingly fraught, in ways that are important for the project of handling trauma through literary work. Young further hints that the project of analyzing the relationships between those languages might be key to better understanding the “original” (as trauma, or otherwise.) We see this most vividly in his reading of the case of Anna O, who responds to a childhood trauma by alternating moments of stark speechlessness (“aphasia”) with what Freud in English trans- lation refers to as “paraphasia,” switching into languages (English, French, Italian) foreign to Anna O’s own mother tongue of Ger- man. Following Freud, Young uses this example of an upper-class woman to show how suspicious the psyche itself remains general- ly of culture’s role in taming one’s instincts. We see in Anna O’s case that being highly cultured only serves to make her subterfug- es more elaborate, and the work of the analyst (not to mention the nurse who tended her) that much more demanding: The paraphasia receded, but now she spoke only in English, yet seemed to be un- aware of it, and would quarrel with the nurse, who was, of course, unable to under- stand her. Not until several months later did I manage to convince her that she was speaking English. She herself, however, still understood her German-speaking envi- ronment. Only in moments of great anxiety would her speech fail her completely, or she would mix up all kinds of languages. She would speak French or Italian at those times when she was at her best and most free. Between those periods and those in which she spoke English lay complete amnesia. (29) The case asks us to rethink the fundamentals of cultural trans- lation as a languaged relationship between individual and collec- tive, especially since the collective itself is figured as a plurality of overlapping language domains. Young’s reading calls into question the very notion of a discrete “mother tongue” as source of a stable cultural identity, and echoes ongoing debates surrounding Dalit ex- amples. For instance, in a 2013 article—“Caste in a Casteless Lan- guage: English as a Language of ‘Dalit’ Expression”—Rita Kothari complicates any simple understanding of English as a co- translation / lonial language, arguing that for writers and translators working with Dalit texts—like the poet Neerav Patel, whose example she 58 focuses on—English offers a more compelling alternative to re- gional vernaculars. Patel’s choice to write in English, rather than Gujarati, she suggests compellingly, “is animated by the misery of unwanted memories of language, and a desire to erase that mem- ory” (Kothari 2013, 65). Kothari refers to a soon-to-be-published essay Patel wrote in response to a public query: “Who (all) can claim Gujarati?” (64) Kothari explains: If standard Gujarati, Patel argues, is as distant and alien to dalits as English, he would rather embrace English, and use it to replace his “mother tongue,” thus making En- glish what he calls his “foster-tongue.” By being foreign, English does not normalize and legitimize caste, and by being an ex-colonial language with global reach, it be- comes empowering. (61) I have suggested elsewhere that English is not in fact casteless, that the language’s encounters with caste started early in the colo- nial encounter—I use the example of “pariah” whose first usage in English is 1613 (Merrill 2014, 262). However, here I am more interested in the ways Patel’s critique of his “mother tongue” in re- lation to English introduces an important perspective on Dalit con- sciousness as translating consciousness. As Kothari’s discussion of Patel’s critique makes clear, the imperative of Dalit conscious- ness is to redefine the very domain of language and its relationship to collective memory: An acclaimed poet and critic, Patel attacks the homogeneous idea of a “mother tongue” in India. Although this may seem a separate issue from English, it is very im- portant to see how the idea of an Indian language that alienates the dalits and colludes with the upper castes in normalizing caste discrimination shapes the dalit response to English. The specificity of the case below provides a much-needed elaboration of this operation to bring home the fact that Indian languages do not constitute for all Indians a proud inheritance, which “globalization” and similar invasive forces may allegedly besiege. This is essentially an upper-caste view and luxury; those who wish to redefine themselves must do so by abandoning this inheritance and embracing English. (65) While this seems neither Patel’s nor Kothari’s point, I would suggest that in the process Patel is also inviting us to rethink the very meaning of translation. Young, too, in his reading of Freud, asks us to rethink the en- terprise of translation as a relational exercise between language and memory, as we see in his discussion of the case of Anna O: translation / 59 Cultural translation, in Freud. . .is not a process by which the former text or elements are ever entirely left behind, but one in which the new text always remains doubled and haunted, its translations perpetually remaking themselves, the translated text per- petually seeking to revert to its original, like a ball held under water. The different languages, as in the dream, remain perpetually present. In some sense, therefore, according to Freud we live in two or more languages at once. This bi- or multilin- gualism in which, as it were, like Anno O., we read one language but translate it simultaneously into another, can illuminate how, in this model, the general sense of loss in translation modifies its gain—for while in cultural terms much is gained, in the individual this gain produces at the same time a constant sense of unease, of dis- ease, malaise, of “cultural frustration,” cultural denial, or as we might say today, of cultural dislocation. (Young 2013, 17-18) Young is implying that every language is haunted by a series of unconscious memories, be they individual or collective. His star- tling proposition is that the ensuing struggles to articulate difficult truths—to find apt language for these invisible “originals”—put productive pressure on whatever languages we have in common. We might then surmise that every speaker has a translating con- sciousness that holds within it (“like a ball held under water”) the potential for radically rethinking the possibilities of the lan- guage(s) she speaks. How might this complex understanding of the relationship between translation and consciousness apply to literary work? According to Limbale, one of the features of Dalit conscious- ness is the ability to identify with any injustice ever visited upon any member of the group. While detractors contend that such a stance results in literature that is predictable or propagandistic (charges his translator Mukherjee renders in English under the ru- bric of “univocality”), Limbale defends such politicized identifi- cations instead as a sign of cohesion and thus of strength, since it allows individuals to read a host of traumatic experiences visited upon Dalits as part of a programmatic effort at group discrimi- nation: “Social boycott, separate bastis, wells, and cremation grounds; inability to find rental accommodation; the necessity to conceal caste; denial of admission to public places; injustices done to Dalit women; dragging and cutting of dead animals; and the barber refusing to cut hair—these experiences are alike for all Dal- its” (Limbale 2004, 35). Limbale’s emphasis here is less on direct translation / experience of such injustices, and more on the daily acts of inter- pretation that renders someone part of the very category deserving 60 such discriminatory behavior. Understood this way, “original trau- ma” begins with the possibility of being read as untouchable by others; acknowledging that reading of untouchability subsequently then becomes part of one’s consciousness as distinctly and defiant- ly “Dalit.” Approaching Dalit literature through Young’s reading of Freud on “cultural translation” helps complicate and thus confound any simple glosses of the terms in play. If we look more close- ly at Young’s proposition that cultural translation is not a simple, straightforward task of “moving from text A to B, leaving text A behind, but rather moving to text B by making text A unconscious, repressed, but with A still haunting text B as its shadow and liable to reappear in disguised form at any moment,” then we might infer that all language speakers sharing an idiom of discrimination like the caste system are haunted by a text A such as “injustices done to Dalit women.” I will spend a moment pursuing this proposition through a later scene in Navaria’s story, in large part because it resonates with Limbale’s outburst that day: “If my mother is being raped then I shouldn’t be crying but crying out to stop it!” And in the process helps us rethink the theoretical categories by which we too might read such a scene. There is a suggestion early on in “Subcontinent” that sexual violence in the village has been ongoing and systemic, to the ex- tent that many “untouchables” are themselves offspring of a union (directly forced, or manipulated) between a high-caste man and an untouchable woman. We see this referenced directly in the story when the narrator makes clear that he himself is related to one of those high-caste thugs in the village who are beating up his father: “‘Pandit-ji, it’s not even her husband’s. It’s her lover’s. This bas- tard child is Harku’s!’ He was pointing at Father” (Navaria 2012, 87). The passing comment seems to affect the character of the pan- dit, who at first appears ready to protect the boy’s father, possibly because he is related to Harku. Even though this is another in- stance where the adult narrator looking back seems to understand the implications of this moment more than the child narrator, the narrative reveals the turmoil this causes on the young narrator’s part. As a boy, the narrator tells us, he held out hope the pandit would take pity on them, but was soon to be disappointed. Not only does the pandit bond with the high caste thugs, joining in with translation / 61 the verbal and physical humiliation, but he later seems to be the one to take advantage of Amma. The scene of Amma’s further humiliation comes late in the sto- ry, after the violence has escalated even further, when high-caste members of the village take umbrage over the groom daring to ride a horse to the door of his bride and they attack the wedding party with lathis. The boy falls down unconscious—the significance of this is important for this study—and we watch him in retrospect try to put language to the ongoing village drama he has witnessed: When I opened my eyes, it was still dark. An oil lamp was still burning in the hut. My aunt was sitting near the smoldering stove. The wedding party had left. . . . My head was throbbing. Someone had tied an old piece of dhoti around it. I don’t know when I dozed off again, but a woman’s shriek shocked me awake. I made haste to get up, but as soon as I rose, a blow struck my back, and I fell on my face. Half outside the hut, half inside. “Fucking city boy, if you move, I’ll unload a bullet in your skull,” someone yelled, tilting my face up with the muzzle of a double-barreled gun pushed into my jaw. To my right, a few feet away, I saw, beneath the white, dhoti-clad bottom of a pale pandit-god, the darkened soles of someone’s feet flailing and kicking; swinging on the back of this pale pandit was a fat, snake-like top-knot. . .and another scream. Terrified. Uninterrupted. Splitting the sky in two—chhann! (95-96) Like the boy in the story who lies halfway out of the hut, wa- vering between consciousness and unconsciousness, the charac- ter of the woman being violated too has no language at the ready to defend herself with—she can only flail and kick and scream. Navaria’s rendering of the scene raises unsettling questions about the very meaning of consciousness, and how language—any lan- guage—plays a part in making and remaking that consciousness. In this scene we have a series of confusing, upsetting pairs: the boy being threatened by an unnamed gunman, the “pale pandit-god” riding a woman we only know by her flailing dark feet, and then the “fat, snake-like top-knot” and the disembodied scream, which seem to emanate from the entwined bodies. At this heightened moment of violence, the boy and the violated woman can share no words of support, or mutual understanding, can only each submit to those who have enough power over the language to demand silence of the others. And yet, the treatment of this scene translation / of sexual violence as the boy’s memory, of a moment that haunts him as an adult, delineates how someone who is witness to vio- 62 lence (even a form of violence he may never experience directly) might be traumatized, in exactly the way Limbale has argued. If we then pursue the implicit analogy between Anna O. and the narrator of “Subcontinent,” we might begin to formulate a more nuanced understanding of translating consciousness when we con- sider carefully the process by which a traumatized Dalit subject struggles against aphasia. The fact that languages like Hindi and English have a mechanism in place for silencing both the subject who experiences the rape and the boy who witnesses it, puts a lie to the contention that it is only the individual subject who is haunt- ed by these violent incidents in the past. Instead, the language cultures themselves might be understood to be haunted, and the moments of paraphasia an indication of the ways such hauntings do not dwell in discrete language domains. Navaria’s story helps us understand how an act of translation (in both the commonly-un- derstood sense, and also with Young’s more specialized meaning) might reveal the ways simply being part of a language community unthinkingly we might be part of the process of repression. Taking seriously the project of Dalit consciousness, read in terms of an active translating consciousness, might afford us a more complex understanding of literary catharsis. translation / 63 References Abidi, Shuby. 2013. “Dalit Autobiography as Scriptotherapy.” International Confer- ence on Dalit Literature and Historiography, New Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, December 21. Anand, S. 2003. Touchable Tales: Publishing and Reading Dalit Literature. Pondi- cherry, India: Navayana. Devy, G. N. 2014. “’Of Many Heroes’: An Indian Essay in Literary Historiography.” In The G. N. Devy Reader. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan: 4: 1-225. Freud, Sigmund. 1999. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by Joyce Crick. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freud, Sigmund, and Josef Breuer. 2004. Studies In Hysteria. Translated by Nicola Luckhurst. New York: Penguin Books. Kothari, Rita. 2013. “Caste in a Casteless Language: English as a Language of ‘Dalit’ Expression.” Economic and Political Weekly, XLVIII (39): 60–68. Limbale, Sharankumar. 2004. Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations. Translated by Alok Mukherjee. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Merrill, Christi A. 2014. “Postcolonial Issues: Translating Testimony, Arbitrating Justice” In A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter. London: John Wiley and Sons. 259–270. Navaria, Ajay. 2012. “Subcontinent.” In Unclaimed Terrain. Translated by Laura Brueck. New Delhi: Navayana. Young, Robert J.C. 2013. “Freud on Translation and Cultural Translation.” Unpub- lished manuscript of paper delivered at the NIDA/FUSP Symposium in New York, September 20. Christi A. Merrill is an associate professor of South Asian Literature and Postcolonial Theory at the University of Michigan, and author of Riddles of Belonging: India in Trans- lation and other Tales of Possession (Fordham University Press, 2009). Her translations of the stories of Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha, Chouboli and Other Stories, were co-published by Katha (New Delhi) and Fordham University Press (New York), and won translation / the 2012 A.K. Ramanujan Award. She spent the 2013-14 school year in India on an NEH/AIIS Senior Fellowship researching her latest book project, Genres of Real Life: Mediating Stories of Injustice Across Languages. 64

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Translating Talkies in Modernist Mexico The Language of Cinemas and the Politics of the Sound Film Industry Valeria Luiselli Hofstra University, USA Abstract: During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the first ‘talkies’ appeared in Mexico, and many new cinemas were built or adapted from older buildings in order to accommodate this paradigmatically modern entertainment technology. Until the 1920s movies were mostly screened in makeshift spaces –in private houses, old theaters, circuses and even churches. Then, in the early 1920s, the first ‘cinema palaces’ started to appear, and by the late 1930s there were around fifty new or newly adapted movie theaters specialized in featuring talkies in Mexico City. These movie houses were an emblem of spectacular modernity. They are also, as I argue, a clear example of ‘translation spaces’ in their ma- ny-layered complexity. I discuss a relatively wide range of translation practices, from dubbing and the politics of film translation in early foreign sound films in Mexico, to the role that the first movie theaters played as stone and concrete ‘translators’ of the modern experience of sound films, to the appropriation of old spaces and their repurposing for the new technologies, to the way that the- aters that were built in particular ‘languages,’ such as the International Style and the Streamline modern, constituted a form of ‘temporal’ translation. 1. Movie theaters in the age of sound: an introduction During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the first “talkies” appeared in Mexico, and many new cinemas were built or adapted from older buildings in order to accommodate this paradigmatically modern entertainment technology. Until the 1920s, movies were mostly screened in makeshift spaces—in private houses, old the- aters, circuses, and even churches. Then, in the early 1920s, the first “cinema palaces” started to appear, and by the late 1930s there were around fifty new or newly adapted movie theaters specialized in featuring talkies in Mexico City (Hershfield 2006, 265).1 These 1 Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of material evidence in magazines and newspapers re- garding the construction of theaters, as compared to the great amount of information regarding films and actors. Among news such as “Tarzan has divorced his wife” and “Chaplin is in love translation / 65 movie houses, as the architectural historian Fernanda Canales has written, were “an emblem of spectacular modernity” (Hershfield 2006, 180). The first sound movie theaters are also, as I shall ar- gue, a clear example of translation spaces in their many-layered complexity. Research on cinemas both from the perspective of architec- tural as well as cultural history remains scarce in relation to other areas of focus in both film studies and architectural history. Often, film historians ignore the spaces in which films were screened, and architectural historians tend to disregard the history of film when they deal with movie theaters. Although film criticism does not fall within the purview this paper, and I will not focus on any film in particular, I do want to place my architectural analysis and discus- sion of movie theaters within the specific context of the arrival of sound film technology in order to discuss the relationship between the modern architectural language of movie theaters and some of the dominating cultural politics of the burgeoning sound film in- dustry in Mexico. I am particularly interested in the question of whether these two things worked in consonance or, on the con- trary, were in dissonance in relation to the discourse of modernity or in creating a “sense” of being modern. Considering the spaces that were created with the arrival of sound film from an architec- tural perspective, and focusing on a small group of movie theaters, I intend to discuss the various senses in which translation practices took place within these new spaces, and how such practices con- tributed to a wider discourse of modernity. Did both cinemas and the film industry have a parallel evolution in terms of how they subscribed parameters of modernism? Did they play a similar so- cial and cultural role in their contribution to the formation of ideas of modernity? I will discuss a relatively wide range of translation practices, from dubbing and the politics of film translation in early for- eign sound films in Mexico, to the role that the first movie the- aters played as stone-and-concrete “translators” of the modern again” (Cinelandia, December 1932), as well as propaganda for new equipment for the new film theaters, advertisements which sell cheap and reliable English lessons, ads for new Kodak translation / cameras and new Clarion radios, and so on, propaganda for film theaters or news about them is, with few exceptions, notably absent from magazines when the inauguration of theaters are announced. 66 experience of sound films, to the appropriation of old spaces and their repurposing for the new technologies, to the way theaters that were built in particular architectural “languages,” such as the International Style and the Streamline modern, constituted a form of temporal translation.2 The way I approach these differ- ent practices and spaces, in turn, encompasses a hermeneutical approach to cultural practices, a phenomenological reading of building typology, and a more distant reading of buildings within the cityscape. My approach to translation, moreover, is tied to the quintes- sentially modernist distinction between foreignization and domes- tication. Modernist translation practices must be distinguished from what is conceived more generally as translation. The 1920s and 1930s were decades of experimentation with composition and translation. As the critic Lawrence Venuti writes, modernist translation practices, which had their philosophical root in nine- teenth-century philosophy, treated translation as an art and a source of innovation: The main trends in translation theory during [modernism] are rooted in German literary and philosophical traditions, in Romanticism, hermeneutics, and exis- tential phenomenology […] Nineteenth-century theorists and practitioners like Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm von Humboldt treated translation as a creative force in which specific translation strategies might serve a variety of cultural and social functions, building languages, literatures, and nations. At the start of the twentieth century, these ideas are rethought from the vantage point of modernist movements which prize experiments with literary form as a way of revitalizing culture. Translation is a focus of theoretical speculation and formal innovation. (Venuti 2000, 11) Far from being a means of passively importing foreign liter- atures and adapting foreign languages to local ones, modernist translation as “formal innovation” constituted a form of active 2 Although the term “International Style” started to be used more frequently in the 1930s, it usu- ally refers to the language that architecture started using in the 1920s, and which became the emblematic style of modernism in architecture. Buildings designed according to the principles of the International Style are typically devoid of unnecessary ornamentation, are rectilinear, conceive exteriors as a result of interiors, and rationalize form and function. The Streamline Moderne style, which became widespread in the 1930s, draws on fundamental principles of the International style but merges it with Art Deco elements, such as the use of curved lines, horizontal planes, and references to nautical and aerial shapes. translation / 67 foreignization of the domestic (vis-à-vis domesticizing the for- eign), by which the foreign “contaminated” the domestic and thus pushed its limits further, while at the same time blurring the boundaries between the so-called “foreign” and the “domes- tic.” Seen in this light, modernist translation practices are ones in which translation was not merely conceived as an accurate ren- dering of a source language into a target language or a vehicle for explaining the foreign or making it more accessible or palatable to the local readership, but as a way of appropriating new forms and thus a creative locus of innovation. The term “translation practice”, moreover, in the context of Mexican cultural history can help us move beyond the passive categories of “reception” or “influence,” common to canonic literary and cultural studies, and allow us to focus on modernist cultural production in terms of exchanges. 2. Subtitles, dubbing, versions, and talkies: a hermeneutical approach to the horizon of a new soundscape Translation and dubbing were a fundamental part of the begin- nings of the sound film industry. By the end of the 1920s, the film industry had entered into a crisis and sound film was initially not being received enthusiastically around the world by leading fig- ures in the industry. Chaplin had said that talkies were “ruining the great beauty of silence”, (Maland 1989, 113) and Luigi Pirandello wrote in his well-known essay, “Will the Talkies do Away with Theater?”, that American’s “cheerful arrogance” regarding the ad- vent of sound films was not something to really be worried about, because talkies were nothing but a “poor reproduction of theater” (Bassnett and Lorch, 156). But beyond its reception among prom- inent intellectuals and public figures, the crisis was also economic, and related to the world financial crisis. In 1932, the magazine Cinelandia, which was simultaneously published in Mexico and Hollywood, featured a piece titled “La gran crisis del cine” [The Great Crisis in Film] discussing the crisis in the industry and ad- judicating the reasons for such crisis to the advent of talkies. The piece recounts, in a rather alarmist tone: translation / Hollywood producers are receiving, from all over the world, definite data confirming the reduction of income from ticket sales in all the cinemas in every city, in every country in the world. To tell the truth, we must add that the downward trend in pop- 68 ular interest for the cinematographic spectacle did not start with the world financial crisis: it is older than that and goes back to the exact moment in which sound and spoken film first came onto the international market. (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 17)3 With the arrival of sound films in Hollywood in the late 1920s one of the many problems the American film industry faced was preserving its cultural and economic hegemony over the rest of the world. Governments were enforcing protectionist laws guarding against linguistic “invasion.” Countries such as Argen- tina immediately banned movies spoken in English. Even in the UK, audiences started to protest against movies being spoken in “American.” In Mexico, one of the most influential newspapers, El Universal, gave rise to an aggressive campaign against the new movies spoken in English, calling the governments through- out the Spanish American continent to ban movies in English. By the end of the 1920s, 90% of the silent films screened in Mexico were made in the US, and the Latin American audiences could not understand the new sound films (see Hershfield 2006, 264). The working classes did not speak English, and the elites mostly spoke French as a second language, not English. A good part of the Mexican elites as well as columnists and journalists sup- ported the campaign in the vast majority of national print me- dia. They seemed to agree that English would overtake Spanish if Hollywood’s “pacific invasion” was not stopped by banning movies in English, and they contended that Spanish would soon become a dead language if the masses started identifying English as the language of entertainment. Although a few publications, such as the monthly Continental, responded aggressively to El Universal’s campaign, this anti-English movement was initially quite successful, at least among the elites and public intellectuals (see Reyes de la Maza 1973). When the negative reaction to sound film became a universal response, Hollywood entrepreneurs finally decided that they had to do something about it. The first solution they attempted was to make silent versions of the new sound films, strictly for foreign ex- 3 This quote, as well as much of the information regarding the late silent and early talkie eras, is taken from Reyes de la Mazas 1973, which is a compendium of articles from leading Mexican publications in 1929–1932. I will be quoting many articles from this compendium; all translations translation / into English of the original articles are mine. 69 port. This proved to be a complete failure in the entire world (Mora 1989, 31) as audiences wanted to partake in new technological advances and silent films were seen as a thing of the past. The sec- ond solution was to subtitle films, but countries had demands that were sometimes difficult to meet, as well as particular, local de- mographic realities. The Mexican president Emilio Portes Gil, for example, ordered that there should be “absolute Castilian purity in the language and subtitles of foreign films” (Garcia Riera 1992, 13), which was impossible as the people involved in subtitling were Spanish speakers from different Spanish-speaking countries now living in Los Angeles, and there was no way to conserve the Spanish “purity” demanded by Portes Gil. Moreover, in 1930, the percentage of analphabetism in Mexico was 65% (Vidal 2010, 20), so the majority of the population was unable to read film subtitles. The third entrepreneurial strategy was to dub original Holly- wood films. This, likewise, proved inadequate, as many specta- tors detested the monstrous disembodiment that the still precar- ious methods of dubbing entailed. Finally, at least in the case of films destined for the Spanish-speaking world, it was decided that Hollywood would produce “versions” of the original films, using actors that could speak Spanish fluently. They imported writers, technicians, directors and, of course, actors from Spain and Lat- in America to play the parts of the English-speaking “originals.” These actors were called the Hollywood Hispanics—and were vir- tually linguistic stunt doubles. Or, perhaps, these Spanish-speaking actors can be seen as full-fledged dubbers: they not only leant their voice to the “original” but their entire body. A truly remarkable translation feat of sorts: Hispanic cinema became Hollywood’s Spanish-language copy or version of itself. From their beginnings, Hispanic films failed to convince au- diences—as if their particular form of translation proved to be too simplistic and unsophisticated for modern spectators. The au- dience was perhaps aware that either they were not watching an entirely original film and that the actors they were seeing were most often not part of the venerable star-system. In fact, a Spanish newspaper published a sarcastic note “thanking” Hollywood for ridding them of so many untalented, unemployed actors and taking translation / them over to the USA (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 23). The film critic Luz Alba wrote a piece titled “Growls in Spanish” where she stat- 70 ed that the voices of the actors were “so emphatic and what they say is so stupid that one has the impression of being in a tent dra- ma, where one could at least recur to the final resource of throwing the chairs at the actors—something impossible to do at the cinema Olimpia because the chairs are glued to the floor” (cited in Reyes de la Maza 1973, 180). Moreover, people were disgusted with the myriad Spanish accents, vocabulary, and idiomatic twists on the screen, where Mexicans, Spaniards, Argentineans, and Cubans played roles not necessarily corresponding to their accents. Before Hispanic sound films even arrived in Mexico, a film critic using the pseudonym of Don Q, who worked for the Spanish-language, New York-based magazine Cine Mundial, stated in 1929 that the diversity of nationalities and even races to which those improvised actors belong is such that their films will look like salads, mixing a variety of accents and eth- nicities—something that could be tolerated in scenes that can lend themselves to a cosmopolitan interpretation, but which will lead to more than a few flops. (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 191) Indeed, Hispanic films only lasted a few years, soon proving to be an absolute commercial flop.3 Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s last attempt to keep hold of the Latin American and Spanish market was to get Hollywood’s best actors to speak a little Spanish. Laurel and Hardy, as well as Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, all made shorts in Spanish and, though these fared better with educated audienc- es—at least in Mexico—than the movies featuring Hollywood His- panics, they did not do not well enough for entrepreneurs to persist in this last, rather eccentric endeavor (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 25). The theaters these subtitled, then dubbed, and then remade ver- sions were screened in were originally designed for silent films, and were, in turn, often older buildings—churches, convents, or old theaters—sometimes precariously and sometimes creatively “translated” or repurposed for cinema. One of the most emblem- atic spaces for film screenings in the early 1920s was a former sixteenth-century convent, which, in 1922, reopened with the rath- er bombastic name Progreso Mundial (World Progress). The old courtyard, typical of colonial architecture, was used as the primary 3 By 1939, after approximately 175 talkies, Hispanic films ceased to be produced (García Riera 1992, 14). translation / 71 sitting space, and the original stone arcade, traditionally plain and unadorned, was heavily clad with ornamentation. A second story had to be built to fit more spectators, for which slim iron pillars had to be placed between the seats (Alfaro 1997, 55). Progreso Mundial circa 1922. Most of these theaters had to be refurbished once again at the in the late 1920s and early 1930s, this time to accommodate new sound film technology. The Teatro-cinema Olimpia was the first cinema in Mexico to screen a talkie in 1929—eight years after its inauguration.4 Before this, in the early 1920s, it had been used si- multaneously for plays and silent films. The talkie that was shown was The Singing Fool. Before it played, the theater screened a short showing the Mexican consul in New York directly address- ing Mexicans and congratulating Warner Brothers for their inven- tion. Then, before the main screening, both the Orquesta Típica Mexicana and the New York Symphonic Orchestra were shown 4 Previously, the sound film (but not talkie) The Submarine had been screened in the Teatro Im- perial, in April 1929. An ad in the Universal read: “The Teatro Imperial, conscious of its program in constant progress and keeping ahead of its competition, will offer for the first time this great translation / advance of human invention […] Come to listen to the clamor and feel the anguish of a sinking submarine. Listen to the sounds of the depths of the ocean. Today, two shows, one at four and the other at eight” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 76). 72 playing a selection of musical pieces. The directors of the Olim- pia, in conjunction with Warner Brothers, had also produced a free magazine with information about the “wonders of the new form of entertainment” as well as a translated transcription of the movie’s dialogues (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 80). The premiere, apparently, was such a success that soon the campaign launched by El Univer- sal was drowned by the clamors of “the masses”.5 The Olimpia was designed by one of the most important early cinema architects, Carlos Crombé.6 It was built inside the shell of an old hotel, which had, in turn, been built in a vegetable gar- den on the grounds of the first Franciscan convent built in Mexico City in the 16th century. Its interiors were originally designed ac- cording to the elegant neoclassical eighteenth-century Adamesque style, which had seen a revival among the middle classes in the late nineteenth century and up to the 1920s.7 There were two dancing salons, one smoking room, and two vestibules (Alfaro 1997, 25). The elegant and often opulent interiors of movie theaters were a common denominator at the time. The logic behind this was to give the upper middle classes as immersive an experience for their money as possible, and help them forget their mundane, everyday life for a few hours. As a description of the movie theater in the magazine Cine Mundial read: “The Aristocratic Cinema Olimpia, refuge for families when on cold winter afternoons tedium stabs with its sharp blade, enchanting retreat […] has come to fill a vac- uum which had long been felt in Mexico’s good society” (Cine Silente Mexicano/Mexican Silent Cinema, translation mine). 5 It is interesting to note, reading the different articles about movies published at the time, that the opinion of intellectuals was almost always in contrast to what seemed to be the response of the “masses” to innovations and entertainment. 6 Carlos Crombé was a rather prolific cinema architect by the standards of the time in Mexi- co. In the 1920s he built several teatro-cinemas, in varied “conservative” architectural styles, ranging from Beaux-Arts façades typical of the Porfirian era such as his famous Cine Odeon, to Adamesque interiors, and even Churrigueresque exteriors (a Mexican adaptation of Baroque) in his well known Teatro Colonial (1940). His later cinemas, such as the Cine Alameda (1936) and his modernization of his own earlier Cine Olimpa (1941) were very different to those of the 1920s. The Cosmos, Crombé’s last project, which burnt down in 1946 just before its official inauguration, was closer to art deco and was perhaps meant to signal another version of modernity, perhaps closer to functionalism, in its sobriety. It was certainly the most modern of Crombé’s cinemas—it was closer, at least, to International Modernism—but it was the last he designed, as he died shortly after it burned down. 7 The Adamesque style, developed by the Adam brothers in England, became fashionable in the mid- to late-eighteenth century and is usually considered an offshoot of neoclassical design and architecture. It simplified baroque and rococo, but was still heavily ornamental. translation / 73 Teatro-Cinema Olimpia circa 1921. There are various translation practices at work in the example of the Olimpia’s screening of The Singing Fool. Even if the movie itself was not subtitled—a translation practice that, as I said ear- lier, had been banned by presidential orders—or dubbed, even if it was not a Hispanic “version” of an “original,” several interest- ing and rather inventive translational strategies were being used to bring the first talkie closer to its non English-speaking audience. First, the film’s dialogue was printed out and distributed free to patrons, which would seem to imply that it was expected to be read after the show, as a sort of consecutive or “delayed” translation. Then, there was the initial appearance of the Mexican consul in New York, who, in his role of cultural and diplomatic translator, was attempting to both bridge the two cultures that were about to engage in a possibly alienating encounter and also to fully sanc- tion—politically, that is—the screening of a movie in a language that was treated by many with great suspicion. Further, and most translation / importantly in architectural terms, the movie was being premiered in one of the oldest, most elegant and well-established movie the- 74 aters—a choice of setting which perhaps sought to convey an aura of traditional legitimacy and normality for the public. Through all these different practices or strategies, the Olimpia was to all ex- tents functioning here as a translation space. But how was the Olimpia’s role as a translation space inter- preted by others? In the Revista de Revistas, a highly popular pub- lication of those times, the critic Peinbert refers to the Olimpia as “one of our best salons” and says that through these salons “Mex- ico will be irremediably invaded by talkies in just a few months” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 86). Similarly, in the Universal the ed- itor and critic Carlos Noriega Hope wrote that “Yesterday it was the Olimpia that was paving the way; tomorrow it will be all the cinemas in Mexico […] Not a month will pass before mute films are inexorably exiled to the barrios. Everything will be filled with cries, musical synchronizations, and words in English” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 137). Another critic, Eugene Gaudry, complained about the screening at the Olimpia saying that it would inaugurate a time of great cultural confusion where eventually “the foreigners that come to Mexico will not know what the national language is, because they will be seeing movies in English, French, German, Italian, Denmarkese [sic], and so on, with no Spanish translations” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 171). Gaudry was of course exaggerating, but his complaints and concerns must have been shared by many, because a year later, in 1930, the managers at the Olimpia devised a mechanism which allowed for the insertion of explanatory Spanish text or titles be- tween scenes in foreign movies. The Olimpia was famous for its endeavors in translating as much as possible for their audiences. The critic Luz Alba noted in an article that “talkies at the Olimpia have many titles, more than those strictly necessary to understand the general issue, and just enough to understand the details— something that does not occur in talkies at other theaters, which only have enough titles to understand generalities” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 200). Indeed, movie theaters such as the Olimpia were the sites that were helping translate or carry over a new modern experience to the Mexican audience, and this modern experience went beyond the technology of sound in film: it was also the experience of foreign languages and voices coming into the city’s soundscape, translation / 75 Teatro-Cinema Olimpia circa late 1920s. through the screens of these movie theaters. Whether viewed as enablers of a new invention or as “traitors” that would allow the talkies to come in and take over, these translators made of concrete and stone functioned as the material portals for foreign languag- es to come in and “foreignize” the soundscape of Mexican movie theaters. 3. Translation, tradition, and entertainment: a phenomenological approach After an initial period of resistance on the part of the Mexico City elite, in which many columnists and critics voiced their concerns and hesitations regarding sound film technology, it was clear that the talkies had come to stay. In the early 1930s, the Mexican film industry consolidated and producers started to invest funds and translation / human capital in new technologies and, of course, in producing Spanish-language talkies. 76 One of the first optical sound devices for film was in fact in- vented by a young Mexican man who was living in Los Angeles with his family at the time. His name, like the names of many remote national icons, has an almost cinematographic ring to it: José de Jesús “El Joselito” Rodriguez. In the back room of the bakery his parents owned he had been working for two years on a sound-on-film device that would adapt to any camera and be easy to transport. He finally completed the last adjustments to the Rodriguez Sound Recording System in 1929. It weighed less than twelve pounds and was purportedly adaptable to any camera cir- culating in the industry. As the story goes, he sat his family around a projector and activated it. To his family’s surprise, a horrifying, cacophonic, almost diabolical melody gushed out, in synchrony with the image of a few people moving their mouths rhythmically on the home-made screen. Joselito then stopped the mechanism, made a few adjustments, and tried again. What came out the sec- ond time around was the Mexican national anthem. Apparently, in the first try, he had set the mechanism the wrong way around, and what his family heard was the national anthem being sung backwards. Early sound films relied on a sound-on-disc technology, in which the sound heard during a film screening had been recorded onto a phonograph record that was physically separate from the film. The technology was flimsy and unreliable: not only did the two components—sound and image—seem disconnected, but they would often desynchronize completely, producing mass confusion and irritation in early spectators. The decisive technological step for the sound film industry was the fusion of both the sound and visual components of the movie in an optical sound device, lat- er called sound-on-film technology. Although initial experiments with the new technology took place in the early 1920s, the first full feature film with integrated sound was The Jazz Singer (1927). It was in that same year that Joselito Rodriguez began to develop his new device, which he imagined could be used in the burgeoning Mexican sound film industry and thus set Mexico at the forefront of international talkies. At the same time as Joselito was working on his device, in around 1930 a Mexican producer put together a crew and began working on a project that would lead to the first Mexican opti- translation / 77 cal sound film, Santa. Joselito, who probably knew he stood slim chances of getting a proper interview with film magnates, stalked the film’s producer, Juan de la Cruz Alarcón, at Los Angeles air- port. Alarcón was on his way back to Mexico, returning empty handed, after an unsuccessful trip to Hollywood in which he tried to acquire a sound-on-film technology device: they were all too costly and impossible to transport. Accompanied by his brother, Joselito approached Alarcón and secretly filmed and recorded their brief airport conversation, in which he told the producer of his latest invention. He was unsuccessful in settling any deal with him, but he at least managed to get his contact information down and record the whole encounter. A few days later, he mailed the reel to Alarcón back in Mexico. The recording met and surpassed Alarcón’s expectations. It was a done deal. Just a couple of weeks later, Joselito and his brother, Roberto, were repatriated and began working on Santa in the newly built studios of the Compania Na- cional Productora de Peliculas. Santa was premiered in 1932, in Mexico City’s newly renovat- ed Cine Palacio. The Palacio was finished in 1924 and renovated in the late 1920s to screen sound films. But what did this renovation consist in? Did sound film technology affect the architectural lan- guage or style of movie theaters beyond the necessary adjustments to their interiors? Interestingly, the renovations to the Palacio were also external: the theater perhaps had to send the message to its audiences that they were fully committed to modernity and they were as modern as the technology they housed. In a comparison of the two façades it is possible to notice some of the typical changes that architecture underwent during the de- cade. In the renovated cinema, the straight lines that once met the pinnacles framing the center façade were replaced by a stepped rooftop, more typical of the art deco style of the late 1920s in Mex- ico, making the building look taller and, especially, differentiat- ing it from the straight-line horizontal façades of both neocolonial and Porfirean art nouveau architecture. The exteriors of the Cine Palacio were also conditioned for the more striking form of film propaganda that started to flourish towards the end of the 1920s, which often made use of vertical edge-lit signs and likewise used translation / the marquee for placing film posters. There is, unfortunately, little published material about the the- 78 ater’s interior transformation or on what adaptations the film’s technicians had to do in order to screen Santa in a theater that was not initially built for talkies. The only mention in publications to its interior is that it was “modernized”—which probably means that the art nouveau ornamentation was “upgrade” to art deco (see, Cine Palacio circa 1924. Cine Palacio late 1920s. translation / 79 for example, García 2002). In short: a new technology demand- ed a new appearance, internal and external. Modernity demanded an integral makeover, a full translation of a space into its modern version. An urban melodrama of sorts, Santa was based on a best-sell- ing novel written at the close of the nineteenth century by the Mex- ican writer Federico Gamboa. It tells the story of a woman from the countryside who arrives in Mexico City and is forced into pros- titution. Modern Mexico city is portrayed as a threatening, cruel space, where well-intentioned people are treated harshlly. As the critic Joanne Hershfield writes regarding Santa, “the film affirmed the conservative discourse that idealized tradition […] and criti- cized the modern paradigm of progress” (Hershfield 2006, 268). It is somewhat interesting, in this light, that the storyline chosen to inaugurate the Mexican talkie—a format using technology that was spearheading modernity and progress—should come from a conservative nineteenth-century novel. It is also interesting that this conservative film was screened in a newly renovated, modern, art-deco movie theater. What can we make of the apparent décal- age between a movie and the theater that screened it? It must be noted that the example of the conservative Santa screened in the modern Palacio is by no means an exception. Most commercial movies made in Mexico during the 1930s—and well into the 1950s, the period in which the country entered its cine- matographic Golden Age—were no less conservative and tradi- tionalist. As Hershfield notes, “whether they were set in historical or contemporary contexts, these films exalted traditional values of patriarchy, the family, the macho hero, and virtuous, submissive femininity” (Hershfield 2006, 269). The fundamental reason for this is that the State was deeply involved in film production and distribution in Mexico, and therefore also had a “say” in its con- tent.8 The same is not true of the relationship between the State and movie theaters themselves.9 Theaters were seen as lucrative 8 As Susan Dever writes regarding the film industry and the star system, “Within Mexico these stars negotiated a relationship between spectators and the State, indoctrinating viewers in the rights and duties of Mexican citizenship. (Given the Mexican Government’s subsidy of the film translation / industry, making the State the producer of Golden Age cinema, this relationship was particularly well defined)” (Dever 2003, 12). 9 There is no evidence whatsoever that most film theaters received money from the State, as op- 80 spaces of entertainment, not places destined to educate the Mexi- can population. While successful films at the box office were usually the most conservative ones, Mexican cinemas in the early 1930s tend- ed toward a gradually increasing radical modernity. They were more experimental than their content (that is, than the films they showed), more forward-looking and more committed to a sense of modernity—however they interpreted this. In other words, if cinemas in the 1930s pointed toward the future, the content they screened mostly pointed toward the past. How, then, should we read the resulting tension? Can it be read as a tension between form and function? That is, a tension between modernity in form and conservatism in function? Or perhaps their function was not at all to conserve values through conservative movies, but simply to entertain and make money. In that case, how did their form con- tribute to the parameters and box office exigencies and how was this, in turn, gauged against the State’s own exigencies regarding the pedagogic, civilizing purpose of Mexican commercial films? The phenomenological assumption regarding the interrelated- ness of an aesthetic experience and the physical aspect of the space in which such an experience takes place may or may not be entirely accepted—the degree of the interrelatedness can certainly be ques- tioned in a space such as a theater, which disappears as soon as the lights go off and the show begins—but what is unquestionable is the fact that the architects of movie houses made stylistic choices which were necessarily tied to a taste informed by a preconception of what a space such as a cinema should “say” to its patrons. In his lecture “Of Other Spaces,” Foucault describes the mov- ie theater as a space that encloses within it a multiplicity of spaces. He explains the multiplicity of spaces enclosed in a movie theater posed to hospitals, schools, public housing, stadiums, universities, and public buildings. There were powerful families in the construction business—the Espinosa brothers, the Alarcóns, and of course, the controversial American tycoon William Jenkins—who had ties with the govern- ment and who would eventually hold a monopoly on Mexican film theaters. There were also politicians involved in theater construction and ownership, such as former president Abelardo Rodríguez. But none of this means that there was no public money, or at least honestly invested public money, in the business. Many reasons may explain the absence of the government in film theater construction and management. The short answer, however, is that theaters simply did not need it. As opposed to national film production, theaters had plenty of material to screen and plenty of patrons to entertain—a simple matter of supply and demand. translation / 81 through the figure of the heterotopia: “The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces […] thus it is that the cinema is a very odd rectangular room, at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of a three-dimensional space” (Foucault 1984, 6). But what Foucault fails to do is to see the “very odd rectangular room” as anything more than just a box in which the experience takes place. He does not, in other words, regard the physical space of the theater as any- thing more than a sort of container. Cinemas, however, are much more complex in terms of their production of space than an “odd rectangular room.” The spaces in which films were seen provided a setting in which the viewers received their dose of entertainment within the bracket or “slices in time” (Foucault 1984, 6) which the experience of movie-going entailed. Palacio Chino late 1930s. Perhaps the clearest historical example of a conscious stylistic choice is that of the atmospheric cinemas, which were in vogue in translation / movie theater architecture in the United States in the 1920s and which sought to recreate exotic spaces. Such was the case of the 82 Palacio Chino (built in the late 1930s and inaugurated in 1940), which featured pagodas, Buddhas, and golden dragons in its par- ticular rendering of the atmospheric style. It was built in an old ball court, and designed by Luis de la Mora and Alfredo Olaga- ray. The critic Luis Helguera describes its interiors as built in “at- mospheric style, with pagodas, temples, and gold Buddha statues amid gardens. The ceiling was vault-like, not flat but very arched, and of course was painted deep blue. The screen was protected by a heavy black curtain, with Chinese motifs painted upon it. The screen arch was very heavily decorated, with dragons appearing here and there” (Heguera). Mexican architects of the atmospheric style followed the precept conceptualized by Charles Lee—“the show starts on the sidewalk.” They had attractive marquees, striking façades, and, in short, designed spaces that would bolster the “illusion” of the cinema, where the mind, leaving the real behind, was finally free to gambol and became more receptive to entertainment. Movie theaters, as spaces, can then perhaps be seen as a medium that, due to its “otherness,” helped transmit the illusion of cinema to its viewers. Whether this otherness was just a gleaming modernity, as in the case of the Cine Palacio, or whether it was set as an entire il- lusion, as in the case of the Palacio Chino, the point was that movie theaters were much more than just “odd rectangular rooms.” Going back to the question of form and function posed earli- er, how can we read the coexistence or juxtaposition of Mexican movies—conservative, and mostly realist and traditionalist—in these modern, “other” spaces? Perhaps by rephrasing this appar- ent dichotomy in terms of how movie theaters function as transla- tion spaces we can make better sense of it. In a “foreign” space of sorts, in a space that was utterly “other”—due to its modernity, its ornamental exuberance, or its atmospheric illusions—what peo- ple went to see was themselves; or even an older, more traditional version of themselves. A space “outside of time” and “outside of space”—a modern space of entertainment and illusion—thus func- tioned, paradoxically, as a sort of mirror of reality. In other words, a space that was foreign made the domestic visible. The patron or viewer, upon entering the other or foreign space of the movie theater, became a translator. A translator of what, ex- actly? A translator of him or herself for him or herself. The movie translation / 83 theater, inasmuch as it created an illusion or sense of being else- where, estranged the patron from his reality and from himself: he was in a foreign space of sorts. Then, the movie itself—a movie such as Santa, which in turn realistically depicted the reality “out- side” the space of the movies—made the patron face him-/herself. Translation spaces such as movie theaters were not just gateways for foreign languages and cultures, as I explained in the example of the Olimpia’s foreign talkie screenings, but also functioned as mirrors—spaces in which viewers come to see themselves reflect- ed in that other “version” of themselves in the context or against the backdrop of a space that was foreign and other, much like the translator who is always “strabismically” looking simultaneously at the foreign text and at her or his own. Moviegoers thus travels outside themselves and outside their domestic, local reality to re- turn to themselves. 4. New monumentality in the cityscape: building typologies and the urban layout By the mid 1930s, the Mexican film sound industry had entered its Golden Age. The number of films produced in the country had increased exponentially (see Mora 1989).The same was happening in many other parts of the world, as the advent of sound film and the language/translation problems it had created were partially re- solved by countries creating and investing in their own film indus- tries and producing films in their national languages. Paradoxically, however, while the film industry was becoming more and more fragmented into linguistic regions, the “interna- tional language” of theater architecture became more and more consolidated and unified. As the national film industry grew in Mexico in the 1930s, Spanish-language films were being screened in spaces that were increasingly trans- or international in terms of their architectural languages and styles. In this sense, it could perhaps be said that cinemas internationalized their content, how- ever “local” it may have been. Spectators seeing a movie about the most local of themes—be it the Mexican Revolution, Mexican urban poverty, or the Aztec past—were doing so in an interior that could just as easily be in Vienna, Buenos Aires, or Chicago. translation / But what about the relationship of these movie theaters to their surroundings? That is, how can movie theaters be understood as 84 translation spaces within the urban space they occupied and how can this relationship shine a different light upon their cultural and social role? In the 1930s, monumental sound movie theaters began to be built. These were not just adaptations of older buildings, but constructions whose function was, from the outset, to house sound films. Beyond their bold architecture, which contrasted with the older and more sober buildings in Mexico City and thus set them apart as grand palaces of entertainment, their monumental size also marked a dramatic shift in the appearance of the city, which had always been horizontally low-rise. One of the most interest- ing examples of modern cinema monumentality was Juan Segura’s Cine Hipódromo, housed within the Ermita building. Ermita building circa 1931. translation / 85 Cine Hipodromo, Ermita building. translation / Ermita building circa 1931. 86 The Ermita was a dramatic intervention in the cityscape. It was the first “skyscraper,” albeit only an eight-story one. Seen from the acute angle where Revolución and Avenida Jalisco meet, the building resembles a large ship sailing north. On its ground lev- el are spaces for small businesses, integrating the street-life into the building. Along its southern façade, a big entranceway, which makes resourceful use of the building’s triangular shape, opens into a cinema. On top of the cinema are three stories of apartments. Since Segura could not use columns inside the cinema, he had to think of a way of making sure the structure would support the three stories above. He therefore opted for structural steel and construct- ed an innovative steel structure around the cinema in order to se- cure it from the weight above, as well as to sound-proof it. He also used reinforced concrete in beam designs and roofs, as well as for minimal cladding purposes and ornaments—all of which were an integral part of the building (Toca 1997, 170). Although the Ermita was finished by 1931, the Hipódromo, did not open until 1936. Its inauguration poster depicted “the masses” crowding around the new, towering building. Teatro Cine Hipodromo inauguration poster, 1936. translation / 87 Other examples of modernist monumentality were Francis- co J. Serrano’s projects. He designed and modernized at least ten cinemas in the 1930s, some of which, in his own words “left be- hind their jacal [hut-like] appearance and became modern spaces” (Alfaro 1998, 58). One of his most important buildings, the Cine Encanto, was inaugurated in 1937, and loomed high above the sur- rounding buildings of the San Rafael neighborhood. Its art deco façade featured a heavily lit marquee, an enormous portico, and a striking sign at the top with the theater’s name written in deco typography. The vertical cement walls, forming a right angle with the central area of the façade, accentuate the height of the con- struction and the stretched glass-block vertical windows through which the light from the interior shone outwards, thus accentuat- ing the chiaroscuro suggested by the walls. The interiors of the Cine Encanto were modern and spare com- pared to the more lavishly ornamented theaters of the early 1920s. translation / Cine Encanto circa 1937. 88 The Streamline Moderne vestibule, with its curving forms, long horizontal lines, and round ship-like windows can be seen as a reaction to the earlier sumptuous interiors of movie palaces and at- mospherics, and a natural reflection of modern architecture’s ten- dency towards simplicity and economy of space and materials. Its vestibule, moreover, played with the ambiguous border between the inside and the outside, by integrating an interior garden and Cine Encanto (interiors) circa 1937. Cine Encanto (vestibule). translation / 89 using openings in the roof to allow plenty of natural light to flow in during the day or for the night sky to be seen from inside. One of the most interesting aspects of both Juan Segura’s and Francisco Serrano’s work is precisely that it raises the question of how modernity was being interpreted by these “independent” architects of the new film theaters.10 Segura and Serrano designed two of the first cinemas constructed specifically as sound cinemas. These movie theaters were no longer adaptations of constructions dating from an earlier period, they were not mere “upgrades” from art nouveau to art deco, and they were certainly not like the opu- lent, lavishly ornamented atmospheric palaces. Indeed, in the mid and late 1930s, movie theater architects would draw more and more on this interpretation of modernity and modernism and move towards more sober, less eclectic forms, building cinemas devoid of superficial ornamentation and maintaining a tighter relationship between form and function.11 But these movie theaters were also imposing new monuments to modernity, towering high above the city’s older buildings. They were as much places destined for seeing something (a movie) as places made to be seen. They were visible from afar; they loomed large, like the admonition of a possible future city, from below. These new buildings introduced a new time: the time of the “now” as a “future.” The time of the thoroughly, universally modern. If modernist translation practices were a form of foreignization of the domestic, those new movie theaters, in the local context where they appeared, must have seemed utterly foreign or oth- er—not by virtue of bringing in elements from a particular foreign country or region, as International Modernism and the Stream- line modern style were in essence extraterritorial, but by virtue of introducing a foreign time into the city’s traditional time. Their “otherness” was a “futureness.” If translation is a transportation, a transference, a carrying over, what these monuments to modern- ism translated was not any particular content, but the sense of time itself. 10 By independent, I mean that their work was not, as was the case with so many realms of ar- chitectural and artistic production—film certainly among them—funded by the Mexican State. translation / 11 As Maggie Valentine explains, “seemingly anachronistic ornate architecture and design dis- appeared from the buildings. Both [film and film theater architecture] were stripped of their artificial decoration in favor of a more honest […]) examination of life” (Valentine 1994, 6). 90 References Alfaro Salazar, Francisco Haroldo. 1997. Espacios distantes—aun vivos: las salas cinematográficas de la Ciudad de México. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. ———. 1998. República de los cines. Mexico City: Clio. Cine silente méxicano/Mexican Silent Cinema. S.v. “Cine Progreso.” http://cinesilen- temexicano.wordpress.com/?s=cine+progreso. Dever, Susan. 2003. Celluloid Nationalism and Other Melodramas: From Post-Rev- olutionary Mexico to fin de siglo Mexamérica. The Suny Series in Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video and in Feminist Criticism and Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press. Foucault, Michel. 1984. “Of ther Spaces. Utopias and Heterotopias.” Translated from the French by Jay Miskowiec, originally in Architecture /Mouvement/ Continu- ité (October). Available as pdf download at http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/ foucault1.pdf. García, Gustavo. 2002. “Adiós al Olimpia.” Letras Libres (October): 101–102. García Riera, Emilio. 1992. Historia documental del cine mexicano. Vol 1. Guadala- jara: Universidad de Guadaljara. Heguera, Luis. N.d. S.v. “Palacio Chino.” http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/ 13383http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/13383. Hershfield, Joanne. 2006. “Sreening the Nation.” In Mary K. Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis, eds., The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940. Durham: Duke University Press. Maland, Charles J. 1989. Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Mora, Carl J. 1989. Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–1988. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reyes de la Maza, Luis. 1973. Cine sonoro mexicano. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Toca, Antonio. 1997. “Origins of Modern Architecture in Mexico.” In Edward Buri- an, ed., Modernity and the Architecture of Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. Valentine, Maggie. 1994. The Show Starts on the Sidewalk: An Architectural History of the Movie Theatre, Starring S. Charles Lee. New Haven: Yale University Press. Venuti, Lawrence. 2000. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge. Vidal Bonifaz, Rosario. 2010. Surgimiento de la industria cinematográfica y el papel del Estado de México 1895–1940. Mexico, D.F.: Miguel Angel Porrúa. translation / 91 Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City, and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. She is the author of Sidewalks, a collection of essays, and the internationally acclaimed novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth. Her work in fiction has been translated into more than twenty languages, and she has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, Frieze, Granta, the New Yorker and McSweeney’s. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and lives in New York, where she teaches at Hofstra University. Photo: Zony Maya. translation / 92

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Translating At the Edge of Empire: Olha Kobylianska and Rose Ausländer Sherry Simon Concordia University, Canada Abstract: The edge of empire is a mythical place which has inspired the histor- ical and literary imagination. As the easternmost city of the Habsburg Empire, Czernowitz was a product of a particular kind of border culture, one which sus- tained an intense relationship with the German language. In the multilingual matrix of the years leading to the collapse of the Empire and during the interwar period, translational relationships were developed through German. The cases of the Ukrainian writer Olha Kobylianska and the German-Jewish poet Rose Auslander are considered here. The edge of empire is a mythical place that has long stimulated the historical and literary imagination. The Roman Limes—which encompassed a vast area that included Britain (up to its northern, Atlantic reaches), continental Europe right across to the Black Sea and down to the Red Sea, and North Africa as far west as the Atlantic coast (see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/430)—probably provide the most pervasive material traces of the walls, ditches, forts, fortresses, watchtowers, and civilian settlements that sepa- rate Empire from its barbarian outside. But the waxing and waning of innumerable empires over the course of world history—from the Greek and Mongol to the Habsburg, British, and Ottoman em- pires—have offered an abundant supply of objects and narratives, images and fantasies, a recent example of which is the Star Wars game called “The Edge of the Empire.” An expression of imperial power at its highest point (bringing the full might of military force to bear against the enemy without), the edge of empire is also, because of its physical distance from the imperial center, a place where identities can become diluted, where the precise dividing line between inside and outside can be- come troubled. This paradox is richly exploited in J. M. Coetzee’s translation / 93 1980 novel Waiting for the Barbarians. It tells the story of a dis- abused middle-aged magistrate who chooses to end his days in a lazy imperial outpost, spending his free time carrying out his own archaeological digs. Largely indifferent to the bellicose aims of his military superi- ors, he comes under suspicion of collusion with the enemy. He has excavated a cache of slivers of wood that all seem to have some sort of message written on them, but the writing is ancient and im- penetrable and he has been unable to decipher the message. When he is forced, however, to provide the meaning of these writings, now considered crucial evidence, the magistrate suddenly finds words to transmit the messages he reads from the slips: appeals from barbarian prisoners to their families—intimate and immedi- ate and alive. Through his “translation,” the magistrate transforms the bar- barians from aliens into individual beings. He blurs the line that separates the enemy from the citizen, and he opens gaps in the Em- pire’s line of defense. And in fact the Empire never does achieve victory. The barbarians simply lure the army out into the desert and then vanish. Faithful to the genre of “the barbarian and the frontier”—classically drawn by Dino Buzzati in The Desert of the Tartars and powerfully evoked by Cavafy in the poem also called “Waiting for the Barbarians”—the barbarians in Coetzee’s novel are elusive. The moment of direct confrontation, feared and de- sired, never comes. The link between present and past, self and other, suggests Coetzee, is an imaginative leap, a gesture of volun- tary projection. Coetzee’s novel will be our entry point into another site of translation at the edge of empire. This is the city of Czernowitz (to- day’s Cernivtsi in Ukraine), the most easterly city of the erstwhile Habsburg empire. Abundantly mythologized as a border city, as a cultural bulwark against the alien forces from the east, the city provides rich material for a study of translational forces. Its geo- graphical situation but also its cultural vocation as a border city during the period of the military collapse and the reorganization of the Habsburg border lands offers a singular viewpoint onto the work of translation at the edge of empire. In what follows, I will translation / examine the work of two Czernowitz authors—Olha Kobylianska (1863-1942) and Rose Ausländer (1901-1988)—as translators of 94 their border city. Like Coetzee’s magistrate, they find the borders enacted by translation to be shifting and elusive. To translate at the edge is to be especially aware of the ways in which boundaries can accentuate or attenuate difference. Political borders hyposta- tize cultural and linguistic differences, while geographical borders often show difference to be gradual. The multilingualism of border zones problematizes the activities of translation as source–target transactions. Whether applied to a huge geographical expanse or to the microspaces of the multilingual city, the operations of trans- lation at the border are shaped by the special pressures of the in- terzone. This means that the frames of language exchange must be recast to respond to more subtle understandings of the relation be- tween language, territory, and identity. How do the competition and animosities, but also the shared references that inevitably flourish in multilingual geopolitical contexts, shape translation (Meylaerts 2013)? Languages that share the same terrain rarely participate in a peaceful and egalitarian conversation: their separate and compet- ing institutions are wary of one another, aggressive in their need for self-protection. Cultures of mediation are shaped by the social and political forces which regulate the relations among languages. Building the bulwark Today the Bukovina is largely situated in Ukraine. From 1774 until 1918, this area was the easternmost edge of the Habsburg empire that the emperor Joseph II consciously and vigorously constructed as a buffer zone in order to protect his territories from Russian and Ottoman expansion (Colin 1991, 7). He actively promoted the settlement of Germans from Austria and southwest Germany, as well as the Germanization of Ruthenians and Roumanians, the two largest language groups in the Bukovina. Over the course of the nineteenth century in particular, for both German-language empires (the Prussian and the Habsburg), “the East” exerted tremendous fascination. From 1848 to 1918, central Europe was crisscrossed by conflicting imperial projects, each marked by its own real and imagined borders and the constant pressure to defend newly conquered expanses of territory. The ar- eas that became known as the “eastern Marches” were increasing- ly important in public consciousness. The term “March”—origi- nally indicating the border provinces of the Carolingian Empire, translation / 95 granted a privileged political status in order to fulfill their duties in defending and expanding the Empire’s boundaries, and used only sporadically in the first half of the nineteenth century—became a catch-phrase (the OstMark) after 1848 (Thum 2013, 44–59). And in the second half of the nineteenth century, a new kind of highly ideologized novel later called the Ostmarkenroman emerged, pop- ularizing the idea “that a battle over territory was taking place in the eastern borderlands between the representations of a superior German civilization and their Slavic enemies” (Thum 2013, 48). As Pieter Judson has so convincingly demonstrated, these border zones were not “natural” zones of conflict, in particular of language conflict. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, they were, rather, strategically targeted by nationalist ideologists and enlisted in the struggle for patriotic allegiance (Judson 2006). “Na- tionalist activists” took every opportunity to transform rural con- flicts into national ones (10). In particular, campaigns around the language of schools were used to mobilize energies for nationalist causes in what Judson calls the “nationalization of the language frontier” (17). From 1848 onwards, Czernowitz had an increasingly Ger- man-language population. Many German-speaking Jews settled in the major Bukovinian cities and by 1918, 47 percent of the pop- ulation of Czernowitz was Jewish. “Since Bukovinian Jews were German-speaking and particularly loyal to the Habsburg monarchy and instrumental in its expansion in that region, Austrian officials tended to consider them representatives of the Habsburg empire” (Colin 1991, 7; see also Hirsch and Spitzer, chapters 2 and 4). Proof of the importance of Czernowitz for Austria and the German language came with the founding in 1875 of Franz Josef Univer- sity—a coveted boost to the intellectual and cultural life of what was considered by many to be an outpost of imperial life. While the town had its military garrisons to protect the city from attack, it also had its linguistic ramparts. By 1875, for example, in order to conform to the empire’s own language laws guaranteeing the use of a national language when numbers justified it, Lemberg univer- sity in the Galician city was giving all its courses in Polish—so the Empire had to exert its efforts at Germanization elsewhere. translation / The university in Czernowitz was the Empire’s first new universi- ty in fifty years (Judson 2016, 321). The new university, won for 96 Czernowitz over intense competition from other cities—notably Trieste—was the result of relentless lobbying by a noble landown- er from Bukovina who argued that only German scholarship could claim universality and that it would ensure an integrative function in this multilingual zone of empire (322). The University reflected the Empire’s broader political and ideological aims. When in 1866 Austria lost its traditional political hegemony in Germany, the liberal empire sought a renewed sense of mission in Europe. In the 1870s, the exploration of cultural diversity seemed to offer the foundations for a renewed Habsburg civilizing mission directed specifically to eastern and southeastern Europe, including the Bal- kans. In its earliest incarnation, this new mission for the empire focused its civiliza- tional energies on the existing crownlands of Galicia and Bukovina. The founding of a university in Czernowitz in 1875 offered early elaborations of Austria–Hungary’s new civilizational mission to the east and of it ideology of unity in diversity. (Judson 2016, 318) It is to be noted, however, that the new university did have the first professorships of Romanian and Ukrainian literature. What does multilingual mean? Like other cities in Central Europe—large cities like Budapest and Prague (where German was the first, then the second, language) (see Spector 2000), or smaller cities like Vilnius, Lviv, Riga, Danzig, Bucharest, Timisoara, Plovdiv, or Trieste—Czernowitz was intense- ly multilingual. What made Czernowitz different from other cities in Galicia, where Polish was dominant (for instance in Lemberg or Vilna), is that there was no one Christian national bourgeoisie which dominated in Czernowitz. Ukrainians (also known as Ruthenians) and Romanians were both a significant presence in the city, but the fact that neither was dominant in the city gave greater prominence and autonomy to the Jewish, German-speaking, population (Cor- bea-Hoisie cited in van Drunen 2013, I , 3, 34). The multilingualism of Czernowitz is today often remembered in a benign, nostalgic mode. Despite the violence of both World Wars and the repressive regime which ruled in the interwar period, memories of pre-World War II Czernowitz are often cast in a very rosy light—evoking the cosmopolitanism of a lost Mitteleuropa. Time and again, the character of Czernowitz’s language landscape is reiterated as a trademark symbol of the city—equivalent to a translation / 97 landmark or tourist attraction. City guidebooks, postcards, and similar popular materials praised the coexistence of separate but happily coexisting ethnic communities. This refrain was accentu- ated by pronouncements for instance by Rose Ausländer on the four-languaged town she grew up in (“Viersprachig verbrüderte Lieder in entzweiter Zeit,” Ausländer 1976, 72) or Paul Celan’s oft-quoted salute to his “city of books” (Hirsch and Spitzer 2010, 32), or the many memoirs by former inhabitants of the interwar period that evoke a long period of relative harmony—even against the backdrop of rising Romanian nationalism and anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1908, a visitor to the city, Yitzchak Peretz (1852–1915 wrote “We stroll in the evening streets, and from dif- ferent windows the tones of different languages waft out, all dif- ferent kinds of folk music”, in (Olson 2010, 33). Peretz conveys what seems to be a conventional aural impression of the city—that of a harmonious music wafting through the air and captured with pleasure by the evening stroller. The myth of Czernowitz that issues from this image of happy polyphony has increasingly come to be critiqued in light of the easy idealizations it fosters. This image allowed German-speak- ing scholars, for example, to have Czernowitz stand as a site of pre-Nazi German pluralism, a safe haven in German historiogra- phy (Menninghaus 1999). It promoted a nostalgia industry which pitted a perfect “then” against the flawed “now,” though little proof was given beyond the same repeated phrases. A more nuanced por- trait of intercultural relations is therefore required. What kind of relations existed among the city’s various language communities? Following the outpouring of publications which, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has opened research in this area of the world (see the excellent review of the literature by van Drunen 2013). I will bring translation studies into the discussion. How can the view from translation illuminate the field of language relations in the city? A first move is to view the city not as multilingual but as trans- lational. What is the sense of this distinction? Multilingualism calls up a space of pure diversity, a proliferation of tongues and of parallel conversations, without concern for the interactions among translation / these languages. The translational city looks for connections and convergences across language and communities, connections that 98 indicate direction (to and from which languages) and intensity (Si- mon 2012). It follows, then, that the translational city is not always a site of peaceful and friendly transactions. It includes the refus- al to translate, zones of silence and resistance. And so translation could be broadly defined as “writing at the intersection of languag- es,” writing under the influence of, in the company of, with and often against, other languages. A detailed examination of urban translation practices, such as those provided in Michaela Wolf’s pioneering study of translation in the Habsburg monarchy, distin- guishes between the formal practices of translation dictated by the Empire’s language laws and the myriad informal practices of trans- lation which were part of daily life—the domestic servants and ar- tisans who had to learn to serve in German, the tradespeople who had to learn German terminology, the informal exchanges through which children would be sent to neighboring villages of the empire to learn the languages across the border (Wolf 2012, 2015). Re- storing multilingual transactions to the streets of Habsburg cities, showing how these cities were in many ways precursors to today’s multilingual diasporic and postcolonial cities, Wolf’s study also confirms that translation practices were dominated by the power of German and therefore by translation into German. Literary trans- lation in Czernowitz also followed this pattern. Translation out of German, however, followed a different path. Whether in relation to Yiddish or Ukrainian, writers chose not so much to translate works in that direction as to abandon German in favor of a new writing language. Literary interactions Literary translation was a popular activity in Czernowitz, particu- larly in the interwar period. In her introduction to a book on Paul Celan, Amy Colin (1991) details the myriad activities of transla- tion which were undertaken by the participants in the active literary milieus of the city. These include Alfred Margul-Sperber’s Ger- man translations of British (T. S. Eliot), French (Apollinaire and Gérard de Nerval), and American (Robert Frost, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Wallace Stevens, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and e e cum- mings) modernist poets as well as American Indian texts. Imman- uel Weissglas translated Eminescu’s famous poem “The Morning Star” into German and Grillparzer, Stifter, and parts of Goethe into translation / 99 Romanian. There was also indirect translation—with Romanian and Ukrainian poets influenced by German authors and inversely. Authors writing in German often used motifs from Romanian and Ukrainian folklore and translated important historical and literary texts from one language into the other (Colin 1991, 11). The writ- er who is at once exceptional and yet who best exemplifies the culture of mediation which issued from the multilingual matrix of Czernowitz is Paul Celan (Nouss 2010). Celan’s displacements from Czernowitz to Bucharest to Paris, his poetic memorialization of the Holocaust, his negation of the German language after the Nazis, his experiments across and through languages—these mark his work as uniquely expressive of the Czernowitz legacy, its hy- perconsciousness of language, of history and of the experience of literary mediation. An important trend of the early twentieth century saw many writers begin writing in German, then turn to their “national” lan- guage—Ukrainian, or Yiddish. Amy Colin gives the examples for Ukrainian of Felix Niemchevski, Osip Juril Fed’kovych, Alex- ander Popovich, and Isidor Vorobkevich, sometimes combining motifs from German Romanticism with images from Ruthenian folklore (Colin 1991, 11). To this list she might have added the im- portant Yiddish-language writers Itzik Manger and Eliezer Stein- barg—Manger, for instance, carried the German literary form of the ballad into Yiddish (Starck-Adler 2007, 124–132)—as well as that of the legendary Ukrainian writer Olha Kobylianska. It is to Kobylianska’s experience that I now turn to explore the language configuration of Czernowitz, before examining the work of anoth- er well-known Czernowitz poet, Rose Ausländer. Olha Kobylianska Born into a family who used German as their daily language (her father was a Ukrainian who worked for the Austrian administra- tion and her mother was of Polish origin), Kobylianska began her writing in German and in fact continued to keep a diary in German for her entire life. She was born and brought up in a small town not far from Czernowitz, but moved to the city when she was in her twenties. After “converting” to the Ukrainian national cause translation / in her late teens, she began to translate herself into Ukrainian— sometimes asking fellow authors to help her or receiving editorial 100 help from her publishers. Though she lived in a small corner of the Ukrainian cultural territory, Kobylianska was very soon in con- tact with the powerful standard-setters of the Ukrainian literary establishment. As a young woman writer she was much influenced by the opinions of these critics, and tried to change her style and subject matter to suit the left-wing populism that was considered appropriate. But Kobylianska was continually criticized for the strains of mysticism and intellectualism which were discerned in her writing. Though it would be those same qualities of modern- ism, exploration of the emotions of women and fascination with art which would endear her to later generations of readers and es- tablish her as a major figure in Ukrainian literature. Kobylianska’s writing is difficult to categorize, with its some- times incongruous mélange of feminism, intricate exploration of inner sentiments, portrayal of the cruelty of peasant life, and out- bursts of nationalist rhetoric. Critics are divided as to the elements of her work that are ironic or parodic and those that convey her true sentiments. Among her works, “Valse mélancolique” stands out as a truly radical portrait of women sharing a life together as artists. Like some of her other stories, this takes place in an ur- ban setting, recounting the daily life and conversations of women who have chosen to devote themselves to art rather than to a con- ventional married life. This story marked a radical beginning for Ukrainian literature. Kobylianska’s writings move between urban stories and rural depictions that are gothic in their intensity. In one story, a wife kills her husband and the children live in terror of being killed as well—though in the end the story shows sympathy for the woman browbeaten by the drunken husband. In fact Ko- bylianska knew both the urban and rural worlds, as she grew up in a small town, but travelled often to Czernowitz before settling there. She was involved in setting up the first women’s organiza- tion in the city—a radical organization from a feminist perspective but tied to the church and therefore suspect in the eyes of most young Ukrainian women who preferred to join left-wing social- ist organizations. Much of her writing associates “German” with high literature and a genteel life style. As a Ukrainian nationalist, she supported the Russians and then the Soviets as defenders of Ukrainian identity against the Austrians and then the Romanians, and when the Romanians took the city in 1942 she was condemned translation / 101 to death by hanging. She died before the hanging was to take place. There is a museum dedicated to her in Czernowitz and the main street, called the Herrengasse by the Austrians then by the name of a Romanian writer by the Romanians, is today named after her in Ukrainian Czernowitz. Kobylianska was influenced by George Sand but especially by Nietzsche, a writer she could read and quote in the original Ger- man—by contrast with her new compatriots who would have had only secondhand versions. Kobylianska was the first Ukrainian intellectual to introduce Nietzsche to Ukrainian readers, incorporating many of his philosophical concepts to her own philosophical system [. . .] Nietzsche’s association of myth with aesthetic creativity, his statement that myth is essential for the health of a culture, as well as his call on the “free spirits” to create this new “ruling idea” by which to live spoke directly to Ko- bylianska’s dissatisfaction with positivism, rationalism and socialism. (Ladygina 2013, 85) While many critics disparaged her use of “German technique,” which in this case included a combination of elements such as in- tellectualism, mysticism, and estheticism, the writer and feminist Lesia Ukrainka took the opposite position and praised its influence on Kobylianska’s writing: “It led you to recognize world literature, it transported you out into the broader world of ideas and art—this simply leaps out at once, when one compares your writing with that of the majority of Galicians” (de Haan 2006, 249). One could therefore refer to Kobylianska’s impressive output of novels and short stories in Ukrainian as translational writing—a product of the particular mélange of cultures particular to the Bu- kovina and Czernowitz. In turn, Kobylianska translated Ukrainian literature into German, including the works of Pchilka, Kobryns- ka, and Ukrainka (Franko 1998). In the case of Kobylianska as for the many other writers of Czernowitz, the multilingual milieu did not signify a close interrelationship with all the literary communi- ties but meant, rather, that writing occurred in the presence of other languages, in the consciousness of competing literary systems, and in this case with or against the power of German. translation / 102 Rose Ausländer In a prose fragment written in 1971, Rose Ausländer answers the question, “Why do I write?” with the following reply: Perhaps because I came into the world in Czernowitz, and because the world in Czer- nowitz came into me. That particular landscape. The particular people, fairy tales, and myths were in the air, one inhaled them. Czernowitz, with its four languages, was a city of muses that housed many artists, poets, and lovers of art, literature, and philosophy. (Cited in Morris 1998, 59) Rose Ausländer grew up and began her literary career in Czernowitz, where she was an active member of the Jewish Ger- man-language literary community, but left in her twenties to travel to the US. She spent the war years back in Czernowitz in hiding with her mother (she was one of the five thousand survivors of the ghetto, while 55,000 were murdered) and after another almost two decades of wandering finally settled in Dusseldorf in the 1960s. In the US after the war, Ausländer began a period during which she wrote poetry only in English. She later returned to the German language and has become a well-known German-language author. Her works are collected in seven volumes, much of which pub- lished after her death. The interweaving of diaspora and home, the long wanderings of much of her life, are reflected not only in the themes of her writing but in the consequences of the to-and-fro between English and German. In particular, her exposure to American modernism resulted in shifts in her formal expression, from a German-inspired lyricism to an American-inspired modernism. Ausländer is one of the sources most often quoted in favor of the image of a peaceful multilingual Czernowitz before the war. In the poem “Czernowitz Before the Second World War,” she writes: surrounded by beech forests. . . . . .Four languages in accord with each other spoiled the air Until the bombs fell the city breathed happily (Ausländer 1977, 6: 348) translation / 103 Indeed, Ausländer continued to praise the city of her birth and upbringing, despite the horrors she experienced during the war. Perhaps because she was always able to keep a distance between fatherland and motherland: My fatherland is dead they have buried it in fire. I live in my motherland word1 (quoted in Morris 1998, 49) This motherland is German, the language in which she wrote all her life, except for a period of eight years, from 1948 to 1956, when, she says, she “found herself” writing only in English. She was living in New York, a city where she had previously spent several years during the 1920s, and perhaps contemplating a con- version to an American existence. But this period turned out to be only a hiatus in her writing life, as she later returned to Europe and to the German language—and most of the English poems were dis- covered only after her death. Yet these years in English introduce a significant translational element into Ausländer’s esthetic, a more precise materialization of the Czernowitz multilingualism, and one that gave greater heft to the name she seems to have chosen to keep as hers—the name which belonged to the husband of a short-lived marriage: Ausländer or outsider. Rose Ausländer owned two suit- cases that she carried through her lifelong wanderings, and identi- fied fully with her Jewish identity as someone who has wandered for hundreds of years, “from Word to Word.” English was not German, the language of the war. Ausländer knew Paul Celan from Czernowitz, and met him several times later on her return trips to Europe—and she surely shared his sense of the contamination of the German language. English was also the language of her daily life in New York, of her workplaces there, and of the modernist poets she read and admired. Ausländer met Marianne Moore at a writer’s conference in New York in 1956, and in addition to Moore Ausländer was drawn to the work of Wal- lace Stevens and e e cummings. These sources allowed her to write translation / 1 Mein Vaterland ist tot/sie haben es begraben/im Feuer/Ich lebe/in meinem Mutterland/Wort. 104 poetry after years of silence and a personal crisis brought on by the death of her mother in 1947. Ausländer could return to poetry only through the oblique angle of another language—one which had not been part of the “old world” configuration. In 1956 she began again to write in German, putting together the shattered pieces of her life through a renewed belief in the mother tongue. The poetry becomes more angular, less lyrical, she says that the stars had taken on a new configuration, the flow- ered words had faded. She uses fewer adjectives, shorter lines, no rhyme or punctuation, the isolated word taking on new meaning. The mother tongue takes the place of the mother, the poem a place of refuge. But, as Lesley Morris argues, Ausländer’s “return” to German is less a one-way and definitive embrace of the authentic tongue than a renewed practice of translation, as she brings back to Ger- many the long experience of exile, experiencing new forms of dis- placement within the German-speaking world (Morris 1998, 55). The sheer number of Ausländer’s poems, which are normally only some twelve lines long, suggests an esthetic of incompletion, of relentless recommencing. Ausländer translated some of her English poems into German, just as she also translated at vari- ous times in her career the poems of others into German or En- glish—Yiddish poems by Itzik Manger (1901–1969) into German and German poems by Else Lasker-Schüler and Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) into English. The fragmented nature of Ausländer’s various exiles and returns points to a kind of permanent diasporic state, a Niemandsland of exile, where being at home will always mean being far away from home. Ausländer’s diasporic life be- gan before the Second World War, but her poetry was irrevocably marked by her experiences as a Jew during that period and by the wanderings which were a result of the destruction of Jewish life in Czernowitz. The imaginative world of Ausländer is deeply embedded in the originary crucible of languages in Czernowitz and marked es- pecially by one enormous fact: the sudden reversal of meaning attached to the German language. For this city, so tied to the myth of the “imaginary West in the East,” German had been elevated to the status of a religion—an affiliation so intense as to remain strong even during the Romanianization of the interwar years. translation / 105 Raised in the adoration of Deutschtum, Czernowitz authors were forced to see German undergo a spectacular transvaluation of val- ues—and therefore to revise their relationship to the language. For Ausländer, following Paul Celan, this meant a mediated relation to German, one which showed the “home” language to be partially alien. Conclusion The meaning of Czernowitz as a city at the edge of empire is dom- inated by the history of the significance given to German. The pre- eminence of the German language, lasting far into the twentieth century, was central to the writing lives of both Kobylianska and Ausländer. The historical events which shaped their relationship to this language were, however, of very different natures. Kobylians- ka’s literary imagination was shaped in German, and she carried into the Ukrainian language the sensibility she had first acquired in that language—both the popular sentimental novels she had read as a youth and the exalted ideas she took from Nietzsche. At the same time, her choice to write in Ukrainian was a decision to sep- arate herself from the German sphere and participate in the con- struction of a new Ukrainian sensibility. This turn to nationalism on the contested site of the border city expresses the conflictual nature of language relations in the border city. That Kobylians- ka, however, continued to keep a diary in German throughout her life, testifies to the ambiguities and split allegiances of the private sphere—where translation became a permanent condition. Ausländer’s relationship to German was shaped by the Jewish literary milieu of Czernowitz, by her personal experiences of di- aspora (before and after the Second World War) and by the Holo- caust. Ausländer is one of relatively few Jews to have lived through the Holocaust and to have continued to use German as a literary language after World War II. (Among the best-known exceptions are Paul Celan, as noted, and Marcel Reich-Ranicki.) It is surely significant that both Celan and Ausländer are from Czernowitz. Certainly her understanding of that language and its cultural affil- iations were tempered by the multilingual matrix of that city, and the translational relationships out of which it evolved. Her turn translation / away from German, and her subsequent return, her wanderings and her final settling in Dusseldorf, testify to a difficult relation- 106 ship to language and place—one which nevertheless allowed her to celebrate her past in the borderlands of the empire. Kobylianska and Ausländer would not have known one anoth- er in Czernowitz. They belonged to different milieus and different generations (Kobylianska was born in 1863; Ausländer in 1901), though Ausländer would have heard of the more famous Koby- lianska, her growing literary fame, her persecution and death in 1942. Their careers illustrate the parallel paths followed by the literatures of the city, each enclosed within its respective liter- ary languages and traditions. Even today, they are unlikely to be found in the same anthologies or literary histories. Nevertheless, both writers defined themselves with and against the German lan- guage—along the lines of tension that animated the language life of their common border city. translation / 107 References Ausländer, Rose. 1976. Aschenregen / die Spur deines Namens: Gedichte und Prosa. Volume 4. Edited by Helmut Braun. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ––––––. 1977. Selected poems [of] Rose Ausländer. Translated by Ewald Osers. Lon- don: London Magazine Editions. ––––––. 1984–1990. Gesammelte Werke in sieben Bänden. Edited by Helmut Braun. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ––––––. 1995. Mother Tongue. Translated by Jean Boase-Beier and Anthony Vivis. Todmorden: Arc Publications. Buzzati, Dino. (1940) 1989. Il deserto dei Tartari. Milan: Mondadori. Cavafy, C. 1976. The Complete Poems of Cavafy. Translated by Rae Dalven. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Coetzee, J. M. 1982. Waiting for the Barbarians. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Colin, Amy. 1991. Paul Celan: Holograms of Darkness. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. ––––––. 2006. “Czernowitz/Cernăuți/Chernovtsy/Chernivtsi/Czerniowce: A Test- ing Ground for Pluralism.” In Cornis-Pope and Neubauer 2006, 57–76. DOI: 10.1075/chlel.xx.12col. Cornis-Pope, Marcel, and John Neubauer. 2002. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe. Some Theoretical Reflections. New York: American Coun- cil of Learned Societies, Occasional Paper No. 52. Cornis-Pope, Marcel, and John Neubauer, eds. 2006. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe. Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centu- ries. Vol. II. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. In particular, “Cities as sites of hybrid literary identity and multicultural production,” 9–212. de Haan, Francisca, Krassimira Daskalova, and Anna Loutfi, eds. 2006. Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries. Entry “Olha Kobylianska.” Budapest & New York: CEU Press. Franko, Roma. 1998. “Women’s Voices in Ukrainian Literature. Olha Kobylianska (1863–1942). Biographical Sketch.” Language Lantern Publications. www.lan- guagelanterns.com/kobylian.htm. Accessed May 8, 2014. Hirsch, Marianne, and Leo Spitzer. 2010. Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernow- itz in Jewish Memory. Berkeley: University of California Press. Judson, Pieter. 2006. Guardians of the Nation. Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ––––––. 2016. The Habsburg Empire. A New History. Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press. Kobylianska, Olha. 1999. But. . .The Lord is Silent: Selected Prose Fiction. Translat- ed by Roma Z. Franko and Sonia V. Morris. Saskatoon, SK: Language Lanterns Publications. ––––––. 2000. Warm the Children, O Sun: Selected Prose Fiction. Translated by translation / Roma Z. Franko and Sonia V. Morris. Saskatoon, SK: Language Lanterns Pub- lications. 108 Ladygina, Yuliya Volodymyrivna. 2013. Narrating the Self in the Mass Age: Olha Kobylianska in the European Fin-de-Siècle and Its Aftermath, 1886–1936. San Diego: ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Menninghaus, W. 1999. “Czernowitz/Bukowina.” Merkur-Suttgart 53: 3/4, Part 600: 345–357. Meylaerts, Reine. 2013. “Multilingualism as a Challenge for Translation Studies.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies, edited by Carmen Millán and Francesca Bartrina. London: Routledge. 519–533. Morris, Leslie. 1998. “Mutterland/Niemandsland: Diaspora and Displacement in the Poetry of Rose Ausländer.” Religion and Literature 30 (3): 47–65. Nouss, Alexis. 2010. Paul Celan. Les lieux d’un déplacement. Paris: Le Bord de l’eau. Olson, Jess. 2010. “A Tale of Two Photographs: Nathan Birnbaum, the Election of 1907, and the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference.” In Czernowitz at 100: Robinson, Richard. 2007. Narratives of the European Border: A History of Nowhere. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Roth, J. 2002. Weights and Measures. Translated by D. Le Vay. London: P. Owen. Simon, S. 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. Lon- don: Routledge. Spector, Scott. 2000. Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka’s Fin de Siècle. Berkeley: University of California Press. Starck-Adler, Astrid. 2007. “Multiculturalisme et multilinguisme à Czernowitz. L’exemple d’Itzik Manger.” Études germaniques 62 (1): 121–132. Stenberg, Peter. 1991. Journey to Oblivion. The End of the East European Yiddish and German Worlds in the Mirror of Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thum, Gregor. 2013. “Megalomania and Angst. The nineteenth-century mythiciza- tion of Germany’s Eastern Borderlands.” In Shatterzone of Empires, Coexis- tence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Border- lands. Edited by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. 42–60. van Drunen, Hieronymus Franciscus. 2013. “A sanguine bunch.” Regional identifi- cation in Habsburg Bukovina, 1774–1919. University of Amsterdam PhD thesis. Available online at http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/397355. Accessed November 4, 2014. Wolf, Michaela. 2012. Die vielsprachige Seele Kakaniens. Übersetzen und Dolmet- schen in der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau. ––––––. 2015. The Habsburg Monarchy’s Many-Languaged Soul. Translating and interpreting, 1848–1918. Translated by Kate Sturge. Amsterdam: John Benja- mins. translation / 109 Sherry Simon is a professor in the French Department at Concordia University. She has published widely in the areas of literary, intercultural and translation studies, most recently exploring the cultural history of linguistically divided cities. Among her pub- lications are Translating Montreal. Episodes in the Life of a Divided City (2006) and Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory (2012), both of which have appeared in French translation. She has edited or co-edited numerous volumes, in- cluding Translation Effects: The Shaping of Modern Canadian Culture (with K. Mezei and L. von Flotow), (2014) and Speaking Memory. How Translation Shapes City Life (forthcoming MQUP). She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Académie des lettres du Québec. She was a Killam Research Fellow (2009-11) and in 2010 received the Prix André-Laurendeau from l’Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS). translation / 110

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Translating Ruins Alfred Mac Adam Barnard College-Columbia University, USA Abstract: This essay explores the relationship between a neo-Latin poem by Ianus Vitalis and three vernacular sonnets, versions of the Latin original, by Du Bellay, Spenser, and Francisco de Quevedo. The purpose of the essay is to ponder the problems and choices that the translators had to resolve in order to refashion Vitalis. The essay further seeks to show the strangeness of Vitalis’ poem and how his translators effetively created three original poems. This is an exploration of translation, more concerned with that problematic art than with the history of the European sonnet. Writing in 1932 about the numerous English versions of Homer, Jorge Luis Borges asserts—perhaps ironically though perhaps not—that the relationship between translations and originals de- fines the relationship between any text, its myriad literary sources, and the experiences an author assimilates to produce it. Unlike so- called originals, translations reveal rather than hide their sources: “El modelo propuesto a su imitación es un texto visible, no un laberinto inestimable de proyectos pretéritos o la acatada tentación momentánea de una facilidad”1 (Borges 1965, 105). Borges denies original composition, declaring all texts to be translations and writing (like reading) nothing more than trans- lating. This anti-Romantic theory of literary creation makes the juxtaposition of originals and translations complex: we are no lon- ger comparing the original with an imitation (the translation) but actually comparing coequals. Fair enough, but even though Borges deals with English trans- lations of Homer—the paucity of Spanish translations making his 1 “The model proposed for imitation is a visible text, not an incalculable labyrinth of past projects or the yielded-to, momentary temptation of an opportune insight.” Translation mine. translation / 111 essay impossible to write—he does not discuss the role played by nationality and national language in translation. Why did the En- glish, century after century, feel the need to translate and retranslate Homer? And what was the impact of these translations on the his- tory of English literature? If Borges had elected to study the many translations of Don Quixote into English, he would have reached the same conclusions about the relationship between translation and original; but he might also have noted that the history of the novel in English was changed because of Cervantes. Literary history abounds in translations or imitations that some- how acquire the status of originals. For example, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s La verdad sospechosa, from about 1634, is the basis for Corneille’s Le Menteur (1644), which in turn spawns Carlo Goldo- ni’s Il Bugiardo (1750) and Samuel Foote’s The Lyar (1762). Ruiz de Alarcón engenders not just translations and imitations but an entire theatrical tradition in four languages and four cultures, each of which reshapes the original to national tastes. This idea, that translators would deliberately accommodate a work to a national language, appears in Alastair Fowler’s Times Literary Supplement review (April 27, 2012) of a new edition of Gavin Douglas’s 1513 Scots translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. The translation crystalizes the language into which it is translated, much in the way the King James Bible or Luther’s translation consolidated English or Ger- man. Less important in terms of fixing a national language, but equally fascinating in terms of the relationship between original and translation are three sonnets, freestanding works of art in them- selves, which directly or indirectly derive from the epigram De Roma (1552) by Ianus Vitalis (1485–1560): Qui Romam in media quaeris novus advena Roma, Et Romae in Roma nil reperis media, Aspice murorum moles, praeruptaque saxa, Obrutaque horrenti vasta theatra situ: Haec sunt Roma. Viden velut ipsa cadaver, tantae Urbis adhuc spirent imperiosa minas. Vicit ut haec mundum, nixa est se vincere; vicit, A se non victum ne quid in orbe foret. translation / Nunc victa in Roma Roma illa invicta sepulta est, Atque eadem victrix victaque Roma fuit. Albula Romani restat nunc nominis index, 112 Quinetiam rapidis fertur in aequor aquis, Disce hinc, quid possit fortuna; inmota labascunt, Et quae perpetuo sun agitate manent. (McFarlane 1980, 24–26)2 Vitalis’ poem invites the recently arrived (novus advena) visi- tor who has come to Rome seeking ancient Rome to learn a moral lesson: Rome is now nothing but ruins. All that endures is, paradox- ically, the Tiber: The river flowing like time itself remains, while the ancient capital of the world is disjecta membra. The elegiac tone of Vitalis’ poem, enhanced by the repeated “o” in Rome, reflects the ancient fusion of elegy and epigram—which is to say that by Vitalis’ time, a neo-Latin epigram was simply a short poem. It might be of intellectual rather than emotional cast, though there is nothing consistent or absolute about its subject. Like the sonnet, the epigram could treat any theme, although concision is one of its principal features: the verbal economy of Latin would be an ideal for Renaissance vernacular poets to strive for, especially in sonnets. That Vitalis’ poem is comprised of fourteen lines is a fascinat- ing irony. A poem in Latin on mutability that seeks to avoid the mu- tability of vernacular tongues uses a structure that to Renaissance readers would immediately recall the sonnet. De Roma is an open invitation to vernacular translation, and Malcolm C. Smith (1977) lists over a dozen versions of the epigram. Not all are sonnets, but those under consideration here adapt Vitalis to that compact form. The first of the three, a translation of a translation, is Edmund Spenser’s version of Joachim du Bellay, which appears in his ap- propriately titled sonnet series The Ruines of Rome (1591). Spenser obtains that alliteration by not translating the title of du Bellay’s sonnet sequence, Les Antiquités de Rome (1558)—he changes it utterly. Antiquités are ancient, but ruines might be recent. While the name Rome itself implies antiquity, the sack of Rome in 1527 (and still in living memory in the second half of the sixteenth century) by the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V certainly created modern ruins. But setting aside historical anecdote and focusing 2 McFarlane’s version of Vitalis’ epigram is accompanied by Thomas Heywood’s version, from The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells (1637). Readers wondering about possible sources for Vitalis’ epigram might consider an idea in James Nohrnberg’s 1976 The Analogy of The Faerie Queene. Nohrnberg suggests two passages in Isaiah (34:14 and 13:21–22): “Both of the Isaiah passages would impress a poet on literary grounds alone; they are supreme in their kind, which is the elegy over fallen buildings, letterature delle rovine. . .” (236). translation / 113 exclusively on du Bellay’s words, it is clear that Spenser’s use of ruins is a transformation, a deviation from the original for rhetorical effect. Spenser had been translating du Bellay since before 1569, when he published translations of both Petrarch and du Bellay. Herbert Grierson, in the introduction to his seminal anthology Metaphysi- cal Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler (1921), the inspiration for T.S. Eliot’s essay “The Metaphysical Po- ets,” wryly observes: “Over all the Elizabethan sonnets, in greater or less measure, hangs the suggestion of translation or imitation.” (xviii) We may confirm his statement by looking at sonnet number 3 (in the 1678 edition): Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome her seekest, And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv’st at all, These same old walls, old arches, which thou seest, Old palaces, is that, which Rome men call. Behold what wreak, what ruine, and what wast, And how that she, which with her mighty powre Tam’d all the world, hath tam’d her self at last, The Pray of time, which all things doth devowre. Rome now of Rome is th’ only funerall, And only Rome, of Rome hath victory; Neought save Tyber, hastning to his fall Remains of all: O worlds inconstancy! That which is firm, doth flit and fall away, And that is flitting, doth abide and stay. (Spenser 1679, 161) A suitably stern sonnet charged with a chastened Renaissance sense of fleeting time (wherever I turn my eyes I see nothing but death and decay), the ephemeral nature of all human creation, and of course the “mutability” so important to the eponymous “Two Cantos of Mutability” at the end of The Fairie Queene. Rome is absent from the “mutability cantos,” but Rome in this sonnet is a memento mori, so it is no wonder the poem figures among many similar poems in Spenser’s Complaints Containing Sundry Small Poems of the Worlds Vanity (1581) “as the Printer gathered them up” (as he says in the 1678 edition) to capitalize on the success of The Fairie Queene. translation / At the same time, is Rome a suitable subject for an English Protestant poet? Among the three poets scrutinized here only one is 114 a Protestant, whose only argument, leaving aside the desire to trans- late du Bellay, could be that the ruins of Rome are a fitting subject for a humanist lamentation. By the same token, the subject virtually disappears during the Baroque, just when we might expect to see it deployed with fervor. None of the poems in Jean Rousset’s 1968 Anthologie de la Poésie Baroque Française exploits this subject (although it could also be said that the same holds true for Grier- son’s anthology). So the wars of religion, the English Revolution, the Reformation, and the Counterreformation efface Rome’s ruins from poetry, although they turn up again during the Romantic era, reflecting the Romantics’ antiquarian side. The next case is Francisco de Quevedo’s 1648 collection, patri- otically titled Parnasso Español, monte en dos cumbres dividido, con las nueve musas castellanas, donde se contienen Poesías de don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas (literally, Spanish Parnassus, mountain divided into two peaks, with the nine Castilian muses, which contains poems by don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas). No ruins or antiquities for Quevedo, just rockribbed Castilian poetry in- spired by Castilian muses—who, it seems, could inspire translation as well as original creation. We smile, but Quevedo’s patriotism reminds us that each of these sonnets brings the subject of Roman ruins into a national literary tradition by transmuting it into a na- tional literary form. The title usually attached to the first poem in this collection is “A Roma sepultada en sus Ruinas” (To Rome Buried in her Ruins): Buscas en Roma a Roma, ¡oh peregrino!, Y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas: Cadáver son las que ostentó murallas, Y Tumba de sí propio el Aventino. Yace donde Reinaba el Palatino, Y limadas del tiempo las medallas, Más se muestran destrozo a las batallas De las edades que blasón latino. Sólo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente, Si Ciudad la regó, ya sepultura La llora con funesto son doliente. ¡Oh Roma, en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura Huyó lo que era firme, y solamente Lo fugitivo permanece y dura! (de Quevedo 1968, 260–261) translation / 115 The utterly Baroque de Quevedo is much more specific in his Roman references, and to the Tiber mentioned by du Bellay and Spenser he adds the Aventine and the Palatine, two of Rome’s seven hills, symbols of an antiquity that precedes republican or imperial Rome, here turned, respectively, into a grave and a corpse. Joachim du Bellay, in his 1558 collection Les Antiquités de Rome, is the progenitor of Spenser’s sonnet and the likely source (along with Vitalis) of Quevedo’s. Du Bellay’s title curiously echoes the title of Andrea Palladio’s 1554 book Le Antichità di Roma, though the similarity could hardly be more ironic: Where du Bellay is concerned with the ravages of time, Palladio stresses the enduring grandeur of Roman architecture. His text contradicts the lesson of the three poems and defines the difference between a humanist literary tradition that more often than not found itself weeping over the loss of the classical past—whatever that meant for them—and an architectural present with Palladio endeavoring to use the Roman past (its architecture specifically) as a steppingstone to the future. This sense of the past as a foundation could not be more differ- ent from the view of du Bellay: Nouveau venu, qui cherches Rome en Rome Et rien de Rome en Rome n’aperçois, Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcs que tu vois, Et ces vieux murs, c’est ce que Rome on nomme. Voy quel orgueil, quelle ruine: & comme Celle qui mist le monde sous ses loix, Pour donter tout, se donta quelquefois, Et devint proie au temps, que tout consomme. Rome de Rome est le seul monument, Et Rome Rome a vaincu seulement. Le Tybre seul, qui vers la mer s’enfuit, Reste de Rome. O mondaine inconstance! Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps détruit, Et ce qui fuit, au temps fait résistance. (du Bellay 1970, 5–6) All three sonnets are simultaneously the same and different, translations and originals, and it is here we begin to see the differ- ence between translation and adaptation, though maintaining that translation / distinction is by no means easy. Du Bellay recommends imitation in his 1549 Défense et Illustration de la Langue Françoyse (as 116 does Sir Philip Sidney in his 1595 Apology), and it may be that we should understand Spenser more in the mode of imitation rather than literal translation. Spenser made his mark on English prosody with the Spenserian sonnet (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE), but in rendering du Bellay he falls back on a standard English model: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Du Bellay’s rhyme scheme reflects the sonnet of the French, Span- ish, and Italian worlds: ABBA ABBA CCD EDE, with two tercets used variously to summarize or expand the thoughts expressed in the quatrains. The lapidary couplet of the English sonnet makes it radically different from the continental sonnet whose often-inter- laced tercets are an invitation to enhanced complexity rather than concision. So du Bellay, by using enjambment to link his tercets and recapitulate the rest of the poem, also, simultaneously, imi- tates the course of the Tiber as it winds through Rome. Spenser on the other hand must reach a moral conclusion, which he musically reinforces with alliteration: “That which is firm, doth flit and fall away, / And that is flitting, doth abide and stay.” “Flit” applied to stone buildings seems an unlikely metaphor, and “flitting” applied to a river seems odd. This is so even though the OED includes shifting position or passing away among the verb’s early meanings because flit implies flight and speed, which the time involved in the erosion of stone excludes. Du Bellay’s compressed ten rather than fourteen-syllable verses “Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps détruit, / Et ce qui fuit, au temps fait résistance” make a more sparing use of alliteration, just enough to create an ironic juxtaposition of “ferme” with the verb “fuit,” reinforced by the repetition of “temps” to mark the difference be- tween that which is destroyed by time and that which, though liq- uid, resists the corrosion of time. But alliteration and internal rhyme provide the musical lamentation in both du Bellay and Spenser: as in Vitalis’ epigram, the “o” in Rome is repeated so often and echoed in so many other “o”s that the entire poem sounds like a dirge. (This musicality raises another conundrum: we know how French, English, and Spanish sound, but for most of us Latin is a visual language and when spoken pronounced with the speaker’s own national accent: how would Vitalis’ hexameters “sound” to a Frenchman?) Du Bellay’s poem resorts to French commonplaces—for ex- translation / 117 ample the lamentation “O mondaine inconstance!” (not in Vitalis), which Spenser translates into English commonplaces “O worlds inconstancy!” Du Bellay’s disillusioned senior lectures the “nou- veau venu,” the novice who has come to Rome seeking the Rome of antiquity and finds only ruins, as if the traveler were ignorant of Roman history since the fifth century and as if no building had been erected or destroyed since then. Spenser uses “stranger” to obtain the same effect—the stranger or foreigner versus the experienced or native inhabitant—but to modern ears the word suggests a person unknown to the speaker rather than to the city. The problem of how to translate “nouveau venu” goes back to De Roma. Here, as in Mikolaj Sep-Szarzynski’s epigram (in Delitia italorum poetarum 1608), the novice is referred to as the “novus advena.” When the dramatist Thomas Heywood (in his 1637 The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells) translates Vitalis’ poem, he coins the awkward “New Stranger” to translate “novus advena.” Heywood needs twenty-eight couplets to translate Vitalis’ fourteen Latin verses. Lost in Spenser’s translation is du Bellay’s manipulation of the concept so important to the Hispanic baroque: “desengaño,” the loss of illusion that comes with moral experience, when the scales fall from our eyes and we see the fallen world for what it is. This sense is fundamental to the sonnet because of the innocence–expe- rience relationship between the newcomer and the speaker. Quevedo, perhaps reflecting a Counterreformation sensibility, transforms du Bellay’s “nouveau venu,” Spenser’s “stranger,” and Vitalis’ “novus advena” into a “peregrino.” The word had various meanings in seventeenth-century Spanish: as an adjective, it sug- gests the bizarre or exquisite; as a noun, it may mean a traveler abroad or a pilgrim traveling to a shrine. Quevedo’s choice of the term creates an ambiguity: Catholic pilgrims would visit Rome, the heart of the Church, but they would certainly not be looking for an- cient Rome, and in fact the ruin of the ancient city would constitute a triumph, malgré Saint Augustine, of Christianity over paganism. So “peregrino” here cannot be a pilgrim and is, once again, a senti- mental humanist who for some reason thinks contemporary Rome ought to look like ancient Rome. translation / The second verse becomes more precise in Quevedo. Du Bellay says, “Et rien de Rome en Rome n’aperçois” and 118 Spenser follows: “And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv’st at all.” Spenser’s “at all” is simply an emphatic line-filler, as is du Bellay’s use of “n’aperçois” rather than a simple “see.” Quevedo’s visitor comes looking for Rome in Rome and doesn’t find it—“Y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas”—rather than du Bellay or Spenser’s stranger who can’t perceive it. In the third and fourth verses of the first quatrain, Quevedo Latinizes his word order in a daring use of hyperbaton: “Cadáver son las que ostentó murallas, / Y Tumba de sí propio el Aventino. The surprise of a singular noun followed by a plural verb obliges us to see the verse rather than hear it: “cadáver” starts the poetic clause and “murallas” ends it, but what Quevedo wants us to see is the equivalence: the walls are a corpse. The effect would, of course, be lost if the phrase were regularized: Las murallas que ostentó son cadáver (the walls it boasted are a corpse). The next verse follows suit, with “tumba” and “Aventino” thrown into opposition. The second quatrain, much more restrained syntactically, simply amplifies the first. The Palatine lies supine where it once ruled, the medallions, carved in relief but now worn away by time, look more like the wreckage of the battles of the ages than Latin glory. The poem loses energy but recovers it in the intertwined tercets. Quevedo innovates daringly by abruptly changing tenses. Where the quatrains are all in the present tense, the first tercet in- troduces a past preterit, which, curiously, makes little sense here: “Sólo el Tibre quedó” (only the Tiber remained), which, if it once bathed (regó) the city, now weeps for it as a grave. Again, Quevedo uses his first-and-last words to achieve drama: city is played off against grave. And the Tiber (none of the translations uses Vitalis’ alternative Albula for the Tiber), now back in the present tense, weeps with a “funereal, dolorous sound”. Quevedo uses the final tercet much in the way Spenser would use his final couplet. He resorts to apostrophe, addressing Rome (and turning away from the “peregrino” in the first verse) to point out that what was solid has fled and only that which is fugitive re- mains and endures. The phrase “en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura” (in your grandeur, in your beauty) is amplification, a delaying tactic that helps us savor the antithesis of a hardness (stone) that disap- pears, while what remains is flowing water. Naturally, the final verb translation / 119 “dura” (endures) echoes the adjective “duro” (hard) so, in enduring, the water acquires a lexical hardness. Compared with the first-person sonnet “Salmo 17,” (“Miré los muros de la Patria mía”), which approaches the tension of “meta- physical” poets like Donne in its amalgamation of ideas and feel- ings, Quevedo’s version of du Bellay’s sonnet seems fraught with syntactical flourishes that weaken rather than strengthen the poem. And “Salmo 17” is as much an imitation or translation as his re- working of du Bellay since it derives directly from Seneca’s Epistle XII to Lucilius. Quevedo’s concluding address to Rome, the most striking innovation within the framework of the two “translations” of du Bellay (and Vitalis) distracts the reader much in the way a bad detective writer’s introduction of a new character late in the plot is a nasty trick. The subject of the three poems, the moral lesson to be learned from a consideration of Rome’s ruins, simply lost relevance in the seventeenth century—Quevedo himself does not seem to have re- visited the city in any of his sonnets, and it is conspicuously absent from the sonnets of his rival Luis de Góngora. The Renaissance, humanist tradition of lamenting the lost past was lost, especially because of the prime importance of Rome as capital of the Catholic Counterreformation. The three sonnets here provide a rare opportunity to see three great poets working at translation. Du Bellay fits Vitalis into a well- wrought sonnet with compressed ten-syllable verses that Spenser, overcoming the vast difference between two sonnet traditions, transforms into a perfect English sonnet, while Quevedo seeks to infuse it with the glitter of the Spanish Baroque. Quevedo, perhaps, is the most successful because of his greater specificity and his bold use of antithesis. And yet we sense, as we do not in Quevedo’s reworking of Seneca into a Spanish sonnet with hendecasyllabic verses, the working-through of an exercise, that du Bellay is refit- ting a shopworn Renaissance conceit, that Spenser is trying, suc- cessfully, to transform a continental sonnet into an English sonnet while retaining the sense of the original. Quevedo seems to have attempted to improve on his sources, and may well have done so, even though he is recasting material long out of fashion. translation / Du Bellay, Spenser, and Quevedo, all working with Vitalis’ ep- igram as a distant source, produce new poems appropriate for their 120 language and culture, but none replicates De Roma in a vernacular language. Borges’s conclusion about the many translations of Ho- mer into English rings true here as well: “The concept of the de- finitive text belongs only to religion or fatigue.” Translation means commitment to time and place and like the Tiber flows infinitely. translation / 121 References Borges, Jorge Luis. (1932) 1965. “Las versiones homéricas.” In Discusión. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores. de Quevedo, Francisco. 1968. Obras Completas I, Poesía Original. Edited by José Manuel Blecua. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta. du Bellay, Joachim. (1558) 1970. Œuvres poétiques II. Les Antiquitez de Rome. Edited by Henri Chamard and Henri Weber. Paris: Librairie Nizet. Grierson, Herbert, ed. 1921. Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Cen- tury. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McFarlane, I. D. 1980. Renaissance Latin Poetry. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Nohrnberg, James. 1976. The Analogy of The Faerie Queene. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rousset, Jean. 1968. Anthologie de la Poésie Baroque Française. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. Smith, Malcolm C. 1977. “Looking for Rome in Rome: Janus Vitalis and his Disci- ples.” In Revue de littérature comparée. Octobre-Decembre, 51 (4): 510-527. Spenser, Edmond. 1679. The Works of that Famous English Poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser. London: Printed by Henry Hills for Jonathan Edwin at the Three Roses in Ludgate Street. Alfred Mac Adam, professor of Latin American literature at Barnard College-Colum- bia University, has translated works by, among others, Carlos Fuentes, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Julio Cortázar, Jorge Volpi, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Fernando Pessoa. His most recent critical essay, on Fernando Pessoa, appears in the Cambridge Guide to Autobiography. translation / 122

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Interview: translation speaks to Lydia Liu translation assistant editor Carolyn Shread met with Lydia Liu in New York City on the occasion of the annual Nida Research Symposium on September 25, 2015. The theme of the symposium was “Untranslatability and Cultural Complexity” and Dr. Liu gave a fascinating and timely talk on “Translation Theory in the Age of Digital Media” with a response by Mary Louise Pratt. The other speakers at the symposium were Michael Wood and Philip Lewis. After the day of talks, Dr. Liu found time to sit down to answer the questions below, some of which were prompted by her article on “The Eventfulness of Translation: Temporality, Difference and Competing Universals” that appeared in Issue 4 of translation. It was an honor and pleasure to continue the conversation in this way, weaving together thoughts from the panels and Liu’s innovative approach to translation. It was particularly encouraging to hear about how, having distanced herself from translation after a perceived lack of receptiveness to her initial ideas, notably the proposal of a guest/ host paradigm as an alternative or supplement to the source/target dichotomy, when she published Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation (1999), Liu has since returned to the field. As someone positioned within the U.S. academy with an Asian perspective and understanding of the history of translation, Liu’s contributions are especially valuable for offering cross-cultural perspectives on translation which, ironically, can be so very culturally constrained. In her research, Liu is perhaps most compelling in her dissections of the ways in which translation has the power to decenter canons and question imperialism and its effects. Her analyses draw on historical context and material culture to produce new and exciting insights, for instance in her comments here on the history of scripts and their relation to translation practices and effects. This interview acts as a hyphen between Liu’s proposals published in the Politics issue and her forthcoming article that will appear in Issue 7. CS: In addition to your position as Professor in the Humanities in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, USA, you are also founding direc- tor of the Tsinghua–Columbia Center for Translingual and Transcultural Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. I’m intrigued by the title of this center: do “translingual” and “transcultural” exhaust the concept of translation for you? Do they overlap with translation? By discussing these two terms, I’m hoping we might have an insight into how you conceive of translation. LL: The center’s name indicates a certain direction of my work that dates from twenty years ago when I published Translin- gual Practice, which thinks about a national literature though its multilingual, multicultural connections. It was not just an attempt to critique nationalism: I tried to demonstrate that if you were to take out all the so-called “foreign” elements from modern Chinese, you would not be able to speak. That is the translation / 123 magnitude of what I was trying to point out—not only at the level of vocabulary, at the level of syntax, but also at the level of genre, intellectual discourse, political theory. . . CS: And at the level of the script? LL: And at the level of the script, too, because in the twentieth century there were a number of major campaigns to eliminate Chinese characters and replace them with Roman scripts. The “Latinization” or “Romanization” movements were happening all around the world, including in neighboring Korea and Ja- pan. In colonial Vietnam they succeeded because the French crafted their Romanization system so as to get rid of the Chi- nese characters used to write Vietnamese. That move was rep- licated in China. There was a point in the twentieth century, in the 1920s and 1930s, when all progressive intellectuals were in favor of Romanization. This would have led to the elimination of Chinese characters, cutting the writing system off from its own history, scholarship, and literature in the same way that Turkish nationalist language reform succeeded in eliminating Arabic script, replacing it with the Roman script. The failure of the Romanization movement in China preserved Chinese liter- ature and its history of writing, but this doesn’t mean that there was no room to incorporate foreign words and neologisms— often via Japanese—into the Chinese script. CS: Often these types of movements emerge because there is a technological shift. Was this linked to a particular moment in history where a certain technology was driving this change? LL: Yes, absolutely. First it was the telegraph, which implied the need to do something about the Chinese script because there is too much information to send, and the telegraphic code re- quired simplification. But more importantly it was the intro- duction of the typewriter that put a lot of pressure on all East Asian societies to reform their scripts. It is interesting that the misrecognition of the typewriter and its limitation led to polit- translation / ical campaigns that targeted the native script in China, Japan, and many other places as a backward writing system. Progress 124 meant forward looking, efficiency, rapid literacy and educa- tion, so the national elite believed that their language or their writing systems were backward and must be replaced. They overlooked the limitation of the typewriter and focused on the perceived constraints of the writing system. In hindsight, it was the technology of the typewriter that was backward since it was incapable of processing nonlinear characters. They went so far as to design a number of models for Japanese and Chi- nese, but these were clumsy. In the 1970s, the Japanese mo- nopolized the manufacture of the fax machine, which could reproduce both graphs and letters. The fax machine made them realize for the first time that it was not the writing system—it was the backwardness of the machine itself that was to blame! The typewriter was too simple to reproduce something that the fax machine could easily capture, and now, of course, the com- puter can do even better. Today, nobody would even bring up Romanization issues in China or elsewhere because the com- puter is so advanced in terms of its input methods and its abili- ty to process large quantities of information, whether visual or alphabetical. CS: My second question is about how you have recently been framing translation as a political problem in your work, notably in your article in the Politics and Translation issue (Issue 4) of this journal. Could you talk about the way politics contributes to the way you think about translation? LL: I have always been unhappy with the way translation studies have been conceptualized. From the mid-1990s I distanced my- self from translation studies because I thought it was too con- straining—for instance, the source/target language distinction which I tried to refashion as a distinction between host language and guest language in Translingual Practice—but nobody seemed to pay attention. Then, when I did my research on the Opium Wars, especially treaties and international law, and saw how central translation was to imperial politics, it became clear to me that translation could provide an illuminating angle for un- derstanding international politics. For instance, one of the chap- ters in The Clash of Empires looks at how the British included an article in the 1858 Sino-British treaty at the Second Opium War, translation / 125 Article 51, which outlaws a Chinese character. It’s pronounced yi—at that time written as i, Romanizing it—and it is the Chi- nese character that the British translated as “barbarian,” arguing that the Chinese called the English barbarians on the evidence of that character. After establishing the translation or the semantic equivalence which I dispute in my book, they relied on the un- equal treaty to forbid the Chinese to use the character. Of course, they did not outlaw the other side of the equivalence, the English word “barbarian” that they continued to apply to the Chinese. A fascinating story, isn’t it? Amitav Ghosh’s recent novel Flood of Fire draws on the research from my book and retells this sto- ry of translation from the Opium War. I sometimes wonder if there are any similar legal prohibitions against other people’s words elsewhere in international relations, other attempts to kill a native word through translation. The Chinese word (yi) was killed after the Opium War and hasn’t been used for more than a hundred years. In The Clash of Empires I also look at how a text in interna- tional law was translated into Chinese for the first time and fundamentally prepared the ground for modern political theory in China. Many familiar modern Chinese concepts—including “sovereignty” and “human rights”—were first coined in the 1864 translation called Wanguo gongfa from the Elements of International Law by American legal scholar Henry Wheaton. This was the first international law book introduced to China or East Asia. The Japanese relied on this Chinese translation to gain an understanding of the modern world and used it to refute the West’s extraterritorial demands on Japan, as well as justify their own annexation of Korea and Taiwan. I took that translation as a triple event: a textual event, a diplomatic event, and an episte- mological event, anticipating the global importance of sovereign rights and human rights in the twentieth century. In short, the event of that translation did not just “happen” in 1864 and it has traversed a temporality that spans our own times. CS: I’d like to ask about another element in the title of your article in translation: the phrase “competing universals.” Since today at the Nida Symposium the theme translation / was “Untranslatability and Cultural Complexity,” how would you articulate com- peting universals and untranslatability? 126 LL: It’s only when you begin to worry about the whereabouts of meaning that untranslatability becomes a central concern. The idea of “competing universals” emerged out of the research I did in the archives of the UN to reopen the moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted. That document was initially conceptualized as the “Interna- tional Declaration of Human Rights.” In the process of drafting it, the UN Commission on Human Rights decided to change the word “international” to “universal” in the title to empha- size the moral and philosophical importance of the Declara- tion. One question that I like to put to my students and others is this: do you think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a Western document? Without thinking twice, most people answer yes. This reaction says something about where the uni- versal lies in most people’s minds. My answer is that, on the contrary, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is NOT a Western document. This conclusion is based on my research on the minutes, summary reports, and a lot of other UN archival material as well as the secondary studies of the drafting of the UN document. For instance, Article 1 includes the term “con- science” and it is English, but if you look at the discussions that went on behind the scenes, there was a Confucian concept proposed by the Vice-Chair of the UN Drafting Committee, P. C. Chang, who worked closely to craft the document with El- eanor Roosevelt, the Chair, along with a number of other dele- gates from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Chang was the one who proposed that human attributes should not just be defined as reason, but must also include ren, a written character from Confucian philosophy that consists of a human radical plus number two, which Chang rendered as “Two-man minded- ness” whereas I would translate the character as “the plural hu- man.” Chang tried to explain the word in a way that would help the committee members reground the idea of human rights in the plurality or sociality of human beings, rather than in indi- viduality. There is a fundamental difference between the two. I see Chang’s move as proposing a competing universal. Some people might object that Chang’s stance was merely nationalis- tic, but this is not the case because the Confucian classics were translation / 127 the shared legacy of many societies across East Asia, including the Japanese and Koreans and Vietnamese who all contributed to the study of Confucianism in the past. Confucianism was one of the civilizational resources that P. C. Chang tried to mo- bilize. He made many other contributions—for instance, his refusal to let a Christian understanding of natural rights be the dominant, determining factor in the definition of rights. Theo- logical terms were debated and some terms were taken out. Conscience—an inadequate translation of the Chinese, ren— was eventually added. This drafting process staged a play of competing universals among the delegates from many coun- tries around the world. Let’s not let this document be taken as simply a European-inspired, or American-inspired, document. My argument in the essay is that if you look at the actual day- to-day debates at the UN on concepts—very important con- cepts that we tend to associate with the Western tradition of human rights today—you would be surprised to find multiple contributions, not only from a Confucian humanist like P. C. Chang, but also from feminist activists, Latin American legal traditions, and Islamic traditions. I conclude that the Declara- tion of Human Rights is not a Western document but a docu- ment that registers competing universals. CS: I have another question about the notion of “eventfulness.” I’d like to quote one of your phrases from a footnote in your article, in which you suggest that rather than “an endless rehashing or deconstruction of the biblical story” of the Tower of Babel, it might be more productive to think about translation in terms of an event. I wonder if you could talk about this, perhaps relating it to the way that you have discussed the history of translation in specific contexts, such as the Afro-Asian Writers Conferences? LL: Eventfulness helps me in my attempt to work out the tempo- rality and spatiality of the act of translation. Translation is not just reduced to one instance of textual transfer, based on a com- munication model—which I reject—or a theological model, concerned with the fulfillment of meaning, since hermeneutics is still part of that tradition. How can we radically reconceptu- translation / alize the problem of translation in terms of its situatedness in time—whether we call it history or not—and place, where it 128 happens? Eventfulness might help us grapple with this prob- lem if we were not to think of translation as merely a textual event going after meanings across languages. If we were to think of it, for instance, in terms of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences and the multiple translation projects they carried out, through journals, correspondence, conferences, collabora- tions across many divides, then translation is something else as well—it may inhabit multiple temporalities. I want to free us from thinking of it merely as one time, one place, with its significance limited to whether one gets the meaning or not. To open it instead to the multiplicity of texts, open it to interpreta- tions, open it to other temporalities. Some people argue that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was simply crafted by an international elite, and that it didn’t really mean much at that time, in the Cold War. But you never know its mode of exis- tence. Human rights can be appropriated in any given instance and can generate surprising modes of survival. For instance, in the 1930s human rights discourse was mobilized in China to fight fascism when the nationalist government was rounding up Communists and leftwing intellectuals and putting them in jail, but in the Cold War it was mobilized to fight Communist, totalitarian regimes. So it never had a stable meaning. While the Declaration of Human Rights gave us a blueprint, the in- terpretation itself varies from place to place, time to time, and so I grant the concept itself a certain mobility, an openness to other languages and other intellectual traditions. Eventfulness allows these temporalities to give any particular text a new mode of life in a new language. That’s how I wanted to take translation in the direction of eventfulness and then to identify its political mode of being. The kind of translation work that took place among those who participated in the post-Bandung Afro-Asian Writers Confer- ences is a good example of this. There was a tremendous ef- fort to collaborate across nations and they produced so much—I think in my article I mentioned one instance of the translation of some of the writers from Africa, such as the Nigerian writ- er, Chinua Achebe, who was known in the 1960s and 1970s as an Afro-Asian writer—he was not primarily thought of as an Anglophone writer, as we call him now in Anglo-American ac- translation / 129 ademia. I have become wary of the imperial reappropriation of Afro-Asian writers as Anglophone writers, as Francophone writ- ers. . . What does this mean? They disavow that earlier history, the Afro-Asian writers’ solidarity and their mutual translations and wipe it out by incorporating them into English departments, or Francophone departments, across American and European universities. Today the teaching of Afro-Asian writers is redis- tributed among these departments, but in the recent past the writ- ers belonged together in a mode of political solidarity. CS: Today in your lecture you touched on la petite lettre. Since I understand that you are working on psychoanalysis, translation, and media studies, I was hoping for a few comments on these new directions in your thought. LL: The Freudian Robot didn’t really focus on translation, al- though translation was part of it. For instance, the translation of Lacan into American academia is a fascinating story that I dug out when I was writing the book. What puzzled me was that Lacan’s reading of Poe’s “Purloined Letter” has been in- terpreted by American translators and American literary critics and theorists as something entirely different from what Lacan was actually doing. I traced that to the Yale French Studies (No. 48, French Freud: Structural Studies in Psychoanalysis [1972], 39–72) translation of Lacan: they eliminated a third of Lacan’s original essay, which dealt with cybernetics and infor- mation theory, and thereby created something called French theory. The United States has been fabricating French theo- ry for some time—even today with the translation of Barbara Cassin’s Dictionary of Untranslatables! I looked at the Cold War situation during which disciplines did not speak to each other in the United States, but Lacan himself read across the disciplines. He was reading Freud along with cybernetics—so how did we miss this? Using Lacan as an example—but he was not the only one—I point out that there is an economy of translation: French theory has been manufactured by American academia through translation. translation / CS: In 2013 you published The Nesbitt Code in Chinese, which has not yet been translated. Would you consider translating it? 130 LL: Last month when I was in Beijing, a friend of mine asked me the same question: whether I would consider rendering it into English. I feel ambivalent about this. The main reason is that I wrote this book as part of a collective effort among Chinese writers to rethink the political history of the twentieth centu- ry. I was involved in a three-year-long Indian–Chinese writ- ers’ conversation and I consider myself as a writer in Chinese. The Nesbitt Code—a kind of pseudodetective novel—emerged out of that conversation because I was very interested in the way that Chinese and India poets and novelists remembered their histories. I wrote the book to reflect on the history of the twentieth century, starting with the Russian Revolution and the writers who went into exile, connecting the life stories of these people to reflect on the legacy of the Chinese Revolution. I’m not sure that people in the West are very interested in the psy- chic aspect of the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revo- lution, whereas in China this resonates because it’s their lived history. Since the Revolution ended in failure, there’s a great deal of melancholy and soul searching in China, a lot of pain associated with that history and many personal tragedies. But a question persists: why did so many intellectuals and scien- tists—Chinese, British, Russian, and others—rally around the idea of the Revolution? It’s something one cannot brush aside. I wrote this book to confront that question. What has deterred me from translating it into English is that the readership of English language publications is only interested in testimonial literature against the Communist regime. That’s why I hesitate. This melancholy story about the fundamental homelessness of modern intellectuals and the tragedy of the Revolution is not something that would resonate with publishers in the West. Look at how they talk about China! They talk about the hor- rors of the Cultural Revolution in the same breath as they talk about the Holocaust and are only excited by the evils of Com- munism. What do they know? Next to nothing! But I’m not at all interested in telling them what transpired in the Cultural Revolution. For the most part, the reading public in the United States and Europe only seek repeated confirmation of the supe- riority of their political system, the superiority of their culture, and superiority in general. They are not interested in learning translation / 131 about the difficult existential decisions that faced intellectuals in other parts of the world from the First to the Second World War and all the way to the Cultural Revolution. So you see where my difficulty lies. CS: Maybe it’s not for them. But what about in India? Have you thought of this, since the book came out of these exchanges? In that context do you think there would be an interest? LL: Maybe, there will be an interest when another worldwide rev- olution looms on the horizon or a new generation of the intel- ligentsia is born. Translating the book into English for my In- dian friends who actually asked for it would make good sense. That would be a compelling argument. Maybe I should have it translated into English, not for North American and European or British readers but for other English language readers. I’ll give it some thought. References Liu, Lydia H. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Trans- lated Modernity. China 1900-1936. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ––––. 2004. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ––––. 2010. The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ––––. 2013. The Nesbitt Code (六個字母的解法 non-fiction, in Chinese) Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Lydia H. Liu is a theorist of media and translation living in New York. She is Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and has published on literary theory, translation, digital media, Chinese feminism, and empire in English and Chinese. Her English works include The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Un- conscious (2010), The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (2004) and, more recently, a coedited translation with Rebecca Karl and Dorothy Ko called The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational translation / Theory (2013). 132

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Introduction After an interruption of almost two years, due to a change of pub-lisher and additional complications, I am delighted to announce that translation: A transdisciplinary journal is back— stronger and better than before. Thanks to a collaboration with the publisher Eurilink University Press located in Rome in Italy, we are finally able to take up all the threads we had fashioned and, more importantly, are creating anew. We owe all our readers sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay has caused many of you—readers who have been wait- ing for new articles and issues to peruse; authors who have been waiting to see their articles published; subscribers who have paid to receive the journal in print, online, or both; the community fol- lowing us online. Thank you for your patience and faith in our shared project that is translation. To get back on schedule as soon as possible, we will be pub- lishing issue 6—a special issue devoted to Memory and guest edit- ed by Bella Brodzki and Cristina Demaria—immediately after the present one. Before I introduce the exciting content of this issue, let me pres- ent a few new entries and changes in the journal’s staff. Carolyn Shread (Mount Holyoke College, USA) is the journal’s new assis- tant editor, and Giuliana Schiavi and Salvatore Mele (both Scuo- la Superiore Mediatori Linguistici, Vicenza, Italy and members of FUSP—Fondazione Universitaria San Pellegrino) are new mem- bers of the editorial board. In truth, they are not really new, since all three have served at the journal since 2014; but this is the first time they are officially connected to a new issue of the journal, and are presented to the readers. It is also thanks to Carolyn, Giuliana, and Salvatore that the journal is now reappearing. Loc Pham Quoc (Hoa Sen University, Vietnam), who has al- ready appeared in the journal as author, will in the future serve as translation / 9 the journal’s new reviews editor. He will be responsible for the reviews published on the journal’s website (translation.fusp.it). Reviews will include not only books, but also events, conferences, and other initiatives and publications related to translation. I look forward to a stimulating collaboration with these four fine scholars and friends. (Please find their bio presentations in the last pages of this issue, and on the journal’s website. A journal’s board is important to establish its editorial identity, to guarantee continuity, and to conceive innovative and original issues, but what gives a journal its body is its content. This is en- sured by the authors and their articles and contributions, and I am proud to present this new issue’s particularly strong and innovative content. First of all, we are happy to continue the tradition of hosting lectures presented at the yearly Nida Translation Studies Research Symposium in New York. The current issue is therefore publish- ing Bella Brodzki’s “Autobiography, Memory, and Translation” and Suzanne Jill Levine’s response, “Autobiography/Translation: Memory’s Losses or Narrative’s Gains?” It is a particular pleasure to include these two scholars’ contributions, since both serve on the journal’s advisory board and have sustained the journal since its foundation. From the same symposium, we also publish an article by Christi Merrill presented below. Bella Brodzki’s point of departure is a strong statement: She argues that “autobiography is a modality of translation” since it translates “experience.” The autobiographer, in other words, is a “translator of her own life experience or past, whose meaning is created through the interpretive act of remembering.” Brodzki’s essay develops ideas presented in her groundbreaking Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival and Cultural Memory (2007), in which she so convincingly demonstrates how connected mem- ory and translation are, since all translations reconfigure, redefine, and excavate a past, relying on memory and remembering. As mentioned above, Brodzki will be developing the theme of Mem- ory for our next issue as guest editor with Cristina Demaria. In this issue she looks at one special form of memory—autobiogra- phy—and analyzes three very different examples of autobiography translation / and their special mode of creating a memoir, conceived here as a self-reflexive mode of translation. The subject of autobiography is 10 therefore both a translator and a translation; the autobiographee is being displaced, carried over, “shifting shape and form, becoming other to herself.” As the translation process of the psychic content of self-re- flection and memory is a characteristic for autobiography, and “all memory is mediated and motivated,” Brodzki turns to Freud, electing him as a guiding spirit in her inquiry. Freud, himself a paradigmatic figure of translation, provides an interpretive frame- work for her analysis. The role of autobiography and translation in Freud is present in the essay as a kind of fil rouge, and, as Suzanne Jill Levine puts it in her response to Brodzki, “Autobiography and Translation come together logically and intuitively in Freud whose early work as a translator helped create his career as a scientist and hence the persona whose theoretical work was practically based on autobiographical as well as clinical reflection.” Brodzki’s first example is Nabokov’s Speak Memory, a book that in itself is particularly interesting also because it is a result of multiple translation processes between Russian and English. Brodzki’s next example is the Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé, whose texts are translated into English by her transla- tor–husband Richard Philcox. Here, Brodzki demonstrates how the couple “enact the ongoing, defining, and productive tension within translation studies, of the paradox of untranslatability on the one hand, and translatability on the other.” Alison Bech- del’s graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) is Brodzki’s final example of another variation on the theme of “how techniques of translation are implicated in the act of mate- rializing, textualizing, and visualizing the autobiographical sub- ject.” In her response to Brodzki’s lecture, Levine draws attention to parallels between autobiography and biography, asking wheth- er both of these forms of biographical writing, as well as other forms of narrative—fictional and nonfictional—can be considered as having a translational nature. “Are we perhaps speaking of a translational paradigm for narrative in general?” she asks. Analyzing the case of Dalit literature, “a phenomenon in and of translation,” Christi Merrill suggests we “think more carefully about the relationship of translation studies to postcolonial theo- ry.” Her article explores the ways Dalit consciousness is a multi- translation / 11 lingual issue, connecting it to the multilingualism that is so central in India that one can speak about a “translating consciousness” consisting in an “‘open’ daily negotiation along a continuum of mutual understanding.” Let me add a personal note here: for me, as a European grow- ing up in an ideologically monolingual society, going to India for the first time last year to attend the international conference on Plurilingualism and Orality at the Indraprastha College for Wom- en, University of Delhi, organized by Babli Moitra Saraf, one of our board members, and with the participation of this journal, it was an incredible surprise to experience how people used several languages simultaneously in a continuous translation movement. It struck me that if the dominating Eurocentric Translation Studies discourse had looked further outside its boundaries, and specifical- ly to the Indian tradition, it would have developed very differently and might have freed itself from the shackles of a binary hierarchy grounded in monolingualism, and the very idea of one necessary original of which any translation is derivative would not have had such a dominating position. The “translating consciousness” of which Merrill speaks is inherently multilingual, which automati- cally opens an alternative vision of what translation is about. In regard to Dalit literature, Merrill demonstrates how this multilingual negotiation is all but simple and peaceful; rather, it is connected to domination and repression. Since the language of dominance is predicated on caste, Merrill agues the translating consciousness is a more complex one then the colonizer–colonized binary. Merrill’s interesting contribution originated as a response to Robert Young’s lecture “Freud on Translation and Cultural Trans- lation” at the same New York symposium at which Bella Brodzki presented her paper. Young’s lecture—not included in this issue since it was committed to another publication—was dedicated to the concept of translation in Sigmund Freud’s work. Merrill works Young’s thematics into the problematic of the translating con- sciousness of Dalit literature in fascinating ways. For instance, in discussing catharsis as a multilingual project, she creates a parallel to Freud’s idea of psychoanalysis as a translation not only into an- translation / other language, but as a translation of the unknown. If the job of the psyche is to “translate” or displace traumatic 12 experience into a language foreign to the individual subject, the work of psychoanalysis is then to interpret that idiosyncratic lan- guage and “de-translate” it back into a language shared with the analyst. Merrill also sees clear parallels between the idea of cultural translation as explained by Young and Dalit literature, in that “it offers, for example, a possible way of reading the invisible, the subaltern.” Valeria Luiselli’s essay “Translating Talkies in Modernist Mexico. The Language of Cinemas and the Politics of the Sound Film Industry” represents a new and innovative way of looking at how translation may occur through cultural models such as ar- chitecture and movies, and how different “translation practices” represent cultural production and exchange. She tells the story of when the first talkies appeared in Mexico, and analyzes the way in which the introduction of sound movies represented a twofold translation, both spatial and cultural. In examining the arrival of sound film technology, Luiselli looks at the relationship between “the modern architectural language of movie theaters and some of the dominating cultural politics of the burgeoning sound film industry in Mexico.” Her question is whether there was a conso- nance or a dissonance in the relation to the discourse of modernity between sound film technology and architectural perspective, and how they contributed to the formation of ideas of modernity. What emerges is that modernist translation was actually “a way of ap- propriating new forms and thus a creative locus of innovation.” Luiselli discusses different forms of translation, from dubbing and the politics of film translation to the movie theaters as concrete spaces of translation, or even as translators, thus operating with a refreshingly broad concept of translation. Although Luiselli’s essay does not discuss this theme, I would suggest that this modernist translation practice was particularly prosperous in South America. The parallels between the thinking on translation expressed by authors such as Borges, De Paz, and especially Haroldo de Campos with his idea of translation as tran- creation and even “irreverently amorous devouring,” invite further investigation. Luiselli describes the fascinating story of how Spanish-speak- ing dubbers and voice actors were introduced in Hollywood films translation / 13 to counter the threat of English-language domination not only with their voices but also with “their entire body.” The introduction of American films in Mexico was complicated, however, and all man- ner of different options were explored in the process—including subtitling, dubbing, simultaneous “remakes,” and printouts of film dialogue. All of this cinematic innovation took place in buildings that were also subject to translational practices, such as the famous Teatro–Cinema Olimpia, for example, which was originally a con- vent. This movie theater plays a central role in the introduction— translation—of the modern experience to the Mexican audience, and was, in Luiselli’s words, a “translator made of concrete and stone.” Luiselli’s essay anticipates and opens a discussion that will be pursued in the future issue of this journal devoted to spaces and places, guest edited by Sherry Simon and Federico Montanari. Enquiries about translation in connection to places are also present in Sherry Simon’s essay “At the Edge of Empire: Rose Ausländer and Olha Kobylianska,” in which she examines “the work of translation at the edge of empire” through the two Czer- nowitz authors—the Ukrainian Olha Kobylianska (1863–1942) and the German–Jewish Rose Ausländer (1901–1988) viewed as translators of their border city. Luiselli’s broad concept of transla- tion, applied to cultural practices and movements, are developed by Simon in other both social and physical directions, for instance in the political and geographical borders of a multilingual city. To translate at the edge of empire—of which Czernowitz is an example in relation to the translational relationships developed through German—is to be especially aware of the ways in which boundaries can accentuate or attenuate difference. Political borders hypostatize cultural and linguistic differences, while geographical borders often show difference to be gradual. The multilingual- ism of border zones problematizes the activities of translation as source–target transactions. Drawing on a suggestion in Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians, in which the distinction between enemy and citizen, alien and human beings is blurred, Simon looks at “another site of translation at the edge of empire,” a border city that has represent- ed a wall against the alien, discovering similar elusiveness and in- translation / stability of the borders. Czernowitz is intensely multilingual with the particularity of German as prominent and autonomous, and no 14 language apparently dominating over the others. In the search of a more realistic—and less idealized—understanding of the multilin- gualism of Czernowitz, Simon starts by defining it as translation- al, thus underscoring the “connections and convergences across language and communities” that might be much less peaceful and friendly than expected. Literary transactions express this translational terrain, and one of them is the tendency among many authors at the beginning of the twentieth century to move away from German to other minor languages. One such writer is Olha Kobylianska, who embraced the Ukrainian national cause and translated her texts from German. Her writing can be referred to as “translational writing—a product of the particular mélange of cultures particular to the Bukovina and Czernowitz.” The other author analyzed by Simon, Rose Ausländer, on the contrary, “returns” to German after her permanence in the writing in English. But this choice “is less a one-way and definitive em- brace of the authentic tongue than a renewed practice of translation, as she brings back to Germany the long experience of exile, expe- riencing new forms of displacement within the German-speaking world.” The eternal question of the relation between original and trans- lation is discussed in Alfred Mac Adam’s “Translating Ruins.” In an interesting perspective, he analyzes three sonnets that are direct or indirect derivations of Ianus Vitalis’ (1485–1560) epigram De Roma (1552) on the theme of Rome’s ruins. The “poem is a fasci- nating irony,” Mac Adam argues: “A poem in Latin on mutability that seeks to avoid the mutability of vernacular tongues” results in vernacular translations and imitations of which there exist over a dozen. The three sonnets compared by Mac Adam are Joachim du Bel- lay’s 1558 version and the two of which is progenitor or source, namely Edmund Spenser’s 1591 version of Joachim du Bellay and Francisco de Quevedo’s 1648 sonnet. The three sonnets are “si- multaneously the same and different, translations and originals” while they are in different relations to the distinction between translation and adaptation. They are all new poems, “appropriate for their language and culture, but none replicates De Roma in a vernacular language.” translation / 15 Each of translation’s issues includes an interview. We are hap- py to continue this tradition since interviews permit a different form of reflection from essays in that they are dialogic, “thinking- out-loud” texts. Lydia Liu—who has already published an article with us in our special issue on Politics guest edited by Sandro Mezzadra and Naoki Sakai (issue 4) and who will be present in a future issue (issue 7) with the lecture she gave at last year’s New York symposium—was interviewed by Carolyn Shread, transla- tion’s assistant editor. In the course of their conversation, Liu’s work against nationalism emerges as a strong starting point for her thinking on translation, which in many respects runs count- er to current ideas circulating in translation studies. Not only vo- cabulary, but intellectual discourse, political theory, and script are among the “foreign” elements that interrogate national literature and national identities in general. Script, and the technology con- nected to its reproduction such as the telegraph and the typewriter, actually “put pressure on all East Asian societies to reform their scripts.” The paradox consists in the fact that the typewriters’ lim- itations “[l]ed to campaigns that targeted the native script [. . .] as a backward writing system.” In regards to Liu’s ideas on the political dimension of trans- lation, this conversation with Liu offers an excellent explanation of the ideas she expressed in her article in issue 4 of this journal: Liu recalls her research on the Opium Wars through which she discovered how translation “could provide an illuminating angle for understanding international politics.” Contrary to what people generally think, Liu argues that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a Western docu- ment. It is, rather, a document that registers “competing univer- sals.” According to Liu, translation is an event, not just reduced to one instance of textual transfer, and needs to be reconceptualized in terms of situatedness in time and place. “Eventfulness allows temporalities to give any particular text a new mode of life in a new language,” she argues. I hope you enjoy reading this issue’s articles! SN translation / 16

Unimi Open Journals

translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15516

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Autobiography, Memory, and Translation Bella Brodzki Sarah Lawrence College, USA Abstract: The article traces a range of ways in which autobiography (self/life/ writing) and translation are mutually implicated in processes of displacement, recontextualization, mediation, and even comparison. Freud, paradigmatic fig- ure of translation and archeologist of memory, is the guiding spirit of this study. Its broad psychoanalytic framework situates three exemplary autobiographi- cal narratives and the modes of translation they perform: Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, Maryse Condé’s La vie sans fards, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. The point of departure of my talk today is that autobiography is a modality of translation. Both autobiography and translation propel change, involve movement, recontextualization, mediation, even comparison. What is aptly named and fits under the rubric of auto- biography—meaning self/life/writing—refers to a broad range of self-referential maneuvers and practices, and is at base a Western genre predicated on a notion of the individual self as at once au- tonomous and relational, and capable of being both “the observing subject and the object of investigation” (Smith and Watson 1998, 4). Autobiography claims a venerable and variable tradition that begins roughly with St. Augustine’s conversion narrative Confes- sions and includes slave narratives, testimonios, and such recent examples of the Küntzlerroman as Patti Smith’s Just Kids. A useful working definition (if joyfully and consistently revised) of autobi- ography for scholars in the field comes from Philip Lejeune: “a ret- rospective narration produced by a real person concerning her/his own existence, focusing on the development of her/his own life, in particular the development of her/his personality” (Lejeune 1989, 4). What the French theorist calls “the autobiographical pact” is the assurance given the reader by the signature on the autobiogra- translation / 17 phy’s cover that the author, the narrator, and the protagonist of this narration share a common identity. Autobiography—or what is re- ferred to quite commonly, in the wake of post-Enlightenment the- ories of the subject and postcolonial discourse, as “life writing” or “life narrative”—is, in any case, not limited to the written, but can be performative, visual, filmic, or digital. What is interesting in all modes of life narrative is that the referential relationship between the origin and the translation, as it were—as well as between the autobiographer and the reader—is contractual. Please keep in mind as well that even, or especially, in autobi- ography studies, the very elements that comprise the constellation of self/life/writing are all culturally contested and problematized today. Put another way, and critical rigor notwithstanding, the va- lence of the various theoretical terms relevant to the autobiograph- ical enterprise, including such marketplace labels as “memoir,” changes depending on the specific discursive context. Much can be at stake ideologically, at least for literary critics and scholars of autobiography; what is a nuanced distinction in one instance is a major conceptual marker in another, a most obvious example of which being the ontological/epistemological difference between a “self” and a “subject”. The former term has metaphysical conno- tations, the latter is a discursive construction, and my view lies somewhere between the two—I don’t link “selfhood” with pleni- tude, transcendence, or authenticity, but nor do I consider the “I” to be merely a linguistic effect. How terms are implemented and in- terpreted, then, is itself a matter of translation, and heavily depen- dent on reception, on audience, on readership. Though I will use a variety of terms today, most of which are modifiers of “self,” this is not an indication of their interchangeability within a prescribed category or lexical field; rather it is an effort on my part to gesture towards the richness of the genre and its ongoing generativity. Returning to my opening assertion that autobiography is a modality of translation, let us consider that the autobiographer or producer of an autobiographical event is engaged in a process of subjective displacement, a carrying over of an idea or a notion of a life and/or selfhood. In the act of being inscribed or narra- tivized, the autobiographer is being translated. Being translated translation / for an autobiographer means shifting shape and form, becoming other to her/himself, as s/he distinguishes her/himself from others 18 through language. Another critical dimension of the autobiogra- phy/translation nexus is that translators inscribe their subjectivity into their versions, most acutely, into the views on translation they espouse and the strategies they deploy. Just as the autobiographer is reading herself/himself otherwise, so is the translator inscribing herself/himself through an other’s voice and text, into another lin- guistic or signifying form. To write is to be written, to narrate is to be narrated, to translate is to be translated. In my talk I shall be exploring a few of the myriad ways a subject verbalizes, materializes, and textualizes the process of self-analysis, self-reflection, and self-inscription in both autobiog- raphy and translation, as reflections on each other. I do not mean to suggest, however, that the self—as source material—is a giv- en, that it is transparent to itself, or that it is anterior to any act of interpretation. Precisely, I shall explore how various facets of the translation complex play out in three dissimilar and distinctive autobiographical projects. My literary examples are modern and contemporary, yet they differ widely from each other. As a com- paratist, I take seriously the conceit that seemingly strange juxta- positions can be most productive and illuminating. My first liter- ary example is text based: Russian polyglot Vladimir Nabokov’s exemplary, self-translated autobiography Speak, Memory (1947). The second concerns the intriguing and divergent autobiographical positions of Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé and her British translator–husband Richard Philcox regarding their embedded sit- uation (although I will make some reference to La vie sans fards, published in 2012, her most recent, and as yet untranslated autobi- ography), where most of my commentary will concern them as a translation couple and its implications for the global literary mar- ketplace. The third is also text based, but transgeneric: American cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home (2006). In each case, the autobiographer is implicitly, and often explicitly— depending on the various modes and languages involved—a trans- lator of his or her own “life experience” or past whose meaning is created through the interpretive act of remembering. As a paradigmatic figure of translation, Freud is my guiding or informing spirit into this area of inquiry: Freud as an object of translation; as a translator himself; and as a theorist, especially in the early essay “Screen Memories” (1899), in itself a selection translation / 19 of his own childhood recollections, disguised in dialogic form. The translation history of the writings of Sigmund Freud is one of the most fascinating, controversial, and overdetermined instanc- es of the power of a particular translator to influence indefinitely a target culture’s reception of a major body of thought. As some Anglophone readers of Freud are aware, the copyright on James Strachey’s twenty-four volume Standard Edition expired in 1989, provoking debates worldwide on the consequences of retranslating Freud’s works, not only for those reading in English, but in all foreign versions, since many are translations from the English and not the original German. On the one hand, Strachey’s monumen- tal endeavor has been admired for its homogeneous lucidity and consistency; on the other, it has been excoriated for effectively in- tegrating and synthesizing what Freud left fragmentary and “pro- cessive,” most glaringly for imposing Ancient Greek and Latin ter- minology onto everyday German words in the service of making Freudian discourse sound more “scientific.” Even as Freud (and his daughter Anna) approved of Alix and James Strachey’s, along with Ernest Jones and A. A. Brill’s, systematizing of psychoanalyt- ic terminology, however, he continued up until his death to use the same rich range and variety of ambiguous, and often contradictory, terms to describe the most elusive and intimate workings of “psy- chic life”—as he had always done. At the risk of committing the intentional fallacy, can we in- fer that Freud privileged dissemination over fidelity in translation, that his conception of language as figurative and fluid, and transla- tion as a pervasive medium of human experience, was broadly in- tercultural and transhistorical, consonant with his desire to attract the widest possible foreign readership for his radical creation— psychoanalysis—thus securing its status in history, as he put it, as the third revolution, after those of Copernicus and Darwin? As we well know, if it is almost impossible to overstate Freud’s influence on modernity, it is not in the realm of science that he made his im- pact (though this may be changing again, as neuroscientists uncov- er the brain’s relationship to the unconscious), but in the domain of culture, and the individual’s relation to it, as evidenced by the way those very archaisms for which Strachey was criticized have infil- translation / trated every aspect of our speech. All the more interesting, then, that the Freud who is universally invoked is, in fact, linguistical- 20 ly and culturally specific. As the essays in Darius Gray Ornston Jr.’s edited study Translating Freud show, many of the challenges raised by translating Freud are not only theoretical or conceptual in nature, but have to do with his extraordinary gifts as a stylist who enjoyed and exploited the rhetorical, aesthetic, and expressive qualities of language, especially that of his native German, which was inflected by his inveterate erudition and cosmopolitanism. Freud was an autobiographer, too, drawing on his own inte- riority as a source text to be interpreted and analyzed as he wres- tled with his developing “science of the mind“ (Freud 1995a, 30), whose purview, he claimed, was no longer only psychopathology, but its relevance to what we now call “the neurotic normal.” He wrote “An Autobiographical Study” in 1924, at the age of six- ty-eight. An account of the internal development of psychoanal- ysis as well as its external history (Freud 1995a, 30), the autobi- ographical essay was published as a contribution to a volume of “self-portraits” by prominent physicians. Far less personal than his case studies, his correspondence with Fleiss, the seemingly minor “Screen Memories” (1899), the monumental The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), or The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), “An Autobiographical Study” is nonetheless a revealing document and has substantial explanatory power. Freud used this essay as an occasion to present an introduction or overview of his ideas as they evolved, and of their reception in the international scientific com- munity. As a self-portrait of the investigator, it tempts the reader to surmise that in Freud’s mind “la psychanalyse, c’est moi!” Translation is central to the story Freud tells. In the early days of his career, he recounts, the planes shifted considerably when, as a foreign student and auditor in Paris, he offered to translate “a new volume of [Charcot’s] lectures into German.” Freud translated not only the third volume of Charcot’s Lessons on Diseases of the Nervous System (1886) and Tuesday’s Lessons at the Salpêtrière (1887–1888), but five entire books in all, from French and English into German. Though he had a position as a lecturer in pathology in Vienna, it was his work as a translator that gained him entry into Charcot’s circle of personal acquaintances and full participation in the activities at Salpêtière Clinic (Freud 1995a, 6). According to Patrick Mahony, “Freud made translation a uni- fied field concept” (Mahony 2001, 837). Mahony elaborates that translation / 21 in psychoanalysis the patient may be psychically conceived as a succession or accumulation of translations, with the analyst as- suming the complementary role of a translator. By means of trans- lations—psychic material is itself already a translation in need of a second order translation—“the analyst effects a translation of what is unconscious into consciousness” (Mahony 2001, 837); that is, dreams translate what the dreamer dreams to what the dreamer re- members and reports, translates from mental image to verbal nar- ration. Mahony also gives the following specific examples of what Freud deemed to be translations: dreams; generalized hysterical, obsessive, and phobic symptomatology; parapraxis (this term for a slip of the tongue is itself a wonderful example of a Strachey clas- sical archaism); fetishes; the choice of suicidal means; and the an- alyst’s interpretations (Mahony 2001, 837). Freud’s autobiograph- ical study is also a form of translation of his life and career as a scientist and a defense, even an apologia, of his intellectual legacy. I hope that these broad psychoanalytic insights will provide us with an interpretive framework for thinking figuratively and rhe- torically about the autobiographers and translators we are about to discuss. Vladimir Nabokov Nabokov’s Speak, Memory (1947) is a virtuosic synesthetic, trans- lingual, transmodal, transcultural performance. I will barely pierce the surface of its many layers and textures today. By making the reader of the foreword privy to the many stages of rewriting, reframing, and recasting of what he calls “a systematically cor- related assemblage of personal recollections ranging geographi- cally from St. Petersburg to St. Nazaire, and covering thirty-sev- en years, from August 1903 to May 1940” (Nabokov 1947, 9), Nabokov might be giving us too much, before the first page of the autobiography proper has even been accessed. The detailed paratextual information, much like the exquisite meditation on the nature of a privileged life as only a consummately privileged polyglot consciousness could render it, is daunting and some- what overwrought. Translated into French, German, Spanish, and Italian by other translators, Nabokov explains that “for the translation / present, final edition […] I have availed myself of the correc- tions I made while turning it into Russian. This re-Englishing of 22 a Russian re-version of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place” (Nabokov 1947, 12–13) is likened to the kinds of multiple metamorphoses familiar to but- terflies, but previously untried by humans. If in the foreword he posits himself as remarkable among his species, those very liter- ary and linguistic feats are grounded in a principle of translation that treats every change in form as a new thing to be celebrated, but not at the expense of preserving or immortalizing moments or stages of perfection. And yet, the exiled writer’s essay on the challenges of translating Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin into English reveals a translator hostile to a free-form, target-friendly version of a classic. His rarefied, academic, heavily annotated translation privileged its own elite audience, reflecting, as Lawrence Venuti puts it, Nabokov’s “deep nostalgic investment in the Russian lan- guage and in canonical works of Russian literature while disdain- ing the homogenizing tendencies of American consumer culture” (Venuti 2012, 110–111). Is there a connection between Nabokov’s protectionist views of the role of a literary translator and the way he translated his own life? A self-declared “chronophobiac” (Nabokov 1947, 19), his disclaimer about any affection for the psychoanalytic method might suggest there is: I have ransacked my oldest dreams for keys and clues—and let me say at once that I reject completely the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world of Freud, with its crankish quest for sexual symbols… and its bitter little embryos spying, from their natural nooks, upon the love life of their parents. (Nabokov 1947, 20) Doth he protest too much? It is not my intention here to put little Vladimir’s psyche on the couch, despite the wealth of ma- terial he provides throughout this text (and elsewhere in his oeu- vre), only to indicate that while Nabokov is reacting to the most reductive and vulgar version of Freud in terms of symbolic con- tent, he is also using hermeneutic instruments in ways that strongly resemble Freud’s methods. Each embodies qualities of both the scientist and the poet, and both are formalists of the first order. Indeed, as masterful interpreters of signs and symptoms, and de- coders of patterns, both are drawn to structural repetitions, as well as to what escapes those structures and strictures. Critics, among them Jeffrey Berman and Jenefer Shute, have addressed why the translation / 23 figure of Freud looms so large—and so negatively—for Nabokov, as well as the implications for an understanding of his fiction, es- pecially Lolita. It seems to me that what Nabokov rejects in Freud is his primordial pessimism about human nature, and that what he negates is the general principle that he—that is, Nabokov—might not be master of his own mind. If the opening chapter of Speak, Memory is about anything, it is the eros/thanatos dialectic, as is the book’s final chapter, which focuses on intergenerational transmission and the transcendent or redemptive power of the aesthetic imagination. But my aim now is to direct attention to the associative method of forming com- posite events that Freud and Nabokov share, and which serves as Nabokov’s template or creed for turning one’s life into a work of art. What Nabokov calls “the match theme”—the Freudian germ of which is a verbal or imagistic link revealing a thematic or sym- bolic correspondence—is exemplified in two fabulously dramatic events drawn from his childhood. One of those themes is the tragic irony of history, as illustrated in the destiny of a certain General Kuropatkin, a friend of Nabokov’s father, who in one scene, while playing a “match” game with young Vladimir in which he “depicts the sea in calm and stormy weather,” (Nabokov 1947, 27) is in- formed that he will lead the Russian Army against the Japanese in the 1905 War. Fifteen years later, disguised as a peasant, he comes across Nabokov’s father in flight from the Bolsheviks, and asks him for a match. Though his childhood was indeed blessed, Nabokov’s message to his attentive reader above all is that the art of living is less a mat- ter of being endowed with rich original content than it is a matter of a perceiving intelligence imposing sensorial and cognitive mas- tery over the flux and chaos of the world. “The match theme” is a lesson in how to work with one’s source material: tracking, tracing, and linking across time and space seemingly unrelated episodes or events through a metonymic/metaphorical leap that brings them together and thereby raises them to a higher level of meaning, a threshold for further reflection, interpretation, and commentary. (It is, for example, a lesson in linking the moves on a chessboard with the assassination of his beloved father, not as the outcome of translation / a duel the child dreads, but at a public lecture, when it was least expected and he was shielding the body of a more likely politi- 24 cal target.) Nabokov’s technique for critical reading is the model for translating a life, and it is, then, primarily aesthetic in nature. That is, it foregrounds the structural and formal aspects of even the most spectacular and catastrophic of human experiences without divesting the events of any of their wondrous or devastating force, identifying—or, rather, creating—patterns, establishing affinities and thematic correspondences amidst/across what would other- wise remain inchoate, separate, isolated ephemera. “The following of such thematic designs through one’s life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography” (Nabokov 1974, 21). After Speak, Memory, not only is it impossible to read autobiography the same way again, but it is impossible to live autobiographically—that is, to think about one’s life as a thematic design—in the same fashion once one has internalized Nabokov’s model. The opening passage of Speak, Memory—beginning with “The cradle rocks above an abyss” on page 19—offers one of the most striking images and meditations on mortality to be found in the annals of autobiography. Yet the genesis of Speak, Memory was what is now the book’s fifth chapter, written originally in French and titled “Mademoiselle O.” That Nabokov was both worldly lit- erate and deeply imprinted by Russian literature is made manifest in the portrait which serves as the premise for this chapter. Its de- clared purpose is to reclaim through memory the destiny of his old French governess, whom he felt he had betrayed by having previously turned her into a fictional character, thus denying her the independent existence that rightfully belonged to her. Nabokov’s revisitation of the Swiss governess “Mademoi- selle” begins with her arrival by sleigh to the Russian country- side in the winter of 1905–1906. Though of his many tutors and governesses she was the object of some ridicule and derision, he now pays selective tribute to her “lovely” French and its impact on his appreciation for French literature. I have chosen to focus on this recontextualized portrait of the hapless, enormous, miserable figure, because indeed she may not be substantial enough on her own terms to support the attempt “to salvage her from fiction” (Nabokov 1947, 117). And this is not, despite the reasons he ini- tially gives, Nabokov’s prime motive for memorializing her. The autobiographer announces straight away that he is imagining the scene, that he is seeking recourse in fiction once again: “I was not translation / 25 there to greet her; but I do so now as I try to imagine what she saw and felt at that last stage of her fabulous and ill-timed journey” (Nabokov 1947, 98). The memorialist’s conjuring of poor Mademoiselle—who remains a rather disdained and pathetic character in this portray- al—has been culturally, linguistically, and, of course, physically displaced to the Russian steppes from her native Switzerland. The overarching image is of snow. Very lovely, very lonesome. But what am I doing in this stereoscopic dreamland? How did I get here? Somehow, the two sleighs have slipped away, leaving be- hind a passportless spy standing on the blue-white road in his New England snow- boots and stormcoat. The vibration in my ears is no longer their receding bells, but only my old blood singing. All is still spellbound, enthralled by the moon, fancy’s rear-vision mirror. The snow is real, though, and as I bend to it and scoop up a handful, sixty years crumble to glittering frost-dust between my fingers. (Nabokov 1947, 100) A symbolic identification grounds Nabokov’s authorial/auto- biographical position in this classic Russian novelistic scene in which, laying his devices bare, he inserts himself at the end as both observing subject (“passportless spy”) and object of reflec- tion (“But what am I doing […] ? How did I get here?”) through the temporal and spatial displacement of “snow,” and Nabokov and Mademoiselle, who now occupy virtually equivalent or trans- posable positions in relation to the other’s estrangement. His un- derlying resistance to the idea that perhaps there was more to Ma- demoiselle than her lack if finesse is made clear to him belatedly, through his own experience of exile and loss, primarily as a result of the Russian Revolution. In an act of literary mediation and em- pathic projection he comes to understand the gravitas of her life story as a key to understanding his own. With retrospective insight he says at another point in the chapter that this is something “I could appreciate only after the things and beings that I had most loved in the security of my childhood had been turned to ashes or shot through the heart” (Nabokov 1947, 117). Nabokov’s insight, shared with Freud, is that all memory is mediated and motivated, and dependent on a dynamic imagina- translation / tion; because the psychic content of original memory is not avail- able, whether because of absence or inaccessibility, it cannot be 26 restored without being translated to later experiences, desires, and needs. Maryse Condé Maryse Condé, Guadeloupean author of several novels about Ca- ribbean heroines in Africa, slavery in the Antilles, the Salem witch trials, and even a revisionary reading of Wuthering Heights, has written two autobiographies: Tales from the Heart: True Stories From My Childhood,1 and the recently published—but still un- translated—La vie sans fards (2012). Self-identified as a classical- ly-schooled Francophone Caribbean writer, by which I mean that her readership would typically comprise Continental French and Antillean readers, she has attained preeminent status in the literary marketplace as a global Caribbean writer—in the company of Der- ek Walcott, Caryl Phillips, Edouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Rafael Confiant, and Edwidge Danticat—as a result of translation. Being translated, especially into English, has enabled Condé’s work—albeit in altered form—to exceed its linguistic and cultural boundaries and live beyond its own spatial and temporal borders, however they have been constituted. In short, it has brought her the widest possible reception. And yet Condé’s translation complex is of a special order, espe- cially when read in a context—familial and erotic—that so readily invites a psychoanalytic interpretation; I am not going to undertake such a reading here. La vie sans fards is devoted primarily to the years she spent in West Africa during the politically promising pe- riod of decolonization, and then the corruption, hypocrisy, and re- pression of the postindependence regimes. This experience, which she consistently recounts in amatory language, “occupied a central place in my life and in my imagination” (Condé 2012, 16; transla- tion mine); but it was a painful disappointment, a doomed affair. Her less than positive depiction of African life, as seen in both her fiction and memoir, has made her a provocative and somewhat controver- sial figure in postcolonial literary circles. The continent couldn’t at- tract her sufficiently or compel her enough—despite long and varied opportunities during her sojourns in Guinea, Ghana, Ivory Coast, 1 Originally published in French in 1999; translated into English by Richard Philcox in 2001. In-text reference will be to the 2001 English edition. translation / 27 and Senegal—to learn to speak Malinké, Fulani, Peulh, or Wolof. In this failed intercultural encounter in which France, the Caribbean, and Africa are not reduced to the points they occupy in a colonial constellation, Condé represents herself as untranslatable, unable to be taken on her own terms in a different context. Conversely, her inability to find reflections of herself in Africa, to be recognized as herself and not a “toubabesse” [white woman, because Antillaise, for example], reinforces her sense of isolation and exclusion, wheth- er it be a result of history, racial identity, and/or cultural and class values. It is an otherness to which she clings and which she reads as immutable. This paradoxical sense of her own untranslatability drives the narrative, as the autobiographer depicts herself struggling against forces and structures that threaten her integrity, as metaphorically and literally understood. The critical matter pertaining to translation and memory here is not the authenticity or veracity of the self-por- trait as the autobiographer renders it, but the conditions of its re- ception, as she has experienced it. Distinguishing her motivations from the idealizing ones most often attributed to the conventions of recounting a life, Condé proclaims her passion for “unvarnished” truth-telling in the introduction, as she stakes a claim for her sin- gularity while also invoking a more abstract, albeit gendered, uni- versality. She inscribes herself squarely within the French Enlight- enment and Romantic traditions from the outset: “I want to display to my kind a woman in every way true to nature, and the woman I portray shall be myself” (Condé 2012, 12; translation mine). Despite Condé’s resolute individualism, feisty independence, and political risk-taking, her lively and sometimes harrowing nar- rative is framed, on its first and last pages, by her two husbands, the Guinean Mamadou Condé and the English Richard Philcox, whom she met in Senegal. Her marriage to Philcox will take place out- side the narrative, but she pays homage to their first meeting and telegraphs what is to follow. “He was the one who would change my life. He would take me to Europe and then to Guadeloupe. We would discover America together. He would help me gently sep- arate from my children and resume my studies. Above all, thanks to him, I would begin my career as a writer” (Condé 2012, 334; translation / translation mine). Condé herself is an accomplished English speaker and scholar 28 of English literature, who taught for many years at Columbia and other esteemed universities; but she seems to consider translation at best as a mechanistic exercise or practical necessity, not a cre- ative practice worthy of her critical attention. Her manifest lack of interest in translations of her work, when the stakes are, ironically, so high, sound disingenuous for many reasons—not the least of which is that she lives on such intimate and privileged terms with her translator. One could conceive such indifference as a matter of blind trust, and a convenient division of labor, since—in addition to being her translator—Philcox also handles all of her negotia- tions. Ironically, however, their embedded relation seems to ensure that instead of being on the same page regarding translation, their perspectives as a translational couple remain absolutely divergent. As is evidenced in a fascinating 1996 interview with Doris Kadish and Françoise Massardier (the authors of Translating Slav- ery) conducted in French with Philcox (with Condé present) in which he describes his training, strategy, and evolution as a trans- lator, Philcox sees his role as quite important. He valorizes the complex process of “recreating” a text and bringing the writer to a different cultural—that is, Anglophone—audience (Kadish and Massardier, 751). Not only does he believe there is an affinity be- tween the original and the translation, but he also maintains that he is “communicating the author’s writing in another language, in another culture” (Kadish and Massardier, 751; translation mine). Moreover, his translation practice is patently target-oriented; he seeks to make the author, as he says, more “transparent” to the reader, but not at the price of displacing “the geography of the text,” whatever it may be. The challenge for him may be less a question of linguistic specificity than of Condé’s “esoteric” cul- tural references; he even acknowledges being “market-driven” on her behalf. Rather than feeling diminished or constrained, Phil- cox concedes that he feels liberated by Condé’s indifference to his practice, as well as his product (Kadish and Massardier, 755). And he ultimately attributes his progress over the course of his career as a translator, interestingly enough, not to years of living with Condé, his author–wife, or to the cumulative experience of translating her work, but to studying translation theory (Kadish and Massardier, 755–756). That Philcox is sensitive to the gender question—“Do I have the right to translate a novel written by a translation / 29 woman? This question has greatly haunted me” (Kadish and Mas- sardier, 756)—reveals not only a great deal about his own refined and acute sensibility, but also attests to the primacy of gender as a marker of identity for Condé; whereas race seems to figure little, if at all, as a factor of difference for either of them. It is, of course, quite possible that Condé’s antitranslation posture is purely performative; but, if so, what is its value and what are its implications? What Condé stands for in this trans- lation couple is the irreducible difference between languages. Thus, whereas the translator, invested in global transmission and reception, considers his work to be coextensive with the origi- nal author’s work, she—dedicated to perfecting her own liter- ary style in her own tongue—considers them to be distinct. As I have said, Condé has stated her position on many occasions: that translation, being a transforming principle, doesn’t regard her, that she is “othered” in translation, both culturally and linguis- tically. Her insistence on this fact is consonant with what would seem to be the overarching message of her autobiographical oeu- vre. In a conversation with Emily Apter, which was conducted in French—“transposed,” not “transcribed” (Apter’s words) and translated into English, and which appeared in 2001—Condé puts a fine point on what I have described above: I have never read any of my books in translation… In translation, the play of lan- guages is destroyed. Of course, I recognize that my works have to be translated, but they are really not me. Only the original really counts for me. Some people say that translation adds to the original. For me, it is another work, perhaps an interesting one, but very distant from the original. (Apter, 92) Beyond the intriguing and alluring personal and domestic im- plications of Condé and Philcox as a translation couple, together they enact the ongoing, defining, and productive tension within translation studies, especially in relation to world literature and the global marketplace. Whatever the psychological source of Condé’s alienation or iconoclastic individualism, her view of translation as (1) radical difference and of untranslatability as (2) an act of per- sonal or even political resistance, actually coexists, of course—as it has throughout history—with the enduring, competing reality translation / of multilingualism. The inherent paradox of untranslatability in translation is what makes cultural memory possible. What this 30 translation couple reminds us of is that we must remain vigilant in the face of world literature’s instrumentalist, ever-serviceable view of translatability as an unproblematic given. Alison Bechdel Translation is the major operative principle in comics, defined for our purposes today as a juxtaposition of words and images that create a sustained narrative within deliberately sequenced bor- dered panels. In its particular interplay of the visual and the verbal, comics are not the verbal representation of visual art—ekphrasis— nor a representation of the world, but an interpretation; indeed, as Douglas Wolk puts it in Reading Comics, “Cartooning is a meta- phor for the subjectivity of perception” (21). Perhaps it is the pre- mium placed on personal drawing style, indeed of handwriting, in comics that makes it an especially interesting instance of autobi- ographical memory as a process of translation; since the object of our attention is self-perception and self-inscription across different cultural, social, and discursive contexts. I shall not be discussing comics or graphic narrative generally here, but graphic memoir, or what Gillian Whitlock calls “autographics” or “autographies” (Whitlock 2006, 966) as yet another variation on the theme of how techniques of translation are implicated in the act of materializing, textualizing, and visualizing the autobiographical subject. In chapter 4, which is roughly the center of Alison Bechdel’s critically acclaimed, densely and riveting inter/intratextual graph- ic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006), the author foregrounds the book’s metaperformative processes, making ex- plicit what W. J. T. Mitchell describes as “the relation between the seeable and the sayable, display and discourse, showing and telling” (Mitchell 1986, 47). The astute reader already recognizes that comics are a language; this chapter declares that the memoir is a self-reflexive mode of translation, which also situates its autobi- ographical project within a comparative network of signifying sys- tems, most overtly Modernist literature and family photographs, but also the künstlerroman and lesbian coming-out stories. The canon of references comprises Camus, Fitzgerald, James, Stevens, Wilde, Joyce, Colette, and Proust. What characterizes such a nar- rative as “intra-” as well as “inter-” textual is that the images do not only transact with words, but they also engage with each other. translation / 31 In what Hillary Chute describes as a “cross-discursive” medium, intertextuality itself is rendered figuratively/pictorially as well as literally/verbally, showing how textual and visual forms and rhe- torical strategies interact to make latent psychic matter manifest, as in dreamwork. With her deft deployment of displacement and condensation, metaphor and metonymy, Bechdel makes the reader wonder, in the spirit of Jacques Lacan, if the unconscious isn’t structured like a cartoon. Bechdel’s intricately drawn, hyperliterary account of growing up in Middle America in a hothouse of aesthetic expression and erotic repression is constructed around her complex, ambivalent relationship with her authoritarian, fastidious, secretive father who bonded with her over books—while he slyly eludes another primal identification they also shared. An expert in historic architectural preservation, director of a family funeral home business, and high school English teacher, her father Bruce died when Bechdel was nineteen, leaving her to decipher the rich but troubling legacy of similarity and difference that defined their relationship—left her, in other words, to translate the scrambled codes she inherited from him. Indeed, Bruce’s closeted homosexuality and the circumstanc- es surrounding his ambiguous death—was it an accident or sui- cide?—generate this multilayered work. If in verbal autobiography “a lived life” as mediated through memory is the source text, in an autographic work—because its medium is patently visual—the source text would be assumed to be the same; however the relation between content and form is not integrated, synchronous, or organic in comics. If anything, the contiguity between content and form calls attention to the gap between them, to the space between image and words. Indeed, a graphic memoir challenges the primacy of verbal language as the source material, however coded or abstruse, or conveyer of both self-referential and extrareferential truth about that life. Comics are certainly a form of intersemiotic translation, as defined by Ro- man Jacobson: “transposition from one system of signs into an- other, e.g. from verbal art into music, dance, cinema, or painting” (Venuti 2012, 118). But that formulation seems too one-sided for this case. Though there are clearly two systems of signs, it may translation / be impossible to determine which is the source text and which the target, on the level of verbal versus visual signs. 32 Understanding the deceptive simplicity of comics is counter- intuitive for serious readers of literature who are unaccustomed to having to process words and images within the same bounded space in a self-conscious, extensive fashion. What determines the order of reading of the panels, and how does size and shape matter? Horizontal or vertical? What about the blanks between the panels? How are they to be understood? While not exactly functioning as negative space, these blanks, called “gutters,” are also the borders outlining the images. What happens in that space? And, how is that space to be filled in? These elements are—pardon, the expres- sion—graphic reminders that comics, like verbal narrative, leave out more than they put in. It may initially seem as though the pic- tures are easier to grasp than the text, thus requiring less critical scrutiny, but this assumption does not take into account the density of information the pictures actually convey, some of which might be purely aesthetic or formalist in nature, and not content-driven or plot-enhancing at all. (No less so than in literature, virtuosity is a virtue in comics.) Thus the reader of comics who privileges the words at the expense of the images has failed to understand what is intrinsically, internally translative about comics; and, conversely, though it is necessary to possess what is known as “visual litera- cy,” that alone is also terribly insufficient for understanding com- ics. Comics are dependent on the dynamic, irreducible interplay between its verbal and visual components. Bechdel’s precise, fine-line, cross-hatch pictorial style, espe- cially her drawing of interiors, corresponds to her verbal dexterity. In terms of overall conceptual structure and design, the autobi- ography is relentlessly interpretive; experiences presented as dis- tilled or symbolic abstractions are mined not for their retrospective meaning, but for their present value as sources of speculative po- tential. “What if” begins many a sentence. Critics Hillary Chute and Julia Watson call Bechdel’s narrative strategy “recursive,” meaning that it is distinctly nonlinear, turning back in on itself, finding its closure in reversals, transversals, and coincidences (Chaney 2011, 149). In the service of creating a sustained narra- tive, not to mention a satisfying story, an autography selects and combines the panels that relate to one another associatively (that is, metaphorically) and/or temporally (that is, metonymically), as in memory. Following a series of events that Bechdel recalls, one translation / 33 of which includes an encounter with an actual snake, a panel in which she ponders the symbolism of phalluses and their creative and destructive powers, leads next to the scene, as she imagines it, of her father’s death, which occurred as he crossed Route 150 carrying a large bundle of brush and was hit by an oncoming truck. The image in the wide panel is of lush foliage—foliage is perva- sive in this narrative—lining an empty stretch of road with one lone leaf lying in the middle, suggesting her father’s last trace. The text box reads, “…You could say that my father’s end was my beginning. Or more precisely, that the end of his lie coincided with my truth” (Bechdel 2007, 117). In an interview with Hilary Chute, Bechdel refers to the entire enterprise of Fun Home as “involuted introspection,” pointing out that with the exception of the subplot of her own coming out story, “the sole dramatic incident in the book is that my dad dies” (Chute and Bechdel 2006, 1008). In other words, “the end of his li[f]e” compels a psychic and artistic internalizing process of ghostly re- membrance that can be regarded as a “retranslation of the self.” As I have elaborated elsewhere, translation in such a context of intergenerational transmission, whose knowledge is posthumous and always belated is, in the Benjaminian and Derridean sense, a passing down, a passing away, and a passing over of the foreign as well as the familiar, a living on through others, differently. The panel below the drawing of the road invoking her father’s death shows Alison and her father traveling in the family car (which is a hearse); Bruce’s eyes are on the road, while Alison’s head is barely visible as she peers out the window. The caption or text box reads, “Because I’d been lying too, for a long time. Since I was four or five” (Bechdel 2007, 117). What is the connection between these two panels? Everything hinges on the word “be- cause,” suggesting both causality and motivation. Bechdel’s mem- ory of accompanying her father on a business trip to Philadelphia, and stopping at a luncheonette, is a motivated one because, as she says, “WE [emphasis mine] saw a most unsettling sight.” Initially deprived of authorial perspective, the reader/viewer has no idea what the object of their gaze might be. On the following page, there are two unequally-sized panels. The dominant one shows translation / a masculine-looking woman wearing men’s clothes. Both father and daughter gaze at her; Alison expresses to the reader/viewer 34 the great surprise she experienced at this phenomenon. The text box below turns it into an instance of uncanny translation: “But like a traveler in a foreign country who runs into someone from home—someone they’ve never spoken to, but know by sight—I recognized her with a surge of joy.” In the panel below, Bechdel recounts, “Dad recognized her too.” In her memory, he challenges her: “Is that [author’s emphasis] what you want to look like?” (Be- chdel 2007, 118). In the next panel, on the following page, with the image of the woman writ large, she asks rhetorically, “What could I say?” But to her father, she replies, “No.” This is followed by a panel in which father drags daughter, who is still looking back, out of the luncheonette. This instance of perfect translatability—a memory trace in which both Alison and Bruce, displaced from their own familiar/ familial context, recognize another outsider not as a stranger but as someone familiar to them on the basis of an implicit, shared sexu- al/gender difference—is reconstituted as a primal scene from Be- chdel’s childhood, and one of the most charged in the entire auto- biography. The cartoonist puts a fine point on it in the next panel when she discloses to the reader, “But the vision of that truck-driv- ing bulldyke sustained me through the years” (Bechdel 2007, 119). At the moment of Alison’s “recognition,” she didn’t know what a bulldyke was; the signifier may have “sustained” her, but its sig- nification eluded her until later in life. Of course, Bechdel is pro- jecting backward: her superimposition of the term bulldyke onto the genre-bending truck-trucker announces itself as belonging to a cur- rent linguistic/cultural/political context in which gender identity is understood to be performative and provocatively appropriated. This is a current context her father did not live to fully appreciate, but one she wishes him to assume now. As Madelon Sprengnether puts it, in- voking Freud, “[M]emories from childhood vividly recalled in adult life bear no specific relation to what happened in the past. Rather, they are composite formations—elements of childhood experiences as represented through the distorting lens of adult wishes, fantasies, and desires” (Sprengnether 2012, 215). Freud’s final paragraph in “Screen Memories,” which is an in- ternal dialogue or self-analysis, an example of life-writing mas- querading as a narrative with an interlocutor, views memory as a process of construction: translation / 35 the concept of a “screen memory” as one which owes its value as a memory not to its own content but to the relation existing between some other that has been sup- pressed… It may indeed be questioned whether we have any memories at all from our childhood; memories relating to our childhood may be all that we possess. Our childhood memories show us our earliest years not as they were but as they appeared at the later periods when the memories were aroused. In these periods of arousal, the childhood memories did not emerge; they were formed at that time. And a number of motives, with no concern for historical accuracy, had a part in forming them, as well as in the selection of the memories themselves. (Freud 1995b, 126) What is at stake in this primal scene which Bechdel has recon- structed because it comes to play a determining role in her com- ing-out story, is relationality of all kinds, grounding all autobiogra- phy and translation: the relation between the visual and the verbal (between what is seen and what is not said); between a father and a daughter who witness together, and who share a sense of complic- ity, but then suppress that bond of knowledge and affinity; between recognition and self-recognition; between lying and truth-telling. It is above all the circuits of deception and self-deception that Be- chdel seeks to rewire and overwrite. Coyly titled “In the shadow of young girls in flower,” after the French title of the second volume of Proust’s Recherche, the end of the chapter calls the reader’s attention to the fact that the previous translation of À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs— Within a Budding Grove—shifts the emphasis from the botanical to the erotic. However, Bechdel interjects, “As Proust himself so lavishly illustrates, the two are pretty much the same thing” (Bechdel 2007, 109). That cavalier conflation serves Bechdel as a metaphor for her father’s love for flowers and her own devel- oping identity as a lesbian, unleashing a cluster of critical con- vergences interpreted from a current vantage point. Chapter 4, in as much as it invokes Proust’s term “inversion,” is about reading generic and gender indeterminacy, but if Proust serves as the the- matic intertext, Freud has certainly provided us with the method for understanding how the bulldyke scene functions in the nar- rative and why resurrecting this memory now is so critical for Bechdel’s enterprise. Bechdel’s father started reading Proust the year before he died, translation / and it was after his death that Lydia Davis’s retranslation of À la recherche du temps perdu came out; though she prefers the “liter- 36 alness” of In Search of Lost Time, Bechdel laments the fact that perdu and lost are not simple equivalents: that perdu also connotes “ruined, undone, wasted, wrecked, and spoiled” (Bechdel 2007, 119). Bechdel’s point about what is literally as well as figurative- ly “lost in translation” when this source word in French is trans- ferred to English, is a metacommentary on what is irretrievable. “The complexity of loss itself” (Bechdel 2007, 120) is lost, despite translation’s capacity to recuperate and redeem difference over time and even space. Some differences are irreducible variants; they belong to the realm of the untranslatable. The translation strategy that propels Fun Home, however, ul- timately valorizes affinity and proximity by domesticating differ- ence through regeneration. The last page of chapter 4 comprises two unequally sized panels, both devoted to drawings taken from a box marked “family photographs” that Bechdel found after her father’s death, including one revealing her father’s transgressive past activities with a former male babysitter. (In her interview with Chute, she attributes the genesis of this book to the discovery of this photograph.) The reader remembers the smaller top photo- graph as the snapshot of an adolescent girl posing in a bathing suit which is the chapter head image; it serves as a kind of illustration of its title, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.” This time, however, Bechdel alerts the reader that the image in the redrawn photo is not of a girl (Alison, one might have speculated), but of her young father in drag, and looking, as she says, “not mincing or silly at all. He’s lissome, elegant” (Bechdel 2007, 120). In the large panel, that top photo is mostly obscured by the text box. What grabs the reader’s attention is the juxtaposition of two portraits, and their striking similarities: one of her twenty-two- year-old father sunbathing on the roof of his frat house, the other of Alison on a fire escape on her twenty-first birthday. She won- ders if this was taken by his lover, as hers was. For Bechdel, the autographer, the uncanny resemblance between the two figures and their two poses—“the exterior setting, the pained grin, the flexible wrists, even the angle of shadow falling across our fac- es”—is “about as close as a translation can get” (Bechdel 2007, 120). Where is the original or source? What, about the structur- al or formal aspects of this strategic arrangement, calls up an act of translation, one in which the points of contact are so acutely translation / 37 identifiable? Obviously, in this visual commentary there is some- thing beyond a merely shared physical, familial resemblance, even across gender lines. Indeed, it is precisely the fluidity of sexual ori- entation, gender identification, and polymorphism à la Proust that reveals the configuring of father and daughter identities here as a transposition or displacement, alternatively, of a simple replication of difference (which is one definition of translation). Rather, Bruce and Alison are to be recognized on the page as “inverted versions of each other in the family” (Watson 2008, 135). In this particular act of intergenerational transmission which celebrates the materi- ality of self-presentation, Bechdel is memorializing a connection that was often resisted in life by both Alison and her father, but which is now reenvisioned through art. Conclusion By identifying Nabokov’s, Condé’s, and Bechdel’s autobiograph- ical projects as distinctive modes of translation, I have hoped to show that translating a life requires a particular strategy or tech- nique of self-reflexiveness. The art of self-translation, with its perils and projections, is a highly mediated and motivated act of intimacy that takes place not in a vacuum, but within a set of cul- tural determinants. By wrestling with questions of familiarity and strangeness, assimilation and resistance, appropriation and deflec- tion, the autobiographer/translator and the translator/autobiogra- pher remind us that neither life nor language is self-contained. In their very existence, autobiographies—which are translations of “experience” and, therefore, subject to infinite and relentless in- terpretation—serve as testimonies to existential lack and linguistic incompleteness. Invocations of other lives and other voices—re- pressed, resisted, and reclaimed—autobiographies are translations in search of an original. Thus it is the drive to recuperate what may be always utterly lost—because of the foreignness in ourselves as well as in languages—that endows the autobiographer/translator with the greatest agency of all. translation / 38 References Apter, Emily. 2001. “Crossover Roots/Creole Tongues: A Conversation with Maryse Condé.” Public Culture 13, no. 1: 1–12. doi:10.1215/08992363-13-1-1. Bechdel, Alison. 2007. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. New York: Houghton Mif- flin. Chaney, Michael, ed. 2011. Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on Autobiography and Graphic Novels. Madison: University of Wisconsis Press. Chute, Hillary L., and Alison Bechdel. 2006. “An Interview with Alison Bechdel.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 4: 1004–1013. doi:10.1353/mfs.2007.0003. Condé, Maryse. 2012. La vie sans fards. Paris: JC Lattès. Freud, Sigmund. 1995 a. “An Autobiographical Study.” The Freud Reader. Edited by Peter Gay. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 3–41. ––––––. 1995 b. “Screen Memories.” The Freud Reader. Edited by Peter Gay. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 117–126. Kadish, Doris Y., and Françoise Massardier-Kenney. 1996. “Traduire Maryse Condé: Entretien avec Richard Philcox.” The French Review 69, no. 5: 749–761. Lejeune, Philippe. 1989. On Autobiography. Translated by Katherine Leary. Madi- son: University of Wisconsin Press. Mahony, Patrick. 2001. “Translating Freud.” American Imago 58, no. 4: 837–840. doi:10.1353/aim.2001.0022. Mitchell, W. J. T. 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nabokov, Vladimir. 1947. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. New York: Random House. Ornston Jr., Darius Gray, ed. 1992. Translating Freud. New Haven: Yale University Press. Smith, Patti. 2010. Just Kids. London: Bloomsbury. Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson, eds. 1998. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Sprengnether, Madelon. 2012. “Freud as Memoirist: A Reading of ‘Screen Memo- ries.’” American Imago 69, no. 2: 215–239. doi:10.1353/aim.2012.0008. Venuti, Lawrence, ed. 2012. Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Watson, Julia. 2008. “Autobiographical Disclosures and Genealogies of Desire in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” In Michael Chaney, ed., 2011. 123–56. Whitlock, Gillian. 2006. “Autographics: The Seeing ‘I’ of the Comics.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 4: 965–979. doi:10.1353/mfs.2007.0013. Wolk, Douglas. 2007. Reading Comics: How They Work and What They Mean. Phil- adelphia: Capo Press. translation / 39 Bella Brodzki is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches courses in autobiography; modern and contemporary fiction; literary and cul- tural theory; and translation studies. Her articles and essays on the critical intersec- tions with and impact of translation on other fields and disciplines have appeared in a range of publications, most recently in the collection, Translating Women, edited by Luise von Flotow (2011). She is the co-editor of Life/Lines: Theorizing Women’s Autobi- ography (1989) and author of Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory (2007). Her current project is co-editing a special volume of Comparative Literature Studies entitled Trials of Trauma. translation / 40

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15520

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Autobiography/Translation: Memory’s Losses or Narrative’s Gains? Response to Bella Brodzki’s Lecture Suzanne Jill Levine University of California in Santa Barbara, USA “We translate to be translated”—translation transports the transla- tor, but also the reader and the writer, in an act that transforms one text into another. Professor Brodzki uses this quote (which was a rejoinder in my book The Subversive Scribe (1991; 2009) to “thou art translated,” a line uttered by Quince to Bottom in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream), to move onto a broader stage. From the diverse scenarios of Russia and the Francophone Caribbean, from psychoanalysis to graphic memoir, Bella (I use her first name as we are old friends) analyzes parallels between the practice of autobiography and of translation, seeking to expand the definition of autobiography by means of the code of translation. Mediating these two practices she sets out to understand the screening process of memory, how or to what extent memory both distorts and creates the truths it seeks, and especially narratives that propose to reenact memory and to represent the truth. In her lecture, Bella discusses how autobiography, like transla- tion, is a rewriting, a re-presentation. At first glance we might find this argument farfetched. After all, unlike autobiography, a transla- tion is normally a rewriting of a whole and visible text. It is not, at least on the surface, the reconstruction or restaging in coherent form of the fragments of memories of a life lived. If we look further, how- ever, we can see that a translation performs a comparable artificial resuscitation. The original language has vanished in the text’s new version; the language that replaces it works to resurrect words and phrases, wordplays and metaphors, fragments of the translator’s lan- guage and mnemonic associations, that will bring to life the original, one hopes, as one expects the same from an autobiography. Bella’s discussion departs precisely from the readerly expecta- tion that the autobiographer’s pact with the reader—like the trans- translation / 41 lator’s “sacred duty”—is to be candidly true to an original. And yet, from an essentialist perspective, the end products of both prac- tices can easily become Faustian Frankensteins. Under the aegis of Freud, who made the unconscious betrayals of the omniscient narra- tor visible to us, these betrayals are parallel to those of the translator, who can only give us approximations, never the thing itself. The first question that jumps out at me, then, is: Are we talking only about autobiography in relation to translation, or are we talking about all narrative in general? That is, is Bella’s proposal in her paper suggest- ing a narrative theory that could be applied to any narrative form, beyond verbal language and written texts? No two narratives are the same, as Borges’s very first ficcion, “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote,” his famous parable about the “anachronistic” practice of reading, written in 1939, so spectacularly tells us. This devilish commentary on commentary (as George Steiner called it) is at the center of Bella’s topic. Pierre Menard, avant-garde poet who, among his many daring experi- ments, attempts to rewrite a Don Quixote completely identical to the original, is Borges caricaturing himself as a young Ultraist. Borges’s story—supposedly written in French by an admiring dis- ciple of Menard—is a fiction that pretends to be a biography while it is (like all fiction, one could argue) autobiographical, and is not only about the absurd impossibility of the totally faithful transla- tion but also implies and reveals that it is in itself a translation. My question to Bella is, in this discursive context, is there a significant difference here between autobiography and biography vis-à-vis translation? I ask this coming, also, from my own work on a biography of Manuel Puig. The author of Kiss of the Spi- der Woman, Puig’s novels pay homage with their “dollar book” Freudianisms to Freud’s invention of the modern novel, that is, the decidedly nonobjective narrator. As both translator and biographer I have dealt with the challenges of subjectivity, memory, and inter- pretation, haunted by the pact of fidelity that such nonfiction writ- ing involves. Autobiography, biography, and creative memoir are evaluated, however, by the strength, intensity, and inventiveness of their narrative structure, of the story they construct, just as transla- tion is evaluated by its fluency, its persuasive rhetorical effect. The translation / writer of nonfiction is as dependent on literary conventions, plot, theme, character development, climax, and denouement as the fic- 42 tion writer. Truth is less of a consideration than the appropriateness of form and the success of style. Autobiography differs from biog- raphy because, as the subject and the writer/producer of the former is the same, we assume a much higher/deeper level of fidelity to the subject. However, considering that “the self is constituted by a discourse that it never completely masters”1 how different, really, are these two genres? We might define the difference this way: the biographer is situated outside of the life he or she wishes to represent and wants to work his or her way into it, while self-writing, autobiog- raphy, presents its author with the problem of being too much of an insider, needing to distance her or himself, to get far enough away to see what’s happening and what it is one actually wants to represent. My possible response to the question above can perhaps be aid- ed by my own experience. I have written an authorized biography and am attempting to write a translator’s autobiography. While the research for the biography was different from the current research for my own history, I also had to realize that my subjectivity influ- enced the biography as if it were in some way an autobiography; or, whether narrating an autobiography or a biography, I was and am never totally subjective or objective. Hence, can we agree on the translational nature of autobiography and also of other forms of narrative, fictional or nonfictional, and are we perhaps speaking of a translational paradigm for narrative in general? In “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography” Georges Gus- dorf2 examines Paul Valéry’s radical proposal that biography in or- der to be true must go beyond its traditional limits.3 I cite these thoughts on this topic here because, among other things, they also relate to Bella’s provocative discussion of autobiography and trans- lation. They also reveal an important source of Borges’s fictions and essays that highlight narrative theory and feature his antirealist the- ories of narrative art as well as his poetics of writing as translation. According to the theory of biography proposed by Valéry—whose Monsieur Teste was a direct Borgesian model, fondly parodied by 1 Michael Spinker, “Fictions of the Self: The End of Autobiography,” in James Olney, ed., Autobi- ography: Essays Theoretical and Practical (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980) 342. 2 Georges Gusdorf, “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography,” in James Olney, ed., Autobio- graphy: Essays Theoretical and Critical (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980) 41. 3 Paul Valéry, “La Vie est un conte,” Tel Quel II (1943): 348-349. The entire issue is available online at https://archive.org/stream/telquelv02valuoft#page/n7/mode/2up. translation / 43 Borges’s famous Pierre Menard as a kind of absurdly avant-garde intellectual artist—a biographer, moving between the actual life and his life-writing, would have to see through the eyes of the subject. The biographer would have to attempt to know as little of the fol- lowing moment as the subject himself would know about the cor- responding instant of his career. This would be to restore chance in each instant, rather than putting together a series that admits of a neat summary and a causality that can be described in a formula. Causality was, as we know, one of the core issues of Borges’s “Nar- rative Art and Magic.”4 Valéry’s point, as Borges sees it, is that the so-called real truth is nothing, unformed, blurred, and that therefore the original sin of biography—which we could compare with the original sign of autobiography—is to presume the virtues of logical coherence and rationalization. That is, we can extend Valery’s discussion of the prerogative of biography to that of autobiography in that the task at hand is not to show us the objective stages of a career, but to reveal the efforts of historian/biographer/autobiographer to discover or reveal the effort of a creator to give the meaning of her (or his) own mythical tale. This latter statement basically describes Freud’s attempt at autobi- ography in his “study.” On the surface he “objectively” appears to summarize his career—giving us much valuable information—but in reality he is creating his own self-myth as intuitive scientist, a myth in which, it so happens, his early work as a translator plays a major role. Bella reminds us that for Freud “la psychanalyse c’est moi.” Through her discussion we read his “autobiographical study” which reveals his influences, Goethe on Nature, and notably the Bible, which impacted him precisely because he belonged to an oppo- sitional minority as a Jew. What he read or experienced or what influenced him is more about his real feelings or interests; what he actually says about himself, is all about his ego and need for cultural power. For Freud translation was a power play, or as Bella writes, “Though he had a position as a Lecturer in Pathology in Vienna, it was his work as a translator that gained him entry into translation / 4 Jorge Luis Borges, “Narrative Art and Magic,” in Selected Non-Fictions, edited by Eliot Wein- berger, translated by Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, Eliot Weinberger (New York: Viking, 1999) 75–82. 44 Charcot’s circle of personal acquaintances and full participation in the activities at Salpêtière Clinic” (AS, Freud R, 6). (infra, 21) Ironically this personal essay says less about the man beneath the persona than his essay on screen memories or any of his funda- mental books such as The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud’s “Au- tobiographical Study” is a prime example of an omniscient narrator blind to his own subjectivity. What I personally found fascinating is that Freud, as Jewish outsider, gained entrance to the circles of cul- tural power as a translator. Curiously, I could see a similar trajectory in my own life, as a woman gaining entrance to the Latin American Boom literary circles, a world of cultural significance in my time and context, in which I took on an identity as translator and even muse, more glamorous than my own modest “outsider” Washington Heights Jewish origins. As Manuel Puig (the author whose literary texts I translated and whose life I ultimately translated into a biography) aptly put it, Freud invented the modern novel: that is, he exposed the unavoid- able limitations of the omniscient narrator, hence his importance not only to autobiography but to all writing. In Bella’s discussion, Au- tobiography and Translation come together logically and intuitively in Freud whose early work as a translator helped create his career as a scientist. By extension, his role as translator helped create the persona whose theoretical work was practically based on autobi- ographical as well as clinical reflection. Suzanne Jill Levine is a leading translator of Latin American literature, and Professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara where she directs a Translation Studies doctoral program. Her scholarly and critical works include her award-winning literary biography, Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman (FSG and Faber & Faber, 2000) and her groundbreaking book on the poetics of translation, The Subversive Scribe: Trans- lating Latin American Fiction (published in 1991 and reissued by Dalkey Archive Press in 2011), along with her classic translations of novels by Manuel Puig and her 2010 Penguin Classics editions of the works of Jorge Luis Borges. Aside from numerous volumes of translations of Latin American fiction and poetic works, she has regularly contributed articles, reviews, essays, and translations of prose and poetry to major anthologies and journals, including the New Yorker. Her many honors include National Endowment for the Arts and NEH fellowship and research grants, the first PEN USA West Prize for Literary Translation (1989), the PEN American Center Career Achieve- ment Award (1996), and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. For the translation of Jose Donoso’s The Lizard’s Tale, she was awarded the PEN USA West Prize in 2012. translation / 45

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15521

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Dalit Consciousness and Translating Consciousness: Narrating Trauma as Cultural Translation Christi A. Merrill University of Michigan, USA Abstract: How do we understand literary catharsis as a multilingual project? This paper focuses on scenes from Ajay Navariya’s short story “Subcontinent” (in Laura Brueck’s translation from Hindi) to ask about the responsibility of writers, translators and scholars in grappling collectively with the trauma of caste-based sexual violence (or what Sharankumar Limbale calls “injustices done to Dalit women.”) Put in conversation with Robert Young’s reading of Freud on cultural translation, Navaria’s story complicates straightforward understandings of consciousness as monolingual. Instead, the Hindi story in English reveals a complex connection between what Limbale and others refer to as a distinct “Dalit consciousness” and G.N. Devy’s notion of “translating consciousness” by asking us to redefine how the languaged self responds to the original trauma of being read as untouchable in the dominant vernacular. For Devy translat- ing consciousness involves rejecting binaristic colonizer–colonized hierarchies, whereas for Limbale Dalit consciousness works to fight caste hierarchies operat- ing primarily within India itself. This paper takes up Rita Kothari’s suggestion that the dominant vernacular might be just as foreign as the colonial language in order to radically rethink the dialectical relationship between the languaged self and cultural transformation. What is literature’s role in responding to the trauma of caste-based sexual violence a language away? I ask as a Hindi translator as well as a scholar and teacher of Dalit literature—of work, I should explain, that very openly claims to write from the perspective of those “oppressed” or “ground down” (as “Dalit” is usually glossed) by the entrenched system of untouchability in India.1 Dalit writers in India have been asking versions of the question I have posed 1 I gratefully acknowledge the support of a Senior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the National Endowment for the Humanities that allowed me to complete the work on this paper, as well as the NIDA/FUSP Symposium organizers and Robert Young for providing the original impetus for investigating this material. translation / 47 here within their own language traditions, and as a group seem to agree that the main purpose of Dalit literature should be to raise awareness—or as the well-regarded Marathi writer Sharankumar Limbale puts it more vividly, “to inform Dalit society of its slavery, and narrate its pain and suffering to upper caste Hindus” (Limbale 2004, 19). It is not beside the point here that I quote Limbale from his book Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature, which has been translated into English by (avowedly upper-caste Hindu and Cana- da-based postcolonial studies scholar) Alok Mukherjee. Dalit liter- ature, publisher S. Anand has pointed out, is a phenomenon in and of translation—from, to, and via English, as well as many other official Indian languages (Anand 2003, 4). Given current realities, I am suggesting here that we include postcolonial studies scholars and translators such as Mukherjee and myself in the project Lim- bale and others have begun when theorizing the purpose of Dalit literature. I propose here that we examine examples of Dalit liter- ature to think more carefully about the relationship of Translation Studies to postcolonial theory. Like many activists writing on the subject, Limbale contends that the work of Dalit literature is inspired directly by the revolu- tionary leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and can only be done by those with an explicit Dalit consciousness. A few pages later in his book on Dalit aesthetics—in a section devoted to the topic of Dalit con- sciousness—he explains: The Dalit consciousness in Dalit literature is the revolutionary mentality connected with struggle. It is a belief in rebellion against the caste system, recognizing the hu- man being as its focus. Ambedkarite thought is the inspiration for this consciousness. Dalit consciousness makes slaves conscious of their slavery. Dalit consciousness is an important seed for Dalit literature, it is separate and distinct from the conscious- ness of other writers. Dalit literature is demarcated as unique because of this con- sciousness. (Limbale 2004, 32) To ask about literature’s role in raising awareness about un- touchability as a human rights issue akin to slavery raises fun- damental questions about these points of comparison, especially when expressed across multiple languages. How might we adapt current theoretical models to understand Dalit consciousness as a translation / multilingual issue? G.N. Devy has argued that multilinguality is so central to the 48 Indian context that it requires its own theorization, one that he dis- cusses—serendipitously—as “translating consciousness.” Writing in the 1990s, Devy was primarily interested in developing a dis- tinctly postcolonial “aesthetics of translation” (Devy 2014, 163) that would inform “a more perceptive literary historiography” (165) responsive to the perspective of the multilingual user (“such as a translator” he notes) who “rends. . .open” the multiple sign systems converging in a single consciousness (164). If aesthetic production is figured in Devy’s writing with the violent imagery of rending open, “translating consciousness” itself is imagined in a friendlier fashion, as an intuitive “open” daily negotiation along a continuum of mutual understanding, that he contends—most crucially here—our monolingually-minded, European conceptual tools have not been able to theorize properly: In most Third World countries, where a dominating colonial language has acquired a privileged place, such communities [of translating consciousness] do exist. In India several languages are simultaneously used by language communities as if these lan- guages formed a continuous spectrum of significance. To conceptualize this situation is beyond European linguistics, which is based mostly on a monolingual view of language. The use of two or more different languages in translation activity cannot be understood through studies of foreign language acquisition. (165) Both Devy and Limbale suggest independently that the de- velopment of any literary aesthetic (perceptive or no) is neces- sarily ideological; moreover, when explaining how each of their approaches to the project of literary historiography differs from the mainstream, each uses the term “consciousness” to describe an alternative to the demeaning hierarchical forms of discrimina- tion a random language user encounters on a daily basis, that have become written into our own disciplinary conceptualizations. As a result, Devy and Limbale each call for a corrective literary his- toriography based on such a consciousness. For Devy, the crucial ideological difference informing a translating consciousness in- volves rejecting binaristic colonizer–colonized hierarchies, where- as for Limbale the crucial ideological difference Dalit conscious- ness works to fight is informed by the caste hierarchies operating primarily within India itself, both during the colonial period and after Independence. How might these two theories of conscious- ness be put in productive conversation with one another when translation / 49 focusing on postcolonial literary engagements with human rights struggles? I will attempt to address this larger question by reflecting on the inherent multilinguality of the translating consciousness Devy describes—whereby “several languages are simultaneously used by language communities as if these languages formed a contin- uous spectrum of significance” (65)—when it encounters caste- based discrimination. I will do this by analyzing a piece of postco- lonial fiction that details a series of shocking events experienced by a Dalit family: the short story “Upmadwip” written in Hindi by the Dalit writer and activist Ajay Navaria. I will quote primarily from the version translated into English by Laura Brueck (2012) as “Subcontinent” in an effort to vex perceived limits of language when describing violent encounters in translation. Only a few pages into “Subcontinent,” the narrator recalls a traumatic scene from his childhood in which he watches, help- less, as a gang of upper-caste men beat up his father to within an inch of his life, incensed that an “untouchable” (“achut” in the Hindi) would have the audacity to return to the village for a rela- tive’s wedding in a clean new kurta, rupees in his pocket, greeting friends comfortably, and holding his head high. Significantly, the story is framed by a tranquil domestic scene of the narrator as an adult living in an unnamed city struggling to wake from a night- marish sequence of horrific childhood memories, prompted by an impending decision over whether to return to the village once again for another relative’s wedding. The framing device is crucial for establishing two distinct perspectives on the same event: one of the adult looking back with a mixture of indignation and apprehen- sion, and the other of the innocent child offering direct testimony (albeit fictionalized) of a series of traumatic events that in their ancestral village seem to be lamentably routine. The structure of the story thus invites us to read this as a scene of initiation—into a kind of consciousness that we might not immediately recognize as a translating consciousness but are led to infer will eventually become a Dalit consciousness. How? Soon readers are introduced to a liminal dream state between waking and sleeping, past and present, city and village, and led translation / down a stepwell at the edge of what appears to be the adult nar- rator’s consciousness, invited to witness a childhood scene from 50 the young boy’s point of view as a group of high-caste villag- ers confront the father and his father’s aunt (whom the boy calls “Amma”) for forgetting “the rules and regulations of the village” (Navaria 2012, 87). The narrative structure allows readers to re- main cognizant of the adult narrator’s judgment on these “rules and regulations” while following the boy and his family through the village; this structure enables the implied author to call into question the entire system of signification the boy is being initiat- ed into. The story dramatizes why what Limbale terms “rebellion against the caste system” (2004, 32) would entail so much internal struggle, starting with the fundamental act of recognizing oneself and other Dalits as human beings equal to all others. As the scene continues, readers of the translated story are in turn asked to distinguish between the language of the past and of the present, of the village and the city, marked by the boy’s dis- comfort at the time and the adult narrator’s outrage looking back as his great aunt bows down at the high-caste villagers’ feet, assur- ing them, “They’ll never do it again in my life. They erred, having lived in the city” (Navaria 2012, 86). The narrative makes strategic use of the distance in perspective between the adult narrator (who is very conscious of the historical implications of this discrimina- tion) and the boy (who is at first shocked by what he witnesses and seemingly unable to interpret it) to map consciousness as a series of encounters with others where imperfect (even horrifying) com- munication regularly takes place. In the consciousness of the young boy these rules and regula- tions are as startling as they are incomprehensible: “Oh God, I’m done for! Maaaa! Forgive me, master, kind sir! It won’t happen again!” As Amma wailed, one of them struck her head hard with a shoe, and she cried out again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Now they were all laughing. Seeing them beat Amma with their shoes, Father tried to get up again. When they noticed him moving, they fell on him afresh. Sticks, fists, shoes—flailing without stop. I stood trembling. One of them slapped me across the face. Father was lying on the ground. Unconscious. Blood dripping, thap-thap-thap, from his forehead. A streak of blood spread all the way down his pyjama. My lip had been split open. It was still bleeding. I stood there quaking. I almost pissed my pants. It seemed like it would never end. Father lay at peace. His new white kurta was torn from his chest to his stomach. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Father’s dead, I thought. Seeing a body drenched in blood, that’s the only thing an eight-year-old can think. (Navaria 2012, 86-87) translation / 51 Here the boy is presented as being unable to interpret the phys- ical details he witnesses, even while we can feel the pressure of the adult narrator’s judgment about the situation. And the admis- sion about the limitations of the boy’s own awareness, narrated suddenly in the third person—“Seeing a body drenched in blood, that’s the only thing an eight-year-old can think”—is all the more moving knowing that the adult narrator in the present tense of the story is picturing himself in a similar situation, anticipating trying to protect his own child from similar degradations, if he decides to travel back to the village with them for an upcoming wedding. The strategy of third-person narration thus generalizes the experience of the Dalit subject. Implicitly, the story asks the reader why I, why he, why anyone should have to learn how to interpret the blood stains on their father’s still body. This is not a postcolonial translating consciousness to cele- brate. There is no triumph a few paragraphs later when the boy be- comes more adept at speaking the village language of caste-based violence: I quietly wiped the blood off my lip with my torn collar. There were no tears in my eyes. But I kept making small crying sounds, hoo-hoo, for fear of getting thrashed again if I stayed quiet. I’d quickly realized that it was better to keep up the whimper- ing in front of them. (87) How might attention to translating consciousness here help us better conceptualize Dalit consciousness as a multilingual project beyond the monolingual limitations Devy warns against? In Hindi, we can imagine this scene of calibrated whimpering is playing as much to the upper-caste Hindu readers and fellow Dal- its Limbale identified as the target audience for Dalit literature; in English translation, the readership is expanded even further, since the elite English-speaking reader in India as well as the reader abroad are similarly put on notice about the demeaning effects of the caste system, and in such a way that challenges the received colonizer–colonized binaries of postcolonial studies. Here the language of dominance we must theorize is predicated on caste, and thus suggests a more complex mapping of translat- ing consciousness than the colonizer-colonized binary. We see in translation / the English translation as well that the narrator’s perspective is multiply displaced—both at the top of the stepwell and below, in 52 the past, present, and even future of the story. Bringing together the concept of translating consciousness with Dalit conscious- ness invites us to think afresh about the ways we might map such literary language, starting with the ways we theorize the very idea of “language” in literary work. In Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature, Limbale puts par- ticular emphasis on what he calls—in the section title—“The Lan- guage of Dalit Literature,” explaining: The view of life conveyed in Dalit literature is different from the world of experience expressed hitherto. A new world, a new society, and a new human being have been revealed in literature, for the first time. The reality of Dalit literature is distinct, and so is the language of this reality. It is the uncouth-impolite language of Dalits. It is the spoken language of Dalits. This language does not recognize cultivated gestures and grammar. (33) Limbale’s assertions apply to many of the works of Dalit litera- ture published prior to this book on aesthetics, including Limbale’s own prose. In Navaria’s story, however, the hierarchies are tipped once again, since the “new world, . . .new society, . . .new human being” is waiting at the top of the stepwell in the consciousness of an urbane, multilingual Dalit man while the boy is left to grapple with the old world, old society communicating in the horrifying idiom of caste-based discrimination. However shocking this lan- guage may be to the boy as well as offensive to the narrator and ostensibly to his readers in turn, it is especially horrifying that it is not considered “impolite” in the village context of the story—the upper-caste villagers do not grant their “untouchable” neighbors that kind of respect. It is precisely the standardization of this de- grading idiom that Navaria’s story is asking us to consider. The narrative is offering a critique of this particular kind of language use, and thus we might say of the village translating consciousness depicted in the story. To understand how this critique might be inviting readers of both the Hindi story and the English translation to take part in a fraught project of recalibrating consciousness as a way of coming to terms with collective trauma, we must first think more carefully about the roles we play in the process of literary catharsis. I should admit here that I am grappling with a more specific version of the question of trauma and literary language, occasioned translation / 53 by a provocative encounter at a conference on the historiography of Dalit literature held in Delhi at Jamia Millia Islamia University in December, 2013. The conference was organized by members of the English Department and it brought together scholars from a number of different disciplines and areas of expertise along with creative writers working in a host of Indian languages.2 There were three days of sessions starting with a keynote speech by Kancha Ilaiah, academic panels, and several roundtable discussions with published writers such as Limbale and Navaria, including one de- voted to the place of translation in the reception of Dalit literature. On the particular panel I have in mind an English literature profes- sor gave a polished, impassioned paper invoking a lineup of US- based scholars on trauma and testimony urging us to acknowledge the importance of autobiographical writing as an act of individual catharsis that ultimately leads to healing; she described this pro- cess as “translating pain into language” (Abidi 2013). At the time, I see from my notes, I wondered about the relation- ship of catharsis to activism. I knew from reading Laura Brueck’s scholarship that a writer like Ajay Navaria thought of catharsis in much more politically engaged terms, as a collective, embold- ened confrontation with society. In a discussion on aesthetics in her recent book, Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Contemporary Dalit Literature (2014), Brueck explains: Dalit writer Ajay Navaria colorfully compares the realist aesthetic of Dalit literature to the necessity of lancing a cyst on the body of Hindu society. While the substance that the cyst releases may be unpleasant, its cathartic release is said to be necessary for the healing of the social body. (85)3 The difference between the two types of catharsis proposed here is crucial: in the model the conference paper presenter was looking towards, it is the individual writer who has suffered the trauma, and so it is the writer not the social body who is sick and requires healing. What difference does this make in thinking about the role of literature in healing trauma? 2 International Conference on Dalit Literature and Historiography, Department of English, Jamia translation / Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India, December 19–21, 2013. 3 Ajay Navaria’s original quote was from “Dalit Saˉhitya kaˉ Vigat Aur Vartamaˉn,” Praˉrambh (Dalit Saˉhitya Visheshank) 1, no. 3 (2004): 44. 54 In the ensuing discussion, the presenter was assailed by one imminent personality after another (speaking alternately in Hindi and in English): How does this model of therapy help us reduce intercaste violence? Are you trying to individualize Dalit experi- ence? What is the role of the reader’s subjectivity in this model? And, most vividly to me, Limbale shouted in frustration, “If my mother is being raped then I shouldn’t be crying but crying out to stop it!”It is in this context that I am left wondering—alongside the presenter and others in attendance at that conference, I am sure— about the role of literature in responding to trauma. What type of catharsis do we seek through literature, and what is the role of a translator and literature scholar in that process? Often scholars metaphorize the project of writing trauma as an act of speaking out against injustice. The assumption is a thera- peutic one, that repressed trauma and other forms of silencing are unhealthy for the subject, and that she will be free of her resulting symptoms only once she has successfully narrated and fully an- alyzed these painful memories. Robert Young has recently sug- gested that Freud consistently described such work as a process of translation—he points out that the word for “translation” in Ger- man (übersetzung) appears at least forty-five times in Interpreta- tion of Dreams alone, for instance—but in such a way that radical- ly rethinks the dialectical relationship between the languaged self and what Freud (“tantalizingly,” Young adds) calls “cultural trans- formation” [kulturelle Wandlung] (Young 2013).34 This version of “cultural translation,” Young contends, is not a simple, straightfor- ward task of “moving from text A to B, leaving text A behind, but rather moving to text B by making text A unconscious, repressed, but with A still haunting text B as its shadow and liable to reappear in disguised form at any moment” (17). I will spend a moment detailing this insight, for it has important implications for catharsis as a multilingual project, and the role of culture in mediating such a catharsis collectively. Young explains that in Freud’s writing, dream thoughts are like an “unknown language that we have to decipher on the basis of the translation” (9). Young likens the process to cracking the code of the Rosetta Stone, where you work backwards, comparing the Here Young is citing Freud 2005, 224. translation / 4 55 language you know against the one you do not, until you begin to understand the system by which meaning is made in the language unknown to you. This because for everyone—in Young’s reading of Freud—“the psyche is multilingual, alert to the constant possi- bility of using translation as a mechanism of displacement in the face of repression” (4). Even in a healthy, nontraumatized subject the psyche engages in such a process, he explains, and culture’s role is to tame a person’s natural instincts. Thus the psyche, in Young’s words, keeps itself “busy trans- lating into a foreign language that is unreadable to the indi- vidual subject him or herself” (5). Young understands Freud as suggesting that there are a number of languages converging in a single psyche, including the distinction between “dream thoughts” (in the unconscious) and “dream content” (in one’s consciousness), both of which are individual and idiosyncratic, even if internally consistent enough for an analyst to begin to recognize a pattern. Young quotes Freud as writing in The In- terpretation of Dreams: Dream-thoughts and dream-content lie before us like two representations of the same content in different languages—or, rather, a particular dream-content appears to us as a version of the relevant dream-thoughts rendered into a different mode of expres- sion, the characters and syntax of which we are meant to learn by comparison of the original with the translation. (Young 2013, 8) The role of multilingual performance is crucial in Freud’s theorizing, Young points out, given that Freud himself compared the process of decoding and deciphering dream content to Egyp- tian hieroglyphs, “whose characters need to be translated one by one into the language of the dream-thoughts” (2013, 9). The analyst is able to crack the code only after he sees how the indi- vidual, multilingual subject moves between other (conventional) languages, a technique he and Breuer began to pioneer in Studies in Hysteria, with the case of “Katharina.” Young quotes Freud as writing: “We had frequently compared the hysterical symp- tomatology with a pictographic script, which we were able to read once we had discovered a few cases of bilingualism” (132). This is a highly unusual “original”, however, when viewed in the translation / broader history of translation. “What makes psychoanalysis more than just translation into another discourse,” Young adds provoc- 56 atively, “is that psychoanalysis is translating the unknown” (8). How might such a comparison enable us to rethink Dalit con- sciousness as a multilingual project? If the job of the psyche is to “translate” or displace traumatic experiences into a language foreign to the individual subject, the work of psychoanalysis is then to interpret that idiosyncratic lan- guage and “de-translate” it back into a language she shares with her analyst, as Young explains: Psychoanalysis finds the meaning of dreams not in dreams themselves but in their invisible origins. In dreams we have only the translation: the patient and analyst’s job is to translate the incomprehensible dream-content back into its original, and then to analyze and repeat in reverse the work of translation which has transformed the first into the second. Dream-interpretation, therefore, as Jean Laplanche has suggested, is more a question of de-translation, trying to de-translate the dream back into an orig- inal that remains hidden. This is where and why the work of interpretation through association must come into play: breaking the dream-content down into its constit- uent parts one by one, and working through the dreamer’s associations, analyst and dreamer engage in the laborious work of de-translating the dream-content back into its original dream-thoughts. (10) Young’s reading of Freud insists that translation practice is at the core of our work as languaged beings (regardless of how many official languages we are said to speak), and that one of the central roles of culture is to train an individual to interpret to themselves, in a language that they share with others, the most hidden parts of themselves, such as traumatic events in the past. The case of Dalit literature is especially potent here because “culture” itself is accused of legitimizing the agents of that original trauma—not incidentally, but fundamentally. While he does not name Dalit literary examples specifically, Young does suggest that such cases are central to Freud’s work on cultural translation. Young reads Freud as a major theorist of cultur- al translation whose contributions to translation theory have import- ant implications most particularly for those translated subjects—like Dalit writers—until now often left out of our theorizing: Freud’s. . .theoretical paradigm [on translation]. . .remains infinitely suggestive. It of- fers, for example, a possible way of reading the invisible, the subaltern, those whose forms of public representation distort their fundamental being, where the invisibility or repression of subalterns in official discourses and documents from the past require translation / a de-translation exercise to make them visible in their own terms. (11) 57 Bringing together theories of Dalit consciousness with trans- lating consciousness suggests that the very prospect of shared lan- guage is exceedingly fraught, in ways that are important for the project of handling trauma through literary work. Young further hints that the project of analyzing the relationships between those languages might be key to better understanding the “original” (as trauma, or otherwise.) We see this most vividly in his reading of the case of Anna O, who responds to a childhood trauma by alternating moments of stark speechlessness (“aphasia”) with what Freud in English trans- lation refers to as “paraphasia,” switching into languages (English, French, Italian) foreign to Anna O’s own mother tongue of Ger- man. Following Freud, Young uses this example of an upper-class woman to show how suspicious the psyche itself remains general- ly of culture’s role in taming one’s instincts. We see in Anna O’s case that being highly cultured only serves to make her subterfug- es more elaborate, and the work of the analyst (not to mention the nurse who tended her) that much more demanding: The paraphasia receded, but now she spoke only in English, yet seemed to be un- aware of it, and would quarrel with the nurse, who was, of course, unable to under- stand her. Not until several months later did I manage to convince her that she was speaking English. She herself, however, still understood her German-speaking envi- ronment. Only in moments of great anxiety would her speech fail her completely, or she would mix up all kinds of languages. She would speak French or Italian at those times when she was at her best and most free. Between those periods and those in which she spoke English lay complete amnesia. (29) The case asks us to rethink the fundamentals of cultural trans- lation as a languaged relationship between individual and collec- tive, especially since the collective itself is figured as a plurality of overlapping language domains. Young’s reading calls into question the very notion of a discrete “mother tongue” as source of a stable cultural identity, and echoes ongoing debates surrounding Dalit ex- amples. For instance, in a 2013 article—“Caste in a Casteless Lan- guage: English as a Language of ‘Dalit’ Expression”—Rita Kothari complicates any simple understanding of English as a co- translation / lonial language, arguing that for writers and translators working with Dalit texts—like the poet Neerav Patel, whose example she 58 focuses on—English offers a more compelling alternative to re- gional vernaculars. Patel’s choice to write in English, rather than Gujarati, she suggests compellingly, “is animated by the misery of unwanted memories of language, and a desire to erase that mem- ory” (Kothari 2013, 65). Kothari refers to a soon-to-be-published essay Patel wrote in response to a public query: “Who (all) can claim Gujarati?” (64) Kothari explains: If standard Gujarati, Patel argues, is as distant and alien to dalits as English, he would rather embrace English, and use it to replace his “mother tongue,” thus making En- glish what he calls his “foster-tongue.” By being foreign, English does not normalize and legitimize caste, and by being an ex-colonial language with global reach, it be- comes empowering. (61) I have suggested elsewhere that English is not in fact casteless, that the language’s encounters with caste started early in the colo- nial encounter—I use the example of “pariah” whose first usage in English is 1613 (Merrill 2014, 262). However, here I am more interested in the ways Patel’s critique of his “mother tongue” in re- lation to English introduces an important perspective on Dalit con- sciousness as translating consciousness. As Kothari’s discussion of Patel’s critique makes clear, the imperative of Dalit conscious- ness is to redefine the very domain of language and its relationship to collective memory: An acclaimed poet and critic, Patel attacks the homogeneous idea of a “mother tongue” in India. Although this may seem a separate issue from English, it is very im- portant to see how the idea of an Indian language that alienates the dalits and colludes with the upper castes in normalizing caste discrimination shapes the dalit response to English. The specificity of the case below provides a much-needed elaboration of this operation to bring home the fact that Indian languages do not constitute for all Indians a proud inheritance, which “globalization” and similar invasive forces may allegedly besiege. This is essentially an upper-caste view and luxury; those who wish to redefine themselves must do so by abandoning this inheritance and embracing English. (65) While this seems neither Patel’s nor Kothari’s point, I would suggest that in the process Patel is also inviting us to rethink the very meaning of translation. Young, too, in his reading of Freud, asks us to rethink the en- terprise of translation as a relational exercise between language and memory, as we see in his discussion of the case of Anna O: translation / 59 Cultural translation, in Freud. . .is not a process by which the former text or elements are ever entirely left behind, but one in which the new text always remains doubled and haunted, its translations perpetually remaking themselves, the translated text per- petually seeking to revert to its original, like a ball held under water. The different languages, as in the dream, remain perpetually present. In some sense, therefore, according to Freud we live in two or more languages at once. This bi- or multilin- gualism in which, as it were, like Anno O., we read one language but translate it simultaneously into another, can illuminate how, in this model, the general sense of loss in translation modifies its gain—for while in cultural terms much is gained, in the individual this gain produces at the same time a constant sense of unease, of dis- ease, malaise, of “cultural frustration,” cultural denial, or as we might say today, of cultural dislocation. (Young 2013, 17-18) Young is implying that every language is haunted by a series of unconscious memories, be they individual or collective. His star- tling proposition is that the ensuing struggles to articulate difficult truths—to find apt language for these invisible “originals”—put productive pressure on whatever languages we have in common. We might then surmise that every speaker has a translating con- sciousness that holds within it (“like a ball held under water”) the potential for radically rethinking the possibilities of the lan- guage(s) she speaks. How might this complex understanding of the relationship between translation and consciousness apply to literary work? According to Limbale, one of the features of Dalit conscious- ness is the ability to identify with any injustice ever visited upon any member of the group. While detractors contend that such a stance results in literature that is predictable or propagandistic (charges his translator Mukherjee renders in English under the ru- bric of “univocality”), Limbale defends such politicized identifi- cations instead as a sign of cohesion and thus of strength, since it allows individuals to read a host of traumatic experiences visited upon Dalits as part of a programmatic effort at group discrimi- nation: “Social boycott, separate bastis, wells, and cremation grounds; inability to find rental accommodation; the necessity to conceal caste; denial of admission to public places; injustices done to Dalit women; dragging and cutting of dead animals; and the barber refusing to cut hair—these experiences are alike for all Dal- its” (Limbale 2004, 35). Limbale’s emphasis here is less on direct translation / experience of such injustices, and more on the daily acts of inter- pretation that renders someone part of the very category deserving 60 such discriminatory behavior. Understood this way, “original trau- ma” begins with the possibility of being read as untouchable by others; acknowledging that reading of untouchability subsequently then becomes part of one’s consciousness as distinctly and defiant- ly “Dalit.” Approaching Dalit literature through Young’s reading of Freud on “cultural translation” helps complicate and thus confound any simple glosses of the terms in play. If we look more close- ly at Young’s proposition that cultural translation is not a simple, straightforward task of “moving from text A to B, leaving text A behind, but rather moving to text B by making text A unconscious, repressed, but with A still haunting text B as its shadow and liable to reappear in disguised form at any moment,” then we might infer that all language speakers sharing an idiom of discrimination like the caste system are haunted by a text A such as “injustices done to Dalit women.” I will spend a moment pursuing this proposition through a later scene in Navaria’s story, in large part because it resonates with Limbale’s outburst that day: “If my mother is being raped then I shouldn’t be crying but crying out to stop it!” And in the process helps us rethink the theoretical categories by which we too might read such a scene. There is a suggestion early on in “Subcontinent” that sexual violence in the village has been ongoing and systemic, to the ex- tent that many “untouchables” are themselves offspring of a union (directly forced, or manipulated) between a high-caste man and an untouchable woman. We see this referenced directly in the story when the narrator makes clear that he himself is related to one of those high-caste thugs in the village who are beating up his father: “‘Pandit-ji, it’s not even her husband’s. It’s her lover’s. This bas- tard child is Harku’s!’ He was pointing at Father” (Navaria 2012, 87). The passing comment seems to affect the character of the pan- dit, who at first appears ready to protect the boy’s father, possibly because he is related to Harku. Even though this is another in- stance where the adult narrator looking back seems to understand the implications of this moment more than the child narrator, the narrative reveals the turmoil this causes on the young narrator’s part. As a boy, the narrator tells us, he held out hope the pandit would take pity on them, but was soon to be disappointed. Not only does the pandit bond with the high caste thugs, joining in with translation / 61 the verbal and physical humiliation, but he later seems to be the one to take advantage of Amma. The scene of Amma’s further humiliation comes late in the sto- ry, after the violence has escalated even further, when high-caste members of the village take umbrage over the groom daring to ride a horse to the door of his bride and they attack the wedding party with lathis. The boy falls down unconscious—the significance of this is important for this study—and we watch him in retrospect try to put language to the ongoing village drama he has witnessed: When I opened my eyes, it was still dark. An oil lamp was still burning in the hut. My aunt was sitting near the smoldering stove. The wedding party had left. . . . My head was throbbing. Someone had tied an old piece of dhoti around it. I don’t know when I dozed off again, but a woman’s shriek shocked me awake. I made haste to get up, but as soon as I rose, a blow struck my back, and I fell on my face. Half outside the hut, half inside. “Fucking city boy, if you move, I’ll unload a bullet in your skull,” someone yelled, tilting my face up with the muzzle of a double-barreled gun pushed into my jaw. To my right, a few feet away, I saw, beneath the white, dhoti-clad bottom of a pale pandit-god, the darkened soles of someone’s feet flailing and kicking; swinging on the back of this pale pandit was a fat, snake-like top-knot. . .and another scream. Terrified. Uninterrupted. Splitting the sky in two—chhann! (95-96) Like the boy in the story who lies halfway out of the hut, wa- vering between consciousness and unconsciousness, the charac- ter of the woman being violated too has no language at the ready to defend herself with—she can only flail and kick and scream. Navaria’s rendering of the scene raises unsettling questions about the very meaning of consciousness, and how language—any lan- guage—plays a part in making and remaking that consciousness. In this scene we have a series of confusing, upsetting pairs: the boy being threatened by an unnamed gunman, the “pale pandit-god” riding a woman we only know by her flailing dark feet, and then the “fat, snake-like top-knot” and the disembodied scream, which seem to emanate from the entwined bodies. At this heightened moment of violence, the boy and the violated woman can share no words of support, or mutual understanding, can only each submit to those who have enough power over the language to demand silence of the others. And yet, the treatment of this scene translation / of sexual violence as the boy’s memory, of a moment that haunts him as an adult, delineates how someone who is witness to vio- 62 lence (even a form of violence he may never experience directly) might be traumatized, in exactly the way Limbale has argued. If we then pursue the implicit analogy between Anna O. and the narrator of “Subcontinent,” we might begin to formulate a more nuanced understanding of translating consciousness when we con- sider carefully the process by which a traumatized Dalit subject struggles against aphasia. The fact that languages like Hindi and English have a mechanism in place for silencing both the subject who experiences the rape and the boy who witnesses it, puts a lie to the contention that it is only the individual subject who is haunt- ed by these violent incidents in the past. Instead, the language cultures themselves might be understood to be haunted, and the moments of paraphasia an indication of the ways such hauntings do not dwell in discrete language domains. Navaria’s story helps us understand how an act of translation (in both the commonly-un- derstood sense, and also with Young’s more specialized meaning) might reveal the ways simply being part of a language community unthinkingly we might be part of the process of repression. Taking seriously the project of Dalit consciousness, read in terms of an active translating consciousness, might afford us a more complex understanding of literary catharsis. translation / 63 References Abidi, Shuby. 2013. “Dalit Autobiography as Scriptotherapy.” International Confer- ence on Dalit Literature and Historiography, New Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, December 21. Anand, S. 2003. Touchable Tales: Publishing and Reading Dalit Literature. Pondi- cherry, India: Navayana. Devy, G. N. 2014. “’Of Many Heroes’: An Indian Essay in Literary Historiography.” In The G. N. Devy Reader. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan: 4: 1-225. Freud, Sigmund. 1999. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by Joyce Crick. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freud, Sigmund, and Josef Breuer. 2004. Studies In Hysteria. Translated by Nicola Luckhurst. New York: Penguin Books. Kothari, Rita. 2013. “Caste in a Casteless Language: English as a Language of ‘Dalit’ Expression.” Economic and Political Weekly, XLVIII (39): 60–68. Limbale, Sharankumar. 2004. Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations. Translated by Alok Mukherjee. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Merrill, Christi A. 2014. “Postcolonial Issues: Translating Testimony, Arbitrating Justice” In A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter. London: John Wiley and Sons. 259–270. Navaria, Ajay. 2012. “Subcontinent.” In Unclaimed Terrain. Translated by Laura Brueck. New Delhi: Navayana. Young, Robert J.C. 2013. “Freud on Translation and Cultural Translation.” Unpub- lished manuscript of paper delivered at the NIDA/FUSP Symposium in New York, September 20. Christi A. Merrill is an associate professor of South Asian Literature and Postcolonial Theory at the University of Michigan, and author of Riddles of Belonging: India in Trans- lation and other Tales of Possession (Fordham University Press, 2009). Her translations of the stories of Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha, Chouboli and Other Stories, were co-published by Katha (New Delhi) and Fordham University Press (New York), and won translation / the 2012 A.K. Ramanujan Award. She spent the 2013-14 school year in India on an NEH/AIIS Senior Fellowship researching her latest book project, Genres of Real Life: Mediating Stories of Injustice Across Languages. 64

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Translating Talkies in Modernist Mexico The Language of Cinemas and the Politics of the Sound Film Industry Valeria Luiselli Hofstra University, USA Abstract: During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the first ‘talkies’ appeared in Mexico, and many new cinemas were built or adapted from older buildings in order to accommodate this paradigmatically modern entertainment technology. Until the 1920s movies were mostly screened in makeshift spaces –in private houses, old theaters, circuses and even churches. Then, in the early 1920s, the first ‘cinema palaces’ started to appear, and by the late 1930s there were around fifty new or newly adapted movie theaters specialized in featuring talkies in Mexico City. These movie houses were an emblem of spectacular modernity. They are also, as I argue, a clear example of ‘translation spaces’ in their ma- ny-layered complexity. I discuss a relatively wide range of translation practices, from dubbing and the politics of film translation in early foreign sound films in Mexico, to the role that the first movie theaters played as stone and concrete ‘translators’ of the modern experience of sound films, to the appropriation of old spaces and their repurposing for the new technologies, to the way that the- aters that were built in particular ‘languages,’ such as the International Style and the Streamline modern, constituted a form of ‘temporal’ translation. 1. Movie theaters in the age of sound: an introduction During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the first “talkies” appeared in Mexico, and many new cinemas were built or adapted from older buildings in order to accommodate this paradigmatically modern entertainment technology. Until the 1920s, movies were mostly screened in makeshift spaces—in private houses, old the- aters, circuses, and even churches. Then, in the early 1920s, the first “cinema palaces” started to appear, and by the late 1930s there were around fifty new or newly adapted movie theaters specialized in featuring talkies in Mexico City (Hershfield 2006, 265).1 These 1 Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of material evidence in magazines and newspapers re- garding the construction of theaters, as compared to the great amount of information regarding films and actors. Among news such as “Tarzan has divorced his wife” and “Chaplin is in love translation / 65 movie houses, as the architectural historian Fernanda Canales has written, were “an emblem of spectacular modernity” (Hershfield 2006, 180). The first sound movie theaters are also, as I shall ar- gue, a clear example of translation spaces in their many-layered complexity. Research on cinemas both from the perspective of architec- tural as well as cultural history remains scarce in relation to other areas of focus in both film studies and architectural history. Often, film historians ignore the spaces in which films were screened, and architectural historians tend to disregard the history of film when they deal with movie theaters. Although film criticism does not fall within the purview this paper, and I will not focus on any film in particular, I do want to place my architectural analysis and discus- sion of movie theaters within the specific context of the arrival of sound film technology in order to discuss the relationship between the modern architectural language of movie theaters and some of the dominating cultural politics of the burgeoning sound film in- dustry in Mexico. I am particularly interested in the question of whether these two things worked in consonance or, on the con- trary, were in dissonance in relation to the discourse of modernity or in creating a “sense” of being modern. Considering the spaces that were created with the arrival of sound film from an architec- tural perspective, and focusing on a small group of movie theaters, I intend to discuss the various senses in which translation practices took place within these new spaces, and how such practices con- tributed to a wider discourse of modernity. Did both cinemas and the film industry have a parallel evolution in terms of how they subscribed parameters of modernism? Did they play a similar so- cial and cultural role in their contribution to the formation of ideas of modernity? I will discuss a relatively wide range of translation practices, from dubbing and the politics of film translation in early for- eign sound films in Mexico, to the role that the first movie the- aters played as stone-and-concrete “translators” of the modern again” (Cinelandia, December 1932), as well as propaganda for new equipment for the new film theaters, advertisements which sell cheap and reliable English lessons, ads for new Kodak translation / cameras and new Clarion radios, and so on, propaganda for film theaters or news about them is, with few exceptions, notably absent from magazines when the inauguration of theaters are announced. 66 experience of sound films, to the appropriation of old spaces and their repurposing for the new technologies, to the way theaters that were built in particular architectural “languages,” such as the International Style and the Streamline modern, constituted a form of temporal translation.2 The way I approach these differ- ent practices and spaces, in turn, encompasses a hermeneutical approach to cultural practices, a phenomenological reading of building typology, and a more distant reading of buildings within the cityscape. My approach to translation, moreover, is tied to the quintes- sentially modernist distinction between foreignization and domes- tication. Modernist translation practices must be distinguished from what is conceived more generally as translation. The 1920s and 1930s were decades of experimentation with composition and translation. As the critic Lawrence Venuti writes, modernist translation practices, which had their philosophical root in nine- teenth-century philosophy, treated translation as an art and a source of innovation: The main trends in translation theory during [modernism] are rooted in German literary and philosophical traditions, in Romanticism, hermeneutics, and exis- tential phenomenology […] Nineteenth-century theorists and practitioners like Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm von Humboldt treated translation as a creative force in which specific translation strategies might serve a variety of cultural and social functions, building languages, literatures, and nations. At the start of the twentieth century, these ideas are rethought from the vantage point of modernist movements which prize experiments with literary form as a way of revitalizing culture. Translation is a focus of theoretical speculation and formal innovation. (Venuti 2000, 11) Far from being a means of passively importing foreign liter- atures and adapting foreign languages to local ones, modernist translation as “formal innovation” constituted a form of active 2 Although the term “International Style” started to be used more frequently in the 1930s, it usu- ally refers to the language that architecture started using in the 1920s, and which became the emblematic style of modernism in architecture. Buildings designed according to the principles of the International Style are typically devoid of unnecessary ornamentation, are rectilinear, conceive exteriors as a result of interiors, and rationalize form and function. The Streamline Moderne style, which became widespread in the 1930s, draws on fundamental principles of the International style but merges it with Art Deco elements, such as the use of curved lines, horizontal planes, and references to nautical and aerial shapes. translation / 67 foreignization of the domestic (vis-à-vis domesticizing the for- eign), by which the foreign “contaminated” the domestic and thus pushed its limits further, while at the same time blurring the boundaries between the so-called “foreign” and the “domes- tic.” Seen in this light, modernist translation practices are ones in which translation was not merely conceived as an accurate ren- dering of a source language into a target language or a vehicle for explaining the foreign or making it more accessible or palatable to the local readership, but as a way of appropriating new forms and thus a creative locus of innovation. The term “translation practice”, moreover, in the context of Mexican cultural history can help us move beyond the passive categories of “reception” or “influence,” common to canonic literary and cultural studies, and allow us to focus on modernist cultural production in terms of exchanges. 2. Subtitles, dubbing, versions, and talkies: a hermeneutical approach to the horizon of a new soundscape Translation and dubbing were a fundamental part of the begin- nings of the sound film industry. By the end of the 1920s, the film industry had entered into a crisis and sound film was initially not being received enthusiastically around the world by leading fig- ures in the industry. Chaplin had said that talkies were “ruining the great beauty of silence”, (Maland 1989, 113) and Luigi Pirandello wrote in his well-known essay, “Will the Talkies do Away with Theater?”, that American’s “cheerful arrogance” regarding the ad- vent of sound films was not something to really be worried about, because talkies were nothing but a “poor reproduction of theater” (Bassnett and Lorch, 156). But beyond its reception among prom- inent intellectuals and public figures, the crisis was also economic, and related to the world financial crisis. In 1932, the magazine Cinelandia, which was simultaneously published in Mexico and Hollywood, featured a piece titled “La gran crisis del cine” [The Great Crisis in Film] discussing the crisis in the industry and ad- judicating the reasons for such crisis to the advent of talkies. The piece recounts, in a rather alarmist tone: translation / Hollywood producers are receiving, from all over the world, definite data confirming the reduction of income from ticket sales in all the cinemas in every city, in every country in the world. To tell the truth, we must add that the downward trend in pop- 68 ular interest for the cinematographic spectacle did not start with the world financial crisis: it is older than that and goes back to the exact moment in which sound and spoken film first came onto the international market. (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 17)3 With the arrival of sound films in Hollywood in the late 1920s one of the many problems the American film industry faced was preserving its cultural and economic hegemony over the rest of the world. Governments were enforcing protectionist laws guarding against linguistic “invasion.” Countries such as Argen- tina immediately banned movies spoken in English. Even in the UK, audiences started to protest against movies being spoken in “American.” In Mexico, one of the most influential newspapers, El Universal, gave rise to an aggressive campaign against the new movies spoken in English, calling the governments through- out the Spanish American continent to ban movies in English. By the end of the 1920s, 90% of the silent films screened in Mexico were made in the US, and the Latin American audiences could not understand the new sound films (see Hershfield 2006, 264). The working classes did not speak English, and the elites mostly spoke French as a second language, not English. A good part of the Mexican elites as well as columnists and journalists sup- ported the campaign in the vast majority of national print me- dia. They seemed to agree that English would overtake Spanish if Hollywood’s “pacific invasion” was not stopped by banning movies in English, and they contended that Spanish would soon become a dead language if the masses started identifying English as the language of entertainment. Although a few publications, such as the monthly Continental, responded aggressively to El Universal’s campaign, this anti-English movement was initially quite successful, at least among the elites and public intellectuals (see Reyes de la Maza 1973). When the negative reaction to sound film became a universal response, Hollywood entrepreneurs finally decided that they had to do something about it. The first solution they attempted was to make silent versions of the new sound films, strictly for foreign ex- 3 This quote, as well as much of the information regarding the late silent and early talkie eras, is taken from Reyes de la Mazas 1973, which is a compendium of articles from leading Mexican publications in 1929–1932. I will be quoting many articles from this compendium; all translations translation / into English of the original articles are mine. 69 port. This proved to be a complete failure in the entire world (Mora 1989, 31) as audiences wanted to partake in new technological advances and silent films were seen as a thing of the past. The sec- ond solution was to subtitle films, but countries had demands that were sometimes difficult to meet, as well as particular, local de- mographic realities. The Mexican president Emilio Portes Gil, for example, ordered that there should be “absolute Castilian purity in the language and subtitles of foreign films” (Garcia Riera 1992, 13), which was impossible as the people involved in subtitling were Spanish speakers from different Spanish-speaking countries now living in Los Angeles, and there was no way to conserve the Spanish “purity” demanded by Portes Gil. Moreover, in 1930, the percentage of analphabetism in Mexico was 65% (Vidal 2010, 20), so the majority of the population was unable to read film subtitles. The third entrepreneurial strategy was to dub original Holly- wood films. This, likewise, proved inadequate, as many specta- tors detested the monstrous disembodiment that the still precar- ious methods of dubbing entailed. Finally, at least in the case of films destined for the Spanish-speaking world, it was decided that Hollywood would produce “versions” of the original films, using actors that could speak Spanish fluently. They imported writers, technicians, directors and, of course, actors from Spain and Lat- in America to play the parts of the English-speaking “originals.” These actors were called the Hollywood Hispanics—and were vir- tually linguistic stunt doubles. Or, perhaps, these Spanish-speaking actors can be seen as full-fledged dubbers: they not only leant their voice to the “original” but their entire body. A truly remarkable translation feat of sorts: Hispanic cinema became Hollywood’s Spanish-language copy or version of itself. From their beginnings, Hispanic films failed to convince au- diences—as if their particular form of translation proved to be too simplistic and unsophisticated for modern spectators. The au- dience was perhaps aware that either they were not watching an entirely original film and that the actors they were seeing were most often not part of the venerable star-system. In fact, a Spanish newspaper published a sarcastic note “thanking” Hollywood for ridding them of so many untalented, unemployed actors and taking translation / them over to the USA (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 23). The film critic Luz Alba wrote a piece titled “Growls in Spanish” where she stat- 70 ed that the voices of the actors were “so emphatic and what they say is so stupid that one has the impression of being in a tent dra- ma, where one could at least recur to the final resource of throwing the chairs at the actors—something impossible to do at the cinema Olimpia because the chairs are glued to the floor” (cited in Reyes de la Maza 1973, 180). Moreover, people were disgusted with the myriad Spanish accents, vocabulary, and idiomatic twists on the screen, where Mexicans, Spaniards, Argentineans, and Cubans played roles not necessarily corresponding to their accents. Before Hispanic sound films even arrived in Mexico, a film critic using the pseudonym of Don Q, who worked for the Spanish-language, New York-based magazine Cine Mundial, stated in 1929 that the diversity of nationalities and even races to which those improvised actors belong is such that their films will look like salads, mixing a variety of accents and eth- nicities—something that could be tolerated in scenes that can lend themselves to a cosmopolitan interpretation, but which will lead to more than a few flops. (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 191) Indeed, Hispanic films only lasted a few years, soon proving to be an absolute commercial flop.3 Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s last attempt to keep hold of the Latin American and Spanish market was to get Hollywood’s best actors to speak a little Spanish. Laurel and Hardy, as well as Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, all made shorts in Spanish and, though these fared better with educated audienc- es—at least in Mexico—than the movies featuring Hollywood His- panics, they did not do not well enough for entrepreneurs to persist in this last, rather eccentric endeavor (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 25). The theaters these subtitled, then dubbed, and then remade ver- sions were screened in were originally designed for silent films, and were, in turn, often older buildings—churches, convents, or old theaters—sometimes precariously and sometimes creatively “translated” or repurposed for cinema. One of the most emblem- atic spaces for film screenings in the early 1920s was a former sixteenth-century convent, which, in 1922, reopened with the rath- er bombastic name Progreso Mundial (World Progress). The old courtyard, typical of colonial architecture, was used as the primary 3 By 1939, after approximately 175 talkies, Hispanic films ceased to be produced (García Riera 1992, 14). translation / 71 sitting space, and the original stone arcade, traditionally plain and unadorned, was heavily clad with ornamentation. A second story had to be built to fit more spectators, for which slim iron pillars had to be placed between the seats (Alfaro 1997, 55). Progreso Mundial circa 1922. Most of these theaters had to be refurbished once again at the in the late 1920s and early 1930s, this time to accommodate new sound film technology. The Teatro-cinema Olimpia was the first cinema in Mexico to screen a talkie in 1929—eight years after its inauguration.4 Before this, in the early 1920s, it had been used si- multaneously for plays and silent films. The talkie that was shown was The Singing Fool. Before it played, the theater screened a short showing the Mexican consul in New York directly address- ing Mexicans and congratulating Warner Brothers for their inven- tion. Then, before the main screening, both the Orquesta Típica Mexicana and the New York Symphonic Orchestra were shown 4 Previously, the sound film (but not talkie) The Submarine had been screened in the Teatro Im- perial, in April 1929. An ad in the Universal read: “The Teatro Imperial, conscious of its program in constant progress and keeping ahead of its competition, will offer for the first time this great translation / advance of human invention […] Come to listen to the clamor and feel the anguish of a sinking submarine. Listen to the sounds of the depths of the ocean. Today, two shows, one at four and the other at eight” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 76). 72 playing a selection of musical pieces. The directors of the Olim- pia, in conjunction with Warner Brothers, had also produced a free magazine with information about the “wonders of the new form of entertainment” as well as a translated transcription of the movie’s dialogues (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 80). The premiere, apparently, was such a success that soon the campaign launched by El Univer- sal was drowned by the clamors of “the masses”.5 The Olimpia was designed by one of the most important early cinema architects, Carlos Crombé.6 It was built inside the shell of an old hotel, which had, in turn, been built in a vegetable gar- den on the grounds of the first Franciscan convent built in Mexico City in the 16th century. Its interiors were originally designed ac- cording to the elegant neoclassical eighteenth-century Adamesque style, which had seen a revival among the middle classes in the late nineteenth century and up to the 1920s.7 There were two dancing salons, one smoking room, and two vestibules (Alfaro 1997, 25). The elegant and often opulent interiors of movie theaters were a common denominator at the time. The logic behind this was to give the upper middle classes as immersive an experience for their money as possible, and help them forget their mundane, everyday life for a few hours. As a description of the movie theater in the magazine Cine Mundial read: “The Aristocratic Cinema Olimpia, refuge for families when on cold winter afternoons tedium stabs with its sharp blade, enchanting retreat […] has come to fill a vac- uum which had long been felt in Mexico’s good society” (Cine Silente Mexicano/Mexican Silent Cinema, translation mine). 5 It is interesting to note, reading the different articles about movies published at the time, that the opinion of intellectuals was almost always in contrast to what seemed to be the response of the “masses” to innovations and entertainment. 6 Carlos Crombé was a rather prolific cinema architect by the standards of the time in Mexi- co. In the 1920s he built several teatro-cinemas, in varied “conservative” architectural styles, ranging from Beaux-Arts façades typical of the Porfirian era such as his famous Cine Odeon, to Adamesque interiors, and even Churrigueresque exteriors (a Mexican adaptation of Baroque) in his well known Teatro Colonial (1940). His later cinemas, such as the Cine Alameda (1936) and his modernization of his own earlier Cine Olimpa (1941) were very different to those of the 1920s. The Cosmos, Crombé’s last project, which burnt down in 1946 just before its official inauguration, was closer to art deco and was perhaps meant to signal another version of modernity, perhaps closer to functionalism, in its sobriety. It was certainly the most modern of Crombé’s cinemas—it was closer, at least, to International Modernism—but it was the last he designed, as he died shortly after it burned down. 7 The Adamesque style, developed by the Adam brothers in England, became fashionable in the mid- to late-eighteenth century and is usually considered an offshoot of neoclassical design and architecture. It simplified baroque and rococo, but was still heavily ornamental. translation / 73 Teatro-Cinema Olimpia circa 1921. There are various translation practices at work in the example of the Olimpia’s screening of The Singing Fool. Even if the movie itself was not subtitled—a translation practice that, as I said ear- lier, had been banned by presidential orders—or dubbed, even if it was not a Hispanic “version” of an “original,” several interest- ing and rather inventive translational strategies were being used to bring the first talkie closer to its non English-speaking audience. First, the film’s dialogue was printed out and distributed free to patrons, which would seem to imply that it was expected to be read after the show, as a sort of consecutive or “delayed” translation. Then, there was the initial appearance of the Mexican consul in New York, who, in his role of cultural and diplomatic translator, was attempting to both bridge the two cultures that were about to engage in a possibly alienating encounter and also to fully sanc- tion—politically, that is—the screening of a movie in a language that was treated by many with great suspicion. Further, and most translation / importantly in architectural terms, the movie was being premiered in one of the oldest, most elegant and well-established movie the- 74 aters—a choice of setting which perhaps sought to convey an aura of traditional legitimacy and normality for the public. Through all these different practices or strategies, the Olimpia was to all ex- tents functioning here as a translation space. But how was the Olimpia’s role as a translation space inter- preted by others? In the Revista de Revistas, a highly popular pub- lication of those times, the critic Peinbert refers to the Olimpia as “one of our best salons” and says that through these salons “Mex- ico will be irremediably invaded by talkies in just a few months” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 86). Similarly, in the Universal the ed- itor and critic Carlos Noriega Hope wrote that “Yesterday it was the Olimpia that was paving the way; tomorrow it will be all the cinemas in Mexico […] Not a month will pass before mute films are inexorably exiled to the barrios. Everything will be filled with cries, musical synchronizations, and words in English” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 137). Another critic, Eugene Gaudry, complained about the screening at the Olimpia saying that it would inaugurate a time of great cultural confusion where eventually “the foreigners that come to Mexico will not know what the national language is, because they will be seeing movies in English, French, German, Italian, Denmarkese [sic], and so on, with no Spanish translations” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 171). Gaudry was of course exaggerating, but his complaints and concerns must have been shared by many, because a year later, in 1930, the managers at the Olimpia devised a mechanism which allowed for the insertion of explanatory Spanish text or titles be- tween scenes in foreign movies. The Olimpia was famous for its endeavors in translating as much as possible for their audiences. The critic Luz Alba noted in an article that “talkies at the Olimpia have many titles, more than those strictly necessary to understand the general issue, and just enough to understand the details— something that does not occur in talkies at other theaters, which only have enough titles to understand generalities” (Reyes de la Maza 1973, 200). Indeed, movie theaters such as the Olimpia were the sites that were helping translate or carry over a new modern experience to the Mexican audience, and this modern experience went beyond the technology of sound in film: it was also the experience of foreign languages and voices coming into the city’s soundscape, translation / 75 Teatro-Cinema Olimpia circa late 1920s. through the screens of these movie theaters. Whether viewed as enablers of a new invention or as “traitors” that would allow the talkies to come in and take over, these translators made of concrete and stone functioned as the material portals for foreign languag- es to come in and “foreignize” the soundscape of Mexican movie theaters. 3. Translation, tradition, and entertainment: a phenomenological approach After an initial period of resistance on the part of the Mexico City elite, in which many columnists and critics voiced their concerns and hesitations regarding sound film technology, it was clear that the talkies had come to stay. In the early 1930s, the Mexican film industry consolidated and producers started to invest funds and translation / human capital in new technologies and, of course, in producing Spanish-language talkies. 76 One of the first optical sound devices for film was in fact in- vented by a young Mexican man who was living in Los Angeles with his family at the time. His name, like the names of many remote national icons, has an almost cinematographic ring to it: José de Jesús “El Joselito” Rodriguez. In the back room of the bakery his parents owned he had been working for two years on a sound-on-film device that would adapt to any camera and be easy to transport. He finally completed the last adjustments to the Rodriguez Sound Recording System in 1929. It weighed less than twelve pounds and was purportedly adaptable to any camera cir- culating in the industry. As the story goes, he sat his family around a projector and activated it. To his family’s surprise, a horrifying, cacophonic, almost diabolical melody gushed out, in synchrony with the image of a few people moving their mouths rhythmically on the home-made screen. Joselito then stopped the mechanism, made a few adjustments, and tried again. What came out the sec- ond time around was the Mexican national anthem. Apparently, in the first try, he had set the mechanism the wrong way around, and what his family heard was the national anthem being sung backwards. Early sound films relied on a sound-on-disc technology, in which the sound heard during a film screening had been recorded onto a phonograph record that was physically separate from the film. The technology was flimsy and unreliable: not only did the two components—sound and image—seem disconnected, but they would often desynchronize completely, producing mass confusion and irritation in early spectators. The decisive technological step for the sound film industry was the fusion of both the sound and visual components of the movie in an optical sound device, lat- er called sound-on-film technology. Although initial experiments with the new technology took place in the early 1920s, the first full feature film with integrated sound was The Jazz Singer (1927). It was in that same year that Joselito Rodriguez began to develop his new device, which he imagined could be used in the burgeoning Mexican sound film industry and thus set Mexico at the forefront of international talkies. At the same time as Joselito was working on his device, in around 1930 a Mexican producer put together a crew and began working on a project that would lead to the first Mexican opti- translation / 77 cal sound film, Santa. Joselito, who probably knew he stood slim chances of getting a proper interview with film magnates, stalked the film’s producer, Juan de la Cruz Alarcón, at Los Angeles air- port. Alarcón was on his way back to Mexico, returning empty handed, after an unsuccessful trip to Hollywood in which he tried to acquire a sound-on-film technology device: they were all too costly and impossible to transport. Accompanied by his brother, Joselito approached Alarcón and secretly filmed and recorded their brief airport conversation, in which he told the producer of his latest invention. He was unsuccessful in settling any deal with him, but he at least managed to get his contact information down and record the whole encounter. A few days later, he mailed the reel to Alarcón back in Mexico. The recording met and surpassed Alarcón’s expectations. It was a done deal. Just a couple of weeks later, Joselito and his brother, Roberto, were repatriated and began working on Santa in the newly built studios of the Compania Na- cional Productora de Peliculas. Santa was premiered in 1932, in Mexico City’s newly renovat- ed Cine Palacio. The Palacio was finished in 1924 and renovated in the late 1920s to screen sound films. But what did this renovation consist in? Did sound film technology affect the architectural lan- guage or style of movie theaters beyond the necessary adjustments to their interiors? Interestingly, the renovations to the Palacio were also external: the theater perhaps had to send the message to its audiences that they were fully committed to modernity and they were as modern as the technology they housed. In a comparison of the two façades it is possible to notice some of the typical changes that architecture underwent during the de- cade. In the renovated cinema, the straight lines that once met the pinnacles framing the center façade were replaced by a stepped rooftop, more typical of the art deco style of the late 1920s in Mex- ico, making the building look taller and, especially, differentiat- ing it from the straight-line horizontal façades of both neocolonial and Porfirean art nouveau architecture. The exteriors of the Cine Palacio were also conditioned for the more striking form of film propaganda that started to flourish towards the end of the 1920s, which often made use of vertical edge-lit signs and likewise used translation / the marquee for placing film posters. There is, unfortunately, little published material about the the- 78 ater’s interior transformation or on what adaptations the film’s technicians had to do in order to screen Santa in a theater that was not initially built for talkies. The only mention in publications to its interior is that it was “modernized”—which probably means that the art nouveau ornamentation was “upgrade” to art deco (see, Cine Palacio circa 1924. Cine Palacio late 1920s. translation / 79 for example, García 2002). In short: a new technology demand- ed a new appearance, internal and external. Modernity demanded an integral makeover, a full translation of a space into its modern version. An urban melodrama of sorts, Santa was based on a best-sell- ing novel written at the close of the nineteenth century by the Mex- ican writer Federico Gamboa. It tells the story of a woman from the countryside who arrives in Mexico City and is forced into pros- titution. Modern Mexico city is portrayed as a threatening, cruel space, where well-intentioned people are treated harshlly. As the critic Joanne Hershfield writes regarding Santa, “the film affirmed the conservative discourse that idealized tradition […] and criti- cized the modern paradigm of progress” (Hershfield 2006, 268). It is somewhat interesting, in this light, that the storyline chosen to inaugurate the Mexican talkie—a format using technology that was spearheading modernity and progress—should come from a conservative nineteenth-century novel. It is also interesting that this conservative film was screened in a newly renovated, modern, art-deco movie theater. What can we make of the apparent décal- age between a movie and the theater that screened it? It must be noted that the example of the conservative Santa screened in the modern Palacio is by no means an exception. Most commercial movies made in Mexico during the 1930s—and well into the 1950s, the period in which the country entered its cine- matographic Golden Age—were no less conservative and tradi- tionalist. As Hershfield notes, “whether they were set in historical or contemporary contexts, these films exalted traditional values of patriarchy, the family, the macho hero, and virtuous, submissive femininity” (Hershfield 2006, 269). The fundamental reason for this is that the State was deeply involved in film production and distribution in Mexico, and therefore also had a “say” in its con- tent.8 The same is not true of the relationship between the State and movie theaters themselves.9 Theaters were seen as lucrative 8 As Susan Dever writes regarding the film industry and the star system, “Within Mexico these stars negotiated a relationship between spectators and the State, indoctrinating viewers in the rights and duties of Mexican citizenship. (Given the Mexican Government’s subsidy of the film translation / industry, making the State the producer of Golden Age cinema, this relationship was particularly well defined)” (Dever 2003, 12). 9 There is no evidence whatsoever that most film theaters received money from the State, as op- 80 spaces of entertainment, not places destined to educate the Mexi- can population. While successful films at the box office were usually the most conservative ones, Mexican cinemas in the early 1930s tend- ed toward a gradually increasing radical modernity. They were more experimental than their content (that is, than the films they showed), more forward-looking and more committed to a sense of modernity—however they interpreted this. In other words, if cinemas in the 1930s pointed toward the future, the content they screened mostly pointed toward the past. How, then, should we read the resulting tension? Can it be read as a tension between form and function? That is, a tension between modernity in form and conservatism in function? Or perhaps their function was not at all to conserve values through conservative movies, but simply to entertain and make money. In that case, how did their form con- tribute to the parameters and box office exigencies and how was this, in turn, gauged against the State’s own exigencies regarding the pedagogic, civilizing purpose of Mexican commercial films? The phenomenological assumption regarding the interrelated- ness of an aesthetic experience and the physical aspect of the space in which such an experience takes place may or may not be entirely accepted—the degree of the interrelatedness can certainly be ques- tioned in a space such as a theater, which disappears as soon as the lights go off and the show begins—but what is unquestionable is the fact that the architects of movie houses made stylistic choices which were necessarily tied to a taste informed by a preconception of what a space such as a cinema should “say” to its patrons. In his lecture “Of Other Spaces,” Foucault describes the mov- ie theater as a space that encloses within it a multiplicity of spaces. He explains the multiplicity of spaces enclosed in a movie theater posed to hospitals, schools, public housing, stadiums, universities, and public buildings. There were powerful families in the construction business—the Espinosa brothers, the Alarcóns, and of course, the controversial American tycoon William Jenkins—who had ties with the govern- ment and who would eventually hold a monopoly on Mexican film theaters. There were also politicians involved in theater construction and ownership, such as former president Abelardo Rodríguez. But none of this means that there was no public money, or at least honestly invested public money, in the business. Many reasons may explain the absence of the government in film theater construction and management. The short answer, however, is that theaters simply did not need it. As opposed to national film production, theaters had plenty of material to screen and plenty of patrons to entertain—a simple matter of supply and demand. translation / 81 through the figure of the heterotopia: “The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces […] thus it is that the cinema is a very odd rectangular room, at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of a three-dimensional space” (Foucault 1984, 6). But what Foucault fails to do is to see the “very odd rectangular room” as anything more than just a box in which the experience takes place. He does not, in other words, regard the physical space of the theater as any- thing more than a sort of container. Cinemas, however, are much more complex in terms of their production of space than an “odd rectangular room.” The spaces in which films were seen provided a setting in which the viewers received their dose of entertainment within the bracket or “slices in time” (Foucault 1984, 6) which the experience of movie-going entailed. Palacio Chino late 1930s. Perhaps the clearest historical example of a conscious stylistic choice is that of the atmospheric cinemas, which were in vogue in translation / movie theater architecture in the United States in the 1920s and which sought to recreate exotic spaces. Such was the case of the 82 Palacio Chino (built in the late 1930s and inaugurated in 1940), which featured pagodas, Buddhas, and golden dragons in its par- ticular rendering of the atmospheric style. It was built in an old ball court, and designed by Luis de la Mora and Alfredo Olaga- ray. The critic Luis Helguera describes its interiors as built in “at- mospheric style, with pagodas, temples, and gold Buddha statues amid gardens. The ceiling was vault-like, not flat but very arched, and of course was painted deep blue. The screen was protected by a heavy black curtain, with Chinese motifs painted upon it. The screen arch was very heavily decorated, with dragons appearing here and there” (Heguera). Mexican architects of the atmospheric style followed the precept conceptualized by Charles Lee—“the show starts on the sidewalk.” They had attractive marquees, striking façades, and, in short, designed spaces that would bolster the “illusion” of the cinema, where the mind, leaving the real behind, was finally free to gambol and became more receptive to entertainment. Movie theaters, as spaces, can then perhaps be seen as a medium that, due to its “otherness,” helped transmit the illusion of cinema to its viewers. Whether this otherness was just a gleaming modernity, as in the case of the Cine Palacio, or whether it was set as an entire il- lusion, as in the case of the Palacio Chino, the point was that movie theaters were much more than just “odd rectangular rooms.” Going back to the question of form and function posed earli- er, how can we read the coexistence or juxtaposition of Mexican movies—conservative, and mostly realist and traditionalist—in these modern, “other” spaces? Perhaps by rephrasing this appar- ent dichotomy in terms of how movie theaters function as transla- tion spaces we can make better sense of it. In a “foreign” space of sorts, in a space that was utterly “other”—due to its modernity, its ornamental exuberance, or its atmospheric illusions—what peo- ple went to see was themselves; or even an older, more traditional version of themselves. A space “outside of time” and “outside of space”—a modern space of entertainment and illusion—thus func- tioned, paradoxically, as a sort of mirror of reality. In other words, a space that was foreign made the domestic visible. The patron or viewer, upon entering the other or foreign space of the movie theater, became a translator. A translator of what, ex- actly? A translator of him or herself for him or herself. The movie translation / 83 theater, inasmuch as it created an illusion or sense of being else- where, estranged the patron from his reality and from himself: he was in a foreign space of sorts. Then, the movie itself—a movie such as Santa, which in turn realistically depicted the reality “out- side” the space of the movies—made the patron face him-/herself. Translation spaces such as movie theaters were not just gateways for foreign languages and cultures, as I explained in the example of the Olimpia’s foreign talkie screenings, but also functioned as mirrors—spaces in which viewers come to see themselves reflect- ed in that other “version” of themselves in the context or against the backdrop of a space that was foreign and other, much like the translator who is always “strabismically” looking simultaneously at the foreign text and at her or his own. Moviegoers thus travels outside themselves and outside their domestic, local reality to re- turn to themselves. 4. New monumentality in the cityscape: building typologies and the urban layout By the mid 1930s, the Mexican film sound industry had entered its Golden Age. The number of films produced in the country had increased exponentially (see Mora 1989).The same was happening in many other parts of the world, as the advent of sound film and the language/translation problems it had created were partially re- solved by countries creating and investing in their own film indus- tries and producing films in their national languages. Paradoxically, however, while the film industry was becoming more and more fragmented into linguistic regions, the “interna- tional language” of theater architecture became more and more consolidated and unified. As the national film industry grew in Mexico in the 1930s, Spanish-language films were being screened in spaces that were increasingly trans- or international in terms of their architectural languages and styles. In this sense, it could perhaps be said that cinemas internationalized their content, how- ever “local” it may have been. Spectators seeing a movie about the most local of themes—be it the Mexican Revolution, Mexican urban poverty, or the Aztec past—were doing so in an interior that could just as easily be in Vienna, Buenos Aires, or Chicago. translation / But what about the relationship of these movie theaters to their surroundings? That is, how can movie theaters be understood as 84 translation spaces within the urban space they occupied and how can this relationship shine a different light upon their cultural and social role? In the 1930s, monumental sound movie theaters began to be built. These were not just adaptations of older buildings, but constructions whose function was, from the outset, to house sound films. Beyond their bold architecture, which contrasted with the older and more sober buildings in Mexico City and thus set them apart as grand palaces of entertainment, their monumental size also marked a dramatic shift in the appearance of the city, which had always been horizontally low-rise. One of the most interest- ing examples of modern cinema monumentality was Juan Segura’s Cine Hipódromo, housed within the Ermita building. Ermita building circa 1931. translation / 85 Cine Hipodromo, Ermita building. translation / Ermita building circa 1931. 86 The Ermita was a dramatic intervention in the cityscape. It was the first “skyscraper,” albeit only an eight-story one. Seen from the acute angle where Revolución and Avenida Jalisco meet, the building resembles a large ship sailing north. On its ground lev- el are spaces for small businesses, integrating the street-life into the building. Along its southern façade, a big entranceway, which makes resourceful use of the building’s triangular shape, opens into a cinema. On top of the cinema are three stories of apartments. Since Segura could not use columns inside the cinema, he had to think of a way of making sure the structure would support the three stories above. He therefore opted for structural steel and construct- ed an innovative steel structure around the cinema in order to se- cure it from the weight above, as well as to sound-proof it. He also used reinforced concrete in beam designs and roofs, as well as for minimal cladding purposes and ornaments—all of which were an integral part of the building (Toca 1997, 170). Although the Ermita was finished by 1931, the Hipódromo, did not open until 1936. Its inauguration poster depicted “the masses” crowding around the new, towering building. Teatro Cine Hipodromo inauguration poster, 1936. translation / 87 Other examples of modernist monumentality were Francis- co J. Serrano’s projects. He designed and modernized at least ten cinemas in the 1930s, some of which, in his own words “left be- hind their jacal [hut-like] appearance and became modern spaces” (Alfaro 1998, 58). One of his most important buildings, the Cine Encanto, was inaugurated in 1937, and loomed high above the sur- rounding buildings of the San Rafael neighborhood. Its art deco façade featured a heavily lit marquee, an enormous portico, and a striking sign at the top with the theater’s name written in deco typography. The vertical cement walls, forming a right angle with the central area of the façade, accentuate the height of the con- struction and the stretched glass-block vertical windows through which the light from the interior shone outwards, thus accentuat- ing the chiaroscuro suggested by the walls. The interiors of the Cine Encanto were modern and spare com- pared to the more lavishly ornamented theaters of the early 1920s. translation / Cine Encanto circa 1937. 88 The Streamline Moderne vestibule, with its curving forms, long horizontal lines, and round ship-like windows can be seen as a reaction to the earlier sumptuous interiors of movie palaces and at- mospherics, and a natural reflection of modern architecture’s ten- dency towards simplicity and economy of space and materials. Its vestibule, moreover, played with the ambiguous border between the inside and the outside, by integrating an interior garden and Cine Encanto (interiors) circa 1937. Cine Encanto (vestibule). translation / 89 using openings in the roof to allow plenty of natural light to flow in during the day or for the night sky to be seen from inside. One of the most interesting aspects of both Juan Segura’s and Francisco Serrano’s work is precisely that it raises the question of how modernity was being interpreted by these “independent” architects of the new film theaters.10 Segura and Serrano designed two of the first cinemas constructed specifically as sound cinemas. These movie theaters were no longer adaptations of constructions dating from an earlier period, they were not mere “upgrades” from art nouveau to art deco, and they were certainly not like the opu- lent, lavishly ornamented atmospheric palaces. Indeed, in the mid and late 1930s, movie theater architects would draw more and more on this interpretation of modernity and modernism and move towards more sober, less eclectic forms, building cinemas devoid of superficial ornamentation and maintaining a tighter relationship between form and function.11 But these movie theaters were also imposing new monuments to modernity, towering high above the city’s older buildings. They were as much places destined for seeing something (a movie) as places made to be seen. They were visible from afar; they loomed large, like the admonition of a possible future city, from below. These new buildings introduced a new time: the time of the “now” as a “future.” The time of the thoroughly, universally modern. If modernist translation practices were a form of foreignization of the domestic, those new movie theaters, in the local context where they appeared, must have seemed utterly foreign or oth- er—not by virtue of bringing in elements from a particular foreign country or region, as International Modernism and the Stream- line modern style were in essence extraterritorial, but by virtue of introducing a foreign time into the city’s traditional time. Their “otherness” was a “futureness.” If translation is a transportation, a transference, a carrying over, what these monuments to modern- ism translated was not any particular content, but the sense of time itself. 10 By independent, I mean that their work was not, as was the case with so many realms of ar- chitectural and artistic production—film certainly among them—funded by the Mexican State. translation / 11 As Maggie Valentine explains, “seemingly anachronistic ornate architecture and design dis- appeared from the buildings. Both [film and film theater architecture] were stripped of their artificial decoration in favor of a more honest […]) examination of life” (Valentine 1994, 6). 90 References Alfaro Salazar, Francisco Haroldo. 1997. Espacios distantes—aun vivos: las salas cinematográficas de la Ciudad de México. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. ———. 1998. República de los cines. Mexico City: Clio. Cine silente méxicano/Mexican Silent Cinema. S.v. “Cine Progreso.” http://cinesilen- temexicano.wordpress.com/?s=cine+progreso. Dever, Susan. 2003. Celluloid Nationalism and Other Melodramas: From Post-Rev- olutionary Mexico to fin de siglo Mexamérica. The Suny Series in Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video and in Feminist Criticism and Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press. Foucault, Michel. 1984. “Of ther Spaces. Utopias and Heterotopias.” Translated from the French by Jay Miskowiec, originally in Architecture /Mouvement/ Continu- ité (October). Available as pdf download at http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/ foucault1.pdf. García, Gustavo. 2002. “Adiós al Olimpia.” Letras Libres (October): 101–102. García Riera, Emilio. 1992. Historia documental del cine mexicano. Vol 1. Guadala- jara: Universidad de Guadaljara. Heguera, Luis. N.d. S.v. “Palacio Chino.” http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/ 13383http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/13383. Hershfield, Joanne. 2006. “Sreening the Nation.” In Mary K. Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis, eds., The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940. Durham: Duke University Press. Maland, Charles J. 1989. Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Mora, Carl J. 1989. Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–1988. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reyes de la Maza, Luis. 1973. Cine sonoro mexicano. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Toca, Antonio. 1997. “Origins of Modern Architecture in Mexico.” In Edward Buri- an, ed., Modernity and the Architecture of Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. Valentine, Maggie. 1994. The Show Starts on the Sidewalk: An Architectural History of the Movie Theatre, Starring S. Charles Lee. New Haven: Yale University Press. Venuti, Lawrence. 2000. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge. Vidal Bonifaz, Rosario. 2010. Surgimiento de la industria cinematográfica y el papel del Estado de México 1895–1940. Mexico, D.F.: Miguel Angel Porrúa. translation / 91 Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City, and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. She is the author of Sidewalks, a collection of essays, and the internationally acclaimed novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth. Her work in fiction has been translated into more than twenty languages, and she has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, Frieze, Granta, the New Yorker and McSweeney’s. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and lives in New York, where she teaches at Hofstra University. Photo: Zony Maya. translation / 92

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Translating At the Edge of Empire: Olha Kobylianska and Rose Ausländer Sherry Simon Concordia University, Canada Abstract: The edge of empire is a mythical place which has inspired the histor- ical and literary imagination. As the easternmost city of the Habsburg Empire, Czernowitz was a product of a particular kind of border culture, one which sus- tained an intense relationship with the German language. In the multilingual matrix of the years leading to the collapse of the Empire and during the interwar period, translational relationships were developed through German. The cases of the Ukrainian writer Olha Kobylianska and the German-Jewish poet Rose Auslander are considered here. The edge of empire is a mythical place that has long stimulated the historical and literary imagination. The Roman Limes—which encompassed a vast area that included Britain (up to its northern, Atlantic reaches), continental Europe right across to the Black Sea and down to the Red Sea, and North Africa as far west as the Atlantic coast (see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/430)—probably provide the most pervasive material traces of the walls, ditches, forts, fortresses, watchtowers, and civilian settlements that sepa- rate Empire from its barbarian outside. But the waxing and waning of innumerable empires over the course of world history—from the Greek and Mongol to the Habsburg, British, and Ottoman em- pires—have offered an abundant supply of objects and narratives, images and fantasies, a recent example of which is the Star Wars game called “The Edge of the Empire.” An expression of imperial power at its highest point (bringing the full might of military force to bear against the enemy without), the edge of empire is also, because of its physical distance from the imperial center, a place where identities can become diluted, where the precise dividing line between inside and outside can be- come troubled. This paradox is richly exploited in J. M. Coetzee’s translation / 93 1980 novel Waiting for the Barbarians. It tells the story of a dis- abused middle-aged magistrate who chooses to end his days in a lazy imperial outpost, spending his free time carrying out his own archaeological digs. Largely indifferent to the bellicose aims of his military superi- ors, he comes under suspicion of collusion with the enemy. He has excavated a cache of slivers of wood that all seem to have some sort of message written on them, but the writing is ancient and im- penetrable and he has been unable to decipher the message. When he is forced, however, to provide the meaning of these writings, now considered crucial evidence, the magistrate suddenly finds words to transmit the messages he reads from the slips: appeals from barbarian prisoners to their families—intimate and immedi- ate and alive. Through his “translation,” the magistrate transforms the bar- barians from aliens into individual beings. He blurs the line that separates the enemy from the citizen, and he opens gaps in the Em- pire’s line of defense. And in fact the Empire never does achieve victory. The barbarians simply lure the army out into the desert and then vanish. Faithful to the genre of “the barbarian and the frontier”—classically drawn by Dino Buzzati in The Desert of the Tartars and powerfully evoked by Cavafy in the poem also called “Waiting for the Barbarians”—the barbarians in Coetzee’s novel are elusive. The moment of direct confrontation, feared and de- sired, never comes. The link between present and past, self and other, suggests Coetzee, is an imaginative leap, a gesture of volun- tary projection. Coetzee’s novel will be our entry point into another site of translation at the edge of empire. This is the city of Czernowitz (to- day’s Cernivtsi in Ukraine), the most easterly city of the erstwhile Habsburg empire. Abundantly mythologized as a border city, as a cultural bulwark against the alien forces from the east, the city provides rich material for a study of translational forces. Its geo- graphical situation but also its cultural vocation as a border city during the period of the military collapse and the reorganization of the Habsburg border lands offers a singular viewpoint onto the work of translation at the edge of empire. In what follows, I will translation / examine the work of two Czernowitz authors—Olha Kobylianska (1863-1942) and Rose Ausländer (1901-1988)—as translators of 94 their border city. Like Coetzee’s magistrate, they find the borders enacted by translation to be shifting and elusive. To translate at the edge is to be especially aware of the ways in which boundaries can accentuate or attenuate difference. Political borders hyposta- tize cultural and linguistic differences, while geographical borders often show difference to be gradual. The multilingualism of border zones problematizes the activities of translation as source–target transactions. Whether applied to a huge geographical expanse or to the microspaces of the multilingual city, the operations of trans- lation at the border are shaped by the special pressures of the in- terzone. This means that the frames of language exchange must be recast to respond to more subtle understandings of the relation be- tween language, territory, and identity. How do the competition and animosities, but also the shared references that inevitably flourish in multilingual geopolitical contexts, shape translation (Meylaerts 2013)? Languages that share the same terrain rarely participate in a peaceful and egalitarian conversation: their separate and compet- ing institutions are wary of one another, aggressive in their need for self-protection. Cultures of mediation are shaped by the social and political forces which regulate the relations among languages. Building the bulwark Today the Bukovina is largely situated in Ukraine. From 1774 until 1918, this area was the easternmost edge of the Habsburg empire that the emperor Joseph II consciously and vigorously constructed as a buffer zone in order to protect his territories from Russian and Ottoman expansion (Colin 1991, 7). He actively promoted the settlement of Germans from Austria and southwest Germany, as well as the Germanization of Ruthenians and Roumanians, the two largest language groups in the Bukovina. Over the course of the nineteenth century in particular, for both German-language empires (the Prussian and the Habsburg), “the East” exerted tremendous fascination. From 1848 to 1918, central Europe was crisscrossed by conflicting imperial projects, each marked by its own real and imagined borders and the constant pressure to defend newly conquered expanses of territory. The ar- eas that became known as the “eastern Marches” were increasing- ly important in public consciousness. The term “March”—origi- nally indicating the border provinces of the Carolingian Empire, translation / 95 granted a privileged political status in order to fulfill their duties in defending and expanding the Empire’s boundaries, and used only sporadically in the first half of the nineteenth century—became a catch-phrase (the OstMark) after 1848 (Thum 2013, 44–59). And in the second half of the nineteenth century, a new kind of highly ideologized novel later called the Ostmarkenroman emerged, pop- ularizing the idea “that a battle over territory was taking place in the eastern borderlands between the representations of a superior German civilization and their Slavic enemies” (Thum 2013, 48). As Pieter Judson has so convincingly demonstrated, these border zones were not “natural” zones of conflict, in particular of language conflict. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, they were, rather, strategically targeted by nationalist ideologists and enlisted in the struggle for patriotic allegiance (Judson 2006). “Na- tionalist activists” took every opportunity to transform rural con- flicts into national ones (10). In particular, campaigns around the language of schools were used to mobilize energies for nationalist causes in what Judson calls the “nationalization of the language frontier” (17). From 1848 onwards, Czernowitz had an increasingly Ger- man-language population. Many German-speaking Jews settled in the major Bukovinian cities and by 1918, 47 percent of the pop- ulation of Czernowitz was Jewish. “Since Bukovinian Jews were German-speaking and particularly loyal to the Habsburg monarchy and instrumental in its expansion in that region, Austrian officials tended to consider them representatives of the Habsburg empire” (Colin 1991, 7; see also Hirsch and Spitzer, chapters 2 and 4). Proof of the importance of Czernowitz for Austria and the German language came with the founding in 1875 of Franz Josef Univer- sity—a coveted boost to the intellectual and cultural life of what was considered by many to be an outpost of imperial life. While the town had its military garrisons to protect the city from attack, it also had its linguistic ramparts. By 1875, for example, in order to conform to the empire’s own language laws guaranteeing the use of a national language when numbers justified it, Lemberg univer- sity in the Galician city was giving all its courses in Polish—so the Empire had to exert its efforts at Germanization elsewhere. translation / The university in Czernowitz was the Empire’s first new universi- ty in fifty years (Judson 2016, 321). The new university, won for 96 Czernowitz over intense competition from other cities—notably Trieste—was the result of relentless lobbying by a noble landown- er from Bukovina who argued that only German scholarship could claim universality and that it would ensure an integrative function in this multilingual zone of empire (322). The University reflected the Empire’s broader political and ideological aims. When in 1866 Austria lost its traditional political hegemony in Germany, the liberal empire sought a renewed sense of mission in Europe. In the 1870s, the exploration of cultural diversity seemed to offer the foundations for a renewed Habsburg civilizing mission directed specifically to eastern and southeastern Europe, including the Bal- kans. In its earliest incarnation, this new mission for the empire focused its civiliza- tional energies on the existing crownlands of Galicia and Bukovina. The founding of a university in Czernowitz in 1875 offered early elaborations of Austria–Hungary’s new civilizational mission to the east and of it ideology of unity in diversity. (Judson 2016, 318) It is to be noted, however, that the new university did have the first professorships of Romanian and Ukrainian literature. What does multilingual mean? Like other cities in Central Europe—large cities like Budapest and Prague (where German was the first, then the second, language) (see Spector 2000), or smaller cities like Vilnius, Lviv, Riga, Danzig, Bucharest, Timisoara, Plovdiv, or Trieste—Czernowitz was intense- ly multilingual. What made Czernowitz different from other cities in Galicia, where Polish was dominant (for instance in Lemberg or Vilna), is that there was no one Christian national bourgeoisie which dominated in Czernowitz. Ukrainians (also known as Ruthenians) and Romanians were both a significant presence in the city, but the fact that neither was dominant in the city gave greater prominence and autonomy to the Jewish, German-speaking, population (Cor- bea-Hoisie cited in van Drunen 2013, I , 3, 34). The multilingualism of Czernowitz is today often remembered in a benign, nostalgic mode. Despite the violence of both World Wars and the repressive regime which ruled in the interwar period, memories of pre-World War II Czernowitz are often cast in a very rosy light—evoking the cosmopolitanism of a lost Mitteleuropa. Time and again, the character of Czernowitz’s language landscape is reiterated as a trademark symbol of the city—equivalent to a translation / 97 landmark or tourist attraction. City guidebooks, postcards, and similar popular materials praised the coexistence of separate but happily coexisting ethnic communities. This refrain was accentu- ated by pronouncements for instance by Rose Ausländer on the four-languaged town she grew up in (“Viersprachig verbrüderte Lieder in entzweiter Zeit,” Ausländer 1976, 72) or Paul Celan’s oft-quoted salute to his “city of books” (Hirsch and Spitzer 2010, 32), or the many memoirs by former inhabitants of the interwar period that evoke a long period of relative harmony—even against the backdrop of rising Romanian nationalism and anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1908, a visitor to the city, Yitzchak Peretz (1852–1915 wrote “We stroll in the evening streets, and from dif- ferent windows the tones of different languages waft out, all dif- ferent kinds of folk music”, in (Olson 2010, 33). Peretz conveys what seems to be a conventional aural impression of the city—that of a harmonious music wafting through the air and captured with pleasure by the evening stroller. The myth of Czernowitz that issues from this image of happy polyphony has increasingly come to be critiqued in light of the easy idealizations it fosters. This image allowed German-speak- ing scholars, for example, to have Czernowitz stand as a site of pre-Nazi German pluralism, a safe haven in German historiogra- phy (Menninghaus 1999). It promoted a nostalgia industry which pitted a perfect “then” against the flawed “now,” though little proof was given beyond the same repeated phrases. A more nuanced por- trait of intercultural relations is therefore required. What kind of relations existed among the city’s various language communities? Following the outpouring of publications which, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has opened research in this area of the world (see the excellent review of the literature by van Drunen 2013). I will bring translation studies into the discussion. How can the view from translation illuminate the field of language relations in the city? A first move is to view the city not as multilingual but as trans- lational. What is the sense of this distinction? Multilingualism calls up a space of pure diversity, a proliferation of tongues and of parallel conversations, without concern for the interactions among translation / these languages. The translational city looks for connections and convergences across language and communities, connections that 98 indicate direction (to and from which languages) and intensity (Si- mon 2012). It follows, then, that the translational city is not always a site of peaceful and friendly transactions. It includes the refus- al to translate, zones of silence and resistance. And so translation could be broadly defined as “writing at the intersection of languag- es,” writing under the influence of, in the company of, with and often against, other languages. A detailed examination of urban translation practices, such as those provided in Michaela Wolf’s pioneering study of translation in the Habsburg monarchy, distin- guishes between the formal practices of translation dictated by the Empire’s language laws and the myriad informal practices of trans- lation which were part of daily life—the domestic servants and ar- tisans who had to learn to serve in German, the tradespeople who had to learn German terminology, the informal exchanges through which children would be sent to neighboring villages of the empire to learn the languages across the border (Wolf 2012, 2015). Re- storing multilingual transactions to the streets of Habsburg cities, showing how these cities were in many ways precursors to today’s multilingual diasporic and postcolonial cities, Wolf’s study also confirms that translation practices were dominated by the power of German and therefore by translation into German. Literary trans- lation in Czernowitz also followed this pattern. Translation out of German, however, followed a different path. Whether in relation to Yiddish or Ukrainian, writers chose not so much to translate works in that direction as to abandon German in favor of a new writing language. Literary interactions Literary translation was a popular activity in Czernowitz, particu- larly in the interwar period. In her introduction to a book on Paul Celan, Amy Colin (1991) details the myriad activities of transla- tion which were undertaken by the participants in the active literary milieus of the city. These include Alfred Margul-Sperber’s Ger- man translations of British (T. S. Eliot), French (Apollinaire and Gérard de Nerval), and American (Robert Frost, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Wallace Stevens, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and e e cum- mings) modernist poets as well as American Indian texts. Imman- uel Weissglas translated Eminescu’s famous poem “The Morning Star” into German and Grillparzer, Stifter, and parts of Goethe into translation / 99 Romanian. There was also indirect translation—with Romanian and Ukrainian poets influenced by German authors and inversely. Authors writing in German often used motifs from Romanian and Ukrainian folklore and translated important historical and literary texts from one language into the other (Colin 1991, 11). The writ- er who is at once exceptional and yet who best exemplifies the culture of mediation which issued from the multilingual matrix of Czernowitz is Paul Celan (Nouss 2010). Celan’s displacements from Czernowitz to Bucharest to Paris, his poetic memorialization of the Holocaust, his negation of the German language after the Nazis, his experiments across and through languages—these mark his work as uniquely expressive of the Czernowitz legacy, its hy- perconsciousness of language, of history and of the experience of literary mediation. An important trend of the early twentieth century saw many writers begin writing in German, then turn to their “national” lan- guage—Ukrainian, or Yiddish. Amy Colin gives the examples for Ukrainian of Felix Niemchevski, Osip Juril Fed’kovych, Alex- ander Popovich, and Isidor Vorobkevich, sometimes combining motifs from German Romanticism with images from Ruthenian folklore (Colin 1991, 11). To this list she might have added the im- portant Yiddish-language writers Itzik Manger and Eliezer Stein- barg—Manger, for instance, carried the German literary form of the ballad into Yiddish (Starck-Adler 2007, 124–132)—as well as that of the legendary Ukrainian writer Olha Kobylianska. It is to Kobylianska’s experience that I now turn to explore the language configuration of Czernowitz, before examining the work of anoth- er well-known Czernowitz poet, Rose Ausländer. Olha Kobylianska Born into a family who used German as their daily language (her father was a Ukrainian who worked for the Austrian administra- tion and her mother was of Polish origin), Kobylianska began her writing in German and in fact continued to keep a diary in German for her entire life. She was born and brought up in a small town not far from Czernowitz, but moved to the city when she was in her twenties. After “converting” to the Ukrainian national cause translation / in her late teens, she began to translate herself into Ukrainian— sometimes asking fellow authors to help her or receiving editorial 100 help from her publishers. Though she lived in a small corner of the Ukrainian cultural territory, Kobylianska was very soon in con- tact with the powerful standard-setters of the Ukrainian literary establishment. As a young woman writer she was much influenced by the opinions of these critics, and tried to change her style and subject matter to suit the left-wing populism that was considered appropriate. But Kobylianska was continually criticized for the strains of mysticism and intellectualism which were discerned in her writing. Though it would be those same qualities of modern- ism, exploration of the emotions of women and fascination with art which would endear her to later generations of readers and es- tablish her as a major figure in Ukrainian literature. Kobylianska’s writing is difficult to categorize, with its some- times incongruous mélange of feminism, intricate exploration of inner sentiments, portrayal of the cruelty of peasant life, and out- bursts of nationalist rhetoric. Critics are divided as to the elements of her work that are ironic or parodic and those that convey her true sentiments. Among her works, “Valse mélancolique” stands out as a truly radical portrait of women sharing a life together as artists. Like some of her other stories, this takes place in an ur- ban setting, recounting the daily life and conversations of women who have chosen to devote themselves to art rather than to a con- ventional married life. This story marked a radical beginning for Ukrainian literature. Kobylianska’s writings move between urban stories and rural depictions that are gothic in their intensity. In one story, a wife kills her husband and the children live in terror of being killed as well—though in the end the story shows sympathy for the woman browbeaten by the drunken husband. In fact Ko- bylianska knew both the urban and rural worlds, as she grew up in a small town, but travelled often to Czernowitz before settling there. She was involved in setting up the first women’s organiza- tion in the city—a radical organization from a feminist perspective but tied to the church and therefore suspect in the eyes of most young Ukrainian women who preferred to join left-wing social- ist organizations. Much of her writing associates “German” with high literature and a genteel life style. As a Ukrainian nationalist, she supported the Russians and then the Soviets as defenders of Ukrainian identity against the Austrians and then the Romanians, and when the Romanians took the city in 1942 she was condemned translation / 101 to death by hanging. She died before the hanging was to take place. There is a museum dedicated to her in Czernowitz and the main street, called the Herrengasse by the Austrians then by the name of a Romanian writer by the Romanians, is today named after her in Ukrainian Czernowitz. Kobylianska was influenced by George Sand but especially by Nietzsche, a writer she could read and quote in the original Ger- man—by contrast with her new compatriots who would have had only secondhand versions. Kobylianska was the first Ukrainian intellectual to introduce Nietzsche to Ukrainian readers, incorporating many of his philosophical concepts to her own philosophical system [. . .] Nietzsche’s association of myth with aesthetic creativity, his statement that myth is essential for the health of a culture, as well as his call on the “free spirits” to create this new “ruling idea” by which to live spoke directly to Ko- bylianska’s dissatisfaction with positivism, rationalism and socialism. (Ladygina 2013, 85) While many critics disparaged her use of “German technique,” which in this case included a combination of elements such as in- tellectualism, mysticism, and estheticism, the writer and feminist Lesia Ukrainka took the opposite position and praised its influence on Kobylianska’s writing: “It led you to recognize world literature, it transported you out into the broader world of ideas and art—this simply leaps out at once, when one compares your writing with that of the majority of Galicians” (de Haan 2006, 249). One could therefore refer to Kobylianska’s impressive output of novels and short stories in Ukrainian as translational writing—a product of the particular mélange of cultures particular to the Bu- kovina and Czernowitz. In turn, Kobylianska translated Ukrainian literature into German, including the works of Pchilka, Kobryns- ka, and Ukrainka (Franko 1998). In the case of Kobylianska as for the many other writers of Czernowitz, the multilingual milieu did not signify a close interrelationship with all the literary communi- ties but meant, rather, that writing occurred in the presence of other languages, in the consciousness of competing literary systems, and in this case with or against the power of German. translation / 102 Rose Ausländer In a prose fragment written in 1971, Rose Ausländer answers the question, “Why do I write?” with the following reply: Perhaps because I came into the world in Czernowitz, and because the world in Czer- nowitz came into me. That particular landscape. The particular people, fairy tales, and myths were in the air, one inhaled them. Czernowitz, with its four languages, was a city of muses that housed many artists, poets, and lovers of art, literature, and philosophy. (Cited in Morris 1998, 59) Rose Ausländer grew up and began her literary career in Czernowitz, where she was an active member of the Jewish Ger- man-language literary community, but left in her twenties to travel to the US. She spent the war years back in Czernowitz in hiding with her mother (she was one of the five thousand survivors of the ghetto, while 55,000 were murdered) and after another almost two decades of wandering finally settled in Dusseldorf in the 1960s. In the US after the war, Ausländer began a period during which she wrote poetry only in English. She later returned to the German language and has become a well-known German-language author. Her works are collected in seven volumes, much of which pub- lished after her death. The interweaving of diaspora and home, the long wanderings of much of her life, are reflected not only in the themes of her writing but in the consequences of the to-and-fro between English and German. In particular, her exposure to American modernism resulted in shifts in her formal expression, from a German-inspired lyricism to an American-inspired modernism. Ausländer is one of the sources most often quoted in favor of the image of a peaceful multilingual Czernowitz before the war. In the poem “Czernowitz Before the Second World War,” she writes: surrounded by beech forests. . . . . .Four languages in accord with each other spoiled the air Until the bombs fell the city breathed happily (Ausländer 1977, 6: 348) translation / 103 Indeed, Ausländer continued to praise the city of her birth and upbringing, despite the horrors she experienced during the war. Perhaps because she was always able to keep a distance between fatherland and motherland: My fatherland is dead they have buried it in fire. I live in my motherland word1 (quoted in Morris 1998, 49) This motherland is German, the language in which she wrote all her life, except for a period of eight years, from 1948 to 1956, when, she says, she “found herself” writing only in English. She was living in New York, a city where she had previously spent several years during the 1920s, and perhaps contemplating a con- version to an American existence. But this period turned out to be only a hiatus in her writing life, as she later returned to Europe and to the German language—and most of the English poems were dis- covered only after her death. Yet these years in English introduce a significant translational element into Ausländer’s esthetic, a more precise materialization of the Czernowitz multilingualism, and one that gave greater heft to the name she seems to have chosen to keep as hers—the name which belonged to the husband of a short-lived marriage: Ausländer or outsider. Rose Ausländer owned two suit- cases that she carried through her lifelong wanderings, and identi- fied fully with her Jewish identity as someone who has wandered for hundreds of years, “from Word to Word.” English was not German, the language of the war. Ausländer knew Paul Celan from Czernowitz, and met him several times later on her return trips to Europe—and she surely shared his sense of the contamination of the German language. English was also the language of her daily life in New York, of her workplaces there, and of the modernist poets she read and admired. Ausländer met Marianne Moore at a writer’s conference in New York in 1956, and in addition to Moore Ausländer was drawn to the work of Wal- lace Stevens and e e cummings. These sources allowed her to write translation / 1 Mein Vaterland ist tot/sie haben es begraben/im Feuer/Ich lebe/in meinem Mutterland/Wort. 104 poetry after years of silence and a personal crisis brought on by the death of her mother in 1947. Ausländer could return to poetry only through the oblique angle of another language—one which had not been part of the “old world” configuration. In 1956 she began again to write in German, putting together the shattered pieces of her life through a renewed belief in the mother tongue. The poetry becomes more angular, less lyrical, she says that the stars had taken on a new configuration, the flow- ered words had faded. She uses fewer adjectives, shorter lines, no rhyme or punctuation, the isolated word taking on new meaning. The mother tongue takes the place of the mother, the poem a place of refuge. But, as Lesley Morris argues, Ausländer’s “return” to German is less a one-way and definitive embrace of the authentic tongue than a renewed practice of translation, as she brings back to Ger- many the long experience of exile, experiencing new forms of dis- placement within the German-speaking world (Morris 1998, 55). The sheer number of Ausländer’s poems, which are normally only some twelve lines long, suggests an esthetic of incompletion, of relentless recommencing. Ausländer translated some of her English poems into German, just as she also translated at vari- ous times in her career the poems of others into German or En- glish—Yiddish poems by Itzik Manger (1901–1969) into German and German poems by Else Lasker-Schüler and Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) into English. The fragmented nature of Ausländer’s various exiles and returns points to a kind of permanent diasporic state, a Niemandsland of exile, where being at home will always mean being far away from home. Ausländer’s diasporic life be- gan before the Second World War, but her poetry was irrevocably marked by her experiences as a Jew during that period and by the wanderings which were a result of the destruction of Jewish life in Czernowitz. The imaginative world of Ausländer is deeply embedded in the originary crucible of languages in Czernowitz and marked es- pecially by one enormous fact: the sudden reversal of meaning attached to the German language. For this city, so tied to the myth of the “imaginary West in the East,” German had been elevated to the status of a religion—an affiliation so intense as to remain strong even during the Romanianization of the interwar years. translation / 105 Raised in the adoration of Deutschtum, Czernowitz authors were forced to see German undergo a spectacular transvaluation of val- ues—and therefore to revise their relationship to the language. For Ausländer, following Paul Celan, this meant a mediated relation to German, one which showed the “home” language to be partially alien. Conclusion The meaning of Czernowitz as a city at the edge of empire is dom- inated by the history of the significance given to German. The pre- eminence of the German language, lasting far into the twentieth century, was central to the writing lives of both Kobylianska and Ausländer. The historical events which shaped their relationship to this language were, however, of very different natures. Kobylians- ka’s literary imagination was shaped in German, and she carried into the Ukrainian language the sensibility she had first acquired in that language—both the popular sentimental novels she had read as a youth and the exalted ideas she took from Nietzsche. At the same time, her choice to write in Ukrainian was a decision to sep- arate herself from the German sphere and participate in the con- struction of a new Ukrainian sensibility. This turn to nationalism on the contested site of the border city expresses the conflictual nature of language relations in the border city. That Kobylians- ka, however, continued to keep a diary in German throughout her life, testifies to the ambiguities and split allegiances of the private sphere—where translation became a permanent condition. Ausländer’s relationship to German was shaped by the Jewish literary milieu of Czernowitz, by her personal experiences of di- aspora (before and after the Second World War) and by the Holo- caust. Ausländer is one of relatively few Jews to have lived through the Holocaust and to have continued to use German as a literary language after World War II. (Among the best-known exceptions are Paul Celan, as noted, and Marcel Reich-Ranicki.) It is surely significant that both Celan and Ausländer are from Czernowitz. Certainly her understanding of that language and its cultural affil- iations were tempered by the multilingual matrix of that city, and the translational relationships out of which it evolved. Her turn translation / away from German, and her subsequent return, her wanderings and her final settling in Dusseldorf, testify to a difficult relation- 106 ship to language and place—one which nevertheless allowed her to celebrate her past in the borderlands of the empire. Kobylianska and Ausländer would not have known one anoth- er in Czernowitz. They belonged to different milieus and different generations (Kobylianska was born in 1863; Ausländer in 1901), though Ausländer would have heard of the more famous Koby- lianska, her growing literary fame, her persecution and death in 1942. Their careers illustrate the parallel paths followed by the literatures of the city, each enclosed within its respective liter- ary languages and traditions. Even today, they are unlikely to be found in the same anthologies or literary histories. Nevertheless, both writers defined themselves with and against the German lan- guage—along the lines of tension that animated the language life of their common border city. translation / 107 References Ausländer, Rose. 1976. Aschenregen / die Spur deines Namens: Gedichte und Prosa. Volume 4. Edited by Helmut Braun. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ––––––. 1977. Selected poems [of] Rose Ausländer. Translated by Ewald Osers. Lon- don: London Magazine Editions. ––––––. 1984–1990. Gesammelte Werke in sieben Bänden. Edited by Helmut Braun. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ––––––. 1995. Mother Tongue. Translated by Jean Boase-Beier and Anthony Vivis. Todmorden: Arc Publications. Buzzati, Dino. (1940) 1989. Il deserto dei Tartari. Milan: Mondadori. Cavafy, C. 1976. The Complete Poems of Cavafy. Translated by Rae Dalven. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Coetzee, J. M. 1982. Waiting for the Barbarians. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Colin, Amy. 1991. Paul Celan: Holograms of Darkness. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. ––––––. 2006. “Czernowitz/Cernăuți/Chernovtsy/Chernivtsi/Czerniowce: A Test- ing Ground for Pluralism.” In Cornis-Pope and Neubauer 2006, 57–76. DOI: 10.1075/chlel.xx.12col. Cornis-Pope, Marcel, and John Neubauer. 2002. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe. Some Theoretical Reflections. New York: American Coun- cil of Learned Societies, Occasional Paper No. 52. Cornis-Pope, Marcel, and John Neubauer, eds. 2006. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe. Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centu- ries. Vol. II. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. In particular, “Cities as sites of hybrid literary identity and multicultural production,” 9–212. de Haan, Francisca, Krassimira Daskalova, and Anna Loutfi, eds. 2006. Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries. Entry “Olha Kobylianska.” Budapest & New York: CEU Press. Franko, Roma. 1998. “Women’s Voices in Ukrainian Literature. Olha Kobylianska (1863–1942). Biographical Sketch.” Language Lantern Publications. www.lan- guagelanterns.com/kobylian.htm. Accessed May 8, 2014. Hirsch, Marianne, and Leo Spitzer. 2010. Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernow- itz in Jewish Memory. Berkeley: University of California Press. Judson, Pieter. 2006. Guardians of the Nation. Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ––––––. 2016. The Habsburg Empire. A New History. Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press. Kobylianska, Olha. 1999. But. . .The Lord is Silent: Selected Prose Fiction. Translat- ed by Roma Z. Franko and Sonia V. Morris. Saskatoon, SK: Language Lanterns Publications. ––––––. 2000. Warm the Children, O Sun: Selected Prose Fiction. Translated by translation / Roma Z. Franko and Sonia V. Morris. Saskatoon, SK: Language Lanterns Pub- lications. 108 Ladygina, Yuliya Volodymyrivna. 2013. Narrating the Self in the Mass Age: Olha Kobylianska in the European Fin-de-Siècle and Its Aftermath, 1886–1936. San Diego: ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Menninghaus, W. 1999. “Czernowitz/Bukowina.” Merkur-Suttgart 53: 3/4, Part 600: 345–357. Meylaerts, Reine. 2013. “Multilingualism as a Challenge for Translation Studies.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies, edited by Carmen Millán and Francesca Bartrina. London: Routledge. 519–533. Morris, Leslie. 1998. “Mutterland/Niemandsland: Diaspora and Displacement in the Poetry of Rose Ausländer.” Religion and Literature 30 (3): 47–65. Nouss, Alexis. 2010. Paul Celan. Les lieux d’un déplacement. Paris: Le Bord de l’eau. Olson, Jess. 2010. “A Tale of Two Photographs: Nathan Birnbaum, the Election of 1907, and the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference.” In Czernowitz at 100: Robinson, Richard. 2007. Narratives of the European Border: A History of Nowhere. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Roth, J. 2002. Weights and Measures. Translated by D. Le Vay. London: P. Owen. Simon, S. 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. Lon- don: Routledge. Spector, Scott. 2000. Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka’s Fin de Siècle. Berkeley: University of California Press. Starck-Adler, Astrid. 2007. “Multiculturalisme et multilinguisme à Czernowitz. L’exemple d’Itzik Manger.” Études germaniques 62 (1): 121–132. Stenberg, Peter. 1991. Journey to Oblivion. The End of the East European Yiddish and German Worlds in the Mirror of Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thum, Gregor. 2013. “Megalomania and Angst. The nineteenth-century mythiciza- tion of Germany’s Eastern Borderlands.” In Shatterzone of Empires, Coexis- tence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Border- lands. Edited by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. 42–60. van Drunen, Hieronymus Franciscus. 2013. “A sanguine bunch.” Regional identifi- cation in Habsburg Bukovina, 1774–1919. University of Amsterdam PhD thesis. Available online at http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/397355. Accessed November 4, 2014. Wolf, Michaela. 2012. Die vielsprachige Seele Kakaniens. Übersetzen und Dolmet- schen in der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau. ––––––. 2015. The Habsburg Monarchy’s Many-Languaged Soul. Translating and interpreting, 1848–1918. Translated by Kate Sturge. Amsterdam: John Benja- mins. translation / 109 Sherry Simon is a professor in the French Department at Concordia University. She has published widely in the areas of literary, intercultural and translation studies, most recently exploring the cultural history of linguistically divided cities. Among her pub- lications are Translating Montreal. Episodes in the Life of a Divided City (2006) and Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory (2012), both of which have appeared in French translation. She has edited or co-edited numerous volumes, in- cluding Translation Effects: The Shaping of Modern Canadian Culture (with K. Mezei and L. von Flotow), (2014) and Speaking Memory. How Translation Shapes City Life (forthcoming MQUP). She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Académie des lettres du Québec. She was a Killam Research Fellow (2009-11) and in 2010 received the Prix André-Laurendeau from l’Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS). translation / 110

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Translating Ruins Alfred Mac Adam Barnard College-Columbia University, USA Abstract: This essay explores the relationship between a neo-Latin poem by Ianus Vitalis and three vernacular sonnets, versions of the Latin original, by Du Bellay, Spenser, and Francisco de Quevedo. The purpose of the essay is to ponder the problems and choices that the translators had to resolve in order to refashion Vitalis. The essay further seeks to show the strangeness of Vitalis’ poem and how his translators effetively created three original poems. This is an exploration of translation, more concerned with that problematic art than with the history of the European sonnet. Writing in 1932 about the numerous English versions of Homer, Jorge Luis Borges asserts—perhaps ironically though perhaps not—that the relationship between translations and originals de- fines the relationship between any text, its myriad literary sources, and the experiences an author assimilates to produce it. Unlike so- called originals, translations reveal rather than hide their sources: “El modelo propuesto a su imitación es un texto visible, no un laberinto inestimable de proyectos pretéritos o la acatada tentación momentánea de una facilidad”1 (Borges 1965, 105). Borges denies original composition, declaring all texts to be translations and writing (like reading) nothing more than trans- lating. This anti-Romantic theory of literary creation makes the juxtaposition of originals and translations complex: we are no lon- ger comparing the original with an imitation (the translation) but actually comparing coequals. Fair enough, but even though Borges deals with English trans- lations of Homer—the paucity of Spanish translations making his 1 “The model proposed for imitation is a visible text, not an incalculable labyrinth of past projects or the yielded-to, momentary temptation of an opportune insight.” Translation mine. translation / 111 essay impossible to write—he does not discuss the role played by nationality and national language in translation. Why did the En- glish, century after century, feel the need to translate and retranslate Homer? And what was the impact of these translations on the his- tory of English literature? If Borges had elected to study the many translations of Don Quixote into English, he would have reached the same conclusions about the relationship between translation and original; but he might also have noted that the history of the novel in English was changed because of Cervantes. Literary history abounds in translations or imitations that some- how acquire the status of originals. For example, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s La verdad sospechosa, from about 1634, is the basis for Corneille’s Le Menteur (1644), which in turn spawns Carlo Goldo- ni’s Il Bugiardo (1750) and Samuel Foote’s The Lyar (1762). Ruiz de Alarcón engenders not just translations and imitations but an entire theatrical tradition in four languages and four cultures, each of which reshapes the original to national tastes. This idea, that translators would deliberately accommodate a work to a national language, appears in Alastair Fowler’s Times Literary Supplement review (April 27, 2012) of a new edition of Gavin Douglas’s 1513 Scots translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. The translation crystalizes the language into which it is translated, much in the way the King James Bible or Luther’s translation consolidated English or Ger- man. Less important in terms of fixing a national language, but equally fascinating in terms of the relationship between original and translation are three sonnets, freestanding works of art in them- selves, which directly or indirectly derive from the epigram De Roma (1552) by Ianus Vitalis (1485–1560): Qui Romam in media quaeris novus advena Roma, Et Romae in Roma nil reperis media, Aspice murorum moles, praeruptaque saxa, Obrutaque horrenti vasta theatra situ: Haec sunt Roma. Viden velut ipsa cadaver, tantae Urbis adhuc spirent imperiosa minas. Vicit ut haec mundum, nixa est se vincere; vicit, A se non victum ne quid in orbe foret. translation / Nunc victa in Roma Roma illa invicta sepulta est, Atque eadem victrix victaque Roma fuit. Albula Romani restat nunc nominis index, 112 Quinetiam rapidis fertur in aequor aquis, Disce hinc, quid possit fortuna; inmota labascunt, Et quae perpetuo sun agitate manent. (McFarlane 1980, 24–26)2 Vitalis’ poem invites the recently arrived (novus advena) visi- tor who has come to Rome seeking ancient Rome to learn a moral lesson: Rome is now nothing but ruins. All that endures is, paradox- ically, the Tiber: The river flowing like time itself remains, while the ancient capital of the world is disjecta membra. The elegiac tone of Vitalis’ poem, enhanced by the repeated “o” in Rome, reflects the ancient fusion of elegy and epigram—which is to say that by Vitalis’ time, a neo-Latin epigram was simply a short poem. It might be of intellectual rather than emotional cast, though there is nothing consistent or absolute about its subject. Like the sonnet, the epigram could treat any theme, although concision is one of its principal features: the verbal economy of Latin would be an ideal for Renaissance vernacular poets to strive for, especially in sonnets. That Vitalis’ poem is comprised of fourteen lines is a fascinat- ing irony. A poem in Latin on mutability that seeks to avoid the mu- tability of vernacular tongues uses a structure that to Renaissance readers would immediately recall the sonnet. De Roma is an open invitation to vernacular translation, and Malcolm C. Smith (1977) lists over a dozen versions of the epigram. Not all are sonnets, but those under consideration here adapt Vitalis to that compact form. The first of the three, a translation of a translation, is Edmund Spenser’s version of Joachim du Bellay, which appears in his ap- propriately titled sonnet series The Ruines of Rome (1591). Spenser obtains that alliteration by not translating the title of du Bellay’s sonnet sequence, Les Antiquités de Rome (1558)—he changes it utterly. Antiquités are ancient, but ruines might be recent. While the name Rome itself implies antiquity, the sack of Rome in 1527 (and still in living memory in the second half of the sixteenth century) by the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V certainly created modern ruins. But setting aside historical anecdote and focusing 2 McFarlane’s version of Vitalis’ epigram is accompanied by Thomas Heywood’s version, from The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells (1637). Readers wondering about possible sources for Vitalis’ epigram might consider an idea in James Nohrnberg’s 1976 The Analogy of The Faerie Queene. Nohrnberg suggests two passages in Isaiah (34:14 and 13:21–22): “Both of the Isaiah passages would impress a poet on literary grounds alone; they are supreme in their kind, which is the elegy over fallen buildings, letterature delle rovine. . .” (236). translation / 113 exclusively on du Bellay’s words, it is clear that Spenser’s use of ruins is a transformation, a deviation from the original for rhetorical effect. Spenser had been translating du Bellay since before 1569, when he published translations of both Petrarch and du Bellay. Herbert Grierson, in the introduction to his seminal anthology Metaphysi- cal Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler (1921), the inspiration for T.S. Eliot’s essay “The Metaphysical Po- ets,” wryly observes: “Over all the Elizabethan sonnets, in greater or less measure, hangs the suggestion of translation or imitation.” (xviii) We may confirm his statement by looking at sonnet number 3 (in the 1678 edition): Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome her seekest, And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv’st at all, These same old walls, old arches, which thou seest, Old palaces, is that, which Rome men call. Behold what wreak, what ruine, and what wast, And how that she, which with her mighty powre Tam’d all the world, hath tam’d her self at last, The Pray of time, which all things doth devowre. Rome now of Rome is th’ only funerall, And only Rome, of Rome hath victory; Neought save Tyber, hastning to his fall Remains of all: O worlds inconstancy! That which is firm, doth flit and fall away, And that is flitting, doth abide and stay. (Spenser 1679, 161) A suitably stern sonnet charged with a chastened Renaissance sense of fleeting time (wherever I turn my eyes I see nothing but death and decay), the ephemeral nature of all human creation, and of course the “mutability” so important to the eponymous “Two Cantos of Mutability” at the end of The Fairie Queene. Rome is absent from the “mutability cantos,” but Rome in this sonnet is a memento mori, so it is no wonder the poem figures among many similar poems in Spenser’s Complaints Containing Sundry Small Poems of the Worlds Vanity (1581) “as the Printer gathered them up” (as he says in the 1678 edition) to capitalize on the success of The Fairie Queene. translation / At the same time, is Rome a suitable subject for an English Protestant poet? Among the three poets scrutinized here only one is 114 a Protestant, whose only argument, leaving aside the desire to trans- late du Bellay, could be that the ruins of Rome are a fitting subject for a humanist lamentation. By the same token, the subject virtually disappears during the Baroque, just when we might expect to see it deployed with fervor. None of the poems in Jean Rousset’s 1968 Anthologie de la Poésie Baroque Française exploits this subject (although it could also be said that the same holds true for Grier- son’s anthology). So the wars of religion, the English Revolution, the Reformation, and the Counterreformation efface Rome’s ruins from poetry, although they turn up again during the Romantic era, reflecting the Romantics’ antiquarian side. The next case is Francisco de Quevedo’s 1648 collection, patri- otically titled Parnasso Español, monte en dos cumbres dividido, con las nueve musas castellanas, donde se contienen Poesías de don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas (literally, Spanish Parnassus, mountain divided into two peaks, with the nine Castilian muses, which contains poems by don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas). No ruins or antiquities for Quevedo, just rockribbed Castilian poetry in- spired by Castilian muses—who, it seems, could inspire translation as well as original creation. We smile, but Quevedo’s patriotism reminds us that each of these sonnets brings the subject of Roman ruins into a national literary tradition by transmuting it into a na- tional literary form. The title usually attached to the first poem in this collection is “A Roma sepultada en sus Ruinas” (To Rome Buried in her Ruins): Buscas en Roma a Roma, ¡oh peregrino!, Y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas: Cadáver son las que ostentó murallas, Y Tumba de sí propio el Aventino. Yace donde Reinaba el Palatino, Y limadas del tiempo las medallas, Más se muestran destrozo a las batallas De las edades que blasón latino. Sólo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente, Si Ciudad la regó, ya sepultura La llora con funesto son doliente. ¡Oh Roma, en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura Huyó lo que era firme, y solamente Lo fugitivo permanece y dura! (de Quevedo 1968, 260–261) translation / 115 The utterly Baroque de Quevedo is much more specific in his Roman references, and to the Tiber mentioned by du Bellay and Spenser he adds the Aventine and the Palatine, two of Rome’s seven hills, symbols of an antiquity that precedes republican or imperial Rome, here turned, respectively, into a grave and a corpse. Joachim du Bellay, in his 1558 collection Les Antiquités de Rome, is the progenitor of Spenser’s sonnet and the likely source (along with Vitalis) of Quevedo’s. Du Bellay’s title curiously echoes the title of Andrea Palladio’s 1554 book Le Antichità di Roma, though the similarity could hardly be more ironic: Where du Bellay is concerned with the ravages of time, Palladio stresses the enduring grandeur of Roman architecture. His text contradicts the lesson of the three poems and defines the difference between a humanist literary tradition that more often than not found itself weeping over the loss of the classical past—whatever that meant for them—and an architectural present with Palladio endeavoring to use the Roman past (its architecture specifically) as a steppingstone to the future. This sense of the past as a foundation could not be more differ- ent from the view of du Bellay: Nouveau venu, qui cherches Rome en Rome Et rien de Rome en Rome n’aperçois, Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcs que tu vois, Et ces vieux murs, c’est ce que Rome on nomme. Voy quel orgueil, quelle ruine: & comme Celle qui mist le monde sous ses loix, Pour donter tout, se donta quelquefois, Et devint proie au temps, que tout consomme. Rome de Rome est le seul monument, Et Rome Rome a vaincu seulement. Le Tybre seul, qui vers la mer s’enfuit, Reste de Rome. O mondaine inconstance! Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps détruit, Et ce qui fuit, au temps fait résistance. (du Bellay 1970, 5–6) All three sonnets are simultaneously the same and different, translations and originals, and it is here we begin to see the differ- ence between translation and adaptation, though maintaining that translation / distinction is by no means easy. Du Bellay recommends imitation in his 1549 Défense et Illustration de la Langue Françoyse (as 116 does Sir Philip Sidney in his 1595 Apology), and it may be that we should understand Spenser more in the mode of imitation rather than literal translation. Spenser made his mark on English prosody with the Spenserian sonnet (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE), but in rendering du Bellay he falls back on a standard English model: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Du Bellay’s rhyme scheme reflects the sonnet of the French, Span- ish, and Italian worlds: ABBA ABBA CCD EDE, with two tercets used variously to summarize or expand the thoughts expressed in the quatrains. The lapidary couplet of the English sonnet makes it radically different from the continental sonnet whose often-inter- laced tercets are an invitation to enhanced complexity rather than concision. So du Bellay, by using enjambment to link his tercets and recapitulate the rest of the poem, also, simultaneously, imi- tates the course of the Tiber as it winds through Rome. Spenser on the other hand must reach a moral conclusion, which he musically reinforces with alliteration: “That which is firm, doth flit and fall away, / And that is flitting, doth abide and stay.” “Flit” applied to stone buildings seems an unlikely metaphor, and “flitting” applied to a river seems odd. This is so even though the OED includes shifting position or passing away among the verb’s early meanings because flit implies flight and speed, which the time involved in the erosion of stone excludes. Du Bellay’s compressed ten rather than fourteen-syllable verses “Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps détruit, / Et ce qui fuit, au temps fait résistance” make a more sparing use of alliteration, just enough to create an ironic juxtaposition of “ferme” with the verb “fuit,” reinforced by the repetition of “temps” to mark the difference be- tween that which is destroyed by time and that which, though liq- uid, resists the corrosion of time. But alliteration and internal rhyme provide the musical lamentation in both du Bellay and Spenser: as in Vitalis’ epigram, the “o” in Rome is repeated so often and echoed in so many other “o”s that the entire poem sounds like a dirge. (This musicality raises another conundrum: we know how French, English, and Spanish sound, but for most of us Latin is a visual language and when spoken pronounced with the speaker’s own national accent: how would Vitalis’ hexameters “sound” to a Frenchman?) Du Bellay’s poem resorts to French commonplaces—for ex- translation / 117 ample the lamentation “O mondaine inconstance!” (not in Vitalis), which Spenser translates into English commonplaces “O worlds inconstancy!” Du Bellay’s disillusioned senior lectures the “nou- veau venu,” the novice who has come to Rome seeking the Rome of antiquity and finds only ruins, as if the traveler were ignorant of Roman history since the fifth century and as if no building had been erected or destroyed since then. Spenser uses “stranger” to obtain the same effect—the stranger or foreigner versus the experienced or native inhabitant—but to modern ears the word suggests a person unknown to the speaker rather than to the city. The problem of how to translate “nouveau venu” goes back to De Roma. Here, as in Mikolaj Sep-Szarzynski’s epigram (in Delitia italorum poetarum 1608), the novice is referred to as the “novus advena.” When the dramatist Thomas Heywood (in his 1637 The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells) translates Vitalis’ poem, he coins the awkward “New Stranger” to translate “novus advena.” Heywood needs twenty-eight couplets to translate Vitalis’ fourteen Latin verses. Lost in Spenser’s translation is du Bellay’s manipulation of the concept so important to the Hispanic baroque: “desengaño,” the loss of illusion that comes with moral experience, when the scales fall from our eyes and we see the fallen world for what it is. This sense is fundamental to the sonnet because of the innocence–expe- rience relationship between the newcomer and the speaker. Quevedo, perhaps reflecting a Counterreformation sensibility, transforms du Bellay’s “nouveau venu,” Spenser’s “stranger,” and Vitalis’ “novus advena” into a “peregrino.” The word had various meanings in seventeenth-century Spanish: as an adjective, it sug- gests the bizarre or exquisite; as a noun, it may mean a traveler abroad or a pilgrim traveling to a shrine. Quevedo’s choice of the term creates an ambiguity: Catholic pilgrims would visit Rome, the heart of the Church, but they would certainly not be looking for an- cient Rome, and in fact the ruin of the ancient city would constitute a triumph, malgré Saint Augustine, of Christianity over paganism. So “peregrino” here cannot be a pilgrim and is, once again, a senti- mental humanist who for some reason thinks contemporary Rome ought to look like ancient Rome. translation / The second verse becomes more precise in Quevedo. Du Bellay says, “Et rien de Rome en Rome n’aperçois” and 118 Spenser follows: “And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv’st at all.” Spenser’s “at all” is simply an emphatic line-filler, as is du Bellay’s use of “n’aperçois” rather than a simple “see.” Quevedo’s visitor comes looking for Rome in Rome and doesn’t find it—“Y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas”—rather than du Bellay or Spenser’s stranger who can’t perceive it. In the third and fourth verses of the first quatrain, Quevedo Latinizes his word order in a daring use of hyperbaton: “Cadáver son las que ostentó murallas, / Y Tumba de sí propio el Aventino. The surprise of a singular noun followed by a plural verb obliges us to see the verse rather than hear it: “cadáver” starts the poetic clause and “murallas” ends it, but what Quevedo wants us to see is the equivalence: the walls are a corpse. The effect would, of course, be lost if the phrase were regularized: Las murallas que ostentó son cadáver (the walls it boasted are a corpse). The next verse follows suit, with “tumba” and “Aventino” thrown into opposition. The second quatrain, much more restrained syntactically, simply amplifies the first. The Palatine lies supine where it once ruled, the medallions, carved in relief but now worn away by time, look more like the wreckage of the battles of the ages than Latin glory. The poem loses energy but recovers it in the intertwined tercets. Quevedo innovates daringly by abruptly changing tenses. Where the quatrains are all in the present tense, the first tercet in- troduces a past preterit, which, curiously, makes little sense here: “Sólo el Tibre quedó” (only the Tiber remained), which, if it once bathed (regó) the city, now weeps for it as a grave. Again, Quevedo uses his first-and-last words to achieve drama: city is played off against grave. And the Tiber (none of the translations uses Vitalis’ alternative Albula for the Tiber), now back in the present tense, weeps with a “funereal, dolorous sound”. Quevedo uses the final tercet much in the way Spenser would use his final couplet. He resorts to apostrophe, addressing Rome (and turning away from the “peregrino” in the first verse) to point out that what was solid has fled and only that which is fugitive re- mains and endures. The phrase “en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura” (in your grandeur, in your beauty) is amplification, a delaying tactic that helps us savor the antithesis of a hardness (stone) that disap- pears, while what remains is flowing water. Naturally, the final verb translation / 119 “dura” (endures) echoes the adjective “duro” (hard) so, in enduring, the water acquires a lexical hardness. Compared with the first-person sonnet “Salmo 17,” (“Miré los muros de la Patria mía”), which approaches the tension of “meta- physical” poets like Donne in its amalgamation of ideas and feel- ings, Quevedo’s version of du Bellay’s sonnet seems fraught with syntactical flourishes that weaken rather than strengthen the poem. And “Salmo 17” is as much an imitation or translation as his re- working of du Bellay since it derives directly from Seneca’s Epistle XII to Lucilius. Quevedo’s concluding address to Rome, the most striking innovation within the framework of the two “translations” of du Bellay (and Vitalis) distracts the reader much in the way a bad detective writer’s introduction of a new character late in the plot is a nasty trick. The subject of the three poems, the moral lesson to be learned from a consideration of Rome’s ruins, simply lost relevance in the seventeenth century—Quevedo himself does not seem to have re- visited the city in any of his sonnets, and it is conspicuously absent from the sonnets of his rival Luis de Góngora. The Renaissance, humanist tradition of lamenting the lost past was lost, especially because of the prime importance of Rome as capital of the Catholic Counterreformation. The three sonnets here provide a rare opportunity to see three great poets working at translation. Du Bellay fits Vitalis into a well- wrought sonnet with compressed ten-syllable verses that Spenser, overcoming the vast difference between two sonnet traditions, transforms into a perfect English sonnet, while Quevedo seeks to infuse it with the glitter of the Spanish Baroque. Quevedo, perhaps, is the most successful because of his greater specificity and his bold use of antithesis. And yet we sense, as we do not in Quevedo’s reworking of Seneca into a Spanish sonnet with hendecasyllabic verses, the working-through of an exercise, that du Bellay is refit- ting a shopworn Renaissance conceit, that Spenser is trying, suc- cessfully, to transform a continental sonnet into an English sonnet while retaining the sense of the original. Quevedo seems to have attempted to improve on his sources, and may well have done so, even though he is recasting material long out of fashion. translation / Du Bellay, Spenser, and Quevedo, all working with Vitalis’ ep- igram as a distant source, produce new poems appropriate for their 120 language and culture, but none replicates De Roma in a vernacular language. Borges’s conclusion about the many translations of Ho- mer into English rings true here as well: “The concept of the de- finitive text belongs only to religion or fatigue.” Translation means commitment to time and place and like the Tiber flows infinitely. translation / 121 References Borges, Jorge Luis. (1932) 1965. “Las versiones homéricas.” In Discusión. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores. de Quevedo, Francisco. 1968. Obras Completas I, Poesía Original. Edited by José Manuel Blecua. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta. du Bellay, Joachim. (1558) 1970. Œuvres poétiques II. Les Antiquitez de Rome. Edited by Henri Chamard and Henri Weber. Paris: Librairie Nizet. Grierson, Herbert, ed. 1921. Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Cen- tury. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McFarlane, I. D. 1980. Renaissance Latin Poetry. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Nohrnberg, James. 1976. The Analogy of The Faerie Queene. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rousset, Jean. 1968. Anthologie de la Poésie Baroque Française. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. Smith, Malcolm C. 1977. “Looking for Rome in Rome: Janus Vitalis and his Disci- ples.” In Revue de littérature comparée. Octobre-Decembre, 51 (4): 510-527. Spenser, Edmond. 1679. The Works of that Famous English Poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser. London: Printed by Henry Hills for Jonathan Edwin at the Three Roses in Ludgate Street. Alfred Mac Adam, professor of Latin American literature at Barnard College-Colum- bia University, has translated works by, among others, Carlos Fuentes, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Julio Cortázar, Jorge Volpi, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Fernando Pessoa. His most recent critical essay, on Fernando Pessoa, appears in the Cambridge Guide to Autobiography. translation / 122

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Interview: translation speaks to Lydia Liu translation assistant editor Carolyn Shread met with Lydia Liu in New York City on the occasion of the annual Nida Research Symposium on September 25, 2015. The theme of the symposium was “Untranslatability and Cultural Complexity” and Dr. Liu gave a fascinating and timely talk on “Translation Theory in the Age of Digital Media” with a response by Mary Louise Pratt. The other speakers at the symposium were Michael Wood and Philip Lewis. After the day of talks, Dr. Liu found time to sit down to answer the questions below, some of which were prompted by her article on “The Eventfulness of Translation: Temporality, Difference and Competing Universals” that appeared in Issue 4 of translation. It was an honor and pleasure to continue the conversation in this way, weaving together thoughts from the panels and Liu’s innovative approach to translation. It was particularly encouraging to hear about how, having distanced herself from translation after a perceived lack of receptiveness to her initial ideas, notably the proposal of a guest/ host paradigm as an alternative or supplement to the source/target dichotomy, when she published Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation (1999), Liu has since returned to the field. As someone positioned within the U.S. academy with an Asian perspective and understanding of the history of translation, Liu’s contributions are especially valuable for offering cross-cultural perspectives on translation which, ironically, can be so very culturally constrained. In her research, Liu is perhaps most compelling in her dissections of the ways in which translation has the power to decenter canons and question imperialism and its effects. Her analyses draw on historical context and material culture to produce new and exciting insights, for instance in her comments here on the history of scripts and their relation to translation practices and effects. This interview acts as a hyphen between Liu’s proposals published in the Politics issue and her forthcoming article that will appear in Issue 7. CS: In addition to your position as Professor in the Humanities in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, USA, you are also founding direc- tor of the Tsinghua–Columbia Center for Translingual and Transcultural Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. I’m intrigued by the title of this center: do “translingual” and “transcultural” exhaust the concept of translation for you? Do they overlap with translation? By discussing these two terms, I’m hoping we might have an insight into how you conceive of translation. LL: The center’s name indicates a certain direction of my work that dates from twenty years ago when I published Translin- gual Practice, which thinks about a national literature though its multilingual, multicultural connections. It was not just an attempt to critique nationalism: I tried to demonstrate that if you were to take out all the so-called “foreign” elements from modern Chinese, you would not be able to speak. That is the translation / 123 magnitude of what I was trying to point out—not only at the level of vocabulary, at the level of syntax, but also at the level of genre, intellectual discourse, political theory. . . CS: And at the level of the script? LL: And at the level of the script, too, because in the twentieth century there were a number of major campaigns to eliminate Chinese characters and replace them with Roman scripts. The “Latinization” or “Romanization” movements were happening all around the world, including in neighboring Korea and Ja- pan. In colonial Vietnam they succeeded because the French crafted their Romanization system so as to get rid of the Chi- nese characters used to write Vietnamese. That move was rep- licated in China. There was a point in the twentieth century, in the 1920s and 1930s, when all progressive intellectuals were in favor of Romanization. This would have led to the elimination of Chinese characters, cutting the writing system off from its own history, scholarship, and literature in the same way that Turkish nationalist language reform succeeded in eliminating Arabic script, replacing it with the Roman script. The failure of the Romanization movement in China preserved Chinese liter- ature and its history of writing, but this doesn’t mean that there was no room to incorporate foreign words and neologisms— often via Japanese—into the Chinese script. CS: Often these types of movements emerge because there is a technological shift. Was this linked to a particular moment in history where a certain technology was driving this change? LL: Yes, absolutely. First it was the telegraph, which implied the need to do something about the Chinese script because there is too much information to send, and the telegraphic code re- quired simplification. But more importantly it was the intro- duction of the typewriter that put a lot of pressure on all East Asian societies to reform their scripts. It is interesting that the misrecognition of the typewriter and its limitation led to polit- translation / ical campaigns that targeted the native script in China, Japan, and many other places as a backward writing system. Progress 124 meant forward looking, efficiency, rapid literacy and educa- tion, so the national elite believed that their language or their writing systems were backward and must be replaced. They overlooked the limitation of the typewriter and focused on the perceived constraints of the writing system. In hindsight, it was the technology of the typewriter that was backward since it was incapable of processing nonlinear characters. They went so far as to design a number of models for Japanese and Chi- nese, but these were clumsy. In the 1970s, the Japanese mo- nopolized the manufacture of the fax machine, which could reproduce both graphs and letters. The fax machine made them realize for the first time that it was not the writing system—it was the backwardness of the machine itself that was to blame! The typewriter was too simple to reproduce something that the fax machine could easily capture, and now, of course, the com- puter can do even better. Today, nobody would even bring up Romanization issues in China or elsewhere because the com- puter is so advanced in terms of its input methods and its abili- ty to process large quantities of information, whether visual or alphabetical. CS: My second question is about how you have recently been framing translation as a political problem in your work, notably in your article in the Politics and Translation issue (Issue 4) of this journal. Could you talk about the way politics contributes to the way you think about translation? LL: I have always been unhappy with the way translation studies have been conceptualized. From the mid-1990s I distanced my- self from translation studies because I thought it was too con- straining—for instance, the source/target language distinction which I tried to refashion as a distinction between host language and guest language in Translingual Practice—but nobody seemed to pay attention. Then, when I did my research on the Opium Wars, especially treaties and international law, and saw how central translation was to imperial politics, it became clear to me that translation could provide an illuminating angle for un- derstanding international politics. For instance, one of the chap- ters in The Clash of Empires looks at how the British included an article in the 1858 Sino-British treaty at the Second Opium War, translation / 125 Article 51, which outlaws a Chinese character. It’s pronounced yi—at that time written as i, Romanizing it—and it is the Chi- nese character that the British translated as “barbarian,” arguing that the Chinese called the English barbarians on the evidence of that character. After establishing the translation or the semantic equivalence which I dispute in my book, they relied on the un- equal treaty to forbid the Chinese to use the character. Of course, they did not outlaw the other side of the equivalence, the English word “barbarian” that they continued to apply to the Chinese. A fascinating story, isn’t it? Amitav Ghosh’s recent novel Flood of Fire draws on the research from my book and retells this sto- ry of translation from the Opium War. I sometimes wonder if there are any similar legal prohibitions against other people’s words elsewhere in international relations, other attempts to kill a native word through translation. The Chinese word (yi) was killed after the Opium War and hasn’t been used for more than a hundred years. In The Clash of Empires I also look at how a text in interna- tional law was translated into Chinese for the first time and fundamentally prepared the ground for modern political theory in China. Many familiar modern Chinese concepts—including “sovereignty” and “human rights”—were first coined in the 1864 translation called Wanguo gongfa from the Elements of International Law by American legal scholar Henry Wheaton. This was the first international law book introduced to China or East Asia. The Japanese relied on this Chinese translation to gain an understanding of the modern world and used it to refute the West’s extraterritorial demands on Japan, as well as justify their own annexation of Korea and Taiwan. I took that translation as a triple event: a textual event, a diplomatic event, and an episte- mological event, anticipating the global importance of sovereign rights and human rights in the twentieth century. In short, the event of that translation did not just “happen” in 1864 and it has traversed a temporality that spans our own times. CS: I’d like to ask about another element in the title of your article in translation: the phrase “competing universals.” Since today at the Nida Symposium the theme translation / was “Untranslatability and Cultural Complexity,” how would you articulate com- peting universals and untranslatability? 126 LL: It’s only when you begin to worry about the whereabouts of meaning that untranslatability becomes a central concern. The idea of “competing universals” emerged out of the research I did in the archives of the UN to reopen the moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted. That document was initially conceptualized as the “Interna- tional Declaration of Human Rights.” In the process of drafting it, the UN Commission on Human Rights decided to change the word “international” to “universal” in the title to empha- size the moral and philosophical importance of the Declara- tion. One question that I like to put to my students and others is this: do you think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a Western document? Without thinking twice, most people answer yes. This reaction says something about where the uni- versal lies in most people’s minds. My answer is that, on the contrary, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is NOT a Western document. This conclusion is based on my research on the minutes, summary reports, and a lot of other UN archival material as well as the secondary studies of the drafting of the UN document. For instance, Article 1 includes the term “con- science” and it is English, but if you look at the discussions that went on behind the scenes, there was a Confucian concept proposed by the Vice-Chair of the UN Drafting Committee, P. C. Chang, who worked closely to craft the document with El- eanor Roosevelt, the Chair, along with a number of other dele- gates from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Chang was the one who proposed that human attributes should not just be defined as reason, but must also include ren, a written character from Confucian philosophy that consists of a human radical plus number two, which Chang rendered as “Two-man minded- ness” whereas I would translate the character as “the plural hu- man.” Chang tried to explain the word in a way that would help the committee members reground the idea of human rights in the plurality or sociality of human beings, rather than in indi- viduality. There is a fundamental difference between the two. I see Chang’s move as proposing a competing universal. Some people might object that Chang’s stance was merely nationalis- tic, but this is not the case because the Confucian classics were translation / 127 the shared legacy of many societies across East Asia, including the Japanese and Koreans and Vietnamese who all contributed to the study of Confucianism in the past. Confucianism was one of the civilizational resources that P. C. Chang tried to mo- bilize. He made many other contributions—for instance, his refusal to let a Christian understanding of natural rights be the dominant, determining factor in the definition of rights. Theo- logical terms were debated and some terms were taken out. Conscience—an inadequate translation of the Chinese, ren— was eventually added. This drafting process staged a play of competing universals among the delegates from many coun- tries around the world. Let’s not let this document be taken as simply a European-inspired, or American-inspired, document. My argument in the essay is that if you look at the actual day- to-day debates at the UN on concepts—very important con- cepts that we tend to associate with the Western tradition of human rights today—you would be surprised to find multiple contributions, not only from a Confucian humanist like P. C. Chang, but also from feminist activists, Latin American legal traditions, and Islamic traditions. I conclude that the Declara- tion of Human Rights is not a Western document but a docu- ment that registers competing universals. CS: I have another question about the notion of “eventfulness.” I’d like to quote one of your phrases from a footnote in your article, in which you suggest that rather than “an endless rehashing or deconstruction of the biblical story” of the Tower of Babel, it might be more productive to think about translation in terms of an event. I wonder if you could talk about this, perhaps relating it to the way that you have discussed the history of translation in specific contexts, such as the Afro-Asian Writers Conferences? LL: Eventfulness helps me in my attempt to work out the tempo- rality and spatiality of the act of translation. Translation is not just reduced to one instance of textual transfer, based on a com- munication model—which I reject—or a theological model, concerned with the fulfillment of meaning, since hermeneutics is still part of that tradition. How can we radically reconceptu- translation / alize the problem of translation in terms of its situatedness in time—whether we call it history or not—and place, where it 128 happens? Eventfulness might help us grapple with this prob- lem if we were not to think of translation as merely a textual event going after meanings across languages. If we were to think of it, for instance, in terms of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences and the multiple translation projects they carried out, through journals, correspondence, conferences, collabora- tions across many divides, then translation is something else as well—it may inhabit multiple temporalities. I want to free us from thinking of it merely as one time, one place, with its significance limited to whether one gets the meaning or not. To open it instead to the multiplicity of texts, open it to interpreta- tions, open it to other temporalities. Some people argue that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was simply crafted by an international elite, and that it didn’t really mean much at that time, in the Cold War. But you never know its mode of exis- tence. Human rights can be appropriated in any given instance and can generate surprising modes of survival. For instance, in the 1930s human rights discourse was mobilized in China to fight fascism when the nationalist government was rounding up Communists and leftwing intellectuals and putting them in jail, but in the Cold War it was mobilized to fight Communist, totalitarian regimes. So it never had a stable meaning. While the Declaration of Human Rights gave us a blueprint, the in- terpretation itself varies from place to place, time to time, and so I grant the concept itself a certain mobility, an openness to other languages and other intellectual traditions. Eventfulness allows these temporalities to give any particular text a new mode of life in a new language. That’s how I wanted to take translation in the direction of eventfulness and then to identify its political mode of being. The kind of translation work that took place among those who participated in the post-Bandung Afro-Asian Writers Confer- ences is a good example of this. There was a tremendous ef- fort to collaborate across nations and they produced so much—I think in my article I mentioned one instance of the translation of some of the writers from Africa, such as the Nigerian writ- er, Chinua Achebe, who was known in the 1960s and 1970s as an Afro-Asian writer—he was not primarily thought of as an Anglophone writer, as we call him now in Anglo-American ac- translation / 129 ademia. I have become wary of the imperial reappropriation of Afro-Asian writers as Anglophone writers, as Francophone writ- ers. . . What does this mean? They disavow that earlier history, the Afro-Asian writers’ solidarity and their mutual translations and wipe it out by incorporating them into English departments, or Francophone departments, across American and European universities. Today the teaching of Afro-Asian writers is redis- tributed among these departments, but in the recent past the writ- ers belonged together in a mode of political solidarity. CS: Today in your lecture you touched on la petite lettre. Since I understand that you are working on psychoanalysis, translation, and media studies, I was hoping for a few comments on these new directions in your thought. LL: The Freudian Robot didn’t really focus on translation, al- though translation was part of it. For instance, the translation of Lacan into American academia is a fascinating story that I dug out when I was writing the book. What puzzled me was that Lacan’s reading of Poe’s “Purloined Letter” has been in- terpreted by American translators and American literary critics and theorists as something entirely different from what Lacan was actually doing. I traced that to the Yale French Studies (No. 48, French Freud: Structural Studies in Psychoanalysis [1972], 39–72) translation of Lacan: they eliminated a third of Lacan’s original essay, which dealt with cybernetics and infor- mation theory, and thereby created something called French theory. The United States has been fabricating French theo- ry for some time—even today with the translation of Barbara Cassin’s Dictionary of Untranslatables! I looked at the Cold War situation during which disciplines did not speak to each other in the United States, but Lacan himself read across the disciplines. He was reading Freud along with cybernetics—so how did we miss this? Using Lacan as an example—but he was not the only one—I point out that there is an economy of translation: French theory has been manufactured by American academia through translation. translation / CS: In 2013 you published The Nesbitt Code in Chinese, which has not yet been translated. Would you consider translating it? 130 LL: Last month when I was in Beijing, a friend of mine asked me the same question: whether I would consider rendering it into English. I feel ambivalent about this. The main reason is that I wrote this book as part of a collective effort among Chinese writers to rethink the political history of the twentieth centu- ry. I was involved in a three-year-long Indian–Chinese writ- ers’ conversation and I consider myself as a writer in Chinese. The Nesbitt Code—a kind of pseudodetective novel—emerged out of that conversation because I was very interested in the way that Chinese and India poets and novelists remembered their histories. I wrote the book to reflect on the history of the twentieth century, starting with the Russian Revolution and the writers who went into exile, connecting the life stories of these people to reflect on the legacy of the Chinese Revolution. I’m not sure that people in the West are very interested in the psy- chic aspect of the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revo- lution, whereas in China this resonates because it’s their lived history. Since the Revolution ended in failure, there’s a great deal of melancholy and soul searching in China, a lot of pain associated with that history and many personal tragedies. But a question persists: why did so many intellectuals and scien- tists—Chinese, British, Russian, and others—rally around the idea of the Revolution? It’s something one cannot brush aside. I wrote this book to confront that question. What has deterred me from translating it into English is that the readership of English language publications is only interested in testimonial literature against the Communist regime. That’s why I hesitate. This melancholy story about the fundamental homelessness of modern intellectuals and the tragedy of the Revolution is not something that would resonate with publishers in the West. Look at how they talk about China! They talk about the hor- rors of the Cultural Revolution in the same breath as they talk about the Holocaust and are only excited by the evils of Com- munism. What do they know? Next to nothing! But I’m not at all interested in telling them what transpired in the Cultural Revolution. For the most part, the reading public in the United States and Europe only seek repeated confirmation of the supe- riority of their political system, the superiority of their culture, and superiority in general. They are not interested in learning translation / 131 about the difficult existential decisions that faced intellectuals in other parts of the world from the First to the Second World War and all the way to the Cultural Revolution. So you see where my difficulty lies. CS: Maybe it’s not for them. But what about in India? Have you thought of this, since the book came out of these exchanges? In that context do you think there would be an interest? LL: Maybe, there will be an interest when another worldwide rev- olution looms on the horizon or a new generation of the intel- ligentsia is born. Translating the book into English for my In- dian friends who actually asked for it would make good sense. That would be a compelling argument. Maybe I should have it translated into English, not for North American and European or British readers but for other English language readers. I’ll give it some thought. References Liu, Lydia H. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Trans- lated Modernity. China 1900-1936. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ––––. 2004. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ––––. 2010. The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ––––. 2013. The Nesbitt Code (六個字母的解法 non-fiction, in Chinese) Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Lydia H. Liu is a theorist of media and translation living in New York. She is Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and has published on literary theory, translation, digital media, Chinese feminism, and empire in English and Chinese. Her English works include The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Un- conscious (2010), The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (2004) and, more recently, a coedited translation with Rebecca Karl and Dorothy Ko called The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational translation / Theory (2013). 132

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Translation does not concern a comparison between two languages but the interpretation of two texts in two different languages. Umberto Eco (2001) Ever since we started publishing this journal I have wanted to dedicate a special issue to memory. Memory and translation are so obviously connected, yet so little studied. Memory—as the retrieval, reconstruction, inscription, and leaving of traces and their effects—plays a central role in any translation process, and translation, in its inherently transformative character, is intrinsic to every memory and memorializing act. Loss, furthering, circulation, redefinition, distancing, transmigration, rewriting are all possible aspects and effects of translation that could not take place if not for some sort of memorialization. * Since the initial planning of this special issue, my editors of choice were also clear to me. I am so grateful to the two fine scholars—and dear friends—Bella Brodzki and Cristina Demaria for having accepted to serve as guest editors for this issue. Their backgrounds and research make them a perfect duo for the present issue. Bella Brodzki’s brilliant Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory (2007) is perhaps the most important publication bringing together translation and memory, demonstrating how “excavating or unearthing burial sites or ruins in order to reconstruct traces of the physical and textual past in a new context is also a mode of translation, just as resurrecting a memory or interpreting a dream are acts of translation.” I found reading this book truly illuminating. Bringing Bella together with Cristina, who for years has studied memory from the somewhat different angle of the semiotics of culture, was a fortunate choice. Cristina’s research is in the most various expressions and testimonies of memory— from reconciliation processes in South Africa and Chile to documentaries of events and experiences of trauma. “Studying memory [as a cultural phenomenon] means considering not only the material conditions, means, or devices through which it is inscribed and transmitted, but also the models, forms, and practices that define those genres that orient, and also retranslate or reenunciate, narrations of the past” (2012, 10; my translation). * I would like to thank Bella and Cristina for their wonderful work in putting this issue together. I also want to thank the authors for their contributions, each of which provides new and diversified insights into how translation works through memory. I am also very grateful for their patience during the many publication delays. Regrettably, it took much longer than expected and originally programmed to publish this special issue. On behalf of the board, I want to apologize to our guest editors, authors, and readers for the unconscionable delay in delivering our journal. Over the past few years, we moved from one publisher to another but now, after a lengthy hiatus, we have finally found a new home with Eurilink University Press in Rome. * Reading this issue’s essays has enriched my under- standing of the relations between translation and memory. I have learned new things, and I have been surprised and pleased. I hope you will join me in appreciating this special issue. * This issue is dedicated to the memory of Umberto Eco, who passed away more than a year ago while we were busy preparing this issue. Translation was one of the themes to which he devoted much interest and writing in his last few years, and his contributions on translation as negotiation, based on his experience both as a translator and as a widely translated author, will continue to accompany us. I am most grateful for the opportunity he gave me to discover and investigate translation through the lens of semiotics, and Cristina Demaria and I, who both completed our doctorates under his supervision, share fond memories of the lively discussions on translation and its limits during our university seminars. S. N. References Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Demaria, Cristina. 2012. Il trauma, l’archivio e il testimone. La semiotica, il documentario e la rappresentazione del “reale”. (Trauma, archive, and witness. Semiotics, documentaries, and the representation of the “real”). Bologna: Bononia University Press. Eco, Umberto. 2001. Experiences in Translation. Translated by Alastair McEwen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Eco, Umberto. 2003. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. Translator/s not specified. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

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0. A preface on the translational internationalization of the humanities This special volume is the result of a very long, exciting, yet rather difficult struggle, involving translations and self- translations. Who writes here is the “effect” of two people’s endeavors; two people who have come to know each other to some extent across text, screen, and phone line—who, surely, respect and cherish one another, without ever having met. One is American, the other Italian; they have been invited to write for an International Journal in English, a journal that hosts articles that engage, obviously, not only translation, but that are themselves the product of self-translations. This very process has necessarily become part of the volume’s introduction, since one of its authors is not a native speaker. This is a “fact” that nowadays has become routine at least in the Western-Eurocentric worlds, and none dares question it: we must write in English. Otherwise, our international status will be affected, and not only will we go back to being provincial, addressing only a limited audience, but we will be devalued, score lower on all the national evaluations that determine individual and institutional research funding. This seems to be a one-way trajectory that everyone acknowledges, that some occasionally criticize, but is never actually resisted, since it is the way the global production of knowledge and educational systems work. One might wonder why we are foregrounding the obvious, when we should be writing about translation and memory. As many of the essays here demonstrate, however, the relationship between translation and memory has very much to do with not only the position of the person who is translating, but also with that of the person who is writing about translation, and thus creating an archive–memory of all the lives a text might have, along with its histories and narratives, its former and new translated meanings. If all critical analysis and meditation on the differences between languages—which includes the memory that sustains them, and the memory-texts in the languages that manage to survive—are but a translation/self-translation, often erasing nuances and disregarding untranslatability, then in which recesses of translation (from and into English and into every other language) and memory does the future of the humanities reside? 1. Memory and translation of past intercourses Isn’t this what a translation does? [. . .] By elevating the signifier to its meaning or value, all the while preserving the mournful and debt-laden memory of the singular body, the first body, the unique body that the translation thus elevates, preserves, and negates [relève]? Since it is a question of a travail—indeed, as we noted, a travail of the negative—this relevance is a travail of mourning, in the most enigmatic sense of this word [. . .] The measure of the relève or relevance, the price of a translation, is always what is called meaning, that is, value, preservation, truth as preservation (Wahrheit, bewahren) or the value of meaning, namely, what, in being freed from the body, is elevated above it, interiorizes it, spiritualizes it, preserves it in memory. A faithful and mournful memory. (Derrida 2013, 378) Among the many theoretical perspectives from which one can look at translation, as well as the many objects that can be considered from the point of view of translation theories and practices, the translation/memory nexus is among the most fraught, precisely because memory is by definition contesta- tory, and always mediated, and thereby the most complex and difficult to qualify on almost every level. Because of their tight intertwining, one runs the risk of reiterating or echoing what has been said and done already (see, for example, the recent book by one of the author of this volume: Brownlie 2016). Oversaturated, we struggle to find what else could come from further confrontations between these two concepts: how to consider and render truly heuristic an encounter between translation and memory now, in the age of posttranslation studies (Gentzler 2017)? The quoted passage above from Jacques Derrida dates back many years, and, in the domain of translation theories influenced by poststructuralism, it serves as a milestone in the encounter between translation and memory. In what follows, we would like to go back to what might belong to even older history of memory and translation engagements. If for literary critics and translation specialists this history sounds passé, it is not the case for philosophers or scholars working with language and meaning. One of the first fields of confrontation and exchange between translation and memory was the study of the “meaning of meaning”—semiotics, philosophy of language— whereby the implications of any act of translation became part of many theories and speculations on the working of meaning between languages and cultures (Nergaard 1995). Should this seem peripheral to the main event, we could point to structuralism, and even to the beginnings of poststructuralism, up to its recent neomaterialist transformations, as a way of rethinking languages, cultures, and their relation with history and the “material” world. There we find the crucial work of translation and memory as perspectives and/or as epistemic positions that have enabled the study of languages and cultures and the effects of different temporalities, politics, subjectivities and bodies—that is, of the transformative character of translation in memorializing act. As clarification, let us start from some basic assumptions underlining not a post-, but a no-longer- structuralist, interpretative, and translational conception of how semiosis works, looking at the work of Umberto Eco, to whom this issue is dedicated. Even though his work is recognized as having significantly contributed to the development of Roman Jakobson’s three-fold classification of translation (Eco 2001),1 here we want to mention briefly another concept that he used to explain the workings of semiosis, along with that of memory. The operative first assumption is that every act of interpretation that comprises acts of translation has recourse to an encyclopedia, in the semiotic sense that Umberto Eco (1976, 1984) has given to the term—that in its turn refers to semantic and iconic memories that are part not only of every langue system, but of every act of parole, to go back to Ferdinand de Saussure. In other words, the very idea of how meaning works had already changed in the 1980s, thanks also to Eco’s perspective for which the idea of a semiotic universe is made not so much of signs, but of cultural units; entities that absorb and reflect the influence of the culture in which they find themselves, and which are no longer the lemmas [word; term] of a rigid system of content organization (a dictionary), but rather the nodes of a network of meanings that can be treaded upon in multiple directions, depending on the inferences and the interpretive connections one chooses: a semiotic universe that takes the shape of an encyclopedia. (Lorusso 2015, 81) In respect to translation processes, this concept is relevant for two different reasons. The first is that, in accepting semiosis as operating within encyclopedias, what is most relevant is that every term composing a code is always already interpreted, bringing along the history of its uses and translations; the working of languages moving from its structure to the actual effects and transformations of every signifying practices that define not so much what is a 1 One of the most significant contributions to Jakobson’s classification was made by Eco in Experiences in Translation (2001), starting from Charles S. Peirce’s influence on Jakobson. Even though Eco emphasizes that for Peirce “meaning, in its primary sense, is a ‘translation of a sign into another system of signs’” (Eco 2001, 69), he also argues that Peirce “uses translation in a figurative sense: not like a metaphor, but pars pro toto (in the sense that he assumes ‘translation’ as a synecdoche for ‘interpretation’)” (Eco 2001, 69). language, but what concurs to its different kinds of circulation and transmissions, that is, to its translations. As Patrizia Violi summarizes: “The encyclopaedia marks the transformation of the code from a rule that defines signification and interpretation, into the idea of a system of possible inferences, in which even a principle of choice and of freedom may find a place” (Violi 1992, 99). In a culture conceived as an encyclopedia, the hierarchies fall, because the priorities and the dependencies change according to circumstances (thus locally, and bodily). Meaning starts to be thought of as always already constructed and reconstructed, hence translated, in time (and space), within a dialectic between what is already deposited in the encyclopedia and what is historically and culturally negotiated; between consolidated habits2 and their possible transform- ations. And here is the second reason this concept might play a role: collective memories, thought of in their contingent political, social and historical formations, are what is filtered and negotiated and transformed from local, national and cultural encyclopedia. Memory and its processes are what, in different contexts, emerge as different processes of cultural translation. Every translator, therefore, deals not only with those memories belonging to the cultural and historical contexts in which she operates, and with the different politics of memory surrounding the particular text being translated, but also with the semantic and pragmatic fields (scripts, genres, frames) of which each term, each name, is part. In other words, languages, and not only natural languages but images and sounds as well, are thought of as forms of cultural and historical memory, often capable of directing, but, at least, influencing, what we now think of as the fluxes of linguistic traffic that are produced in those border and contact zones— again, temporal and spatial—wherein translation operates. In other words, whenever we look at the processes of archiving and preserving cultures, we find the modeling, and translating, nature of memory. Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspensky wrote more than forty years ago that the “implanting 2 We refer here to the notion of habit as theorized by Charles S. Peirce (see especially Collect- ed Papers V.4000). of a fact into the collective memory, then, is like a translation from one language into another—in this case, into the ‘language of culture’” (Lotman and Uspensky 1971, 214). And they add—prior to much more recent theorizations of what an “event” is in light of transmedia and current transnational thinking: “Events have multilayered interpretations, they are subject to corrections, revisions. The construction of the historical event is nothing but the translation of something into the language of memory” (Lorusso 2015, 101). A visual example of such influence is the concept of Pathosformel by, recently rediscovered and much discussed in memory studies and aesthetic theory. Developed throughout his life, the unfinished project of the atlas of Mnemosyne, Pathosformeln refers to all those images and forms of pathos (emotions, passions such as fear, awe, and horror) that survive as a cultural heritage imprinted in our collective memory. There are, in other words, antique roots sustaining modern images, their translations—the very way in which their meaning can be reversed—that is at stake whenever we analyze visual cultures.3 2. Memory and translation current transactions However, even though the intersections and exchanges between memory and translation are undeniable, indisputable, and generative, they do not exclude several critical issues: how can these intersections be truly heuristic? Is any confrontation possible without ironing out the actual differences between the two concepts? That is, on the one hand, to think of translation as a way to construct collective memories, their survival, and on the other hand, of memory as always requiring a transfer of time and space, a recontextualizing of its representations and expressions? And even more so if we think of translation as the transformation of one’s own traditions and identity, in itself a process that implies the fatigue of welcoming and of hospitality, the hard work of transmitting one’s own otherness; 3 In the past few years, there has been an increasing interest in Warburg’s project and his idea of Pathosforlmen in many fields (visual studies, aesthetics, history) dealing with the construction and circulation of memory images. Amongst the many author, see the work of Georges Didi-Huberman (2005, 2011). moreover, as a widening of the very concept of multidirec- tional memory (Rothberg 2009). One has to remember all the different practices— individual and collective, linguistic and social—that are at stake in every engagement, to think of practices of translation as both a metaphorical transfer and, as Barbara Godard (see Karpinski, Henderson, Sowton, and Ellenwood 2013) suggests, as metonymical links (see also Tymoczko 1999). In other words, one must not forget the implications of using translation as a metaphor standing in for the encounter with the other that is, also, a transformation of one’s own tradition and memory. This is a choice that is always conveyed by the real labor that accompanies welcoming not only another language, but also another future and another possible past into the negotiations between the translator, the texts, the discourses, and the places, spaces, and times surrounding them. What happens when translation is “translated,” transferred as an expansion and an extension of memories through the figure of testimony and witnessing? And how does translation function in the dynamics of postmemory, as conceptualized by Marianne Hirsch4 and others (see Hirsch 1997, 2012) , in the intergenerational passage that structures both filiation and affiliation? In as much as the concepts and processes of translation and memory are understood to be mutually implicating, if not interpenetrating, in literary critical studies, philosophy, linguistics, distinctions between individual (or autobiographic- al memory) and collective or cultural memory are often not acknowledged. Even when the topic is traumatic memory, in particular, and the analytic categories are drawn from the familiar models of psychoanalytic theory, memory as a phenomenon and a practice is considered to operate across (hence our volume’s title) realms and registers. Likewise, we—as the editors of this volume—are not inclined to privilege either personal or public memory, or engage in debate over the question of priority or precedence. Our essays treat translation in regard to both social and individual memory, reflecting our conviction that, for our 4See the interview with Marianne Hirsch in this issue, in which she revisits the concept of postmemory in its relationship with practices of translation. interpretive purposes, both draw from the same well. There is analytic force and ethical impact in studying the uses and effects of each, and their interconnectedness, as autobiogra- phical narratives, fiction, as well as other forms of literary and cultural expression demonstrate. However, in the disciplines of psychology and the social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, political science, and history, these distinctions do matter, differently; indeed, they are foundational. Having said that, there appears to be a strong drift now in the direction of stressing the effects of the social and the public on personal memory, or an attempt to bridge social science and psychological approaches. This is the case in cutting-edge empirical research in the neurosciences and cognitive psychology, where arguably the greatest advances in memory studies have recently taken place. “Mnemonic consequences,” or what is otherwise referred to as the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, are attributed to the role of conversation/the impact of silence, the said and the unsaid (Stone et al. 2012); this is also true for studies in the reconstructing of memory, which reached its greatest visibility (and notoriety) in the 1990s. Whereas in psychoanalysis the agent of repression is the unconscious (both singular and collective, though to different effect), recent research in cognitive and neurobiological science finds the suppressing or controlling of unwanted memories to be the product of brain systems similar to the mechanisms that stop reflexive motor responses (Anderson and Levy 2009). In studies that seek to bridge psychology—which is method- logyically individually based and functional in its perspective—and the disciplines more generally focused on groups, whether they are nations, tribes, generations, or other units, an important connection is psychology’s recent affirmation that individuals are embedded in complex social networks. Memory, according to neuroscientists, has an epidemiological dimension in the sense of social contagion, which is now exacerbated by social media. Whether mnemonic formations are primarily biological or social in origin, psychology is not interested in the individual qua individual, but in general or universal principles or features that can be extracted. In other words, just because the locus is the individual doesn’t mean that the investment is in the subject or subjectivity. Despite this fundamental difference between the various disciplinary approaches that, nevertheless, needed to be mentioned, what steers much of this work back to literary and cultural perspectives on memory and translation of psychic phenomena is the centrality accorded to narrative and identity. In this respect, Aleida Assmann’s (2015) recent reflections on the working of cultural memory merits mention. Assmann comments not only on neuroscience’s and media studies’ shared “basis in the constructivist hypothesis that events and experiences have no ontological status but are made and remade over and over again” (Assmann 2015, 42), as Lotman and Uspensky (1978) have also said. Her work is also relevant because of her perspective on cultural memory as a domain that must engage with the role of affects—both individual and collective, along with their intertwining— within a diachronic and transgenerational analytical gaze. What does her “model” suggest? Arguably, a sort of rearticulation of the very notion of postmemory, with the added insights of a constructivist point of view. The latter emphasizes the synchronic and embedded quality of a memory fabricated according to actual needs and demands in the present, calls for approaches that focus on the affective dimension of memory in a long-term diachronic perspective, both at the individual and at the collective transgenerational transmission levels. It is probably in this very rearticulation of the relationship between cultural memory and postmemory that processes of translation and rewriting of memories are not only significant because they create an “afterlife of repeated transformations, but also a prehistory”: what is at stake are the ways in which “memory traces interact with previous experiences and cultural patterns; how both of these provide templates that gain a steering function within our mental cosmos” (Assmann 2015, 43). Resonance is thus a form of “stimulating and strengthening the affective charge in the process of remem- bering” (44), where [t]he concept of resonance implies the interaction of two separate entities, one located in the foreground, one in the background. In this case, the element in the foreground does not cover up or elide what exists in the background; on the contrary, the element in the foreground triggers the background and fuses with it. We may also speak of a cooperation, in which the background element nonconconsciously or unconsciously guides, forms, shapes the foreground element. My emphasis here is on the hidden correspondence and the tacit agreement between a surface stimulus and its response on a deeper and nonconscious level, which can enlarge our understanding of the nonconscious but not necessarily unconscious, let alone occult, dynamics of memory. (Assmann 2015, 45) Resonance and a prehistory of memories can be found in the ways in which translation processes, when dealing with the past, are forms of cooperation between background and foreground that might differ, involving both temporalization and spatialization strategies, as our essays and interviews amply demonstrate. As the interview with James Young that we present online (http://translation.fusp.it) amply suggests, ongoing interest in the link between language and landscape, memorial sites, ruins, and layered translations points to the manifold ways that translation is instrumentalized for different memorializing ends, whether they be in the service of creation, reclamation, or effacement of a memory or former version (one’s own or another’s). Arguably, every act of translation displaces a previous one; sometimes, they continue to coexist, even if one of the languages or versions is in the ascendant or dominant position. Translation works in two directions, toward both remembrance/reification and oblivion, along a continuum which is, of course, subject to change over time. Although, for example, we witness the erasing and mistranslating of place names in Brian Friel’s (1981) famous play Translations—in which in 1883 British surveyors are redrawing the map, that is, converting Gaelic names to English ones—in 1922 both Irish and English were made the official languages of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Linguistic appropriation is the primary form of displacement of the other; linguistic imperialism in this form has been one of the great weapons of choice in history. It is important to note, however, that translation involves reaction and resistance, as well as aggression and enactment. Isabelle Jenin’s essay in our volume addresses the replacement of place names in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony, in which the original Indian names for the American landscape are changed to English and Spanish ones. The text, she argues, shows that the “translated” landscape is in some way fundamentally untranslatable, that the Laguna Pueblo spirits that haunt the European settlers’ imprint are exercising their own dominion, keeping their names alive. Toponymy isn’t inherently political, but the history and meaning of place names are dramatically associated with changes of regime, occupation, settlement, and linguistic/ cultural imperialism in general; acts of translation— renaming—are complicit with memorializing and monument- alizing efforts that represent symbolic as well as economic capital investments. They shape, even distort, cultural memory and identity by ensuring certain legacies while effacing, sometimes even burying others. 4. Traces of translatability and untranslatability The working of memory and translation as a kind of urban archaeology has recently been reclaimed and further developed by Sherry Simon (2012). Simon’s overarching project deals with those urban spaces that are divided and polyglot, such as Nicosia, Trieste, and Montreal, addressing translation studies in relation to its growing engagement with those cultural, economic, and political disparities and variations that act on each process of “mediation”. According to Simon, “[s]uch an enlarged understanding of translation includes acts of mediation which are not language transfers in the conventional sense, but are more broadly practices of writing that take place at the crossroads” (8), and “[t]ranslation is a useful and often neglected entry point into questions of diversity and accommodation, identity and community, and the kinds of durable links that can be established across histories and memories” (156). Processes of translation are capable of mobilizing and circulating divergent, indeed conflictual, memories. Therefore, if translation can be thought of as an act that contributes to redefining not only cultural spaces, but also the very spaces where citizenship is identified, it becomes something more than the acknowledgement and the expression of differences. It is also in this sense that translation become a mode, a dispositif in the Foucauldian employment of the term, thanks to which what has passed away, what is apparently past, disappeared, removed, and suppressed, overtakes and exceeds its own predetermined destiny through a rebirth in other contexts, in other times and places, with renewed images. At the same time, the very nature of a dispositif might direct us to reflect again on the status and condition of translatability and untranslatability, whereby speaking of untranslatability does not mean to deny the potentiality of any translation; on the contrary, it means accepting, and always interrogating translation as an actual transformation and interpretation of the memory of cultures or, better yet, of the cultures of memories, their resilience and their resonances. It means continually interrogating the discontinuities and heterogeneities inhabiting every memory construction and tracing of borders, in regards to which we should always exercise not only the work of comparison but, as Marianne Hirsch expresses in her interview in this volume, an effort to imagine new possible political connections and affiliations, new ways of mobilizing memories and their visual, verbal, and performative translations. For Simon, it is undeniable that in every context in which there is a strong awareness of the border—of different languages coexisting, along with competing and often conflicting memories—the suspicion of the “other language” prevails, the other language here acquiring another kind of “untranslatability” entailing any deviation from one’s own, or any inclusion of the translated histories and stories of those living across the material or symbolic border that separates them from us. Both acts of inclusion and exclusion are charged with deep ideological valence: how can we translate what we do not want to translate? Most times, the enemy is the one whose story we do not want to hear; that we do not want to recognize and actually translate, since we might understand it, thus allowing the other’s memory possibly to haunt us. However, as Simon says, cities crossed by linguistic borders— more Trieste and Montreal (to mention her examples) than Jerusalem, or Cape Town (to mention other examples)—are places in which translation can become a very powerful tool, first by bringing along in its very practice the social force of distancing. That is in the confirmation of alterity in the emphasis on social and cultural differences, in the recognition and yielding to religious and national belonging. Second, by calling on the force of furthering, that is, in the creation of new links and bonds through deviant and excessive forms of cross- over: interferences, self-translation, rewriting, transmigration, and countermemorialization. The practice of furthering does not entail a presupposition of sameness; on the contrary, it presumes the integration of memories in conflict or, rather, of their relocation within their own cultural and historical contexts. But is this really possible? 5. Trauma and translation Many of the essays we present here reflect on the practice of translation as a means of managing not only internal borders and conflicting memories. At the same time they address the challenges any translator faces when converting traumatic memories into diverse contexts and spaces with different or competing Histories, whether of the Shoah, the Native American, or the Armenian genocide. It is risky to enter here into a multifaceted debate that some may regard as already “old,” or over-utilized as a trope. However, some of the most significant contemporary “thinking [about] trauma’s future” (Rothberg 2014, xii) includes voices that try to understand the ways in which the category of trauma as an interpretive model might still have an impact on our experience of temporality and its structure. One option is to look at trauma along with its implicated concept of belatedness (Freud’s idea of Nachträglichkeit) This suggests reading trauma not in and for itself, but for its possible representations—verbal, visual, spatial—for when it tries to express a structure of feeling for a (no longer unclaimed) experience; it also implies looking at the coming together of different times, whereby the category of trauma does not point to the disruptive nature of experienced time, but to how we write about it, translate it. These are the complexities of belatedness weaving into the writing, or the (re)calling and the repealing, of past experiences within which trauma is made manifest: questions of narrative and time that are inseparable from ethical and political questions. A further level of confrontation between “new” trauma theory and translation studies emerges once it has become almost unavoidable for any discourse on trauma to travel elsewhere, geographically and geoculturally, to go beyond a Eurocentric and monocultural orientation, to move to another affect-world, in order to better apprehend its impact (Rothberg 2014); to test its future-tense and its slow violence (Kaplan 2015). In so doing, a paradigm in which translation and trauma meet might also start to answer different questions: how do states colonize a disruptive temporality into sovereign chronologies, and how do they translate them; or how is the changing biopolitical horizon in which trauma is both produced and policed affecting its very experience—an example of which is when what is produced and policed regards different people, different places, refugees and exiles; different bodies? There is no doubt that the contemporary technological versions of subjectivity and identity have moved the idea of trauma through many translations and transmutations. We must contemplate the cultural and historical specificity of the concepts and categories of trauma, thanks to its translations, as Michael Rothberg reminds us: “The category of trauma ought to trouble the historicist gesture of much contemporary criticism as well as its concomitant notions of history and culture” (Rothberg 2014, xv). As much as the category of trauma might enable the political, cultural, and social impact of translation, it involves the dislocation of subjects, histories, and cultures. And even though there could be multiple forms of dislocation, deriving from “punctual” events (a massacre, for example) or from systemic violence or transhistorical structural trauma (LaCapra 2001), there is continuity, nonetheless. The task of “theory” is to find it, to look for connections, overlaps, similitude, and translation across the cultural and historical contexts under scrutiny. We discern connections and similarities in the current climate of History and its forms of violence involving different scales of temporality and modes of subjectivity; these are pertinent to both in trauma and in translation studies, but they have probably not, thus far, been addressed sufficiently. In sum, the challenge seems to be how to critically engage with classical trauma theory’s dominant paradigm by rethinking and rewriting how to connect events of extreme violence, disjunctive structures of subjective and collective experience, and discursive and aesthetic forms of rewriting and translation. 6. Media transmediality and the archive Yet another question comes to mind: what is specific to the concept and practices of translation when the current mobilizing of memory results in new and different representations of form and content, which are transformed by what is being called a post-roadcast era (Hoskins 2011)? What does it mean today to move from the unknown to the known, to render something from the past familiar, within the ever-changing forms and formations of contemporary mediascapes and memoryscapes, or else to accept their untrans- latability? In order to answer these questions in their intertwining with memory, one could engage in dialogue with Media- Specific Analysis, which deals mainly with contemporary examples of how a literary genre, as Hayles states, “mutates and transforms when it is instantiated in different media [. . .] MSA insists that texts must always be embodied to exist in the world. The materiality of these embodiments interacts dynamically with linguistic, rhetorical, and literary practice to create the effects we call ‘literature’” (Hayles 2014, 21). Or, also, it could confront itself with a more sociologically oriented tendency that maintains that media “functions” have been unhooked from both the tools and the objects with which they have been traditionally associated. To give the most common example, what we once normally thought of as television has now gone beyond the television set itself, its content released from its “container,” from its specific embodiment, its own materiality. In other words, what used to be defined as a media product—even what is labeled as “literature”—is now a transmedia set of translated events and practices of consumption: programs are seen through streaming or downloaded from the Internet in different countries, fandom providing almost instantaneous subtitles; books and their characters cannot be launched without a YouTube trailer that immediately receives global comments; programs have websites and Facebook pages, their actors living many other lives as characters of a proliferation of narratives produced and archived in fan fiction websites from all over the world, where they become adaptations and local versions of the “original,” of a matrix that is changed through on-going transmedia storytelling (Demaria 2014). What we have briefly described here is now almost a cliché in Media Studies; it is part of a phenomenon that has been called, and from then on overtly quoted as, a convergent and participative culture, of media spreadability (Jenkins, Green, Ford 2013) that endlessly rewrites the return of history and memory through prosthetic tools (Landsberg 2004). The narrative complexity on one hand and the transmedia overflows exemplified by fanfic websites on the other supposedly constitute the evidence of a participatory and spectator-centered culture of prosumers, of a diffuse audience whose agency has helped to blur the boundaries between an original “text” (such as, for example, a TV series) and its transformations and local translations (how the characters and their stories are transformed and reimagined, and their format readapted in different countries). Hence, we still need a reflection on a language of the text that does not exclude the “materiality” of the screen or the computer, as well as the effects of the notion that content outside its containers might induce the very thinking of new forms of translation. The different media and screens implicated in all studies of contemporary digital transmu- tations, their specificity but also their syncreticity—that is, the simultaneous presence of different languages and their particular intertwining effects and affects (verbal, visual, textual, aural)—can allow us to reflect on the peculiar ways in which content might migrate from one digital space to another. Moreover, different—or else very similar—stories might be told. What might be at stake are the main transformations undergone by narrative imaginations (Montani 2010)—from a mimetic account of time (as in epic or ancient theatre), to a more productive projection, first helped by the narrative configurations allowed by the novel and cinema, and currently by contemporary media narratives—remediations and translations of all previous forms and genres (the novel, cinema, TV, and so on) and of the memory of all the antique images (Pathosformeln), languages, and cultures they involve. What is the role of translation in those processes of selection and management of what becomes part of an archive as a set of rules and criteria, as a collection, as a process of distribution and delivery of memory? This problem involves a critical reading of those technologies of memory that are supported by different politics of digital archives, whereby one faces the double and ambivalent dimension of archive as origin and archive as law, of the authority and authorship of the archive. It is the case, to quote but one example, of the recent transfer of CIA and other former classified verbal, visual, and audiovisual documents dealing with the US involvement with the Pinochet dictatorship to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Santiago de Chile.5 These political documents rest on a techno-ethical paradox: between providing free access to memory as a civil or human right and the opacity of a history preserved as a trace of and a testimony to its very secrecy. More generally speaking, when translation meets the archive, it encounters its possible displacements and various transnational administrations of memory (NGOs, humanitarian agencies that demand to speak and designate, to classify and preserve documents in the name of other people’s memories). Hence, how can one analyze such performative acts, this verbal and visual documentality? This refers to the exercises of power that affect subjective and collective investments, the comprehensive power of knowledge-production in relation to the rights and meanings of contemporary archives. 5 For more on this project led by Cristián Gomez-Moya on the archive and human rights, see http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica-91/gomezmoya#sthash.g0wBGq8a.dpuf; and http://www.wordsinspace.net/lib-arch-data/2013-fall/?ai1ec_event=declassifying-the- archive-declassification-documentation-human-rights&instance_id. Accessed July 1, 2016. In conclusion The articles that make up this issue of translation: an interdisciplinary journal offer indeed a range of meditations on an intriguing set of case studies that bring new perspectives on many of the topics we have raised. Each elaborates, in its own fashion, on the author’s respective engagement with the act of translation and transmission as an act that opens up memory’s archive and its various resonances. Instead of individually summarizing the contents of our volume’s contributors’ articles, we have chosen to continue weaving our shared considerations by incorporating some of their principal insights as an ongoing discussion and highlighting the questions they have provoked us into posing. The essays are bookended by interviews with Marianne Hirsch and James Young, respectively. Their impact on this most consequential field of study, as it engages history, architecture, literature, and art, has been extraordinary. Indeed, the field of Memory Studies as such would not exist without their definitive, groundbreaking work. One regards the role of memory when the author is both a translator and a critic of translational processes, as in Adams Bodomo’s essay, in which we find the author’s own poems that he himself translates, and Bernard McGuirk’s article, where he meditates on his own translation both of Haroldo De Campos’s poems and of Brazilian protest songs. Here we find the challenge posed by the echoes, influences, hybridities, and intertexts of contemporary transculturations, whereby the task of the translator involves not abandoning but suspending certain spontaneous choices of literal translation in favor of interaction and indeed transaction. Moreover, underlying all the works, the role translation plays in changing—and even in radically transforming—local, national, and global memories emerges in all its effects, as in the case of the Armenian genocide thanks to the many translations and the cinematic version of Antonia Arslan’s 2007 novel Skylark Farm, which Sona Haroutyunian analyzes, focusing on the relationship between the historical event and its various kinds of representations. Along with these questions, what is put under scrutiny is both the role of the writer as the translator of a fading oral memory (as in Bodomo’s, Jenin’s, and McGuirk’s articles) and of the translator as a witness or a second-degree witness (Deane-Cox); coming into contact with—and sometimes be- traying—the memory of the texts and the memory the texts sought to convey. Or else preserving memory by transforming it into a new genre, a new type of storytelling, as Isabelle Jenin shows us in her analysis of Silko’s novel. These questions are raised and further problematized in Brownlie’s article, where she addresses the ways in which two autobiographical stories by Katherine Mansfield—“Prelude” and “At the Bay”—reflect in style and structure the processes of autobiographical memory. They are also articulated in David Amezcua Gomez’s study of Muñoz Molina’s novel Sefarad, in which he traces how in multidirectional memory (of the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and post-Civil War Spain) “empathetic connections” are translated into monumental fiction. Or yet into monuments tout court, as James Young here (see infra) discusses with Bella Brodzki and Siri Nergaard, pointing to how, in order to understand traumatic memories and their translations, topography, literature, diaries, ruins all collapse into a fragmented yet resonant text, of which one element cannot be read without the other. The problem of accountability and responsibility remains paramount: how much do we really want to translate? And how much can we translate when it comes to postmemories of the Holocaust? Language issues and questions emerging from the translation of first and second generation testimonies are at the core of memory studies, as both Young and Hirsch comment in their interviews, referring both to their own work, and to the influence that a graphic novel such as Art Spieglman’s Mauss and a documentary such as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah had on their own thinking. Moreover: what to give to, or for, the “other”? How is the other constructed as such? How is the other interchangeable with oneself under diasporic conditions; is it a fluid category or status? How is nostalgia translated across these different contexts? Here we go back to the very ambivalent notion of who is a witness in translation and to what she is a witness of, and for whom, given the complexities of postmemory, and the consequences of legacy and identification that this category invokes (see the interview, infra), since processes of trans- mission and forms of aesthetic affiliation are both modes of translation. What emerges from all the contributions is that public, cultural, and national memories (with all the due distinctions) are rewritten every day no matter how previous institutionalized versions have prevailed. The construction of homogeneous cultural and national memories takes place notwithstanding their potential translations, ruins, and ghosts; yet, new translations can affect and determine different politics of memory, changing their archival prospects. What keeps translation itself alive is the tension between self-referentiality and extrareferentiality; it is simultaneously an open and a closed system. There are countless examples throughout history of the dialectic between preservation and destruction (through neglect as well as abuse), and, as a result, of active struggles for restoration of sites of memory, however contested their value. But memory, given that it projects both forward and backward, provides residual rewards for those who desire the new. For this volume’s editors and contributors, the question of how we translate translation—as a carrying over and a covering over of the past—is the means by which, the gesture towards which, we name and rename until infinity. References Anderson, Michael C., and Benjamin J. Levy. 2009. “Suppressing Unwanted Memories.” Currents Directions in Psychological Science 18 (4): 189– 194. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01634.x. Assmann, Aleida. 2015. “Impact and Resonance: Towards a Theory of Emotions in Cultural Memory.” In The Formative Past and the Formation of the Future: Collective Remembering and Identity Formation, edited by Terje Stordalen and Naguib Saphinaz-Amal, 41– 69. Oslo: Novus Forlag. Brownlie, Shioban. 2016. Mapping Memory in Translation. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Demaria, Cristina. 2014. “True Detective Stories. Media Textuality and the Anthology Format between Remediation and Transmedia Narratives.” Between 4 (8). Special issue Tecnologia, immaginazione, forme del narrare, edited by Lucia Esposito, Emanuela Piga, and Alessandra Ruggiero. Available at: http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/issue/view/33/showToc. doi:10.13125/2039-6597/1332. Derrida, Jacques. 2013. “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” Translated by Lawrence Venuti. In Signature Derrida, edited by Jay Williams. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Didi-Hubermann, Georges. 2005. Confronting Images. Questioning the Ends of a Certain Theory of Art. Translated by John Goodman. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Sate University Press. ———. 2011. Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet. L’oeil de l’histoire, 3. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Eco, Umberto. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. ———. 1984. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, London, MacMillan. ———. 2000. Experiences in Translation, Toronto, Buffalo, London, Toronto University Press. Friel, Brian. 1981. Translations. London: Faber and Faber. Gentzler, Edwin. 2017. Translation and Rewriting in the Age of Post- Translation Studies. London, New York: Routledge. Hayles, N. Katherine. [2004] 2014. “Print is Flat, Code is deep: the Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.” In Transmedia Frictions. The Digital, the Arts, and the Humanities, edited by Marsha Kinder and Tara McPherson, 20–33. Oakland: University of California Press. Originally published in Poetics Today 25 (1), 2004: 67–90. doi:10.1215/03335372- 25-1-67. Hoskins, Andrew. 2011. “7/7 and connective memory: Interactional trajectories of remembering in post-scarcity culture.” Memory Studies 4 (3): 269–280. doi:10.1177/1750698011402570. Hirsch, Marianne. 1997. Family Frames. Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2012. The Generation of Postmemory. Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press. Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. 2013. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York and London: NYU Press. Kaplan, E. Ann. 2016. Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Fiction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Karpinski, Eva C., Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, and Ray Ellenwood, eds. 2013. Trans/Acting Culture, Writing, and Memory: Essays in Honour of Barbara Godard. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. LaCapra, Dominick. 2001. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Landsberg, Alison. 2004. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Lorusso, Anna Maria. 2015. Cultural Semiotics. For a Cultural Perspective in Semiotics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lotman, Yuri, and Boris Uspensky. 1978. “On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture.” In Soviet Semiotics and Criticism: An Anthology, special issue of New Literary History, 9 (2): 211–232. doi:10.2307/468571. Montani, Pietro. 2010. L’immaginazione intermediale: perlustrare, rifigurare, testimoniare il mondo visibile. Rome–Bari: GLF Editori Laterza. Nergaard, Siri, ed. 1995. Teorie contemporanee della traduzione. Milan: Bompiani. Peirce, Charles Sanders. Collected Papers. Volumes I–VI. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Rothberg, Michael. 2009. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2014. “Beyond Tancred and Clorinda—trauma studies for implicated subjects.” Preface to The Future of Trauma Theory. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism, edited by Gert Buelens, Sam Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone, xii–xviii. London and New York: Routledge. Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. London and New York: Routledge. Stone, Charles B., Alin Coman, Adam D. Brown, Jonathan Koppel, and William Hirst. 2012. “Toward a Science of Silence: The Consequences of Leaving a Memory Unsaid.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (1): 39–53. doi:10.1177/1745691611427303. Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in Postcolonial Context: Early Irish Literature in English Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Violi, Patrizia. 1992. “Le molte enciclopedie.” In Semiotica: storia teoria interpretazione. Saggi intorno a Umberto Eco, edited by Patrizia Magli, Giovani Manetti, and Patrizia Violi (99–113). Milano: Bompiani. is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches courses in autobiography; modern and contemporary fiction; literary and cultural theory; and translation studies. Her articles and essays on the critical intersections with and impact of translation on other fields and disciplines have appeared in a range of publications, most recently in the collection, Translating Women, edited by Luise von Flotow (2011). She is the coeditor of Life/Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography (1989) and author of Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory (2007). Her current project is coediting a special volume of Comparative Literature Studies entitled Trials of Trauma. is Associate Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna (Italy), where she teaches Semiotics of Media and Semiotics of Conflict. She has worked on gender and translation and, in the past ten years, on collective and cultural memories and their visual, trans-media, performative and artistic representations, focusing recently on traumatic memories of postdictatorship in Argentina and Chile, along the way they intersect with questions regarding biological identity and documentality.

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Abstract: This paper proposes a theoretical and methodological strategy for reconceptualizing African literature in the twenty-first century. Twentieth-century African literature was characterized by colonial concepts through which literature in indigenous African languages was largely neglected while literature in colonial languages was promoted with problematic notions such as “Anglophone African literature,” “Francophone African literature,” and “Lusophone African literature.” African literature needs to be reconceptualized as Afriphone literature, where the notion of African literature must prototypically subsume literature in languages indigenous to Africa. African literature must be reconceptualized first and foremost as African language literature. Many scholars interested in the documentation and revitalization of African languages and cultures, which constitute attempts to preserve the collective memory of these African traditional knowledge systems, are largely in agreement with this, but how to go about doing Afriphone literature remains a research challenge. This paper proposes an approach to addressing the problem based on the theoretical and methodological notion of parallel text. 1. Introduction The Ivorian writer Ahmadou Kourouma, author of the novel Les Soleils des indépendances (1968), has invented the term “diplosie” (Kourouma 1991) to express what he considers to be the reality that the vast majority of African writers presumably think in one language and express themselves (speak, enchant, or write) in another. It is indeed true that many African writers of the twentieth century and earlier did speak their native African languages on the one hand and then wrote many of their works in the former colonial language of their countries, including English, French, or Portuguese, on the other hand. It is also true, however, that while this has continued into the twenty-first Century more and more writers, conscious of the need to document their traditional verbal art and other collective cultural memories of their societies, are beginning to “translate” their own work. This exercise is what I call parallel text practice or parallel-texting. More and more African writers have resolved that the only major way forward to produce literature in African languages and thus preserve these languages, big and small, is for Western-educated writers who still speak their African languages to write parallel texts—that is, produce the same texts that they wrote in English, French, or Portuguese in their African language following the theme, genre, and style of the original as much as possible but not necessarily a word for word translation. Of course, more importantly, they should write first in the African language and then translate into English or other languages, but irrespective of which language the original text is in it has the same effect of producing literature in African languages and making it available for a wider readership because the practice of parallel texts means that the two or more texts must be published concurrently and contiguously—that is, side by side. Parallel text practice as described here is part of a comprehensive agenda by myself (Bodomo 2013, 2014a, 2014b) and a group of academics dedicated to the promotion of African language literature, as part of the general program of documenting the languages and cultures of Africa to reconceptualize African literature and general humanities in the twenty-first century. One of the earliest African writers to set the agenda for producing literature in African languages is the Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Ngugi started his writing career by writing in English but then later realized that the best, and indeed most natural, way to promote African literature is through writing in African languages, so he started writing in Kikuyu and Swahili and translating many of his works into English, especially with works such as Caitani Matharabaini (translated as Devil on the Cross). Indeed, Ngugi at some point did not recognize as African literature any literature that was not produced in indigenous African languages, preferring to call literature in European languages written by Africans Afro-European literature, and decried the constant “Europhonism” of African writers (Ngugi 1986, 2009). The following excerpt from his seminal work of literary criticism, Decolonizing the Mind (1986), captures this thinking: What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without European languages? While we were haranguing enemies in European tongues, imperialists have continued to spout their lies in our native tongues (such as translating the Bible into all African languages...). So, we’re losing the battle because we haven’t been fighting. And the literature that’s been created should be called Afro-European, not African. (Ngugi 1986, 26) From this angle, then, it does not make sense to Ngugi and many African writers who push for an African language literature agenda to describe African literature in seemingly obsolete, contradictory terms such as “Anglophone African literature,” “Francophone African literature,” or “Lusophone African literature,” terms whose definitions we will have to reconsider in the “Discussion” section of this essay. Of course, other African writers had and still have a very different position from that of Ngugi and other campaigners for an African language literature agenda. They often give reasons for why we must not worry about writing in African languages and why we must continue to write in European languages. Some of these include the fact that not all African languages have a script, and that the market share for a writer of African literature in African languages would be insignificant. They also point to the fact that European languages continue to be official languages in African countries where they serve as a lingua franca to speakers who speak a diverse set of languages, so writing in English, French, or Portuguese would be a way of developing a certain kind of “national” literature. The late Chinua Achebe, one of Nigeria’s and Africa’s most renowned novelists, belongs to this group and, in a long polemical argumentation with Ngugi, expressed many of his counterpoints to Ngugi in his seminal “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature” (Achebe 1989). Defending why he writes in English in terms of its serving as a unifying “national” language, he states the following: I write in English. English is a world language. But I do not write in English because it is a world language. My romance with the world is subsidiary to my involvement with Nigeria and Africa. Nigeria is a reality which I could not ignore. (Achebe 1989, 100) Ngugi, however, points to the glaring “abnormality” of arguing for writing African literature in European languages in the following telling statement: The very fact that what common sense dictates in the literary practice of other cultures [to write in your own spoken language] is being questioned in an African writer is a measure of how far imperialism has distorted the view of African realities. It has turned reality upside down: the abnormal is viewed as normal and the normal is viewed as abnormal. Africa actually enriches Europe: but Africa is made to believe that it needs Europe to rescue it from poverty. Africa’s natural and human resources continue to develop Europe and America: but Africa is made to feel grateful for aid from the same quarters that still sit on the back of the continent. Africa even produces intellectuals who now rationalise this upside-down way of looking at Africa. (Ngugi 1986, 28) The foregoing shows that there is clearly a great debate going on within African literature about which language/s is/are best suited for African literature. It is of course not simply an “either–or” scenario, and it is indeed possible to write in both African languages and in European languages. In this essay, I propose how we can write in African languages and still not lose the visibility that is implicit in many of the arguments against the use of African languages. In section 2, I define and sketch the idea of parallel texts as a theoretical methodology for doing African language literature which involves actually having parallel texts in African languages and in European or other languages of wider communication. The theory subsumes the following definition of African literature: African literature is any form of artistic creation produced in the medium of African languages, first and foremost, or any other natural language (written, spoken, or enchanted) by an artist or group of artists with substantial enough experiences of the landscape of the continental landmass of Africa and its associated islands, along with diasporic exportations of the cultures of this continental landmass. (Bodomo 2013, 2014a, 2014b) This definition,1 as can be seen, emphasizes the import- ance of African languages without necessarily excluding a role played by other natural languages, and the literature can be written, spoken or even enchanted as done in libation pouring practices in West Africa. The authors do not have to be African, but must have enough substantial experiences of Africa to be able to express its cultures, both as seen on the continent itself and also in its diaspora communities. In section 3, I use two of my poems written in both Dagaare—my mother tongue, a language spoken by some two million people who live in northwestern Ghana and adjacent parts of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast—and in English. The two are poems about important events in recent African history that might continue to be in the collective memory of many Africans for a long time: the death of Nelson Mandela in December 2013 and the kidnapping of about three hundred schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014. Section 4 contains a brief discussion of the consequences of such an approach that involves the redefinition of a number of issues in African literature and the renaming of African language literature as Afriphone literature, along with a relation of this discussion to a society’s collective memory, while section 5 concludes the essay with a recap of the major points, and points to how we might sustain the agenda for Afriphone literature in the future. 1 Other ways of defining African literature include cataloguing the major themes and stylistic devices that recur in texts by African writers (magic, witchcraft, proverbs, etc). Ayuk (2014) is an example of such an approach. 1. Parallel texts: theory and methodology A parallel text, as used here, is a set of texts in which written (or even spoken and sung) literary expressions in two or more languages are mediated in the form of translation at various levels, including the graphemic, the morphological, the syntactic, the phonological, and certainly the semantic. In effect, the end result of the translation at one or more of these levels is a set of texts existing side by side for ease of cognitive processing by the recipient. A theory of parallel texts is postulated as follows: in a bilingual and biliterate (or multilingual and multiliterate) environment, for more effective and optimal knowledge and information dissemination, language users should produce contiguous texts in at least two of the languages within the bilingual and biliterate environment. The raison d’être for translation is in the fact that multilingualism within a speech community doesn’t necessarily guarantee that all individuals within a community will be polyglottic. There is often a rather intricate distinction between plurality of language at the community level and plurality of language at the individual level. An individual who has lived all her life in a rural area and speaks only one language fluently who now arrives to live in a city where many languages are spoken may be called a monoglot in a multilingual community; on the other hand a person born in a multilingual city and most likely speaking many languages who now gets posted as a civil servant to a rural area where only one language is spoken would be a polyglot functioning within a monolingual community. Theoretically then, since multilingualism is not synonymous with polyglottism, in a multilingual environment where one might have some monoglots, parallel texts as a form of translation are justified if we want to achieve optimal knowledge acquisition and information dissemination within the community. The concept of parallel texts is both a theory and a methodology in the sense that, theoretically, it mediates any dissonance that exists between the number of languages at the community level and the number of languages within individuals; parallel texts mediate and try to resolve the discords between multilingualism and polyglottism, between “lingualism” and “glottism.” Methodologically, it gives writers an opportunity to optimally express themselves by “placing” oral or written texts side by side within a given context, so simultaneous translation or interpretation is a parallel text, and poems written on the same theme and style and placed side by side constitute a parallel text, as I will illustrate in the next section. 2. An illustration with two poems Two important events that attracted much of Africa’s and the world’s attention and are now arguably part of our global collective memory occurred in December 2013 and April 2014— only about four months apart. The first involved the death of the legendary South African freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela, which occurred on December 5, 2013. The other event involved the capture of almost three hundred schoolgirls in the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, where Islamic militants calling themselves Boko Haram are fighting for a separate polity. I captured each of these events in the form of a parallel text, first writing in my mother tongue, Dagaare, spoken in Ghana as mentioned above, and in English. So each of these two poems about important African events are parallel-texted in Dagaare and English—and here parallel-texting actually means producing them side by side. A piece of work written and published in a volume and later written and published in another volume is not a parallel text, it is simply a (delayed) translation. Pairs of text about the same topic and genre qualify as parallel texts only if they exist side by side, on the same page or on contiguous pages. With this background clarification, I now present the two parallel texts, beginning first with the “Mandela” poem to be followed by the “Chibok girls” poem: MANDɛLA GAA LA DAPARE N bakori mine woi Friends N mabiiri woi Children of one Mother Zenɛ Dizemba beraanuu Today December 5 bebiri News coming in bodes not Te yelpaala na ba taa nimiri well N gaa la BBC I flipped unto BBC Ka N noɔre maa fɛlɛlɛ And the news was tasteless A gaa CNN Clicked unto CNN Ka N polaa teɛ kpelele And my heart pumped A yuo CCTV ka a ne a zu CCTV was not any different A gaa GBC ka a le ang deɛ And GBC confirmed it all: la Grandfather, ancestor Ka te saakoma Mandɛla Mandela Deɛ ba la be a tengɛ nyɛ zu Is no longer with us on Earth Te GANDAA Mandɛla na It is our HERO Mandela! la! There he goes as always! O paa yaa deɛ wa yie la! Majestically, in his Dagakparoo, Gangalang! dagakparoo! Kurilane, Sangsalang! Gallantly, in his kurilane! A zɛle tammo ne logiri Bow, army of arrows in tow A te kulo o yiri He is on his way home A kyaare sapare Facing East A te gɛrɛ Dapare On the ultimate journey to Dapare CHIBOK MAMINE HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY WHISPERS FROM BOKO HARAM Yɛ Mamine Bebiri Yaane! A year ago Deyang: 300 sweet little voices said to you: A yɛ pɔgsarebilii kɔɔre ata Mom, mama, mma, Da wa age mare yɛ la Happy Mother's Day! A vare poɔre yɛ You saw them smile, cry A yeli ko yɛ: tears of love Plastering you with ever so Mma, ne fo Mamine Bebiri gentle hugs of gratitude Yaane! In Nico Mbargan language: N puori fo la yaga “Sweet Mother, I no go Ne fo nang wong tuo forget you, Kaa ma ka N baa I no go forget this suffer Kyɛ zenɛ wey you suffer for me” A yɛ pɔgsarebilii kɔɔre ata Today nyɛ 300 sweet little voices are quietened, you may think Yɛ deɛ ba la wong ba yɛlɛ But listen, listen carefully Togitogitogi To the gentle caressing A mang boɔle ka winds of Chibok Ligiligiligi To the chirping little birds over the hills of Maiduguri Yɛ na teɛre ka ba wa yele yeli zaa To the hissing sonics of the praying mantis up on the Kyɛ yɛ kyɛlle, a kyɛlle Jos plateau velaa Kyɛlle a Chibok saseɛ nang And you will hear 300 fuuro lɛ sweet little voices Kyɛlle a Maidugri nuuli From Boko Haram nang kono lɛ dungeons Kyɛlle a Jos tangazu salingsobo nang voorɔ lɛ Yɛ na wong la a yɛ Obstinately whispering to pɔgsarebilii kɔɔre ata kanga you: na zaa Mom, mama, Mma, Happy Mother’s Day! Boko Haram nang pɔge bare (Vienna, May 2014) Kyɛ ka ba nang sɔgle yele: Mma, Ne fo Mamine Bebiri Yaane! (Veɛna, Mee 2014) In the “Mandela” poem, after hearing breaking news on most of the news media of the world, we are imagining how Mandela, our newly minted ancestor, is preparing for the journey to Dapare—the mythical homeland of all departed spirits, of our ancestors—like all men, all warriors in our Dagaare culture, he would have had to wear the smock, our war uniform, arm himself with bows and arrows, face East, and walk away majestically. . . The smock is not only the traditional dress of the Dagaaba, the people who speak Dagaare, it is also a warrior dress etymologically, and is thus appropriate for a man like Mandela who has been a warrior all his life. Indeed, when Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, was declaring the independence of Ghana on March 6, 1957, after a long struggle, he and his lieutenants wore the smock as a dress for the victorious warriors they were. The bow and arrow are further symbols for a great warrior but also meant to help him protect himself as he goes home, and even to hunt for some game if he so desires. As for the symbolism of facing East in Dagaare culture, it expresses the idea that a good man, a good farmer must always rise early in the morning, and make sure he goes before sunrise to the farm. Women in the culture are metaphorically facing West since they stay at home and must particularly check that by sunset they prepare food for the man who comes back home from the farm, from the hunting grounds, or from the war front after a hard day’s job in the wilderness. The “Chibok girls” poem is imagining how the mothers of these girls would have enjoyed their company on Mothers’ Day and other days when they stayed close together and enjoyed each other’s company. It then imagines how it would be without them when the next Mothers’ Day comes around and they would be without these children. The poem, which may be termed a “telepathic poem,” then evokes instances in which the girls may be communicating with their mothers through the medium of the birds, the winds, and the singing insects in the vicinity of the Jos plateau, the most important landmark in that region of Nigeria. 3. Discussion What are some of the consequences for an agenda of parallel texts for the promotion of African literature, and how might we relate the need to produce literary works in African languages to the issue of a society’s collective memory? Reconceptualizations. First, a number of recon- ceptualizations have to take place to put things in perspective as a consequence of this agenda. We agree with Ngugi that the “normal” for African literature should be African language literature. We reconceptualize that here as Afriphone literature, and claim in this paper and in previous work (Bodomo 2013, 2014a, 2014b) that the most prototypical form of African literature is Afriphone literature. This does not in any way exclude the use of European languages in African literature, but those cannot be the norm. Indeed, terms like Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, and Lusophone African literature are obsolete, twentieth-century colonial notions about African literature. Rather, we reconceptualize that Anglophone African literature as used in the twentieth century is literature that was written about Africa in English. It is essentially English literature about Africa. The new conceptualization of Anglophone African literature is one of translated literature. A piece of work is, first and foremost, considered Anglophone African literature if it was first written in an African language and then translated into English. Any piece of work that was first written in English about Africa (whether or not by an African) is English literature about Africa. However, if a piece of work is written in English and translated into an African language, that translated version is African literature. In the same vein, Francophone African literature as used in the twentieth century meant literature that was written in French about Africa. But we shall not refer to it like that now— we shall refer to it as French literature about Africa (whether or not written by an African). In the twenty-first century, the reconceptualization of Francophone African literature is literature that was first written in an African language and then translated into French. If a piece of work is written in French about Africa and translated into an African language, that piece of work qualifies as African literature. Finally, Lusophone African literature in the twentieth century meant literature written in Portuguese about Africa. However, in the twenty-first century, where there is a robust agenda for the promotion of Afriphone literature, Lusophone African literature qualifies as such if the original text was written in an African language. Lusophone African literature is not literature first written in Portuguese but that which was translated into Portuguese from an African language. If however a piece of work originally written in Portuguese now gets translated into an African language, the translated text is African literature. As can be seen from this reconceptualization of Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, and Lusophone African literature, the parallel text pair is a pair comprising Afriphone literature and Europhone African literature; in the case of the “Mandela” and “Chibok girls” poems, a Dagaare-phone African literature and an Anglophone African literature. Afriphone, then, in itself is a cover term for the many African language literatures that are expected to blossom from the Afriphone literary agenda in the twenty-first century. Parallel texts and collective memory. The practice of parallel texts as outlined in this paper is clearly a specialized form of translation. This specialized form of literary translation connects to an important discussion on the relationship between literary translation and cultural memory (what I call collective memory here), as espoused in works like Long’s (2008). In Long’s paper, she investigates “the relationship between literary translation and cultural memory, using a twentieth century film version of one of Shakespeare’s plays as a case study in inter-semiotic translation” (1). The work goes on to clarify that the common perception of translation is often confined to its use as a language learning tool or as a means of information transfer between languages. The wider academic concept embraces not only inter-lingual translation, but both intra-lingual activity or rewording in the same language and inter-semiotic translation defined by Roman Jacobson as “the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems” (Jakobson 1959, 114). (Long 2008, 1) If more and more African writers do parallel-texting, as proposed here, the end result of this literary practice would be the documentation of the verbal art and other traditional linguistic knowledge systems, including ideophones, proverbs, and other kinds of verbal indirection towards preserving and enriching the collective memory of contemporary African societies. The term “collective memory” as I use it here could form the basis of what one may term “African memory” 1 in the sense that it evokes some typically traditional African ways of remembering the past—including not just the oral transmission modes involved but also of recognizing some older individuals with experiences of the society’s past as repositories of the history and culture of their society. In short, knowledgeable elders are considered as authoritative custodians of each rural African society’s past. This fact is encoded by an African saying that whenever an old man dies it is like a library that burns down! These traditional collective memory practices have formed the basis of memory documentation in contemporary African polities, with two of the most prominent ones being attempts to document the painful apartheid past in South Africa through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) sittings (Gade 2013), and the attempt to document the collective 1 I would like to thank Critina Demaria, one of the editors of the present journal, for suggesting that I connect my idea of parallel text as a translation/writing process to the idea of memory documentation, and for questioning whether one can indeed talk of an “African memory.” memory of the 1994 Rwandan genocide (Rettig 2008) in which more than half a million people lost their lives. Parallel texts in the Curriculum. To summa- rize this discussion section, further consequences for the practice of African literature in school and university curricula are that African literature programs ought to focus on African language literatures and not literature in European languages about Africa. They may, obviously, do courses on Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, and Lusophone African literature but, in line with the twenty-first- century definition of these literatures, these must be translations into English, French, and Portuguese respectively from African language literature. In sum then, African literature in the twenty-first century is literature that is written originally in an indigenous African language or that has been translated from an African language into other languages. It is Afriphone literature if it stays in the original African language, Anglophone African literature if it is translated from an African language into English, Francophone African literature if it is translated from an African language into French, and Lusophone African literature if it is translated from an African language into Portuguese. 5. Conclusion In this paper, we have proposed the concept of parallel texts as a theoretical and methodological strategy for reconceptualizing African literature in the twenty-first century. As described in the paper, a theory of parallel texts stipulates that in a multilingual and multiliterate environment, for more effective and optimal knowledge and information dissemination, users of language should produce contiguous texts in at least two of the languages within the said environ- ment. Drawing from this, a parallel text would then be a set of texts in which written literary expressions in two or more languages are mediated in the form of translation at various levels, including the graphemic, the morphological, the syntactic, the phonological, and certainly the semantic. Conclusively, the end result of the translation at one or more of these levels is a set of texts existing side by side for ease of cognitive processing by the recipient, and may serve to document the collective memories of African traditional societies in the form of preserving various kinds of indigenous verbal art. Two poems by the author have been used as illustrations of these concepts and it is expected that more writers would set about practicing parallel-texting, and indeed that publishers will from now onwards encourage the publication of parallel-texted volumes. Many scholars of African languages, linguistics, and literatures are interested in the documentation and revitalization of African languages and their associated cultures. They are largely in agreement that this is an urgent task, but how to go about doing this remains a research challenge. This paper has proposed an approach to addressing the problem with the theoretical and methodological notion of parallel texts. It is hoped that more parallel-texted volumes will be published within the next ten years for the promotion of Afriphone literatures. This parallel-text approach as a special kind of writing and translation process could indeed be contributing to the construction of a new and richer collective memory which is an instance of the idea of African memory, as discussed above. References Achebe, Chinua. 1989. “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature.” In Historical and Cultural Contexts of Linguistic and Literary Phenomena/Contextes historiques et culturels des phénomènes linguistiques et littéraires (Proceedings of the Seventeenth Triennial Congress of the Fédération Internationale del Langues et Littératures Modernes held at the University of Guelph, August 18–25), edited by G. D. Killam, 3–8. Guelph, Ontario: University of Guelph. Ayuk, Hamilton. 2014. What is African literature? Accessed June 6, 2014. http://princehamilton.blogspot.co.at/2009/06/what-is-african- literature.html. Bodomo, Adams. 2013. Lecture notes for “Language, Literacy, and Literature: The Language Question in African Literary Expression” (Course no. 140251), Department of African Studies, University of Vienna. ———. 2014a. “Survey Report on African Languages and Literatures.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Vienna, Austria. ———. 2014b. “The Language Question in Defining African literature: Contributions from Linguistics and Cognitive Science.” Paper presented at the Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland (VAD), Bayreuth University, June 11–14, 2014. Gade, Christian B. N. 2013. “Restorative Justice and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Process.” South African Journal of Philosophy 32(1): 10–35. doi:10.1080/02580136.2013.810412. Jakobson, Roman. 1959. On Linguistics aspects of Translation. Accessed November 12, 2014. http://complit.utoronto.ca/wp- content/uploads/COL1000H_Roman_Jakobson_LinguisticAspects.pdf Kourouma, Ahmadou. 1968. Les Soleils des indépendances. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Repr. Paris: Les Éditions du Seuil, 1970. ———. 1991. Comments. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on African Literatures. Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization, Lagos, Nigeria. Long, Lynne. 2008. “Literary translation and cultural memory.” Unpublished article, draft version, University of Warwick, UK. Last accessed November 12, 2014. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/202/. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. ———. 2009. Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance. New York: BasicCivitas Books. Rettig, Max. 2008. “Gacaca: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Postconflict in Rwanda?” African Studies Review 51 (3):25–50. doi: 10.1353/arw.0.0091. is Professor of African Studies and holds the chair of African Languages and Literatures at the University of Vienna. He specializes in African linguistics, African language literatures, global African diaspora studies, and digital humanities with particular reference to the digitization of African languages and their oral cultures. As Director of the Global African Diaspora Studies (GADS) research platform at the University of Vienna, he has expertise and broad interests in the study of the sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects of Africa and its global relations.

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Abstract: “Get thee behind me Satan, I want to resist”. . . To translate memory across cultures and disciplines is an act of defiance, a proud sign of disobedience, tacitly performed by one of the most celebrated and internationally renowned practitioners and seminal theoreticians of the tasks facing the translator, the Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos. In “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation,” he writes: “If it has no Muse, it could be said to have an Angel; translation has an angelical function, that of bearer, of messenger. It is a messianic point or a semiotic place of convergence of intentionality.” Addressed here are the challenges posed in translating memory, memories, as the retrieval, reconstruction, inscription, and leaving of the traces and effects of a markedly memorializing act. The task of the trans(at)l(antic)ator involves not abandoning but suspending certain spontaneous choices of literal translation in favor of inter- and trans-action. The responses are: differ, defer, never with indifference, always without deference; address not only urgently political issues of The Movimento dos Sem Terra, primordial in Brazil, but also the transactions, with and in the Movement, of so many poets and songwriters and now, perhaps even more defiantly, with a Brazilian-inflected countertheory to the rescue. Remembering (belated) versions The invitation to “establish a dialogue with and among scholars working on the intersections between translation studies and memory studies as they are presently configured and might be envisioned in the future,” keynote of this special issue on translating memory across cultures and disciplines, proleptically, had been tacitly accepted avant la lettre and throughout his career by one of the most celebrated and internationally renowned practitioners and seminal theoreticians of the tasks and challenges facing the translator, the Brazilian poet and transcreator, Haroldo de Campos. In “Committing Translation or the Task of the Trans(at)l(antic)ator,” the introductory essay to my translations of the ineradicably political memories and cultural expressions of ideological indignation of the MST (Movement of the Landless Rural Workers in Brazil) in Landless Voices in Song and Poetry. The Movimento dos Sem Terra of Brazil (Vieira and McGuirck 2007, XXI–XXIV), I addressed and now return to the challenges posed in translating memory, memories, as the retrieval, reconstruction, inscription, and leaving of traces and their effects of a markedly “memorializing act” (Vieria and McGuirck 2007); in and for a Brazil confronting its own secular inequalities and injustices, alerted to that sovereign state’s and that nation’s continuing struggle to emerge from the cliché-ridden inscription on its national flag, the ever-ironic “Ordem e Progresso.” Under whose orders and for the progress of whom was national memory to be reinscribed, translated, indeed transferred from the hegemonies of a very recent twenty-year military regime and its transitional legacies in the period of rebuilding a democracy from 1984? Further, on undertaking this commission, I recalled the advice of Umberto Eco as I reflected on the experience of having worked, together with the Brazilian critic and translation theorist, Else Vieira, in preparation of Haroldo de Campos in Conversation (McGuirck and Vieira 2009), the volume that arose, in memoriam, not least from the numerous meetings that, as editors, we held between 1999 and 2002 with Haroldo and his wife Carmen Arruda Campos in the hospitality of their Library of Babel home:1 I frequently feel irritated when I read essays on the theory of translation that, even though brilliant and perceptive, do not provide enough examples. I think translation scholars should have had at least one of the following experiences 1 This volume contains renderings in English of the following Haroldo de Campos essays touching variously on his theories of translation: ”On Translation as Creation and Criticism,” ”Constructivism in Brazil: Concretism and Neo-Concretism. A Personal Post Scriptum,” “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation,” “On Homerotherapy: Translating The Iliad,” and “The Ex- centric Viewpoint: Tradition, Transcreation, Transculturation.” during their life: translating, checking and editing translations, or being translated and working in close co-operation with their translators [. . .] Between the purely theoretical argument that, since languages are differently structured, translation is impossible, and the commonsensical acknowledgement that people, after all, do translate and understand each other, it seems to me that the idea of translation as a process of negotiation (between author and text, between author and readers, as well as between the structure of two languages and the encyclopaedias of two cultures) is the only one that matches experience. (Eco 2003, 36) In such “a process of negotiation,” in that multiple “in- betweenness,” here evoked by Eco but previously the subject of an indispensable meditation on a specifically Latin American project, the “entre-lugar” of Silviano Santiago, “between sacrifice and play, between prison and transgression, between submission to the code and aggression, between obedience and rebellion” (Santiago 1978, 11), and as translator of the poems and songs of the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST, or Movement of the landless rural workers), I soon confronted commitment, in various of its encyclopaedic forms. What had they done to my song? The preceding decades had witnessed the revitalizing of popular music as a vehicle for political activisms in Brazil. One obvious source had been the música sertaneja of land-deprived migrant workers, driven to the cities and taking with them their country music, be it traditional or, more recently, influenced by the commercial brands of the southern cultures of the United States. No less influential had been the pagode movement’s samba- esque registering of the violent tensions of poverty in hardly couched critiques of repressive regimes, military or otherwise. The performances echoed, consciously or subliminally, the prosodies—high and low—of Brazilian Portuguese and the broadsheet and cordel strains of popular imaginaries from across and beyond the nation. For Brazil has never ceased to explore and express its sensitivity to the ideological power of the protest song; not least, and latterly, against the imagined and projected versions of what is to come peddled, for many of its displaced, unrepresented and unlikely-to-be-remembered vic- tims, by the invasive myth-makers of a nation awarded the Trojan horses of a World Cup and an Olympic Games. At the time of committing myself to undertake the translations of unabashedly radical texts, it was the centenary of the birth of the celebrated Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Inspiration of politically committed poetry and song for not a continent but a world, he had long ago been described by Federico García Lorca as being closer to blood than to ink. It was on such a note—often indissociable from tears or from wine—that the anguish and euphoria, the despair and hope that suffuse the texts I translated were approached and embraced. My locus of transcreation was, and is, unavoidably and unapologetically, Anglophone; it is also, though tempered, European. As a critic and translator of, primarily, literatures in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian, I exploited the availability of translation alternatives from those traditions as well as from any Brazil-specific contexts that informed the choices made. Pace Umberto Eco, I often wrote as both Mouse and Rat, chewing or munching in a further in- betweenness or the negotiated hybridity that I had experienced in tussling with Haroldo de Campos himself.2 For part of our “translating, checking and editing translations, or being translated and working in close co-operation” had been the daunting enterprise of revisiting “o anjo esquerdo da história”; beginning with the resonantly intertextual reference to Walter Benjamin’s “angel of history. His face [. . .] turned towards the past” (Benjamin 1999, 249), broached at once in the title of this long de Campos poem. Written to commemorate the victims of the notorious massacre in 1996 of nineteen protesting members of the MST at El Dorado dos Carajás in the State of Pará, and originally rendered into English by Haroldo as “the left-winged angel of history.” Engagement with the calculatedly syntagmatic disconti- nuity and attendant staccato rhythms of the Brazilian Portuguese text also had to take into account a context of commitment and contributions, to and in the Movement, of such distinguished Brazilian artists as Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Frei Betto, and many others, including Haroldo de Campos himself, and thus readdress previous tasks of the other—cultural inseparably from linguistic—translator(s). 2See the facsimile of Haroldo de Campos’s scribbled distinction between chewing and munching with reference to my translation of “quoheletic poem 2: in praise of the termite,” in McGuirck and Vieira 2009, 339. The Latin American protest song explosions of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, of which Robert Pring-Mill reminded us in “Gracias a la vida” The Power and Poetry of Song (1990), had hardly left Brazil unaffected by the echoes, influences, hybridities, and intertexts of contemporary transculturations. He listed civil rights, the peace movement, and the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in the US; Italian CantAcronache; the Greece of Theodorakis; the Catalan Nova Cançó; the Portuguese Nova Canção; Irish songs of “the troubles”; and Asian and African instances from the Philipines, East Timor, and Mongolia, to Mozambique and Angola. Not least of the intertexts of Brazilian protest song and poetry were the Cuban, Argentine, and Chilean expressions that sprinkled the MST artists with inspirations taken from the archives of the Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and nueva canción traditions. If any one element of Pring-Mill’s seminal analysis can be said to have informed the texts of the MST, it is this evocation: “Asked about his own songs (in 1973), the Uruguayan Daniel Vigliette said firmly that they were as much de propuesta as de protesta: designed not merely to protest but to propose—in other words not merely to ‘tear down fences’ (quite literally so in Viglietti’s own anti-latifundista ‘A desalambrar!’) but also ‘to build bridges’ and to be constructive” (Pring-Mill 1990, 10). Pring-Mill identified three functions of such texts: “response to an immediate environment”; “instrument of political and social change”; communicating a “horizon of expectations” and “presuppositions.” Yet he was quick to add a vital rider on cultural difference: “the whole rhetoric of such poems and songs is very different from ours, partly because Spanish [and here read Portuguese] handles issues more violently—more dramatically and emotionally—than English (sometimes in ways which we may find indecorous)” (Pring-Mill 1990, 10–14). He continued: The messages of individual Latin American songs function within the framework of belief they foster and reinforce, in that extremely different social context. In countries where illiteracy is as high as it is in most of Latin America, where censorship and repression are so often at work, and where the official media are so rarely to be trusted, the message-bearing function of poesía de compromiso—sung or unsung—has an importance which it is not easy for a more literate academic audience to appreciate. Its messages perform a varied series of useful social functions [. . .] all of which are doubly important in the context of predominantly oral cultures. Thus they serve both to report and to record events (interpreting them, naturally enough, from specific points of view, which will strike all those who disagree with them as prejudiced); they praise, or lament, heroes and denounce tyrants; they protest against abuses and propound solutions (whether these are viable or not); and they teach many kinds of practical lessons, which their listeners are encouraged to put into practice. (Pring-Mill 1990, 77) Pring-Mill, a decade or so on, would hardly have been surprised not to have the last word. He might also have smiled at the risky certainty, in respect not only of rhetoric but also of politics, of Perry Anderson, as a heady mixture of denunciation and the recuperation of misappropriated national memories promised to turn to propounded solution in the form of a first left- wing figure, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, democratically elected in 2002, on the crest of the MST wave of popular protest: “the symbolism of a former shoe-shine boy and street vendor achieving supreme power in the most unequal major society on earth speaks for itself [. . .] A climate of popular expectation surrounds Lula that no President of the New Republic has ever enjoyed at the outset of his mandate. Hope of relief from the misery of the last years will not vanish overnight” (Anderson 2002, 21). Get thee behind me Satan, I want to resist. . . The risk of failing to render the textual wrath of a poem written in the indignation of 1996 protest amidst the 2002 days of heady triumphalist expectation—with popular memory of tyranny and criminality and a consciousness of the threat of impunity all too readily fading—seemed but one looming contention. The task of the trans(at)l(antic)ator therefore involved not abandoning but suspending certain spontaneous choices of literal translation in favor of inter- and trans-action. The challenges were: differ, defer, never with indifference, always without deference; address not only issues dear to the MST, primordial in Brazil, but also the transactions, with and in the Movement, of so many poets and songwriters and now, perhaps even more challengingly, but with a Brazilian inflected countertheory to the rescue, of Haroldo de Campos himself, from his essay on “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation”: Translation, like philosophy, has no Muse [. . .] says Walter Benjamin (“Die Aufgabe des Uebersetzers”). And yet, if it has no Muse, it could be said to have an Angel [. . .] translation has an angelical function, that of bearer, messenger [. . .] it is even, for the original [. . .] a messianic point or, in lay terms of modern theory of signs, a semiotic place of convergence of intentionality [. . .] Benjamin inverts the relation of servitude which, as a rule, affects ingenuous conceptions of translation as a tribute to fidelity. Fidelity (so-called translation literal to meaning, or, simply, inverted, servile, translation) [. . .] Therefore, in the Benjaminian perspective [. . .] the original is what in a certain way serves the translation, at the moment when it unburdens it from the task of transporting the unessential content of the message [. . .] and permits it to dedicate itself to an other enterprise of fidelity [. . .] the “fidelity to reproduction of form” [. . .] It is oriented by the rebellious slogan of non serviam, of non-submission to a presence which is exterior to it, to a content which remains intrinsically unessential to it [. . .] a satanic enterprise. The “cursed” counterpart of the angelical nature of translation is Hubris, the semiological sin of Satan, il trapassar del segno (Paradiso XXXVI, 117), the transgression of sign limits [. . .] A translator of poetry is a choreographer of the inner dance of languages [. . .]. (Haroldo de Campos 2009, 233–236) How many angels? On the head of opin. . . ionated Manicheans be it, however, whether scholastic or materialist, to limit the inspirers of Brazilian or any other translators to but two angels: the good, the bad. And the ugly configuration of Haroldo’s predecessor poet Drummond de Andrade’s anjo torto (“crooked angel”), in “Poema de sete faces” (Poem of seven faces), as long ago as 1930, should have alerted subsequent and would-be theorists to both the revelations and the dangers of going transcendental in “the retrieval, reconstruction, and inscription” of remembering, as surely as the Shakespearean “seven” it echoes had led to “mere oblivion/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”3 The figure of the postmodern angel, always and already fallen, was also one too easily overlooked, left behind (Drummond’s “gauche na vida”/ “gauche in life”?), in the long march of historical materialism. . . 3 The caution of such philosophers as Richard Rorty in respect of the temptation to go transcendental in the memorializing of historical events had long ago been poeticized by Drummond de Andrade and, inherited, by Haroldo de Campos, not least in echo of William Shakespeare’s Jaques in As You Like It, Act II scene VII: “Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history.” often the most dogmatic of “the imagined and projected versions of what is to come” on the part of de Campos’s Marxisant Brazilian detractors, as will be revealed in and after a reading of the poem; and of its guest.4 For into the space of neglect—of suppressed memory—Haroldo de Campos had injected “o anjo esquerdo da história,” for him “the left-winged angel of history”; “the angel on the left of history” in my transjection, my inherently “transformative” but necessarily subsequent swerve, my own anxious clinamen). o anjo esquerdo da história the angel on the left of history os sem-terra afinal the landless at last estão assentados na are settled in pleniposse da terra: full possession of the land: de sem-terra passaram a from landless to com-terra: ei-los landed: here they’re enterrados interred desterrados de seu sopro their life’s breath de vida unearthly aterrados earthed terrorizados terrified terra que à terra earth which onto earth torna returns pleniposseiros terra- land-holders pleni- tenentes de uma potentiary of a (single vala (bala) comum: bullet) common grave: pelo avesso afinal outside in at last entranhados no holed deep into lato ventre do the broad-bellied latifúndio acres of the latifundio- que de im- land once barren produtivo re- so sudden- velou-se assim u- ly shown to be most f- bérrimo: gerando pingue ecund: udder-spawning profit messe de crop of sangue vermelhoso reddening blood 4 In ”Constructivism in Brazil: Concretism and Neo-Concretism. A Personal Post Scriptum,” Haroldo de Campos offers his riposte to Roberto Schwarz, as emblematic propagator of the attacks levied against the concretists and de Campos’s notion of a postutopical poetry. My “Laughin’ again he’s awake: de Campos a l’oreille de l’autre celte” addresses the polemic extensively in McGuirck and Vieira 2009, 126–152. lavradores sem un-labored lavra ei- labor: here they’re los: afinal con- larvaed at vertidos em larvas last em mortuá- on mortal rios despojos: remains ataúdes lavrados coffins labored na escassa madeira from the scanty timber (matéria) (timbre) de si mesmos: a bala assassina of themselves: the assassin bullet atocaiou-os stalks them mortiassentados thirst-squatting sitibundos death-settlers decúbito-abatidos pre- decumbents cut down pre- destinatários de uma destined for a agra (magra) meagre (earth) acre a- re(dis)(forme) forma grarian —fome—a- —famine— grária: ei- re (de)(formed) form los gregária here they are: gregarious comunidade de meeiros commune share-cropping do nada: nothingness: enver- shame- gonhada a- faced in goniada agony avexada vexed —envergoncorroída de —shamecorroded by imo-abrasivo re- inmost abrasive re- morso - morse- a pátria landless (como ufanar-se da?) (‘how shall we extol thee?’) apátrida homeland pranteia os seus des- laments its dis- possuídos párias – possessed pariahs – pátria parricida: parricide patria que talvez só afinal a for maybe only at last the espada flamejante fiery sword do anjo torto da his- of the crooked angel of his- tória cha- tory flam- mejando a contravento e ing against the wind and afogueando os burning the agrossicários sócios desse agrokilltural cronies of that fúnebre sodalício onde a somber sodality where morte-marechala comanda uma field-marshal death commands a torva milícia de janízaros-ja- grim militia of janissary-gun- gunços: men: somente o anjo esquerdo only the angel on the left da história escovada a of a history groomed against contrapelo com sua the grain shall manage with its multigirante espada po- multiswirling sword derá (quem dera! ) um dia (if only!) one day to convocar do ror convoke from the nebulous nebuloso dos dias vin- mass of days to douros o dia come the at last afinal sobreveniente do overriding day of the justo just ajuste de adjustment of contas accounts (Haroldo de Campos, 1996 © Translation Bernard McGuirk 2002) The task of transacting—trans/dancing—with Haroldo de Campos’s poetry was made the more challenging by his Mephistofaustic promptings. In the essay, he had willingly reen- gaged with both Marx and Nietzsche in a reminder that translation in particular and writing in general always perform the act of transcreation, a refutation of original (etiology) and target (teleology), not only linguistically but also culturally and, let it be stressed, ideologically. Self-consciously, he had echoed Marx’s precursor complaint against the censuring of his style. Self- mockingly, he had appropriated Nietzsche’s plea for the neces- sarily sublime “maldade”—the “evil”—of mischievous content and form. Radical content radical form radical translation Countless Brazilian artists had reacted, in creative political interventions, to the obscenity of the murderous repressions perpetrated against the MST—as did de Campos, here, to the massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás. Cyclical repetitions of organized violence, the option against the poor—in cynical inversion of the “for the poor” slogan of Liberation Theology— had triggered the indignation and the artistry of such as Frei Betto’s “Receita para matar um sem-terra”/“Recipe for Killing the Landless”, Sebastião Salgado’s (1997) photography, in Terra, and Chico Buarque’s “Levantados do chão” (Raised from the ground). These contemporary artists, however, no less than their predecessors Graciliano Ramos, João Cabral de Melo Neto, or Glauber Rocha, will not be remembered for their indignation alone. Each—and differently—had had to make another option, broadly definable as the style of mischief-making that is the prerogative of any radical art. Style also functions as a sharecropping, a participating in the intertextuality available to the individual artist; or, in de Campos’s formulation, Karl Marx’s “property of form,” inseparable from his “individual spirituality.” Such an option, being for the poor, should never be poor. Even to think as much would be either to neglect the need for creativity or to misread it. To confuse, say, Graciliano Ramos’s calculatedly daring minimalism, in Vidas secas (Barren lives) of 1938, with some unmediated response to the prescriptive exclusions of the Soviet Writers’ Congress of 1934. To ignore João Cabral de Melo Neto’s career-long engagement with the materiality of words or with what Francis Ponge called Le parti pris des choses. To undersell, perversely, the difficulty of his own challenge: “É difícil defender/só com palavras a vida” (It’s hard to defend/only with words life) (Morte e vida severina [Death and Life of Severino]), of 1956. To imagine a tabula rasa (inter-cine-text- less) Glauber Rocha, deprived, in the 1960s, of a dialogical relationship with Italian neorealism. To conceive that, in postmodernity, the compassions of Sebastião Salgado did not reflect, and reflect on, Don Macullin’s 1970s photography of the oppressed. To fail to hear in Chico Buarque’s song the 1990s echo of José Saramago’s “Do chão pode levantar-se um livro, como uma espiga de trigo ou uma flor brava. Ou uma ave. Ou uma bandeira” (From the ground a book can rise, like an ear of wheat or a wild flower. Or a bird. Or a banner). But there is neither need nor time for doubt. The urgent indivisibility of radical content from radical form is better demonstrated by critical artistry than by artless criticism. An unapologetic option for the inseparably transcendental and material underpins the very title of “o anjo esquerdo da história.” Whether God is dead or not (and whether such a dominant metaphysics of absence might be Marxian or Nietzschean in inspiration), the conspiracies of history are still played out amidst the configurations of narrative. Which is not to see history as narrative (that is, only as troped)—for that would be to deradicalize both history’s powers and any reading of it. In Le monolinguisme de l’autre (1996), Derrida elaborated on the “call for an outside.” In “o anjo. . . ,” de Campos called upon a figure, that of the avenging angel, which inhabits, simultaneously, both the inside and the outside of “a história.” He even staked out for it a particular location, the place of enunciation for a nuncio to a nation, for a committed messenger. Yet the call is not voiced until after that necessary delay that enables the poem to revisit, to reinhabit, to relive the arduous struggle for a hearing, paradoxically, on behalf of a voice—that of poetry—no less excluded, traditionally, than the referents of its echoing anger. Thus, by way of (not) analyzing the poem, I prefer to comment on aspects of my own transjection of it. Cheek to cheek. . . and the ear of the other Cast at me as a throw of the dice, the poem impelled me to reject paraphrase. Haphazardly, I projected it, rather, only as recastable. For the game was too serious to stop at a single appropriation. The ear of this other, too, had its particularity, its “properties of form,” its “individual spirituality.” An Irish specific of a past inherited, part-interred (ex-patria), in an England pre- , pro- , and post-Thatcher, suffused and infused my option for an irony that filtered distorted echoes of another, unofficial, “national” anthem: “Land of Hope and Glory.” “How shall we extol Thee?” who were born not of, but only on, Thee. Here I played with another geopolitics, one of parallel clichés, terra firma, “broad acres,” “field-marshals” of a homeland unheimlich and—sublime “maldade”—of the Mal-vinas, with their no less somber soldiery.5 That the translation must speak for, and of, itself is but part of the point. In language, for Bakhtin, the word was always half someone else’s. . . whether spoken or written. Had de Campos not taken but half of Mallarmé’s angelism, appropriating 5“Land of Hope and Glory” operates as a much appropriated English national hymn. It has been adopted as the official anthem and is sung at the annual conferences of the Conservative Party. poetry’s power of memory but adding to it a specifically Brazilian infernal vision (“quem dera!”), that of Canudos, and of Antônio Conselheiro? A post-Blake m(isc)arriage wherein the legacy of revolutionary mysticism assailed, as forcefully as does dialectical materialism, the hell-on-earth of landless utopians yet to glimpse a Brazilian heaven of agrarian reform? Such a politico-poetics could not presume to deprive those sem terra of the configurations, including the martyrs, saints, and avenging angels, of their local narratives, small or grand. . . sem céu? Heaven-less? Who knows? Who would impose? If their collective history had certainly been groomed against the grain (where every day was—is?—a last day), at least the poem leaves its protagonists “lying still” with their theology and with its (dis-) placements.6 Haroldo de Campos was no angel, least of all in his own poetic practice. He was unstintingly confident, certainly enough to lampoon critical and ideological rigidities and excesses. Acutely alert to the fact that Brazilian neo-Hegelians, no less than their counterparts elsewhere, in their determination to confront the brutality of much of Latin American society, have fallen precisely into the lure of a discourse too mimetic of brute reality, too mirroring ever to achieve a cutting edge, Haroldo de Campos convoked the figure of poetry itself. He knew that poetry is a master teaser, a baiter of stiff contemporary realists or the limp lamp bearers of reflection theories past and present. The inter- and intracultural transluciferations of his textual performances had allowed for the inter-action of Brazilians speaking and listening to Brazilians being listened and spoken to; in turn, they inspired that other, the present trans(at)l(antic)ator whose sign/ature shuttles to and fro, ever seeking to perform intra-, but never faithful, ever faith-less, illusorily face-less, scorn-fully masking source, mourn-fully eschewing target, settling (lawlessly), for an ever extra-trans-mission of occupations, pre- occupations, needs, urgencies. 6 The reference is to the 1902 foundational memorializing of the Canudos war of 1896–1897 in the seminal text of Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões, in which the rebellion and massacre of the sertanejo inhabitants of the Brazilian interior, in the State of Bahia, prefigure the plight, a century on, of the sem terra of El Dorado dos Carajás. Stormy (whether you like it or not. . . ) Whence, for Haroldo de Campos, the “anjo esquerdo da história”? In his unapologetic rejection of “unacceptable cognitive models,” the challenge of de Campos is consistent, not least when addressing the angel as an appropriated icon of the left, inherited from Walter Benjamin’s seminal formulation: This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. (Benjamin 1999, 249) His reconfiguration, in poetry, of the readily packaged but not so smoothly imported “anjo,” regarded by Else Vieira as a de Campos “mutation” in the poet’s resistance to allowing Benjamin’s “Angelus Novus” cum “angel of history” to be unproblematically appropriated as emblematic of a Brazilian historical materialism, must also be seen as an instrument of Haroldo’s staunch debunking of those theorists who would unquestioningly identify their ideological stance with “the storm of progress.”7 Most notoriously, Roberto Schwarz, “sociologizing critic, of vocational incompatibility with the new in poetry” (de Campos, in McGuirk and Vieira 2009,197): The basic scheme is as follows: a tiny élite devotes itself to copying Old World culture [. . .] As a result, literature and politics occupy an exotic position, and we become incapable of creating things of our own that spring from the depths of our life and history [....] But why not reverse the argument? Why should the imitative character of our life not stem from forms of inequality so brutal that they lack the minimal reciprocity [. . .] without which modern society can only appear artificial and “imported”? (Schwarz 1992, 85– 89). 7 See the sections “Protean Angels: Shifting Spectres of Walter Benjamin” and “Crooked Angels, Satanic Angels: From Determinism to the Recovery of Revolutionary Possibility” in “Weaving Histories and Cultural Memories. The (Inter)National Materialisms of o anjo esquerdo da história,“ in McGuirck and Vieira 2009, 170–175. Far from resembling “devoted copying,” such Haroldo de Campos performances as I have dealt with here, whether in his criticism or in his poetry, are, to use his own formulation, “textos de ruptura”(rupture texts). In Panorama do Finnegans Wake (1962), the de Campos brothers, Augusto and Haroldo, had already embarked—for a hybrid genre of transl-iter-ation—on the journey of strenuous excursions demanded, by the modern artist par excellence, Stéphane Mallarmé.8 As has been seen in respect of “o anjo esquerdo da história”, any “angelism” inherited from Mallarmé is supplemented by the daemonic; is traced (as even Roberto Schwarz might admit) by the diabolic. The recuperative moves of the poem play with “fallen” transcendentalism and that corrective shift which—for Haroldo de Campos, no less than for any Marxist—tugs “a história” (history and the story of history) always to the Left. Not “going transcendental,” but refusing to forget that particular -ism (without being “-ista”). Not appropriating an already unbalanced Brazilian history (which ever was and still is on the Right). Rather, engaging with it and in it through concrete performances. Destabilizing the dubious claim that we judge our own time by its politicians, the past by its artists. Searching for poetry’s readmission to a Res Pública Brasileira in which the artist (in academic freedom, pace Roberto et al) might also stage the still-to be-negotiated identities of the nation. Writ(h)ing, in agon, so that sub-alterity (sic) might no longer be a leper’s bell to be hung, by the dark forces of any “sociologizing” thought-police, about the neck of Brazil’s excluded artists. Are Haroldo de Campos’s “o anjo esquerdo da história” and my transjection of it—as not abandoned or to be forgotten, mutilatedly only “left winged” and but formerly “of history,” but rather ever active, whole, uncut, as ”the angel on the left of history”—merely a further negotiated staging? Or just a plea for the performative poet–critic to be heard as also improvising politically against, in counterpoint to, “unacceptable cognitive 8 “The double effort required to allow Mallarmé’s gaps their full disjunctive and destructive power, yet at the same time remain attentive to the multitude of invisible currents which pass back and forth between the separated segments, will strike many readers as inexcusably arduous and unrewarding,” and “such moments are of the essence in Mallarmé [. . .] the type of modern artist [. . .] intent on breaking up ready-made Gestalten and smooth surface textures in order to compel his audience to look elsewhere for artistic coherence, to venture beneath the surface into the difficult, undifferentiated world of unconscious process, to interrupt the easy flow of horizontal perception with strenuous excursions into multi-level, all-at-once ‘verticality’” (Bowie 1978, 6 and 16, respectively). models” of a Brazil in construction. . . though sorely lacking in deconstruction? Trans memoriam To Jacques Derrida’s “there is always something sexual at stake in the resistance to deconstruction” (1987, 196), this particular re- reader—and re-hearer—of Haroldo de Campos would add: “and cultural, and ideological.” But isn’t that where the guest translator came, invited, between 1999 and 2002, by and with Haroldo and Carmen, and with Else, into the hospitality of the Babelic home of Brazil and Brazilian letters? Unheimlich? Years on, I am still questioning the possibility of speaking or hearing “do exterior,” “from abroad”; but, now, it is because I have listened, learned, read, and may even write, that intra- has a history which includes extra-; that il n’y a pas d’hors contexte. At, and beyond, the limits of the languages and the antics of nations—not least in transatlantications—the sting and the contamination of the tse-tse flies in the face of hygienic, much less immune, bodies such as text, context, literary, semiotic, cultural, or translation studies. In aporetic threshold perfor- mances, where differences between some “outside” and some “in” are never abolished but ever undermined, not merely inverted but politically subverted, “transtextuality” is a new wor(l)d. . . but it is readable, habitable, pleasurable; like tsextuality. This place of aporia is before a door, a threshold, a border, a line, or simply the edge or the approach of the other as such Jacques Derrida (1993, 12) Coda: translator’s note The discourse of the author of the above is considered by the journal reviewer to perform that approach to translation theory to which it attempts to give (further) voice. Subsequent to the medium chosen by Haroldo de Campos to deliver a poetic rebuke to the perpetrators of the 1996 massacre at El Dorado dos Carajás, will there have been, will there be, a creative intervention that, similarly or comparably, addresses and challenges the contem- porary social upheavals and political manifestations of the opposition to a contemporary Brazil that projects as heaven-sent the staging of a World Cup and an Olympic Games in the best of all possible wor(l)ds? A diabolic fait accompli; or do post-Haroldo undoings—the transluciferations of successor artists—loom. . . ? The task of the present trans(at)l(antic)ator is to await texts from writers who, also, will have undertaken such “imagined and projected versions of what is to come.” Then, in a necessarily matching performative meditation, will it be conceivable to “update.” Pace academe passim. . . Ite, missa est. The sacrifice (of the masses) in the interim will have found but formulaic, liturgical, expressions of their material—street, stadium, factory, favela, commune, congress—protests, however real, however righteous; whether or not arising from the left of history. Chronicles of a dearth foretold; testimony to a lack of devilishly challenging artistic engagement? The avenging angel of poiesis awaits; translations will follow. References Anderson, Perry. 2002. “The Cardoso Legacy.” London Review of Books 24 (24): 18–22. December 12. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n24/perry- anderson/the-cardoso-legacy. Andrade, Drummond de. 1930. “Poema de sete faces.” In Alguma poesia. Belo Horizonte: Edicoes Pindorama. Reproduced in Alguma Poesia. Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Poesia e prosa, 70. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar, 1979. Benjamin, Walter. 1999. Illuminations. Edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. London: Pimlico. Betto, Frei. 2002. “Receita para matar um sem-terra.” In Landless Voices in Song and Poetry, edited by Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira and Bernard McGuirk, 77–78. Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2007. Bowie, Malcolm. 1978. Mallarmé and the Art of Being Difficult. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campos, Augusto de, and Haroldo de Campos. 1962. Panorama do Finnegans Wake. n.c.: Conselho Estadual de Cultura, Comissão de Literatura. Campos, Haroldo de. [n.d.]1998. “anjo equerdo da história.” In Crisantempo: no espaço curvo nasce um, 69–72. São Paulo: Perspectiva. Originally in ptnotícias. São Paulo: Diretório Nacional do Partido dos Trabalhadores. ———. 2009. “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation.” In McGuirk and Vieira 2009, 233–236. Translation by Bernard McGuirk. Derrida, Jacques. [1984] 1987. “Women in the Beehive: A Seminar with Jacques Derrida.” In Men in Feminism, edited by Alice Jardine and Paul Smith, 189–203. New York and London: Routledge. Originally published in Subjects/Objects 2 (12). ———. 1993. “Finis.” In Aporias: dying—awaiting (one another at)the “limits of truth”; mourir—s’attendre aux “limites de la vérité”, 1–42. Translated by Thomas Dutoit. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1996. Le monolinguisme de l’autre, ou, La prothèse d’origine. Paris: Galilée. Eco, Umberto. 2003. “Of Mice and Men.” The Guardian Review, November 1. Complete version available at https://free- minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=7425.0. McGuirk, Bernard, and Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira. 2009. Haroldo de Campos in conversation: in memoriam 1929–2003. London: Zoilus. Melo Neto, João Cabral de. 2000. Morte e vida severina e outros poemas para vozes. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira. Pring-Mill, Robert D. F. 1990. “Gracias a la vida”: The Power and Poetry of Song. The Kate Elder Lecture, Queen Mary University of London. An expanded version published London: University of London, Dept. of Hispanic Studies, 1999. Santiago, Silviano. 1978. “O entre-lugar do discurso latino-americano.” In Uma literatura nos trópicos, 11–28. São Paulo: Perspectiva. Salgado, Sebastião. 1997. Terra. Preface by José Saramago, and poetry by Chico Buarque. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. English edition published as Terra: Struggle of the Landless. London: Phaidon, 1997. Schwarz, Roberto. 1992. Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture. Edited and with an introduction by John Gledson. London and New York: Verso. Vieira, Else Ribeiro Pires, and Bernard McGuirk. 2007. Landless Voices in Song and Poetry: The Movimento dos Sem Terra of Brazil. Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press. is Emeritus Professor of Romance Literatures and Literary Theory at the University of Nottingham. He is president of the International Consortium for the Study of Post-Conflict and has published widely on and translated literatures in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. His most recent books are Latin American Literature: Symptoms, Risks and Strategies of Poststructuralist Criticism (2013), Poesia de Guerra (1998), Falklands–Malvinas: An Unfinished Business (2007), and Erasing Fernando Pessoa (2017). He has also edited, with Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira, Landless Voices in Song and Poetry: The Movimento Dos Sem Terra of Brazil (2007) and Haroldo de Campos in Conversation: In Memoriam 1929–2003 (2007); and, with Constance Goh, Happiness and Post-Conflict (2007).

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Abstract: “I have invented very little in the stories and voices that weave through this book. Some of them I was told and have carried in my memory for a long time. Others I found in books.” These words—from the Author’s Note of Muñoz Molina’s Sepharad—could be said to be the starting point of my article. Muñoz Molina’s novel illustrates a good example of what Michael Rothberg defines as “multidirectional memory” since the memory of the Holocaust, the multiple exiles that have taken place in Europe, and the memory of postwar Spain coexist—like the tesserae of a mosaic—in the structure of this novel. In this sense, Sepharad can be seen as a landmark in recent Spanish literature, being the first novel that provides a juxtaposition of these formerly isolated memories in a fictional work. It is, therefore, the aim of this article to explore the manner in which Muñoz Molina manages to translate into fiction the shared European memory of the twentieth century, also paying attention to the narrative techniques used by this Spanish author. 1This paper is a result of the METAPHORA research project (Reference FFI2014-53391-P), funded by State Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation of Spain. Cómo atreverse a la vana frivolidad de inventar, habiendo tantas vidas que merecieron ser contadas, cada una de ellas una novela, una malla de ramificaciones que conducen a otras novelas y otras vidas”.2 Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad (2003, 720-721) “De te fabula. The story is about you”. Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture (1976, 186) One of the most revealing passages that the reader of Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad (first published in 2001) may encounter in this so-called “novela de novelas” occurs in the “Author’s Note,” which brings this novel to its end: “I have invented very little in the stories and voices that weave through this book. Some of them I was told and have carried in my memory for a long time. Others I found in books” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 383). This passage could be said to be the starting point of this essay since it helps explain the complex relationship which we find in this novel between memory and imagination, as well as between storytelling and memoir. Sefarad is described by Muñoz Molina as “un mapa de todos los exilios posibles” (a map of all possible exiles) (Valdivia 2013, 26), and in this sense the novel represents a manifold and heterogeneous approach to this theme. Similarly, this novel constitutes a landmark in Spanish literature, as it juxtaposes in a fictional work both the Spanish and European shared history of the twentieth century in an unprecedented manner (see Valdivia 2013; Hristova 2011; Baer 2011). As it could be claimed that Sefarad is founded on a multidirectional approach to memory (Valdivia 2013, 13), it is my purpose to explore the manner in which this approach is translated into fiction in this novel. Similarly, I would like to pay attention to those narrative techniques used by Muñoz Molina that enhance this multidirectional approach. In this sense, both polyacroasis (that is, the plural interpretation of discourses), as 2 All quotations in Spanish from Sefarad are from the 2013 edition (see References list) and referenced in parentheses as such in the text. All quotations in English are from the 2003 edition of Margaret Sayers Peden’s translation (see References list). The English translation will be offered throughout in footnotes, except where only short passages are cited in-text. “How, when there are so many lives that deserve to be told, can one attempt to invent a novel for each, in a vast network of interlinking novels and lives?” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 365) defined by Tomás Albaladejo (1998, 2011), and the empathetic turn of Muñoz Molina’s novel, account for an effective translation of memory, as I will try to demonstrate. Multidirectional Memory in Sefarad Instead of the idea of collective memory as competitive memory (Rothberg 2009, 3), in Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization a new conceptual framework is proposed which “consider[s] memory as multidirectional: as subject to ongoing negotiation, cross- referencing [. . .] as productive and not privative” (Rothberg 2009, 3). In other words, this model of competitive memory should be replaced by a dynamic multidirectional model that allows the interaction of different historical memories (Rothberg 2009, 2–3). In Rothberg’s study, the work of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs is considered crucial, since for him “all memories are simultaneously individual and collective” (Rothberg 2009, 14–15) so that an effective transmission of the past depends on the manner in which the interaction and juxtaposition of both individual and collective memory is understood. In this sense, as Pablo Valdivia has stated in his edition of Sefarad, the structure of Muñoz Molina’s novel could be said to represent a good illustration of what Michael Rothberg has defined as “multidirectional memory” (Valdivia 2013, 13). The memory of the Holocaust, the multiple exiles that have taken place in Europe, including the Spanish republican exile, and the memory of postwar Spain coexist in the structure of these seventeen intertwined chapters or “novelas” that shape Sefarad. Thus, Sefarad constitutes a landmark in recent Spanish literature since, before this novel was published in 2001, the juxtaposition of the Spanish and European shared memory of the Holocaust and its aftermath, along with the memory of the Spanish republican exile, its Civil War, and its postwar period has never been staged in a fictional work (Valdivia 2013, 14; see also Hristova 2011). As a result of this, Muñoz Molina’s novel also constitutes an attempt to connect the Spanish and European shared culture so as to fill the voids of our shared history3 (Baer 3 As Pablo Valdivia has suggested in his edition of Sefarad, in the article “Escuchando a Canetti,” published in the Spanish newspaper El País in 1997, we can clearly appreciate Muñoz 2011; Valdivia 2013). In order to illuminate those cultural links, the Spanish author creates a complex and ambitious fictional artifact haunted by voices rather than characters in the traditional sense (Valdivia 2013). Actually, voices (“voces”) is the word Muñoz Molina uses in the “Author’s Note” to refer to the characters who weave through the book. Some of these voices are fictional and others belong to real people who bore witness to their atrocious experiences, and they all constitute an “imagined community of voices” (Herzberger 2004, 85; Valdivia 2013, 15). Hence, in Sefarad we read the testimonies and listen to the voices of Victor Klemperer, Margarete Buber-Neumann, Primo Levi, Francisco Ayala, Evgenia Ginzburg, José Luis Pinillos, Franz Kafka, or Milena Jesenska, to name but a few. Marije Hristova (2011) has referred to these characters as “iconic characters” or “iconic writers”—that is, historical figures appearing in the novel who in turn have bequeathed to us their “iconic testimonies.” According to Baer, the weak connection between Spain and the memory of the Holocaust is not historical but cultural (Baer 2011, 114). In this sense, this cultural disjointedness is also suggested in the “Author’s Note,” when Muñoz Molina reveals that many of the testimonies and memoirs of victims of totalitarian regimes that led him to write Sefarad were not translated into Spanish by the time he was writing and published his novel. This is the case of Margarete Buber Neumann’s Als Gefangene bei Stalin und Hitler. Eine Welt im Dunkel ([1947] 1997), Victor Klemperer’s “Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten.” Tagebücher 1933–1945 (1995), Jean Améry’s Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwäl- tigten (1997), and Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind (1967), whose memoirs the author could only read in their French and English translations. In fact, it was Antonio Muñoz Molina himself who inserted in the novel his own translation of passages taken from the memoirs we have Molina’s reflections on what he considers a certain lack of interest in Spain regarding the international discussions on the Holocaust memory: “Me llama la atención lo poco que se ha escrito en nuestro país sobre el Holocausto, y el eco tan débil o simplemente nulo que tienen entre nosotros los grandes debates internacionales sobre ese acontecimiento que, junto a la tecnología de la guerra total y el terror de las tiranías estalinistas, ha definido este siglo [. . .] se diría que a nosotros tales cosas no nos afectan, como si España fuera ajena a la historia judía de los últimos cinco siglos, o como si nuestro país no hubiera padecido durante casi cuarenta años una dictadura que debió su triunfo, en gran parte, a la ayuda del mismo régimen que provocó el Holocausto y arrasó Europa entera” (Muñoz Molina 2007, 377–380). previously mentioned. Thus, in Sefarad the creative writer and the translator meet, as will be analyzed in the last section. In Sefarad, the author introduces a variety of testimonies and memories that had been previously overshadowed by other memories, to the extent that they were unknown for many Spanish readers, an aspect which suggests a parallelism between Rothberg’s multidirectional memory model and Muñoz Molina’s novel (Valdivia 2013, 13). In this sense, Sefarad can be contemplated as a mosaic made of many tesserae, every one of which is part of an imagined community of voices. Needless to say, every tessera is required to understand the whole picture. In “Münzenberg,” one of the seventeen chapters that make up Sefarad, Muñoz Molina’s “basic narrator” (Hristova 2011) reveals his plans to write a novel, which, quite startlingly, seems to be inspired by the same approach to fiction that Rothberg proposes for history (Valdivia 2013): He intuido, a lo largo de dos o tres años, la tentación y la posibilidad de una novela, he imaginado situaciones y lugares, como fotografías sueltas o como esos fotogramas de películas que ponían antes, armados en grandes carteleras, a las entradas de los cines [. . .] Cada uno cobraba una valiosa cualidad de misterio, se yuxtaponía sin orden a los otros, se iluminaban entre sí en conexiones plurales e instantáneas, que yo podía deshacer o modificar a mi antojo, y en las que ninguna imagen anulaba a las otras o alcanzaba una primacía segura sobre ellas, o perdía en beneficio del conjunto su singularidad irreductible. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 383)4 This passage is highly revealing since we are told that the narrator’s plan for writing his novel consists of juxtaposing snapshots in order to create a pattern where no image nullifies or overshadows the others, since each of these images is unique and necessary to produce a true and coherent mosaic. This is what we find precisely in Sefarad; different testimonies and memoirs from victims of any political regime or from any kind of exile, each of which are equally significant in a clear multidirectional approach to memory (Valdivia 2013). 4 “For two or three years I have flirted with the idea of writing a novel, imagined situations and places, like snapshots, or like those posters displayed on large billboards at the entrance to a movie theatre. [. . .] Each became a mystery, illuminating the others, creating multiple links that I could break or modify at my whim, patterns in which no image nullified the others or gained precedence or lost its uniqueness within the whole” (Muñoz Molina 2003,140). Thus, one of the essential questions that are raised while reading Sefarad is how appropriate literature may be as a vehicle for bearing witness to history (Gilmour 2011, 840). The main narrator of Sefarad does not evade this issue, something which is reflected on many occasions throughout the novel. This is the case of the chapter “Narva,” in which the narrator meets a friend of his for lunch, the Spanish psychologist José Luis Pinillos. Pinillos enlisted in the Blue Division, the Spanish Army that served in the German Army during the Second World War. The testimony that the Spanish psychologist bequeaths to the narrator is that of his dramatic experience in the Estonian city of Narva. There, Pinillos met a Jewish woman who asks him to bear witness to the extermination of the Jewish population. At a certain point of the narration, the Spanish psychologist admits that “[y]o no sabía nada entonces, pero lo peor de todo era que me negaba a saber, que no veía lo que estaba delante de mis ojos” (Muñoz Molina 2013, 630) (“I didn’t know anything then, but worst of all was my refusal to know, what was before my eyes” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 307)), attracted as he was by what German civilization represented during his student years: “no quiero ocultarlo, ni quiero disculparme, creía que Alemania era la civilización, y Rusia la barbarie” (Muñoz Molina 2013, 630) (“I don’t want to hide anything or try to excuse myself, I thought that Germany was civilization and Russia barbarism” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 307)). After that meeting, he would never see the Jewish woman again and the experience of that meeting haunted him for many decades, until the very day the narrator and the Spanish psychologist met for lunch. This chapter contains essential reflections on the role of literature as a vehicle for transmitting the memory of the past. Moreover, the very mechanisms of storytelling are unveiled in a remarkable manner. After hearing Pinillos’s testimony, and particularly what meeting the Jewish woman meant for him, the basic narrator has an epiphanic revelation, which is reflected in the following passage: Él, que no quiso ni pudo olvidarla en más de medio siglo, me la ha legado ahora, de su memoria la ha trasladado a mi imaginación, pero yo no quiero inventarle ni un origen ni un nombre, tal vez ni siquiera tengo derecho: no es un fantasma, ni un personaje de ficción, es alguien que pertenecía a la vida real tanto como yo, que tuvo un destino tan único como el mío aunque inimaginablemente más atroz, una biografía que no puede ser suplantada por la sombra bella y mentirosa de la literatura [. . .] (Muñoz Molina 2013, 637)5 As the previous passage reflects, Muñoz Molina is aware of the risks involved in transmitting and translating memory into fiction. He is aware, in other words, of the limits of literature and invention (Gilmour 2011, 840),6 which is probably why Muñoz Molina declares in his “Author’s Note” that there is very little invention “in the stories and voices that weave through [Sefarad]” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 383). On the other hand, Sefarad never stops questioning the legitimacy of literature to approach memory. Perhaps, José Luis Pinillos’s testimony faithfully illustrates the author’s approach to memory: [. . .] si yo estoy vivo tengo la obligación de hablar por ellos, tengo que contar lo que les hicieron, no puedo quedarme sin hacer nada y dejar que les olviden, y que se pierda del todo lo poco que va quedando de ellos. No quedará nada cuando se haya extinguido mi generación, nadie que se acuerde, a no ser que alguno de vosotros repitáis lo que os hemos contado. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 644)7 At the very end of this passage, the Spanish psychologist appeals to the narrator and asks him to narrate what he has just told him (an idea that is lost in the English translation we offer below). In this sense, it is relevant to refer to Cristina Demaria’s study Semiotica e Memoria. Analisi del post-conflitto. In this study, Demaria refers to the necessity of exploring what Lotman defined as the process of translating experience into the text (“processi di traduzione dell’esperienza in testo”) when we transmit the past, paying special attention to the interaction 5 “He who has not been able to forget her for more than half a century has bequeathed her to me now, transferring the memory of her to my imagination, but I won’t give her an origin or a name, I haven’t the authority, she isn’t a ghost or a fictional character but someone who was as real as I am, who had a destiny as unique as mine although far more cruel, a biography that can neither be supplanted by the beautiful lie of literature” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 312). 6 Concerning the issue of how legitimate it is for fiction to transmit memories of traumatic experiences, Gilmour has observed that “the dilemma of how to keep memories of these experiences alive and to transmit them to future generations has become a pressing question in contemporary cultural studies, in particular in relation to the Holocaust” (Gilmour 2011, 839). 7 “[. . .] because I’m alive I have the obligation to speak for them, say what was done, so that the little that remains of them in people’s memories will not be lost for all time” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 317). between individual and collective memory (Demaria 2006, 37).8 Hence, I would affirm that the inclusion of the iconic characters’ testimonies in Sefarad accounts for this sort of translation of experience into the text. The issue of the legitimacy of literature as a vehicle for the transmission of memory and traumatic knowledge is an essential feature in Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad, which, I feel, is effectively carried out (Gilmour 2011, 840). On the other hand, it should not be overlooked that the transmission of memory may function—as we consider it does in Sefarad—as “a spur to unexpected acts of empathy and solidarity” (Rothberg 2009, 19). Empathetic polyacroasis as a narrative principle in Sefarad One of the most remarkable aspects of Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad is the importance of storytelling as a principle that articulates the novel (Herzberger 2004, 85; Valdivia 2013). As Herzberger has pointed out Sefarad “is a novel of multiple narrators, characters, and plots that turns inward to celebrate the construction of its stories.” (Herzberger 2004, 85). It is important to highlight how significant storytelling, listening, and reading are in the construction of this novel. In this sense, the inclusion of the iconic characters’ testimonies in a novel where storytelling and listening is vital accounts for what Herzberger defines as “a hybridized narrative rooted in imagination and reference” (Herzberger 2004, 86). A fruitful tension that contributes to trigger an empathetic response from the reader (Herzberger 2004, 86). On the other hand, one of the most remarkable achievements of Sefarad is its “basic narrator”—that is, the oscillating narrative voice underlying the seventeen chapters or “novelas” (Hristova 2011; Gilmour 2011; Valdivia 2012, 591– 592). Actually, this basic narrator constantly changes the grammatical person from “yo” to “tú,” “él,” “vosotros,” or “ellos” (Valdivia 2012, 591–592; see also Gilmour 2011). Thus, orality and storytelling are essential features for this basic narrator to 8 Cristina Demaria affirms in her study that “[l]a trasmissione del significato del passato, la trama in cui si intrecciano alcuni eventi che divengono così rilevanti, può cioè trovarsi a dipendere dal modo in cui, di volta in volta, memoria individuale e memoria collettiva interagiscono. È necessario dunque indagare più a fondo quelli che Lotman definisce come processi di traduzione dell’esperienza in testo, l’interazione e anche il conflitto fra una memoria individuale e una collettiva, culturale e sociale” (Demaria 2006, 37). develop his narrative possibilities. Characters, be they iconic or fictional, tell each other stories and transmit their testimonies to those who are willing to listen, to the extent that the manner in which their identities may be perceived depends to a great extent on those stories (Herzberger 2004; Gilmour 2011; Hristova 2011; Valdivia 2012; Valdivia 2013). Hence, both orality and storytelling allow us to establish a connection with the rhetorical concept of polyacroasis (Valdivia 2012, 593–594). The term polyacroasis (polyakróasis)—that is, a plural hearing, plural interpretation of an oral discourse—has been proposed by Tomás Albaladejo “to refer to the characteristic consisting of the differences between the hearers of rhetorical discourse” (Albaladejo 1998, 156). Thus, polyacroasis contributes to illuminate and elucidate the mechanisms of the plural reception of discourses taking place in a given rhetorical event (Albaladejo 1998). As this reception is not only restricted to oratorical events, Albaladejo has also proposed this concept to analyze literary works, especially those at the very core of which literary communication lies (Albaladejo 2009, 2). Polyacroasis therefore contributes to elucidate the strong link between literature and orality (Albaladejo 2009, 3–4). In this sense, Sefarad constitutes a rhetorical event where the characters or voices that dwell in the novel narrate to each other the novel they take with them.9 Yet the reader is also appealed to and turned into another character of the novel by means of empathy, to the extent that readers may experience what Northrop Frye affirmed the final message of the genre of romance was—that is, “de te fabula: the story is about you” (Frye 1976, 186). In this sense, the use in the novel of the rhetorical figure of apostrophe reinforces the sense of empathy the novel conveys, since the reader’s attention is drawn in a very effective manner (Valdivia 2013): Y tú qué harías si supieras que en cualquier momento pueden venir a buscarte, que tal vez ya figura tu nombre en una lista mecanografiada de 9In Sefarad, there are multiple references to Benito Pérez Galdós’s Fortunata y Jacinta. Muñoz Molina introduces in Sefarad a famous quotation taken from that novel, “Doquiera que el hombre va lleva consigo su novela,” which Margaret Sayers Peden translated into English as “Wherever a man goes, he takes his novel with him”(Muñoz Molina 2003, 44). presos o de muertos futuros, de sospechosos, de traidores. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 243)10 Clearly, the use of apostrophe triggers an empathetic response from the reader, who may experience a total identification with the voices that dwell in Sefarad (Gilmour 2011, 851). In addition to this, empathy is similarly stimulated by manipulating the voice of the basic narrator (Gilmour 2011, 851; Valdivia 2012). What Gilmour has described as “a constant oscillation between the third person, él or ella, and the first person, yo,” (Gilmour 2011, 852; Valdivia 2012; Valdivia 2013, 258) creates a web of empathetic connections among the main narrator, the gallery of multiple voices that weave through the book, and an empathetic reader. As we have seen before, Muñoz Molina tells us in the “Author’s note” that both the testimonies he listened to and stored for a long time in his memory and the books he read were vital while plotting and writing Sefarad: the rest was invention. However, it could be affirmed that the part of the novel that stems from invention completes full circle this web of empathetic links (Gilmour 2011). In other words, as Gilmour has pointed out, the use of an empathetic imagination accounts for the manner in which Muñoz Molina, via his basic narrator, translates into fiction other people’s memories (Gilmour 2011, 847). This basic narrator has been referred to by Valdivia as a “yo fluido,” a sort of flowing manifold narrator whose nature is clearly explained in the following passage taken from the chapter “Dime tu nombre”: Nunca soy más yo mismo que cuando guardo silencio y escucho, cuando dejo a un lado mi fatigosa identidad y mi propia memoria para concentrarme del todo en el acto de escuchar, de ser plenamente habitado por las experiencias y recuerdos de otros. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 680)11 This multiple oscillation among different grammatical persons is accompanied by the use of direct speech, as we can appreciate when Muñoz Molina provides his own translation into 10 “And you, what would you do if you knew that at any moment they could come for you, that your name may already be on a typed list of prisoners or future dead, or suspects, or traitors?” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 45). 11 “I am never more myself than when I am silent and listening, when I set aside my tedious identity and tedious memory to concentrate totally on the act of listening, on the experiences of another” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 340). Spanish of the iconic characters’ testimonies he has read in books. In the following passage we can appreciate a clear example of this flowing oscillating narrator: Evgenia, te están tendiendo una trampa, y es preciso que escapes mientras puedas, antes de que te partan el cuello. Pero cómo voy yo, una comunista, a esconderme de mi Partido, lo que tengo que hacer es demostrarle al Partido que soy inocente. Hablan en voz baja, procurando que los niños no escuchen nada, temiendo que el teléfono, aunque está colgado, sirva para que les espíen las conversaciones. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 258)12 The quotation that appears in italics is an excerpt, translated into Spanish by the author himself, and taken from Evgenia Ginzburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind, a memoir that had not yet been translated into Spanish when Sefarad was being written. Then, after that passage, without using quotation marks, the first person is used and we are told what the “basic narrator” imagines Evgenia Ginzburg might have said in the very moment she learnt she was under threat. In other words, the basic narrator haunts Ginzburg’s mind and empathetically imagines how Ginzburg might have reacted. Finally, in the last sentence, the basic narrator shifts to the third person plural (Valdivia 2013, 258). Needless to say, this masterly use of narrative technique requires an empathetic imagination on the author’s part (Gilmour 2011; Valdivia 2013, 258). The manner in which polyacroasis functions in this novel can not be explained if we are unaware of that web of empathetic connections—or “malla de ramificaciones”—among the different voices, the reader’s response, and the empathetic imagination deployed by Muñoz Molina. Therefore, a new question should now be raised. Is empathy an effective vehicle for both transmitting and translating memories? Does the author’s empathetic involvement in retelling and translating testimonies account for a successful transmission of memory? According to Rothberg, remembrance and imagination can be seen as both material and fundamentally human forces that 12“Eugenia, they’re setting a trap for you, and you must run away while you can, before they have your head. But why would I, a Communist, hide from my Party? I must show the Party that I’m innocent. They speak in low voices, trying not to let the children hear, afraid that the telephone, even though the receiver’s down, will allow someone to listen” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 53). “should not lead to assumptions of memory’s insubstantiality” (Rothberg 2009, 19). It is possible that, as Sefarad reflects, translating multidirectional memory into fiction acquires a more significant and enriched dimension when empathetic imagination is present. Translating the Other culturally in Sefarad The role of translation in postconflict cultures is an aspect that has been taken into consideration in Nergaard’s “Translating the Other: Journalism in Post Conflict Cultures” (Demaria and Wright, 2006). In this article, Nergaard analyzes examples where one culture translates another (Nergaard 2006, 189). In this sense, Nergaard proposes an understanding of translation “as the process through which concepts and discourses in one culture are interpreted and transformed in order to be introduced into another” (Nergaard 2006, 189). Translation is also referred to as “one of the privileged spaces where cultures meet [. . .] in terms of alterity and difference” (Nergaard 2006, 189). Translation thus allows us to represent the Other, a complex process that Nergaard calls cultural translation (Nergaard 2006, 191). In this epigraph I would like to explore the presence of cultural translation in Muñoz Molina’s novel, and to what extent fiction may contribute to an effective translation of the Other and, as a result of that, can contribute to create and shape knowledge. When the so-called basic narrator declares that he is never more himself than when he sets aside his identity to concentrate on the experiences of another (Muñoz Molina 2013, 680), he is suggesting that “he is never more fully himself than when experiencing both self and other” (Gilmour 2011, 849.) In this sense, it seems that the very idea of representing and translating the Other appears to be one of the engines of Sefarad, being the other and the translation of his or her experiences one of the key motifs that articulate the novel. We have previously referred to the manner in which Muñoz Molina translates into fiction the iconic characters’ testimonies. In some occasions the author himself translates passages into Spanish, which lend verisimilitude to the novel. In other occasions, the iconic characters are haunted by the oscillating narrator (“yo fluido,” as proposed by Valdivia) who imagines empathetically what these “iconic characters and writers” might have thought or said (Valdivia 2013). This exploration of the characters’ thoughts appearing in Sefarad, via an oscillating narrator, constitutes an example of what could be defined as an empathetic cultural translation. The most significant instance of this representation of the Other in Sefarad appears in the chapter “Eres.” In this chapter, Muñoz Molina appeals empathetically to the reader by means of the use of apostrophe. Thus, the chapter triggers in the reader a sense of identification between him or her and the Other (Valdivia 2013, 601). In this sense in Sefarad “the possibility of becoming ‘the other’ is a recurrent theme” (Hristova-Dijkstra and Adema 2010, 74), something that is illustrated when the reader is asked the following question: “Y tú qué harías si supieras que en cualquier momento pueden venir a buscarte, que tal vez ya figura tu nombre en una lista mecanografiada de presos o de muertos futuros, de sospechosos, de traidores”(Muñoz Molina 2013, 243) (“what would you do if you knew that at any moment they could come for you, that your name may already be on a typed list of prisoners or future dead, or suspects, or traitors?” [Muñoz Molina 2003, 45]). In the following passage from the chapter mentioned above, we encounter a representative example of the manner in which the virtual identification between reader (Self) and the Other is triggered: Eres quien mira su normalidad perdida desde el otro lado del cristal que te separa de ella, quien entre las rendijas de las tablas de un vagón de deportados mira las últimas casas de la ciudad que creyó suya y a la que nunca volverá. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 619)13 The effect these words have on the reader is that of fostering a total identification with the Other, to the extent that we come to recognize how “the ‘totally other’ constitutes one’s identity” (Hristova-Dijkstra and Adema 2010, 74). * 13 As Margaret Sayers Peden’s 2003 translation into English of the 2001 Spanish edition of Sefarad is being used throughout this article, and as this translation omits many passages from the original 2001 Spanish edition, including the passage I have just cited, no English translation is being provided in this instance. Sefarad has been described by its author as a “mapa de todos los exilios posibles” (a map of possible exiles) (Valdivia 2013, 26). In this sense, it could be affirmed that the theme of exile constitutes a subtext in Sefarad since it is the place where the narrator and the reader empathize imaginatively with the Other (Gilmour 2011, 854): Aún despojándote de todo queda algo que permanece siempre, que está en ti desde que tienes memoria [. . .] el núcleo o la médula de lo que eres [. . .]: eres el sentimiento del desarraigo y de la extrañeza, de no estar del todo en ninguna parte [. . .] (Muñoz Molina 2013, 609)14 In the Introduction to Translation and Power (2002) Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler assert that translators “as much as creative writers and politicians, participate in the powerful acts that create knowledge and shape culture” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). In this sense, in Sefarad both the translator and the creative writer meet. The fact that some of the books containing the iconic characters’ testimonies were not translated into Spanish implied an obvious lack of knowledge of vital testimonies that has shaped postwar Europe. Thus, the Spanish author’s decision to insert and translate passages from the previously mentioned testimonies accounts for a strong desire to create knowledge both as a creative writer and as a translator. If we take into consideration, for instance, the passages taken from Victor Klemperer’s I will Bear Witness. 1933–1941. A Diary of the Nazi Years (1999), we can appreciate a clear illustration of Muñoz Molina’s masterly use of historical reference and empathetic imagination. In “Quien espera,” a gallery of “iconic characters” weaves through this chapter, which includes Victor Klemperer himself, Margarete Buber-Neumann, Eugenia Ginzburg, Jean Améry, and even fictional characters such as Josef K. from Kafka’s Der Prozess. In the following passage we can appreciate the narrative technique deployed by the author: 14“Something persists that has been inside you for as long as you can remember [. . .] it is the marrow of what you are [. . .] You are uprootedness and foreignness, not being completely in any one place [. . .]” (Muñoz Moina 2003, 295). El jueves 30 de marzo de 1933 el profesor Victor Klemperer, de Dresde, anota en su diario que ha visto en el escaparate de una tienda de juguetes un balón de goma infantil con una gran esvástica. Ya no puedo librarme de la sensación de disgusto y vergüenza. Y nadie se mueve; todo el mundo tiembla, se esconde. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 247)15 The journal entry corresponds to March 30, 1933. In fact, the sentence that we encounter at the end of that journal entry— that is, “In a toy shop a children’s ball with the swastika” (Klemperer 1999, 10)—occurs unexpectedly, as a juxtaposed image with no apparent connection with the rest of the paragraph.16 Thus, Muñoz Molina is clearly retelling what he has read in the diary, after which he introduces in italics his own translation of a passage extracted from the English translation of Klemperer’s diaries. Hence, Muñoz Molina sets a boundary between real testimonies and literary recreation. Yet, it should be noticed that the passage in italics does not correspond to the same day Klemperer saw the child’s ball with the swastika (that is, March 30) but to May 17 of the same year. This narrative device—which we can appreciate in other iconic testimonies throughout the novel—has significant implications from the point of view of translation, since it reveals a concept of translation that Tymoczko and Gentzler have described as “not simply an act of faithful reproduction but, rather, a deliberate and conscious act of selection [and] assemblage” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). In other words, Muñoz Molina’s choice constitutes a conscious act of juxtaposing his own empathetic retelling of the journal with real testimonies extracted from it (that is, “I can no longer get rid of the feeling of disgust and shame. And no one stirs; everyone trembles, keeps out of sight” (Klemperer 1999, 7) (“Ich kann das Gefühl des 15 “On Thursday, March 30, 1933, Professor Victor Klemperer, of Dresden, notes in his diary that in a toy-shop window he saw a child’s balloon with a large swastika. I can no longer rid myself of the disgust and shame. Yet no one makes a move; everyone trembles, hides” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 47). 16 We provide in this footnote the English translation of Victor Klemperer’s diaries and the original German: “Yesterday a wretched statement in the Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten—‘on your own account.’ They are 92.5 percent founded on Aryan capital, Herr Wollf, owner of the remaining 7.5 percent, has resigned as chief editor, one Jewish editor has been given leave of absence (poor Fentl!), the other ten are Aryans. Terrible!—In a toy shop a children’s ball with the swastika.” (Klemperer 1999, 10); „Gestern jämmerliche Erklärung der Dresdener NN ‚in eigener Sache’. Sie seien zu 92,5 Prozent auf arisches Kapital gestützt, Herr Wollf, Besitzer der übrigen 7,5 Prozent, lege Chefredaktion nieder, ein jüdischer Redakteur sei beurlaubt (armer Fentl!), die andern zehn seien Arier. Entsetzlich! – In einem Spielzeugladen ein Kinderball mit Hakenkreuz” (Klemperer, 1995: 15–16). Ekels und der Scham nicht mehr loswerden. Und niemand rührt sich; alles zittert, verkriecht sich.” [Klemperer 1995, 12]). In “Quien espera” we encounter a web of testimonies or voices that are intertwined throughout this chapter, including Buber-Neumann’s, Ginzburg’s, and Klemperer’s. In the last paragraph of this chapter the testimonies of both Klemperer and Buber-Neumann come together. In a masterly juxtaposition of voices and testimonies, the oscillating narrator concludes this chapter in the following manner: Llegaron una mañana muy temprano, del 19 de Julio, y al comprobar que esta vez sí que venían de verdad por ella [Margarete] no sintió pánico, sino más bien alivio [. . .]. El 12 de julio el profesor Klemperer recuerda en su diario a algunos amigos que se marcharon de Alemania, que han encontrado trabajo en Estados Unidos o en Inglaterra. Pero cómo irse sin nada, él, un viejo, y su mujer una enferma [. . .]. Nosotros nos hemos quedado aquí, en la vergüenza y la penuria, como enterrados vivos, enterrados hasta el cuello, esperando día tras día las últimas paletadas. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 267)17 The responsibility that translation may have in creating knowledge has been previously mentioned. I agree with Tymoczko and Genztler when they affirm that “translation [. . .] actively participates in the construction of knowledge [. . .] and that the act of translation is itself very much involved in the creation of [it]” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). Leaving aside the enormous literary value of a novel like Sefarad, I would affirm that this novel is also an example of how a fictional work can participate in that construction of knowledge through an empathetic imagination. Conclusion Throughout this article I have tried to analyze the manner in which Muñoz Molina juxtaposes in Sefarad the shared European and Spanish memory of the twentieth century via a multidirectional memory approach to fiction. In this sense, I would affirm that Michael Rothberg’s approach helps explain the narrative mechanisms underlying Sefarad. In other words, Rothberg’s 17 “They came one morning very early, on July 19, and when she realized that they had finally come for her, [Margarete] felt only a kind of relief [. . .]. On July 12, Professor Klemperer refers in his diary to some friends who left Germany and found work in the United States or England. But how do you leave when you don’t have anything? He, an old man with a sick wife [. . .]. We have stayed here, in shame and penury, as if buried alive, buried up to our necks, waiting day after day for the last spadefuls of dirt” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 60). dynamic multidirectional model accounts effectively for the interaction of different historical memories which we can appreciate in Sefarad (Rothberg 2009, 3). Muñoz Molina thus translates into fiction previously isolated memories and presents a map of all possible exiles in an unprecedented manner in recent Spanish literature. In this sense, I would state that one of Muñoz Molina’s greatest achievements is the manner in which he carries out a translation of experience into a fictional text. There are multiple instances of that translation of experiences into Sefarad, such as the iconic characters’ testimonies. In addition to this, I would like to point out that empathetic polyacroasis contributes to a great extent to this effective translation of experience. Thus, I believe that the presence of polyacroasis in Sefarad enhances that empathetic translation and transmission of memory, since it allows both a plural interpretation and a powerful interaction among the different “voices” that dwell in the novel, and it also increases the readers’ empathetic response. In my opinion, translating multidirectional memory into fiction becomes more effective when empathetic polyacroasis takes place. Needless to say, this “hybridized narrative rooted in imagination and reference” (Herzberger 2004, 86) clearly contributes and participates in the construction of knowledge. Finally, I would like to conclude this essay with an excerpt from Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad that, to a great extent, may function as a concise summary of the argument I have presented: No eres una sola persona y no tienes una sola historia, y ni tu cara ni tu oficio ni las demás circunstancias de tu vida pasada o presente permanecen invariables. El pasado se mueve y los espejos son imprevisibles. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 596)18 18“You are not an isolated person and do not have an isolated story, and neither your face nor your profession nor the other circumstances of your past or present life are cast in stone. The past shifts and reforms, and mirrors are unpredictable” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 288). References Albaladejo, Tomás. 1998. “Polyacroasis in Rhetorical Discourse.” The Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies/La Revue Canadienne d’Études Rhétoriques 9: 155–167. ———. 2009. “La poliacroasis en la representación literaria: Un componente de la retórica cultural.” Castilla. Estudios de Literatura 0: 1–26. PDF available at http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/12153. Améry, Jean. 1997. Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag. Baer, Alejandro. 2011. “The Voids of Sepharad: The memory of the Holocaust in Spain.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12 (1): 95– 120. doi:10.1080/14636204.2011/556879. Buber-Neumann, Margarete. [1947] 1997. Als Gefangene bei Stalin und Hitler. Eine Welt im Dunkel. Berlin: Ullstein Buchverlage. Demaria, Cristina. 2006. Semiotica e memoria. Analisi del post-conflitto. Roma: Carocci. Demaria, Cristina, and Colin Wright. 2006. Post-Conflict Cultures. Rituals of Representation. London: Zoilus Press. Frye, Northrop. 1976. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Gilmour, Nicola. 2011. “The Afterlife of Traumatic Memories: The Workings and Uses of Empathy in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad.” Bulletin of Spanish Studies: Hispanic Studies and Researches on Spain, Portugal and Latin America 88 (6): 839–862. doi:10.1080/14753820.2011.603491. Ginzburg, Eugenia Semyonovna. 1967. Journey into the Whirlwind. Translated by Paul Stevenson and Max Hayward. London: Harcourt. Herzberger, David K. 2004. “Representing the Holocaust: Story and Experience in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad.” Romance Quarterly 51 (2): 85–96. doi:10.3200/RQTR.51.2.85-96. Hristova, Marije. 2011. “Memoria prestada. El Holocausto en la novela española contemporánea: Los casos de Sefarad de Muñoz Molina y El Comprador de aniversarios de García Ortega.” MA thesis, University of Amsterdam. PDF available at http://dare.uva.nl/document/342563. Hristova-Dijkstra, Marije J., and Janneke Adema. 2010. “The exile condition. Space–time dissociation in historical experience. A reading of Sefarad.” Krisis, 1: 62–76. Klemperer, Victor. 1995. “Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten.” Tagebücher 1933–1941. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag. ———. 1999. I Will Bear Witness. 1933–1941. A Diary of the Nazi Years. Translated by Martin Chalmers. New York: The Modern Library. Muñoz Molina, Antonio. 2003. Sepharad. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. London: Harcourt. ———. 2007. Travesías. Edited by Jorge F. Hernández. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ———. 2013. Sefarad. Edited by Pablo Valdivia. Madrid: Cátedra. Nergaard, Siri. 2006. “Translating the Other: Journalism in Post-Conflict Cultures.” In Cristina Demaria and Colin Wright 2006, 189–207. Rothberg, Michael. 2009. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002. Translation and Power. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Valdivia, Pablo. 2012. “Poliacroasis, memoria e identidad en la articulación de los discursos de poder: el caso de Sefarad de Antonio Muñoz Molina.” In Retórica y política. Los discursos de la construcción de la sociedad, edited by Emilio del Río Sanz, María del Carmen Ruiz de la Cierva, and Tomás Albaladejo, 591–604. Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. ———. 2013. Introduction to Muñoz Molina 2013. obtained his BA in English Philology and his PhD from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is currently lecturer in Contemporary Literature, English Literature, and English at the Universidad CEU San Pablo, Madrid, and member of the research group C [P y R] (Communication, poetics and rhetoric) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is currently a member of the METAPHORA project and has been a member of a previous research project on Cultural Rhetoric. His research interests include comparative literature, rhetoric, and literary translation.

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Abstract: Holocaust survivor testimonies are frequently read, explored, and interpreted in English translation—that is, beyond their original linguistic, temporal, and cultural points of telling. And yet only meager attention has been paid to the epistemological and ethical implications of translation as a mode of re-mediating Holocaust memory. Significant questions remain regarding the potentialities of translation, both positive and negative, for shaping the way in which readers come to know about, and respond to, the lived experiences of the survivors. Specifically, this article hopes to encourage more sustained and critical thinking about the decisive and moral role of the translator as a secondary witness, “one who listens to the testimony with empathy and helps to record, store and transmit it” (Assmann 2006, 9). The article presents a case study of two acts of secondary witnessing which re-mediate the experiences of French female deportees into English: Barbara Mellor’s translation of Agnès Humbert’s (1946) Notre guerre, published in 2008 as Résistance, and Margaret S. Summers’s translation of Micheline Maurel’s (1957) Un camp très ordinaire, published in 1958 as An Ordinary Camp. Attention will be paid to how the translators have listened to and re-mediated the experiences of the survivors for a new readership, while the sociocultural contexts of and influences on these acts of secondary witnessing will also be considered. Introduction Translating the written memory of an individual into another language and culture entails a twofold act of perpetuation; first, the lived experiences of that individual are recorded in an additional repository and are then carried beyond the immediate borders of the original telling. Yet, in order that this perpetuation might be realized through translation, the particular threads of memory which constitute the original narrative— whether in the form of autobiography, memoir, diary or testimony—are necessarily reworked by the hands of another, by a translator who, in most instances, has no direct connection with the remembered events or emotions.1 The warp and weft of the initial act of memory may subsequently emerge intact, preserved by translation to bear enduring and accurate witness to the life of the individual; alternatively, it may not withstand the process, becoming distorted in its appearance, texture or purpose once reconstructed in another setting. This article sets out to identify and critically examine the role of the translator in the transmission of individual memory within the specific context of survivor accounts of the Holocaust. In this respect, any exploration of how the translator re-mediates life in the camps must be fully mindful of the unique representational, epistemological and ethical complexities that can beset attempts to tell and retell those stories of suffering and survival. Many Holocaust narratives are marked by a tension between the (communicative, commemorative, and often cathartic) need to commit lived experience to writing and the aridity of words whose capacity to tell withers before the sheer horror of the events they venture to describe. The complexities of representation may be compounded further by the contingencies of memory, which can fade but also sharpen with the passing of time.2 In turn, the translator of the Holocaust narrative is potentially brought into an encounter with a text that is, deliberately or otherwise, halting, uneven; a text that may attempt to lay bare some or all of the concentrationary universe, and in so doing, charge itself with a particular moral burden to remember, to understand, or indeed to resist any such understanding. How the translator 1 A notable exception to this distance between the one who remembers and the one who translates can, of course, be found in the phenomenon of self-translation. The conflation of these two positions necessarily raises an alternative set of questions to the ones I address here. 2 Contrary to the antinarrative stance adopted by literary theorists such as Cathy Caruth (1996), scientific studies have shown that traumatic experiences are recoverable and representable, as opposed to repressed and unspeakable. As is noted by Beverley R. King in 21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook, “Overwhelmingly, the research supports the trauma superiority argument—memories for stressful experiences are not easily forgotten, especially the central details of the events” (2009, 452). For further criticism of Caruth, see Ruth Leys (2000), and Wulf Kansteiner and Harald Weilnböck (2008). responds to such complexities will be considered in reference to the concept of the secondary witness, 3 defined by Geoffrey Hartman as someone who “provides a witness for the witness, [and] actively receives words that reflect the darkness of the event” (1998, 48). It is precisely the nature and extent of the translator’s act of receiving that will be considered in the case study below, always heedful of what Colin Davis terms the “insidious dangers inherent in secondary witnessing” (2011, 20) which threaten to belie the experiences, pain and otherness of the Holocaust survivor. For the manner in which the translator serves as secondary witness will ultimately determine whether the target language reader has a window onto past events that is as broad or narrow, as transparent or opaque, as whole or fragmented, as the one originally offered by the survivor. The present case study centers on two remarkable French testimonies of life in and liberation from the Nazi labor camps for women. Agnès Humbert’s Notre guerre: Journal de Résistance 1940–1945 was published in the immediate aftermath of World War II in 1946; it begins with the art historian’s diary entries which record her early involvement in the French Resistance movement and then proceeds to a retrospective account of her arrest and internment in the Parisian prisons of Cherche-Midi, La Santé, and Fresnes, her subsequent deportation to the German forced labor camps of Krefeld- Anrath, Hövelhof and Schwelm, and her eventual liberation from the town of Wanfried. Micheline Maurel, a literary scholar, was also arrested for Resistance activities, and her testimony, Un camp très ordinaire, appeared in 1957. In her work, Maurel documents her experiences of daily life and hardship in the Neubrandenburg labor camp, a satellite of the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, as well as her difficult return home following liberation. These accounts will be brought into relief with their English translations— respectively, Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France translated by Barbara Mellor (2008) and Ravensbrück by Margaret S. Summers (1958)4—as a means of establishing how these translators have served as witnesses to the survivors, while 3 This present study follows on from my 2013 work in which I also draw on secondary witnessing to scrutinize the English translation of Robert Antelme’s (1947) L’espèce humaine. 4 Page references will here be given to the UK edition published in 1958 by Digit Books, an imprint of Brown Watson. See reference list for an overview of all available UK and US editions. also recognizing that the translator is not the sole agent responsible for the way in which these individual memories have been transmitted. The decision to explore these two particular female survivor accounts has been made in light Margaret-Anne Hutton’s observation that “French women deported to Nazi concentration and death camps […] have, as yet, received little to no critical attention” (2005, 2), in Holocaust studies or elsewhere. With the exception perhaps of Charlotte Delbo, analytical focus has tended to fall on male memories and narratives of life in the camps; this case study can thus be read as an attempt to bring two marginalized, eclipsed voices of female survivors further to the fore. In more general terms, the article can also be seen as a contribution towards a burgeoning body of work by scholars who situate themselves at the intersection between Translation Studies and Holocaust Studies in order to better understand how the linguistic and cultural dynamics of translation have shaped the transmission and reception of Holocaust writing. Susan Suleiman observes in 1996 that “[w ]hile students of Holocaust literature are keenly aware of problems of language and representation, they have paid surprisingly little attention to a problem one might call representing—or remembering, or memorializing—the Holocaust in translation” (1996, 640). Almost a decade later, and that much needed critical attention is beginning to emerge in revelatory studies, underpinned by comparative textual and cultural analyses across a range of language pairs and genres. Of particular note is the work of Jean Boase-Beier who approaches the poetry of Paul Celan from the dual and ethically engaged position of researcher and translator; she argues (2014) that reading a Holocaust poem for translation entails a more penetrating, exacting encounter with the silences, ambiguities, and tensions of the original and maintains (2011) that these potent features must be retained in the translation where they might be perceived and interpreted by the new reader. Conversely, Peter Davies adopts a decisively descriptive approach to the translations of Borowski (2008), Wiesel (2011), and Höß (2014) to frame textual and paratextual decisions in terms of the status and function of Holocaust testimony in the target culture, and in reference to target language reader expectations. A recent special edition of Translation and Literature (2014) on “Holocaust Testimony and Translation,” edited by Davies, further signals the upsurge in interest in questions of how, why and to what effect Holocaust writing travels in translation. In addition to Boase-Beier’s (2014) work mentioned above, specific cases in point are Sue Vice’s (2014) examination of how reading false Holocaust testimonies in translation can lay bare their constructedness, as well as Angela Kershaw’s (2014) exploration of how translation can restrict and release the complex network of intertextual references in French Holocaust fiction. Also of interest is Kershaw’s (2013) detailed examination on how translated Holocaust fiction is marketed and received within Britain’s literary landscape. More broadly, Bella Brodzki (2007) understands translation as a trope for the textual reconstruction and transmission of memory, dedicating a chapter of Can These Bones Live to the connections between memorializing, mourning, and translation in the writing of Jorge Semprùn. These studies unarguably serve to provide a more detailed and nuanced picture of the various ways in which translation functions as a mode of reinscribing and imparting Holocaust memory. In turn, this article endeavors to illustrate the strategies on which the mediation and reception of the two translated French testimonies are premised, supplementing thus the existing body of work in an empirical sense and proposing the figure of the secondary witness as a framework for better understanding the responsibility of the translator of first hand Holocaust accounts. Secondary witnessing in translation The notion of secondary witnessing can be traced back to the establishment of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies for which over 4,400 eye-witness accounts were recorded on videotape. One of the co-founders of the project, psychoanalyst Dori Laub, has reflected critically on his role as an interviewer, or “the immediate receiver of these testimonies” (1991, 76). He frames his position in relation to the survivor as “a companion on the eerie journey of the testimony. As an interviewer, I am present as someone who actually participates in the reliving and reexperiencing of the event” (1991, 76). Such companionship and participation is a decisive factor in the very elicitation of the testimony; the interviewer bears witness to the witness and, in so doing, becomes an auxiliary to the telling of the story, a secondary witness. Accordingly, an ethical onus is placed on the secondary witness; as Thomas Trezise puts it: The general lesson Laub draws from his intervention is that the listener actively contributes, for better or for worse, to the construction of testimonial narrative, that the receiving is analogous to the giving of testimony insofar as it involves a process of selection and omission, attention and inattention, highlighting and overshadowing, for which the listener remains responsible. (2013, 19) The translator of the Holocaust testimony can likewise be placed in this position of receiving and responsibility. Although the dialogic immediacy that characterizes the relationship between the survivor–witness and interviewer–secondary witness on tape is, in many cases, no longer tenable in the context of translation,5 it is nevertheless the case that the translator is a present and operative force in the bringing forth of the testimony in another language, as well as in its journey to another time and place. It is the translator who first participates in shaping the contours of the account, and only then can its content be repackaged and transmitted to a subsequent, broader audience in the target culture. The role of any secondary witness is a demanding and a complex one which entreats the listener to hear affectively and exactingly: “The listener has to feel the victim’s victories, defeats and silences, know them from within, so that they can assume the form of testimony” (Laub 1992, 58). At the same time, the secondary witness is called to be mindful of this attempt to feel and know the survivor, so as to preclude any collapse of the distinction between the two subject positions. Hartman expresses the dilemma of the secondary (or what he terms ‘intellectual’) witness as follows: “Every identification approaches over-identification and leads to a personifying and then appropriation of the identity of others. The distance between the self and other is violated and the possibility of 5 The retranslation of Wiesel’s La nuit by his wife in 2006 is a rare example of proximity between survivor and translator. intellectual witness aborted” (1998, 4). In order to avert such a failure, secondary witnessing must be predicated instead on the core value of empathy, an empathy which pertains in all contexts of the act. In the case of the historian as secondary witness, Dominick LaCapra insists on an ethically desirable form of empathy that “involves not full identification but what might be termed empathic unsettlement in the face of traumatic limit events” (2001, 102). Likewise, memory studies scholars Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer contend that the secondary witness “must allow the testimony to move, haunt and endanger her; she must allow it to inhabit her, without appropriating or owning it” (2010, 402). As I have argued elsewhere (Deane-Cox 2013), this empathic mode of bearing witness to the witness must also extend to the context of translation. However, the risk of crossing the threshold from empathy into over-identification is stronger here still given the appropriative thrust of translation and the subjective filter of the translator who may “feed [their] own beliefs, knowledge, attitudes and so on into [their] processing of texts, so that any translation will, to some extent, reflect the translator’s own mental and cultural outlook” (Hatim and Mason 1990, 11). If the translator of the Holocaust testimony is to serve as a secondary witness, as “the blank screen on which the event comes to be inscribed for the first time” (Laub 1992, 57), here in a new linguistic, cultural and temporal setting, then he or she must strive to engage empathically with that telling and to respect the distance that separates him or herself from the survivor. Otherwise, the testi- mony is at danger of being overwritten by the assumptions and the excesses (hearing too much) or insufficiencies (hearing too little or inaccurately) of the translator, at which point the testimony will cease to function as such. However, participation in the communicative exchange is not restricted to the witness and the secondary witness alone, for the account that emerges from this encounter can also be heard by additional audiences and used to different ends. Although Laub does not address this point explicitly in his work, Trezise sees there a “suggest[ion] that the reception of the Holocaust survivor testimony requires not only attending to the voices of witnesses while remaining aware of one’s own, but also attending, with equal self-awareness, to the voices of other listeners” (2013, 9). And within the paradigm of the translator as secondary witness, those other listeners are the translation readers as well as other interested parties such as literary agents, publishers and editors, their presence and needs positioning the translator, once again, in that familiar continuum bounded by source and target concerns. Or, as Francis Jones writes, “the call to the primary other (the source-writer or source-culture) must be tempered by a constant awareness of ‘the other other’” (2004, 723). Referring here to his experiences of translating literary texts against the backdrop of the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, Jones clearly foregrounds the dual obligation of the translator whose loyalty towards the source text writer is in ever-present negotiation with the differentiated social, ethical, ideological, aesthetic, economic etc. goals of these “other others.” In this respect, the loyalty of the translator as secondary witness can never be wholly and exclusively be ascribed to the Holocaust survivor; there are no unique circumstances which might allow the translator of any published target text to stand outside the communicative context in which he or she operates. Such a position is doubtless implausible. But the impossibility of absolute loyalty does not exclude the very real possibility of privileging the original survivor’s account, of listening attentively despite, or even in the face of, the demands of other parties. For the translator is never an impartial mediator, situated squarely between source and target values; to think otherwise, according to Maria Tymozcko, leads to “the evisceration of the agency of the translator as a committed, engaged and responsible figure” (2007, 7). Indeed, the translator as secondary witness who purposely decides that their first and foremost obligation is to the survivor becomes the very embodiment of a translator as an ethically motivated agent. At the same time, this agency functions to dispel the similarly restrictive idea that translators are irrevocably beholden to the norms and expectations of the target culture. Of course, there may be implications for translation decisions that fall outside of established conventions and values; non- publication, censorship and poor sales are amongst the most obvious. But there is also a danger in overemphasizing the influence exerted by the target culture norms in the translation process. Siobhan Brownlie (2007, 155–157) has argued that adopting a broad normative approach has its blind spots since the specific motivations behind the decision to translate can vary from one text to the next, translation strategies may fluctuate within a given text, and there is often no neat concurrence between distinct norms and distinct time periods given the potential of norms to coexist, reappear or be challenged at any moment. In other words, the engaged translator will necessarily take the wider cultural context into consideration, but will proceed in accordance with their own agenda, be that in line with or in opposition to supposed prevailing norms. In her work Disappearing Traces: Holocaust Testimo- nials, Ethics and Aesthetics, Dorota Glowacka (2012) also gestures towards translation as an ethically charged act of bearing witness, where translation is understood to function on various levels in Holocaust testimonial writing: the original witness translates the self from past to present and often across multilingual contexts, while subsequent interlingual translations are framed in Levinasian terms as “a response to the summons from another language, the language of the other” (2012, 94). Glowacka also proceeds from the premise that the events of the Holocaust exist in the realm of the unspeakable, so that any act of witnessing will be suffused with communicative loss. Nevertheless, Walter Benjamin’s concept of “pure language” is proposed as restorative mode of telling; specifically, Glowacka suggests that the call of the other can be answered across Babelian disunities of language by means of translation that initiates “linguistic complementation” (Benjamin 2000, 21), namely the blending and synthesis of source and target languages that culminates in pure language. For Glowacka, a translation that responds ethically to the other is one that draws on multiple linguistic repertoires in order to transmit and ensure the survival of the testimony; only then can it transcend the limitations of the monolingual utterance. However, while this view of translation certainly calls attention to the responsibility of the interlingual translator in the witnessing process, numerous tensions arise if pure language is pressed into the service of concrete textual communication. First, the concept of pure language is an abstract one whose end goal is the elevation of language itself to an always distant point where language “no longer means or expresses anything but is […] that which is meant in all languages” (Benjamin 2000, 22). It is a matter of form alone, and its realization through translation “ultimately serves the purpose of expressing the innermost relationship of languages to one another” (2000, 17). Conversely, the translation of content is considered by Benjamin to be a redundant task: “any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information—hence, something inessential” (2000, 15). On the one hand, this conceptualization fits with discourses of unspeakability and trauma—the very act of telling, the manner in which it is told, is more important than what is told. But on the other, it is difficult to reconcile this stance with the demands of secondary witnessing: how will the referential function of a testimony endure if the task of the translator is to invariably defer meanings? And how will the relationship between the original and secondary witness be sustained if precedence is given to the relationship between languages? James E. Young cautions against an exclusive emphasis on poetics in Holocaust narratives: “By seeming to emphasize the ways we know the Holocaust to the apparent exclusion of the realities themselves, critics threaten to make the mere form of study their content as well” (1988, 3). This warning is particularly pertinent in the context of pure language which would seem to offer all but a restricted, abstruse mode of secondary witnessing; a mode that neglects the facts (as understood by the survivors) of existence and suffering, and one that certainly eschews over-identifi- cation, but does so by promoting the linguistic over and above the human. When we move from the abstract to the concrete to consider Benjamin’s proposal of literal translation strategies as a means of approaching pure language, obstacles to secondary witnessing are still discernible. According to Glowacka, Benjamin’s literalness will instigate a process whereby “native words are transformed from an inscription of belonging into the mark of strangeness” (2012, 99), and the translated testimony reader is forcefully confronted with and called to respond to the (multi)linguistic and experiential alterity of the other. The claim that translation, as a signal of difference, “can potentially stand guard against linguistic ethnonationalism, remaining vigilant against the sedimentation of words into tools of oppression, exclusion and discrimination” (2012, 99) strongly echoes Lawrence Venuti’s claim that foreignization “can be a form of resistance against ethnocentrism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism” (1995, 20). But, although foreignizing translation can be revelatory and responsive to the needs of the other, it can also conceal under the weight of its impenetrability: as Tymoczko questions, “how do we distinguish resistant translations from translations that are unreadable?” (2000, 37). The danger here is that the reader finds nothing on which to hinge their reading and response, thereby rendering translation if not ineffectual as a mode of address, then at least diminished in what Glowacka regards as its “potential to create communities of speakers” (2012, 101). So, while Glowacka is right to insist on the ethical responsibility of the translator to preserve and transmit survivor testimonies, neither pure language nor its textualization as literal translation are perhaps the most enduring bridges across the divide between the other and the other other. Instead, the translator who serves as an ethically committed secondary witness is one who listens astutely and empathically to the survivor’s story, giving primacy to its preservation and not to any lofty ideas of pure language or the assumed demands of a target culture, all the while aware that some concessions must be made in the name of accessibility. Admittedly, though, discussions of the secondary witness have predominantly remained notional and detached from empirical practice. The following case studies will therefore direct attention towards more applied considerations of secondary witnessing in order to explore the implications of actual textual translation decisions, while also attempting to discern the extent to which pressure has been exerted by external factors. Given the ethical dimension of secondary witnessing, the comparisons between source and target testimonies will be openly evaluative. In this sense, my analytical stance is informed by Phil Goodwin who has challenged the displacement of ethical questions in translation by technical labels such as “free” or “literal,” “foreignizing” or “domesticating”; one of his aims is “to remind us that translation always takes place within a human context” (2010, 23) and, consequently, that it is “almost wilfully absurd to view the translation question in these circumstances as a purely technical one” (2010, 24). By consciously moving beyond the realm of objective description, the question of translation as secondary witnessing can thus be fully foregrounded as an ethical one. The stakes are high; the translator has a clear responsibility towards the Holocaust survivor, and, whether they have a conscious awareness of this obligation or not, the ways in which the translator (dis)continues the original act of witnessing merit a critical and a vigilant approach. Humbert and Maurel: translated experiences How have the translators of Humbert and Maurel engaged with the survivors’ stories and how have their translation decisions impacted on the process of secondary witnessing? Before turning to the analysis itself, it is worth briefly underscoring a basic premise of this study, namely that, although written accounts of the Holocaust may have been borne of an onerous struggle with language, such accounts should not be placed under the sign of the ineffable. This is not to deny the extremity of the events, but rather to acknowledge the efforts that witnesses have made to put their lived experiences into words. Accordingly, both content and form are fundamental to the transmission of survivor memory; neither can be omitted from the analytical approach. First, while there may be some slippage between lived experiences and their verbal representations, this should not undermine the potential of words to tell or to record. As Pascaline Lefort argues, “the existence of testimonies shows that the camp survivors [. . .] have successfully dealt with the unspeakable, moved beyond its limitations” (2012, 585, my translation), while Zoë Waxman likewise affirms that “[l]anguage may not be adequate to convey the horrors of the Holocaust, but this does not mean that nothing can be said” (2006, 175). In short, saying something is understood as the counterpoint to ineffability. Secondly, the form of that saying is also central to renouncing silence. Although Young’s (1988, 3) previously discussed warning against an exclusive focus on form is to be heeded, it would be equally restrictive to dismiss the revelatory function of poetics in Holocaust accounts, since, as Margaret-Anne Hutton contends, “such literary and rhetorical traits can be seen to function as aids to communication” (2005, 69). So, if the form and content of words have been simultaneously charged with the task of communication by the original witness, then the secondary witness is compelled to uphold and preserve those referential and aesthetic dimensions. The examples below will thus consider how and to what effect the translators have responded to the communicative efforts of Humbert and Maurel. On irony One of the most striking narrative features of the testimonies of both Maurel and Humbert is the way in which they draw on irony, verging on dark humor, in order to record their physical experiences and to signal their resistant stances in the face of such suffering. Referring to its use in Holocaust testimonies, Hutton has noted that “irony, as a non-literal mode, requires the reader to decode the unspoken message. When and if these conditions are met, a powerful bond based on what remains unsaid is created, and communication is intensified” (2005, 84). But for the reader of the translated testimony, this potential bond already hinges on an act of decoding, or hearing the unsaid, as carried out by the translator. Critically, if the translator does not pay sufficient heed to irony, then the voice of the survivor and the adverse conditions of which they speak risk being submerged in translation, which would mark a collapse of secondary witnessing. Maurel’s account is, from time to time, accentuated by litotic observations that are caustically delivered in a single sentence. Indeed, a good number of these have been heard and reinscribed in the English versions by her translator, Summers. Accordingly, where Maurel downplays her brutal treatment at the hands of the guards by remarking that “Il est apparu très vite que j’avais une tête à claques” (1957, 49), this sardonic tone is preserved in the translation as “It soon became apparent that my head invited blows” (1958, 39). And where Maurel declares that “C’est à cause de [Frau Schuppe] en grande partie que les Françaises mouraient si bien” (1957, 87), the mordant inflection is paralleled in English, where the reader learns that “It was mainly because of her that the French were dying in such satisfactory numbers” (1958, 71). By preserving Maurel’s irony, Summers offers the translation readers an insight into both the daily threat of punishment and death in the camps, as well as the survivor’s defiance in the face of such hardship. But certain restrictions seem to have been placed on the transfer of irony that is self-deprecating or particularly sensitive. In the first instance, Maurel, reflecting on her physical and emotional dishevelment, comments that “Nous devions être si ridicules à voir [We must have been such a ridiculous sight]” (1957, 81–82);6 in contrast, the translation lessens the derision in its more neutral estimation that “we must have presented an incongruous sight” (1958, 66). Secondly, Maurel is scathing in her critique of the unthinking way in which people responded to her return to France. The question most frequently posed to the survivor was whether she had been raped, leading her to react as follows: “Finalement, je regrettais d’avoir évité cela. J’avais manqué par ma faute une partie de l’aventure, et cela décevait le public. Heureusement que je pouvais au moins raconter le viol des autres [I came to regret having avoided that. Through fault of my own, I had missed out on a part of the adventure, and that disappointed the public. Fortunately, I could at least tell them about the rape of others]” (1957, 185). Although Summers retains the ironic sense of regret expressed by Maurel, a few telling attenuations of the full force of the irony occur in the translation. The survivor’s wry self-blame is first limited by the shift from the original active construction of “having avoided” rape to a much more passive state in which she “regretted having been spared this” (1958, 154, italics mine). Secondly, a tentative adverb is added to the passage: “Seemingly, by my own fault, I had missed one part of the adventure” (1958, 154, italics mine) which detracts once again from the sardonic notion that she is guilty by deliberate omission. In addition, the discordantly positive “Fortunately” of the original is replaced by a concessive adverb in the statement that “However, I could at least tell them of the rape of others” (1958, 154), which has the potential to be read in a more straightforward manner. 6 All back translations in square brackets are mine and they serve two purposes: as normal, they allow non-French speaking readers access to the original, but they also demonstrate that a more attentive translation is possible. Perhaps these changes were motivated by a sense of probity on the part of the translator, but this lessening of Maurel’s irony effectively dampens a form of communication that the survivor relied on as both a means of communicating and of coping. Indeed, the cumulative effect of this strategy can be read in the Kirkus Review which describes the translation in the following terms: “More as a reminder, than as recrimination, this sensitive and softspoken memoir patterns the days spent over a period of two years in the concentration camp of Neubrandenburg” (n.d.). But the original is scathing, bold, outspoken. The review thus points to the potential of translation to fundamentally alter the tone of a given testimony. The piercing use of irony comes even further to the fore in Humbert’s writing, extending over entire passages. By way of illustration, Humbert describes the harmful and humiliating effects of working with acid in the rayon factory as follows: J’ai passé l’âge des costumes genre Folies-Bergère. L’acide brûle naturellement non pas seulement notre peau, mais il brûle aussi le tissu de notre uniforme. Chaque goutte fait un trou… plusieurs petits trous réunis en font un grand. […] Je fais voir à la gardienne que j’ai maintenant le sein gauche à l’air… elle a refusé de me faire donner une autre chemise, refusé une aiguillée de fil, refusé une épingle, il faudra que je travaille le sein à l’air ! [I’m past the age of wearing Folies-Bergère style costumes. Of course, the acid doesn’t just burn our skin, it burns the fabric of our uniform too. Each drop makes a hole… several small holes join up and make a large one. […] I let the female guard see that my left breast is hanging out now… she has refused to let me have another shirt, refused a needle and thread, refused a pin, I’ll just have to work with my breast hanging out!] (1946, 217) Although the translation starts off by capturing Humbert’s glib tone in the statement that “I really do believe I am too old for this Folies-Bergère lark” (2008, 161), the remainder of the episode is conveyed in a more dispassionate manner which conceals the original flippancy: The acid burns holes not only in our skin, but also, naturally, in our uniforms. Every drop makes a hole, and the little holes join up to make big holes. […] I have shown the wardress how my left breast is now on view. She has refused to let me have a new shirt, a needle and thread, or a pin, declaring that I’ll just have to work as I am. (2008, 161) The comparative reduction in irony stems first from the shift in register from the irreverent allusion to “le sein à l’air,” her breast hanging out, to the more factual statement that “my left breast is now on view.” Mellor’s translation also neglects to repeat the phrase at the end of the passage and to retain the exclamation mark, thereby eliding the dry humor and self- ridicule of the original interjection. Another significant alteration comes at the same point in the translation with the introduction of reported speech as signaled by the verb “declaring.” So, whereas the free indirect speech of the original echoes Humbert’s attempt to make light of her deplorable work conditions, the translation effectively takes the words from the survivor’s mouth and reattributes them to the female guard. This is a move that strips Humbert’s words of the power to resist her inhumane treatment at the hands of the one who now speaks in her place. Also suppressed in this passage is Humbert’s use of aposiopesis whereby the unfinished sentences silently, but deliberately, communicate the frustrating impossibility of her situation. The translation reader is thus no longer called on to sense the futility that lies in these discontinuities, which in turn detracts from Humbert’s ironic treatment of the scene. In point of fact, the use of irony is diminished elsewhere in the translation through the reduction in or omission of exclamation points and ellipsis; such is the case, for example, in Humbert’s account of an underwear inspection (1946, 180; 2008, 130) and the shared drinking bowl (1946, 184-5; 2008, 134). The examples above reveal that, in some instances at least, the irony of both Maurel and Humbert has been palpably conveyed to the translation reader. At the same time, however, where the tone of that irony is neutralized, misappropriated, or its typographic markers discarded, the reader will be left with less immediate and identifiable clues on which to base their interpretation. If the irony should cease to function as such, then the critical and unyielding voice of the survivor is also submerged by and in translation, marking thus a collapse of secondary witnessing. On narrative time Lawrence Langer draws a fundamental distinction between the linear movement of “chronological time” and the more oblique dynamics of “durational time” in Holocaust testimonies, where the latter “relentlessly stalks the memory of the witness, imprinting there moments immune to the ebb and flow of chronological time” (1995, 22). This durational past does make its haunting presence felt in the accounts of Maurel and Humbert, albeit in different ways, with both survivors slipping between and across temporal perspectives in their shifting use of tense. The translator as secondary witness is then called on to listen attentively to the subtleties and significances of how the past is retold in the present of the survivor. The passage in which Maurel recounts her arrival and processing at Ravensbrück is a revelatory example of how tense and aspect can serve to unsettle the narrative and point towards the abiding anguish of the survivor. It opens with alternating moves between narration in an imperfect tense that intimates the horrifyingly unending nature of the ordeal for the survivor and the use of the infinitive, an impersonal and timeless form that reverberates with the inhumanity and ubiquity of the guards’ orders. This sequence is followed by a sudden shift to the present tense, heavy with the weight of inescapable immediacy and dread, while the subsequent use of the perfect tense situates the survivor in the close aftermath of the event to convey a transitory moment of reprieve: Les choses se passaient vite derrière les portes. Déposer les valises, se déshabiller en vitesse; on vous arrachait les vêtements à mesure. Se coucher sur une table, où une femme vous maintenait pendant qu’une autre explorait du doigt tous vous orifices naturels. S’asseoir sur un tabouret pour être tondue. Une main fourrage dans mes cheveux. Je n’ai pas été tondue cette fois. [Things were happening quickly behind the doors. Put down the suitcases, quickly get undressed; your clothes were being snatched away as you went along. Lie on a table where a women was holding you down while another was exploring all your natural orifices with a finger. Sit on a stool to be shorn. A hand rummages through my hair. I have not been shorn this time.] (Maurel 1957: 18, emphasis mine) The translated narrative undergoes an aspectual reframe- ing that obscures the inescapable, interminable and durational thrust of the time to which these temporal manoeuvres attest in the original. Maurel’s arrival at the camp has been wholly recast by the translator in a simple past that dissembles the difficult relationship between the survivor and the lived experience: Things happened fast behind those doors: a moment to set the bags down, to undress quickly, hastened on by hands that reached out to tear the clothing off; a moment to lie on a table, where one woman held us down while another passed an exploring finger into all our natural orifices; a moment to sit on a stool to have our hair cut off. A hand rumpled my hair, but on this occasion I was not shorn. (1958, 13, emphasis mine) The elision of the present tense marks, above all, a breach of attentiveness on the part of the translator as it fails to herald what Oren Stier has termed “the palpable presence of the past […] [that] disrupts the space-time of the survivor” (2003, 87). But the use of the imperfect tense has also been passed over in the translation, leaving little indication that Maurel found herself suspended in the dreadful moments she described, while the replacement of the infinitive imperatives with the temporal phrase “a moment to” further masks the threatening persistence of the guards’ orders. Although objective details about Maurel’s arrival at the camp remain, the translation reader can no longer discern the more subjective painful blurring of temporal boundaries enacted by the survivor, and the appropriation of the narrative flow into one of chronological time therefore blunts the act of secondary witnessing. The use of the present tense in Holocaust writing is widely held to be a narrative marker of trauma. As Anne Whitehead explains, “This method of narration emphasizes the traumatic nature of the memories described, which are not so much remembered as re-experienced or relived” (2004, 35). However, an altogether different dynamic emerges from the writing of Humbert; her account begins with the diary entries made in the months prior to her arrest, and her ensuing experiences of imprisonment and deportation are also recounted in this immediate narrative style of the diarist. In his afterword to Mellor’s translation, Julien Blanc writes that Humbert “was consistent in using the present tense throughout” (2008: 275), but this statement is only partly true. On the one hand, the use of the present tense is undeniably frequent, signalling less the steely grip of durational time on the survivor, and more her own lucid control over chronological time. On the other hand, though, Humbert’s work does bear the traces of tense switching, from this dominant use of the present tense that speaks of resistance and strength to a sparing, but nevertheless compelling, use of the past tense that speaks too, in its own way, of defiance and escape. The following example is telling in its understated shift from the immediacy of the present to the completedness of the perfect tense, transitioning through free indirect speech back to the present in an episode that details the survivor’s increased suffering due to acid burns and her descent into the confines of the cellar where prisoners supposedly had the opportunity to convalesce. Humbert writes: Mes mains me font autant souffrir que les yeux ; j’ai connu, car j’étais seule à la cave, la signification de cette locution, « se taper la tête contre le mur » ; oui, j’ai tapé ma tête contre le mur, et puis je me suis reprise. [. . .] Pour mes mains, il faudrait des pansements humides, oui, mais il n’y avait pas d’eau… Alors, essayons autre chose. J’urine sur mes malheureuses mains, les chiffons qui me servent de pansements sont imprégnés de pipi… [My hands are making me suffer as much as my eyes; because I was alone in the cellar I’ve known the meaning of this saying, ‘to bang your head against the wall’; yes, I’ve banged my head against the wall, and then I’ve pulled myself together again. […] For my hands, some damp bandages would be needed, yes, but there was no water… So, let’s try something else. I urinate on my pitiful hands, the rags that serve me as bandages are soaked in pee. . .] (1946, 252, emphasis mine) Here, the slippage into the use of the past perfect tense might be read as an attempt on the part of the survivor to contain her most unnerving memory of the event, marking it off as one concluded, isolated incident before she finds the determination once more to take charge of her situation. If durational time is indeed pursuing Humbert, she turns its trap on itself to restrict and defy its reach, distancing herself temporally and emotionally from this horrific moment. The return to the present tense indicates thus a return to resistance, a return that is further paralleled in Humbert’s flippant lexical choice and the dry humor of her ellipsis. These fleeting, yet important, variations in narrative time are indiscernible in the translation, where the episode is retold consistently in the present tense: My hands are as agonizing as my eyes; finding myself alone in the cellar, I understand the true significance of the phrase “banging your head against a brick wall.” Yes, I bang my head against the wall. Then I pull myself together. […] What I need for my hands is damp dressings, but there is no water. So let’s try something else. I urinate on my wretched hands, soaking the rags that serve as dressings. (2008, 190, emphasis mine). The translator does not appear to have heard the undertones of defiance in Humbert’s singular step into the past; or, this move may have been ignored in a misled endeavor to unify the temporal aspect of the narrative. The result stands as a warning against the potential dangers of inattention and appropriation in secondary witnessing; the lack of aspectual contrast mitigates the force of Humbert’s renewed refusal to give up, while the omission of the ellipsis and self-deprecating tone once again hides the survivor’s tenacity in the face of suffering. On language For many prisoners, experience of the Nazi camps was also marked by a confrontation with and assimilation of the language of their German oppressors, but also the Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, to name but the predominant tongues, of their fellow prisoners. The result of this linguistic conflation was the emergence of a “Lagersprache,” a vernacular particular to the camps that was necessary for communication between the prisoners themselves, as well as between the guards and the prisoners. In her testimony, Humbert remarks that, rather than speak fluent German, “Je ne parle que ce charabia international, cet espéranto étrange que vingt million de déportés ont dû apprendre [I speak only this international gobbledygook, this strange esperanto that twenty million deportess have had to learn]” (1946, 296). Her narrative is interspersed with individual German words that resounded throughout her internment and served to shape her experience. Mellor retains, in large part, the echo of these discordant and often terrifying lexical items; by way of illustration, the English language reader is introduced to the concept of the “kommando” (2008, 115), to the “little coshes, known here as ‘gummi Knüppel’” (2008, 128, italics in the original), to the “Spinnerei, or rayon mill” (2008, 147, italics in the original) and to the markings, “G=Gefangene: convict” (2008, 148, italics in the original) on the prisoners’ work uniforms. Nevertheless, there are a few occasions on which the lexical specificity of the camps is subsumed into standard modes of expression by Mellor. First, Humbert’s observation that the food in the Ziegenhain prison is “acceptable, mais knap [sic]” (1946, 286, italics in the original), is simply remediated as “tolerable but scarce” (2008, 219), without any attempt to retain the German term. Consequently, the translation silences the linguistic hybridity and alterity of Humbert’s “strange Esperanto,” while simultaneously obscuring the misspelling (German: knapp) which attests to the survivor’s adequate but imperfect use of a German idiom, undoubtedly acquired as a result of constant food privations. In addition, the prisoners would often create new turns of phrase, or rework existing ones, to convey the extreme conditions of their existence. Such is the case when Humbert and her fellow inmates adapt an idiom to capture the caustic effects of working in the rayon factory: “Selon notre expression « mes yeux coulaient dans ma bouche »” [According to our expression, “my eyes were running in my mouth”] (1946, 245). The translation omits reference to the singularity of the expression and also undoes its distinctiveness, reverting instead to the recognizable idiom of “eyes streaming” (2008, 184). The reader is at once disallowed access to the extent of the suffering and the process of linguistic inventiveness that characterized life in the camps. Language too plays a prominent role in the testimony of Maurel which bears the traces of the German, Polish and Russian with which she came into contact. Summers’ transla- tion, in turn, demonstrates a keen sensitivity to these markers of otherness, preserving a vast array of German orders (Raus!; Schnell!; Aufstehen!), insults (Schweinehund; Schmutzstück), and the nomenclature that designates the reality of the camps (Revier; Verfügbar; Strafstehen; Kretze). Snatches of Russian and Polish are also to be heard in the translation, while verses of French poetry and song are retained in their original form and then followed by their interpretation in English. The preservation strategy is an effective one, serving to provide a distant reverberation of the Babelian disquiet that prevailed in the camps. It is only on the rare occasion that the non-translation is discontinued, that the real force of appropriation comes to the fore. Notably, this occurs when the German command “Achtung!” (1957, 50, italics in the original) is articulated in the translation as “Atten-shun!” (1958, 40). Instead of a German imperative, an order now rings out that suggests the diction of a stereotypical British sergeant major in an act of appropriation that closes the reader off from a distinguishing verbal feature of the camps. Of further linguistic significance is the process whereby Maurel and her companions “Frenchify” some of the camp vocabulary: “Nous avons transformé Kopftuch en « coiffe- tout », Schüssel en « jusselle », Nachtschicht en « narchiste », Schmutzstück en « schmoustique ». Et les brutes en uniforme qui nous surveillaient, les Aufseherinnen était pour nous les « officerines »” [We transformed Kopftuch/headscarf into “coiffe-tout,” Schüssel/bowl into “jusselle,” Nachtschicht/ nightshift into “narchiste,” Schmutzstück/piece of dirt into “schmoustique.” And the brutes in uniform who guarded us, the Aufseherinnen/female overseers were for us the “officerines”] (1957, 15, italics in the original). This assimilation of German words into a French pronunciation resonates with Reiter’s reflection that “The highest priority for concentration camp prisoners was to lessen the alien character of their experience. They were helped in this if they could name new things with their existing vocabulary and thus include them in the horizon of the familiar” (2000, 99). However, the significance of this use of language as survival has been overlooked by Summers who, in her translator’s preface, begins by explaining the etymology and pronunciation of “coiffe-tout,” “schmoustique,” and “officerine,” but then goes on to undermine the prevalence and dismiss the importance of the remaining terms, claiming: “Certain other words, like Schüssel, a bowl or basin, pronounced jusselle by the French, Nachtschicht, nightshift, which became narchiste, occur only once or twice in the French text and have been omitted in this translation for simplicity’s sake, though they might have added local colour” (1958, 10). This approach to the survivor’s own appropriation of the German words attests to a further act of appropriation on the part of the translator, one that fails to heed the importance of the re-naming process. For these words lend more than a touch of “local colour” to the depiction of life in the camps; they represent a strategy of survival and of resistance. Evidently, Summers has made the decision to privilege simplicity over complexity in order to facilitate a more fluid reading experience in English. In so doing, though, Summers also closes the reader off from the entangled linguistic landscape of the camps and from Maurel’s coping mechanism amidst the unfamiliar. At this point, the translation strategy stands as a barrier to secondary witnessing. On accuracy Survivor testimonies are generally not held to be reliable sources of fact given the reconstructive fallibility of memory and the alleged representational failings of words. As Aleida Assman has noted, “The survivors as witness do not, as a rule, add to our knowledge of factual history; their testimonies have, in fact, often proved inaccurate” (2006, 263). But this does not preclude the possibility that, at any moment in the telling, survivors can fully and precisely convey the kind of empirical, objective information valued by historians.7 Although it may reasonably be presumed that this latter type of information is more readily discernible and less problematic for the translator as secondary witness, the following example from Summers’ translation of Maurel’s testimony would suggest otherwise. At the beginning of her account, Maurel records that: Le convoi dont je faisais partie […] a été immatriculé à Ravensbrück sous les numéros 22.000. J’étais le numéro 22.410. Au bout d’un mois de quarantaine, le convoi des 22.000 a été envoyé à Neubrandebourg [The convey I was part of […] had been registered in Ravensbrück in the 7 For a discussion of how historians have rejected personal testimony on the basis of its supposed inaccuracies, see Laub 1992, 59–63. 22,000s. I was number 22,410. After a month in quarantine, the convoy of the 22,000s was sent to Neubrandenburg]” (1957, 13). As prisoners entered the concentration and work camps, they were assigned a matriculation number; for Maurel’s particular French convoy, registration began at the number 22,000 and her own number was 22,410. However, it becomes clear that Summers has misinterpreted this numerical information as in the English version we read that the convoy was “registered and given numbers. I was number 22,410. At the end of a month of quarantine, the 22,000-odd were sent to Neubrandenburg” (1958, 8, emphasis mine). Here, the number that assigns identity to the group—that is, the “convoy of the 22,000s”—has been misattributed by Summers to the size of the group. Nor is this erroneous tally an isolated occurrence, for the translator then reworks Maurel’s observations in Chapter Four in line with her own reckonings. Consequently, where Maurel documents that “En automne 1943 le camp de Neubrandebourg contenait environ 2.000 femmes [In the autumn of 1943 the Neubrandenburg camp contained around 2,000 women]” (1957, 38), that “le convoi des 22.000 était pourtant bien mélangé [the convoy of the 20,000s was nevertheless well mixed]” in terms of political and religious beliefs (ibid., 41) and that “nous étions 2.000 sur le terrain [there were 2,000 of us on the parade ground]” (ibid., 46), Summers purports that “the camp at Neubrandenburg contained approximately 22,000 women” (1958, 30), the French “numbered 2,000” (ibid., 32) and the camp was “22,000 strong on the parade ground” (ibid., 37). Whether the reversal of the numbers stems from a misplaced attempt on the part of the translator to “correct” an inferred inaccuracy can itself only be surmised. But it does seem as though Summers was not fully aware of the dehumanizing Nazi practice of replacing prisoner names with numbers. Nor does Summers appear to have an understanding of the camp classification system of colored markings. Following liberation, Maurel has her friend remake “mon numéro et mon triangle rouge [my number and my red triangle]” (1957: 171) in order to avoid being mistaken for a German; these items are stripped of their specificity and their personal resonance for Maurel in the translation as “a triangle and some numerals” (1958: 143). The implications of such an inattentive treatment of the serial numbers and statistics are such that, not only does Summers obscure the imposed identity of the convoy, but the capacity of the labor camp is also inflated well beyond its actual dimensions. In line with Maurel, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos places the number of female prisoners in Neubrandenburg at “almost 2,000 at the end of February 1944” (Strebel 2009, 1215); the translation thus runs the risk of misinforming its readership, and of giving ammunition to the Holocaust deniers who “are quick to seize upon errors and inaccuracies in witness accounts” (Hutton 2005, 33). Regrettably, the errors and inaccuracies in this case are all those of the translator; worse, they have made their way into both reviews and scholarship, as a result of which the misinformation becomes more broadly disseminated. In 1959, the Catholic Herald printed a review of Ravensbrück in which it is noted that at Neubrandenburg “some 22,000 women, including 2,000 French, were engaged in munition works” (1959, 3). The Kirkus Review similarly goes on to record that “Neubrandenburg numbered some 22,000 women” (n.d.) on the basis of the translation, while the entry for Maurel in The Jewish Holocaust: An Annotated Guide to Books in English also states that “Over 22,000 women were sent to Neubrandenburg during the war” (1995, 192). Of even more significance is Rochelle G. Saidel’s (2004) work, The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Drawing explicitly on the English translation of Maurel’s account, Saidel challenges the statistics of another scholar as follows: “Morrison cites Maurel that there were two thousand women in the camp in late 1943, but she wrote there were twenty-two thousand women,” and she then refers the reader to An Ordinary Camp (the title under which the US edition was published) “regarding this discrepancy” (ibid., 250n. 12). Of course the unfortunate irony here is that the real discrepancy is to be found in the translation, not the original. In reference to Holocaust scholarship, Kuhiwczak notes that “large quantities of primary source material have been translated into English, and many conclusions have been drawn from texts read only in translation” (2007, 62). The above is a clear example of how translation can substantially (in both senses of the word) alter this interpretation of the camps that is presented to the translation receiver. And yet, in the face of such distortion, it is also important to bear in mind that translation has the potential to retransmit the accuracy and precision with which life in the camps has been reported in the original testimony. Such is the case in Mellor’s translation of Humbert’s account; although the survivor focuses less on the quantitative dimensions of the various camps to which she is sent, there is sustained evidence of a high degree of concordance between the details presented by the primary and secondary witnesses. Take for example the exactitude with which the classification system at Krefeld has been explained in the translation: “The Russian girls have a label sewn on their clothes, a little rectangle of blue material with the word ‘Ost’ in white” while the Polish women wear a “yellow lozenge with a dark-blue ‘P’” (2008, 132, italics in the original). Similarly, the complex mechanical process Humbert was forced to learn in the rayon factory has been recorded with careful adherence to the original telling, to reveal the torturous work of the spinner who, amongst other tasks, “grasps the filament in her left hand and, holding it between her index and middle fingers, takes it on to the glass wheel, follows it through and pulls it towards the funnel slightly” (2008, 153). There does appear to be one isolated instance in which Mellor has misheard the dynamics of life in the camps. The bartering (and theft) of commodities was widespread amongst prisoners, and Humbert recounts that “Mon amie Martha […] me promet, contre deux tartines, de me ravoir ma défroque [My friend Martha […] promises, in return for two slices of bread, to get my old rag back for me]” (1946, 204, italics mine). However, it would seem that Mellor has heard “entre” as opposed to “contre,” and thus reworks the situation into one where Martha “promises me between two slices of bread that she will get my old rag back” (2008, 150). Although evidence of the theft remains in the translation, one of the common and vital practices that shaped the (often and necessarily unscrupulous) relationship between prisoners has been obscured on the basis of a prepositional slip. Nevertheless, Mellor’s translation rigorously attends to the cruel physical realities of the labor camps as experienced by Humbert, thereby attesting to the re-presentational contingencies of interlingual secondary witnessing. Memory mediation in context It goes without saying that the translator is not the only figure involved in the transmission of the survivor’s account; when a translation appears, its packaging and intended audience are all shaped, to some degree, by context of production. By this token, the readership (the “other others”) that the translator as secondary witness reaches and their response to the testimony will be in large part be determined by the publisher, and not least by the ways in which the account is reframed by paratextual material. Although it is difficult to reconstruct a comprehensive account of all the editorial and contextual factors that have influenced the translations of Summers and Mellor, and therefore their reception, it is nevertheless possible to retrace some of the wider sociocultural and economic backdrop against which they appeared and offer some suggestions as to how the process of secondary witnessing is affected under such circumstances. Despite the parallels between the original testimonies of Humbert and Maurel in terms of referential content and style, the moment of publication and the paratextual presentation of the English translations differ widely. Whereas the translation of Maurel’s account is separated from its source text by just one year (i.e. 1957 to 1958), Humbert’s work does not appear in English until some sixty years after its publication in France (i.e. 1946 to 2008). This discrepancy may in part be explained by the dynamics of both the source and target cultures, and in particular by changes in the prevailing attitudes towards survivor accounts. To begin with Humbert’s Notre guerre, its appearance in France in 1946 came at a moment when the literary field was becoming (over-)saturated with testimonial writing from recently returned deportees. According to Damien Mannarion, the accounts which appear between 1944 and 1951 are not simply motivated by a desire to tell: “in this period when [the survivors] say “remember,” they are really addressing their contemporaries and not future generations, […] they want to denounce those responsible and see them condemned” (1998, 20, my translation). Given both the volume of published accounts and the contextual immediacy of their goals (acknowledgment of and justice for their sufferings), Humbert’s source text may well have been rendered invisible to British publishers or translators alike. Neither was there an expansive audience for any such translation in the target audience at that time. This is not to suggest that British readers were closed to accounts from the Nazi camps; on the contrary, the problem, as identified by David Cesarani, was one of a market flooded by very raw, disturbing writing, as a consequence of which readership began to dwindle: “Reading these memoirs and testimonies it is easy to understand why, by the end of the 1940s, the public turned away” (2012, 20). And so source and target conditions contrived to obscure Humbert’s work. But in France, a recovery of her writing was instigated by the publishing house Tallandier in 2004 when they issued a re- edition of Notre guerre, thereby introducing the survivor to a new, broader audience. The text’s journey was succinctly described by Daniel Rondeau, a journalist for L’Express, as follows: “out of sight for years, often quoted by historians, here is Notre guerre once again” (2004, n.p.). However, there seems to be no direct link between the appearance of the new French edition and the introduction of Humbert to English readers in translation, for this second recovery came about only when Mellor happened across the original 1946 edition on French ebay (Mellor, 2008, np.) and initiated the translation process herself. Likewise, the English version of Maurel’s Un camp très ordinaire appeared as a direct result of the translator. In this case, though, the link was of a more personal nature since Summers and Maurel shared a mutual acquaintance. According to a reviewer in The Vassar Chronicle: Mrs. Margaret Summers of the French Department has just completed a translation of AN ORDINARY CAMP by Micheline Maurel. […] Mrs. Summers became interested in this factual account of the author’s life in a German concentration camp through Mlle. Louisiene [Lucienne] Idoine, formerly of the Vassar French Department. Mlle. Idoine met Mlle. Maurel, the author of the original version at the German concentration camp of Ravenbruck [sic]. […] Mrs. Summers decided to undertake the translation of Mlle. Maurel’s book, for she wanted people to know about these German camps. (1958, 3) The relatively quick appearance of the target text can thus be explained through the biographical circumstances of the translator, as well as her desire to raise awareness of Nazi atrocities. For even though the translation was published more than a ten years after the liberation of the camps, Anglo- American audiences would still not have been familiar then with the full scale and horror of the events we now know as the Holocaust.8 As Andy Pearce has argued, “We cannot speak of ‘Holocaust consciousness’ in the opening postwar decade or so no simply because the substantive concept of ‘the Holocaust’ did not yet exist, but because […] there remained considerable ignorance, ambiguity and variance” (2014, 12–13). Indeed, this rather patchy understanding is likely to have extended to Summers herself and may go some way to explaining some of her more problematic translation decisions, especially the treatment of the Lagersprache and matriculation numbers as discussed above. Events in the source culture may also have had a bearing on the appearance of Summers’ translation, for the prominence of Un camp très ordinaire was greatly enhanced by the involvement of François Mauriac who helped to secure its publication in 1957.9 Interest in survivor testimonies was on the wane in France at this time, and Mauriac felt a duty to remember “an abomination that the world has determined to forgot” (1957, 9, my translation). His presence as a preface writer inevitably lent weight and authority to the source text, and so, while Summers may have shared Mauriac’s ideological agenda, the additional symbolic and potential economic capital generated by his name would also have been appealing to Anglo-American publishers. Both Mellor and Summers then played integral roles in bringing the testimonies of Humbert and Maurel respectively to an English-speaking readership. But target culture publishers also made an undeniable contribution to this process of transmission, and a close examination of 8 The Eichmann trial is, at this point, still some years off. See Annette Wieviorka (2006) for a discussion of how the trial came to be a global watershed moment in Holocaust witnessing. 9 A year later, Mauriac would also help to bring about the publication of Elie Wiesel’s La nuit. editorial paratext can reveal some of their underlying motivations and agendas. What is instantly remarkable about Bloomsbury’s publication of Humbert’s account is the use of a modified title. Rather than adopt a literal translation of the original—that is, “Our War: Diary of Resistance 1940–1945,” the publisher has instead opted for Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France. On the one hand, this alteration can perhaps be explained by the reticence, first, to retain a possessive marker that would jar in a new cultural setting, and secondly, to present the work as a diary when only parts of the work can be claimed as such. But on the other hand, the revised title introduces some misconstruals of its own; for the account is not restricted in scope to Humbert’s time in an occupied France, but rather, the greatest proportion of the work deals with her experiences as a deportee. Indeed, this discrepancy has been noted by historian Simon Kitson who remarks in his review of the translation that “the English title is slightly misleading. Whilst the author’s spirit of resistance is present throughout, almost two-thirds of the book is set in Nazi Germany” (2008, n.p.). Furthermore, the cover graphics which show two lovers on the banks of the Seine, with a barbed-wire barricade in the foreground, also accentuates an occupied Paris that figures only in the beginning of the memoir. It may well be the case that cynical ploys of marketing lie behind this repositioning of focus; it is perhaps no coincidence that the cover image in many respects mirrors that of Suite Française, the highly successful novel written by Holocaust victim Irène Némirovsky and published in English translation by Chatto and Windus in 2006. Likewise, the revised subtitle, “Memoirs of Occupied France” also suggests a thematic correlation with the latter. Rather than present the work on its own terms, the publisher may have skewed its title in line with market forces. However, within the covers of the translation, the reader is afforded an abundance of supporting editorial and allographic paratextual material, including a preface by writer William Boyd, photographic illustrations, an afterword by French historian Julien Leblanc (who provided the introduction to the French 2004 re-edition of the work), historical documents on the Resistance movement, and a bibliography for further reading. In contrast to, or perhaps as compensation for, the title of the work, this material ensures that the interested reader has the opportunity to arrive at a more informed understanding of Humbert’s experiences, her character and her writing style. The first UK edition of Maurel’s Un camp très ordinaire was published in 1958 by Digit Books (an imprint of Brown Watson publishers) under the tile Ravensbrück, leaving the Catholic Herald reviewer unable to answer the “mystery why it should have been misleadingly re-christened” (1959, 3). One possible reason may be that Ravensbrück was becoming more recognizable to Anglo-American readers as part of the Nazi apparatus. For example, in 1954 Lord Russell published his book The Scourge of the Swastika which “enjoyed immense commercial success” (Pearce 2014, 16) and contained details of Ravensbrück and sketches of the camp drawn by former inmate Violette Lecoq, meaning that knowledge of its deadly function was expanding. The book cover also makes the prominent claim that the work is “As Real as THE DIARY of ANNE FRANK…” (1958, emphasis in the original), thereby suggesting that the publishers were tapping into an existing market demand for Holocaust writing, especially given the bestselling success of the latter’s translation in 1952. But other factors suggest that interest in the work was being generated not along the lines of understanding, but of sensationalism. At the top of the cover is the quote from a Sunday Times reviewer that this is “a coarse, savage book.” Below this appears the bold and fallacious depiction of a voluptuous, perfectly coiffed, red-lipped prisoner who bears more than a passing resemblance to Vivian Leigh, gripping a barbed-wire fence, and dressed in a well-tailored, low-cut khaki dress. For Maurel’s work has found its way on to the list of a publisher who caters for an audience that enjoys tales of derring-do such as Jungle Pilot, Against the Gestapo and Conscript. Interestingly, writer Ken Worpole recalls his own experiences of Ravensbrück in his work on popular literature in Britain, placing it on a list of nineteen WWII-related titles (mostly written by men) that “were sold in millions and read in even larger numbers” (1983, 50). The popularity of these books appears to have been enormous, with Worpole claiming that “they were the staple reading diet of myself and my school peers, and the sales figures also suggest that they were the staple reading diet of the adult male British reading public, and, possibly, of a significant portion of the female reading public” (1983, 50–51). But Worpole also sounds a strong note of concern about the way in which the Digit Books edition has been visually presented to its readers, defining it “as part of the pornography of sadism” (1983, 64). There can be no doubt the cover sets out to titillate, not educate; it sells a sexualized image of the survivor, rather than depict the arduous, unrelenting conditions of her captivity. Worse still is the US edition issued by Belmont in 1958 whose cover page depicts a distressed, yet appealing, blond behind whom stands a menacing SS figure, whip in hand. The original title has also been eschewed in favor of The Slave, while the cover carries an extract from Maurel’s text (but wrongly attributed to Mauriac) that asks “Were you raped? Were you beaten? Were you tortured?” and in so doing, overtly fetishizes the testimony. Unquestionably, these two publishers are extreme in their misappropriation; other editions released in the US by Simon and Schuster (1958) under the title An Ordinary Camp and in the UK by Anthony Blond (1958) as Ravensbrück are more muted in their cover design, opting instead for a plain barbed-wire motif. Nevertheless, both Digit Books and Belmont serve as an example of how publishers are positioned as initial gatekeepers to the survivor’s story, attracting a particular type of reader seeking action or cheap thrills. If Mauriac was troubled about forgetting in the source culture in the 1950s, there are parallel concerns to be raised in the target culture about the dubious ways in which the Holocaust was being remembered then. The last issue to be addressed in reference to the framing of the target texts is that of the translatorial paratext. 10 In Résistance, Mellor has provided a “Translator’s Acknowl- edgements” section in which she thanks those who helped in the process and alludes to her reasons for undertaking the translation of the original: “Surely it deserved to be more widely known? Surely it should be made available in an English 10I use this term as a means of supplementing Genette’s (1987) paradigm of authorial, editorial, and allographic paratext in order to carve out a more visible and definite space for the translator. See also Deane-Cox 2014, 27–29. translation?” (2008, vi). There are also extensive “Translator’s Notes” (2008, 325–357) at the back of the work which provide detailed explanations of references in the text to people, places and events. As discussed above, Summers also establishes her presence around the text by means of the “Translator’s Note” which focuses on the use of Lagersprache and Maurel’s Frenchification of certain words (1958, 10–11). So, although the translatorial paratext is a clear signal to the reader that they are reading a text in translation, neither translator provides any sustained or penetrating reflection on the challenges and possibilities they may have confronted during their engagement with the source text. I would like to argue that the paratext offers a space in which the translator can make explicit their role as secondary witness, in contrast to the text itself where “the task of the listener is to be unobtrusively present” (Laub 1992, 71). Accordingly, the position of the translator as secondary witness can be mapped once more on to that of the interviewer for the Fortunoff project. Hartman observes that throughout the recording process, “the interviewers are almost completely out of sight [and] seem not to intrude into the testimony, even as they continue to direct it” (Young 1988, 166). In the same way as the interviewers are visible on the margins of the screen, so too can the translator be visible on the margins of the text, whether in a preface, in footnotes or any other form of translatorial paratext. This peripheral material can thus function as a record of how the translator has interacted with the original witness, how they have elicited and facilitated the transmission of a testimony from one setting to another, what obstacles they might have encountered, and how they regard their own ethical responsibility. Trezise has noted that, in the video testimonies, “the audible and occasionally visible presence of the interviewer(s) lends to the dialogical relation of witnessing a concreteness far removed from what may seem, in written testimony, to be only a disembodied interaction of pronouns” (2013, 34). The translator as secondary witness can thus add a concrete dimension to the transmission process by acknowl- edging their own role as listener to and perpetuator of the original act of witness. In so doing, the community of receivers will be more informed, more alert to any potential barriers to communication and more conscious of the survivor behind the pronouns. Conclusion: Remembering Forwards Translation, as a mode of remembering forwards, is not an unshakable one. Despite resisting a more perfidious and total lapse of memory, the above inquiry has shown that translation equally has the potential to distort, amongst other aspects, the factual, linguistic and tonal qualities encoded in the original telling, while paratextual material can also function as a site of appropriation and transformation. The extent to which a translator listens closely to the original telling may be the result of numerous factors: over-identification with the survivor, the onset of secondary trauma that leads to a distancing or a numbing of the translator, or, more prosaically, the temporal and editorial constraints imposed by publishers. In turn, the listening realized by the translator has the capacity to shape the response of the reader to the events of the past. In other words, the manner in which the reader positions him or herself on an ethical and epistemological level in relation to the Holocaust, as well as to the specific struggles of the survivors, will hinge on the strength and integrity of the bond established between the original and secondary witness. It has also become evident that the ties of that bond hold more securely in some parts of a translation than in others; within the boundaries of a given text, translation can serve either as an empathic re-telling or as a trespass. Granted, this article has given more space to what, following Antoine Berman (2000), could be termed a “negative analytic” of translation, the emphasis here being on the forces that deform the survivor’s account. Peter Davies has warned against such a focus on the negative in reference to Holocaust translations, claiming that “What is missing from the discussion of translation is a sense of the far-reaching achievement [of translators]. If we move beyond melancholy reflections on loss, we are able to shed a much fuller light on the role that translation and translators have played” (2014, 166–167). However, the reasoning behind my negative approach is twofold. First, the wider empirical evidence that emerged from my comparative analyses had a discouraging tendency to point in this direction, particularly in the Summers translation; the examples discussed above are a small, but representative sample of this trend. Secondly, the study should in no way be understood as a personal attack against the translators, but rather, as a means of accentuating the very real transgressive potential of translation as a form of secondary witnessing. By flagging up the lapses in secondary witnessing in these texts and underlining the translation strategies from which they stemmed, it becomes possible to inform future Holocaust translation practice and to prevent such breaks in transmission from reoccurring elsewhere. It may well be the case that the all-hearing, non- appropriating figure of the secondary witness is an impossible ideal, but this does not mean that it is not one worth striving for. Speaking more broadly about the readers of Holocaust narratives, Colin Davis points out that “the best we can do may be to try to attend as honourably as possible to the traces of that which remains foreign to us” (2011, 40). Similarly, Francis Jones has proposed some basic guidelines for the translator working in sensitive circumstances, namely “a principle of maximum awareness of ethical implications together with one of least harm” (2004, 725). And so the translator as secondary witness is one who undertakes to be attentive and self-reflexive, and who weighs the better part of translation decisions in favor of the survivor. Although some of these endeavors will inevitably fall short of their mark, the crucial step is in the trying. It has often been noted in recent times that the need to document Holocaust testimonies is growing as the survivors themselves diminish in number. As these accounts continue to be committed to paper or audiovisual media, or are recovered from the past, so too does the potential increase for the communicative force of translation be brought consciously and effectively into the service of the original witness and the perpetuation of his or her memory. References “An Ordinary Camp.” Review of Ravensbrück, by Micheline Maurel, translated by Margaret M. Summers. Kirkus Reviews. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/micheline-maurel/an- ordinary-camp/. Assmann, Aleida. 2006. “History, Memory, and the Genre of Testimony.” Poetics Today 27(2): 261–273. “Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. How Much We Must Learn!” 1959. Review of Ravensbrück, by Micheline Maurel, translated by Margaret M. Summers. Catholic Herald, April 3. Benjamin, Walter. 2000. “The Task of the Translator.” [“Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” 1923.] Translated by Harry Zohn. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 15–23. London and New York: Routledge. Originally published in Illuminations. Edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968. Berman, Antoine. 2000. “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign.” Translated by Lawrence Venuti. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 284–297. London and New York: Routledge. Originally published as “La traduction comme épreuve de l’étranger.” In Texte 1985: 67–81. Blanc, Julien. 2008. Afterword to Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France, by Agnès Humbert, 271–308. London: Bloomsbury. Bloomberg, Marty, and Buckley Barry Barrett, eds. 1995. The Jewish Holocaust: An Annotated Guide to Books in English. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press. Boase-Beier, Jean. 2014. “Bringing Home the Holocaust: Paul Celan’s ‘Heimkehr’ in German and English.” Translation and Literature 23: 222–234. ———. 2011. “Translating Celan’s Poetics of Silence.” Target 23 (2): 165- 177. Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Brownlie, Siobhan. 2007. “Narrative Theory and Retranslation Theory.” Across Languages and Cultures 7(2): 145–170. Caruth, Cathy. 1996. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cesarani, David. 2012. “Challenging the Myth of Silence: Postwar Responses to the Destruction of European Jewry.” In After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence, edited by David Cesarani and Eric J. Sundquist, 15–38. London and New York: Routledge. Davies, Peter. 2008. “The Obligatory Horrors: Translating Tadeusz Borowski’s Holocaust Narratives into German and English.” Holocaust Studies 14 (2): 23–40. ———. 2011. “Translation and the Uses of a Holocaust Testimony: Elie Wiesel’s La Nuit in German Translation.” German Life and Letters 64: 552–569. ———. 2014. “Understanding a Perpetrator in Translation: Presenting Rudolf Höß, Commandant of Auschwitz, to Readers of English.” Edinburgh German Yearbook 8: 219–234. Davies, Peter, ed. 2014. “Holocaust Testimony and Translation.” Special issue of Translation and Literature 23 (2). Davis, Colin. 2011. “Trauma and Ethics: Telling the Other’s Story.” In Other People’s Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethics (Cultural History and Literary Imagination), edited by Martin Modlinger & Philipp Sonntag, 19–42. Oxford: Peter Lang. Deane-Cox, Sharon. 2013. “The translator as secondary witness: Mediating memory in Antelme’s L’espèce humaine.” Translation Studies 6(3): 309–323. ———. 2014. Retranslation: Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation. London: Bloomsbury. Genette, Gérard. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Glowacka, Dorota. 2012. Disappearing Traces: Holocaust Testimonials, Ethics, and Aesthetics. Seattle: Washington University Press. Hartman, Geoffrey. 1998. “Shoah and Intellectual Witness.” Partisan Review 65(1): 37–48. Hatim, Basil, and Ian Mason. 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman. Hirsch, Marianne, and Leo Spitzer. 2010. “The Witness in the Archive: Holocaust studies/Memory Studies”. In Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, edited by Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz, 390–405. New York: Fordham University Press. Originally in Memory Studies 2(2): 151–170. Accessed December 19, 2016. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1750698008102050. doi: 10.1177/1750698008102050. Humbert, Agnès. 1946/2004. Notre guerre: Journal de Résistance 1940- 1945. Paris: Tallandier. ———. 2008. Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France. Translated by Barbara Mellor. London: Bloomsbury. Hutton, Margaret-Anne. 2005. Testimony from the Nazi Camps: French women’s voices. London & New York: Routledge. Jones, Francis. 2004. “Ethics, Aesthetics and Décision: Literary Translating in the Wars of the Yogoslav Succession.” Meta: journal des traducteurs/ Meta: Translators’ Journal 49 (4): 711–728. Kansteiner, Wulf and Harald Weilnböck. 2008. “Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma or How I Learned to Love the Suffering of Others without the Help of Psychotherapy.” In Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning, 229–240. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kershaw, Angela. 2014. “Complexity and unpredictability in cultural flows: two French Holocaust novels in English translation.” Translation Studies 7(1): 34–49. ———. 2014. “Intertextuality and Translation in Three Recent French Holocaust Novels.” Translation and Literature 23: 185–196. King, Beverley R. 2009. “Repressed and recovered memory.” In 21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook, edited by Stephen Davis and William Buskist, 450–460. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Kitson, Simon. 2008. “Agnès Humbert’s Wartime Diary ‘Résistance.’” The New York Sun, September 24. http://www.nysun.com/arts/agnes- humberts-wartime-diary-resistance/86444/. Kuhiwczak, Piotr. 2007. “Holocaust Writing and the Limits of Influence.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 43 (2): 161-172. LaCapra, Dominick. 2001. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Langer, Lawrence. 1995. Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. New York: Oxford University Press Laub, Dori. 1991. “Truth and Testimony: The Process and the Struggle”. American Imago 48(1): 75-91. ———. 1992. “Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening”. In Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, edited by Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, 57–74. London and New York: Routledge. Lefort, Pascaline. 2012. “Le dire impossible et le devoir de dire: des gloses pour dire l’indicible.” SHS Web of Conferences. Volume 1 of 3e Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française: 583–597. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20120100041. Leys, Ruth. 2000. Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mannarion, Damien. 1998. “La mémoire déportée.” Revue d’histoire de la Shoah; le monde juif 162: 12–42. Maurel, Micheline. 1957. Un camp très ordinaire. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. ———. 1958. An Ordinary Camp. Translated by Margaret M. Summers. New York: Simon and Schuster. ———. 1958. Ravensbrück. Translated by Margaret M. Summers. London: Anthony Blond. ———. 1958. Ravensbrück. Translated by Margaret M. Summers. London: Digit Books. ———. 1958. The Slave. Translated by Margaret M. Summers. New York: Belmont Books. Mauriac, François. 1957. Preface to Un camp très ordinaire, by Micheline Maurel. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Mellor, Barbara. 2008. “Bold defiance in Nazi Paris.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7634000/7634154.stm. “M. Summers Translates French Book Describing Life in Concentration Camps.” 1958. The Vassar Chronicle, December 13. http://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu/cgi- bin/vassar?a=d&d=vcchro19581213-01.2.19. Pearce, Andy. 2014. Holocaust Consciousness in Contemporary Britain. London: Routledge. Reiter, Andrea. 2000. Narrating the Holocaust. Translated by Patrick Camiller. London & New York: Continuum. Rondeau, Daniel. 2004. “Nous étions des enfants.” Review of Notre guerre by Agnès Humbert. L’Express, December 6. http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/notre-guerre-souvenirs-de- resistance_820118.html. Saidel, Rochelle G. 2004. The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. Stier, Oren Baruch. 2003. Committed to Memory: Cultural Mediations of the Holocaust. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Strebel, Bernhard. 2009. “Neubrandenburg.” Translated by Stephen Pallavicini. In The United States Holocaust Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945, Volume I, edited by Geoffrey P. Megargee, 1215–1216. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Suleiman, Susan Rubin. 1996. “Monuments in a Foreign Tongue: On Reading Holocaust Memoirs by Emigrants.” Poetics Today 17(4): 639–657. Trezise, Thomas. 2013. Witnessing Witnessing: On the Reception of Holocaust Survivor Testimony. New York: Fordham University Press. Tymoczko, Maria. 2000. “Translation and Political Engagement: Activism, Social Change and the Role of Translation in Geopolitical Shifts.” The Translator 6(1): 23-47. ———. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Waxman, Zoë. 2006. Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whitehead, Anne. 2004. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wieviorka, Annette. 2006. The Era of the Witness, translated by Jared Stark. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Worpole, Ken. 1983. Dockers and Detectives. London: Verso Editions. Young, James, E. 1988. Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. joined the University of Strathclyde as a lecturer in translation and interpreting in 2016, having previously held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, where she also completed her PhD in 2011. Her research is anchored in the field of Translation Studies, but currently intersects with Memory Studies, Holocaust Studies, and Museum Studies. She is particularly interested in the translation of French individual and collective memories of occupation and deportation during World War II. She is author of the monograph Retranslation: Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation (2014) and a member of the IATIS Regional Workshops Committee.

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Abstract: This article explores how memory—the central issue of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977)—has induced a specific type of writing that makes its translation a more challenging task in terms of stylistic, lexical, and syntactical choices. Tayo, the main character, is haunted by painful memories of his traumatic war experience, powerful nightmares and daytime visions blending seamlessly into the vacuity of his present life on the reservation. However, memory is also a healing force when it means going back to the traditional Indian way and adapting it to the broken present. Silko navigates between storytelling and storywriting, weaving a circular vision of time into the linear format of the novel and bridging the gap between her Indian ancestry and her white academic education. Translating Ceremony raises many interesting issues, three of which are discussed here: the treatment of intermingling narratives whose chronology the readers have to reconstruct for themselves, the network of echoes and repetitions that structure the novel, and the description of the Indian landscape. The article finally asserts that translation contributes to the circulation of memory and is a positive force ensuring the survival of texts written to resist acculturation. Introduction Ceremony is a landmark publication in the advent of Native American literature. Published in 1977 by Leslie Marion Silko, it received much critical acclaim and soon became a commercial success and was translated intoseveral foreign language (Norwegian, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Dutch). It is often part of the selection of Native American novels on university syllabi next to House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1968) and The Death of Jim Loney by James Welch (1979). Those are the titles readers remember as they have become the “memory” of Native American literary Renaissance. Whether they should be seen in terms of “ethnic minority fiction” or as part of mainstream American fiction is subject to debate. For instance, Joseph Bruchac states that the “‘mainstream’ in America is being turned back by a tide of multiculturalism” (Bruchac 1994, xviii). According to Robert N. Nelson, Native American novels have distinct features that set them apart: their authors are “Native American” (like the protagonists), the settings “include Indian reservations,” they allude to, or widely incorporate, “tribal traditions” 1 (Nelson 1993, 3). As a consequence some of their content is perceived as being difficult to grasp for the readers who are not “tribally literate” (to use Nelson’s word), those who do not share the memory of the tribal heritage. Memory is an essential dimension to Native American fiction and to Ceremony. According to Robert Dale Parker, Native American Literature was “invented” by “Indian writers,” drawing on both “Indian and literary traditions” (Parker 2003, 1). In trying to keep tribal culture alive, Native American writers have explored memory in different ways. Memory is what is left of all that has been destroyed and eradicated by colonization, industrialization, and forced assimilation. It is the main force enabling Native Americans to resist acculturation. Cultural memory was traditi- onally transmitted through storytelling, an endangered activity in a world ruled by the written word, where communities and families have been increasingly scattered across the whole 1 The choice of the most appropriate word to designate the people from Native American tribes is still highly controversial. The issue has not yet been settled, which explains what may seem like confusion in most essays and books about Native American art and fiction. Christina Berry writes in her article published on the All Things Cherokee website: “So what is it? Indian? American Indian? Native American? First Americans? First People? We all hear different terms but no one can seem to agree on what to call us” (Berry, 2013). Although the word “Native American” seems more neutral, many Native Americans object to it as it is seen as a creation by the Federal government aiming at erasing the sufferings of the Native tribes and making the colonial past more acceptable. The actor and political activist Russell Means declares: “I am an American Indian, not a Native American! I abhor the term Native American. It is a generic government term used to describe all the indigenous prisoners of the United States” (Means, 1996). Silko uses both the word “Indian” and “Native American.” In this article the word “Native American” has been kept to refer to the ethnic origin of the people involved but the word “Indian” has been preferred to indicate the cultural connotations as in “the Indian way” or “Indian memory” since it is closer to the ideas developed by Silko. country. Native American writers therefore invented a new type of storytelling that can survive and thrive in their new environment, translating traditional memory and storytelling into novels. Those novels are hybrid forms, close enough to the template of the Western novel to be recognized and understood by all while being innovative enough to cater for values and notions radically alien to Western culture. However, Indian memory is also a traumatic memory and offers many common points with other works and narratives problematizing memory such as writings by holocaust survivors and by victims of intense trauma (see Brodski 2007). Writing is not only a means of transmitting memory and struggling against oblivion, but it also transforms the unbearable memory of the trauma—which lies on the side of death and destruction—into a resilient force that makes life possible. The memory of the horror beyond the scope of human understanding is translated into words in order to help the victims make sense of the events and reappropriate their lives. Through the case study of Ceremony, I will demonstrate how memory can be a haunting force of destruction as well as a healing type of energy. Memory is both the theme and the material chosen by Silko for her novel. Her literary approach is characterized by a specific type of writing that makes interlingual translation particularly challenging in terms of stylistic, lexical, and syntactic choices. The novel was translated into French by Michel Valmary, who later translated two other books—Archie Fire Lame Deer’s Gift of Power (Le cercle sacré) and James Welch’s Killing Custer (C’est un beau jour pour mourir). The translation was published in 1992 by Albin Michel in the Terre Indienne collection, which specializes in Native American fiction (director: Francis Geffard), and its French title was Cérémonie. After studying how memory is at the core of the themes and textual identity of Ceremony, I will focus on three points: 1) writing/translating the fluctuating and unstable time of memory through a limited choice of possible grammatical tenses; 2) the construction/destruction of echoes, memories, and correspon- dences; 3) the translation of words and names referring to the landscape that is central to Indian memory. Finally, I will examine the close relationship between writing and translating in the case of Indian memory and discuss whether the trans- lation of Native American fiction is possible/advisable/neces- sary. Memory as the Main Theme and Material of Ceremony The theme of memory is crucial to Ceremony. The protagonist, Tayo, is a Laguna Pueblo of mixed ancestry, a “half-breed”2 living on the reservation near Albuquerque in New Mexico. When the story begins, he is back from the Second World War. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or “battle fatigue” according to the white psychiatrists who have discharged him from the hospital, he is unable to resume his old life. He is haunted by memories of the war and overwhelmed by guilt as he feels responsible for all the disruption that took place when he was away: the death of his cousin who went to war with him, the death of his uncle Josiah, and finally the drought that he sees as retribution for his swearing at the rain in the prisoner camp in the Philippines: “The old people used to say that droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave”(Silko 1977, 46). These destructive memories disrupt his present life and make him mentally and physically ill as they invade his everyday life in the form of nightmares and daytime visions that leave him empty. His war memories are interspersed with his childhood memories as he is also trying to cope with his sense of alienation as a “half-breed” brought up by his aunt after his own mother left him. However the past, which is a source of suffering, is also the key to his recovery. Knowing that white medicine cannot save him, Grandma convinces him to visit a medicine man because “The only cure/I know/is a good ceremony” (Silko 1977, 3). Although the visits to Ku’oosh and then Old Betonie do not succeed immediately and the healing ceremony cannot be completed, Tayo gradually recovers his ancestral memory. He learns to understand the traditional signs and rites, becomes able to read the landscape around him again and to realign his life with a broader universal pattern of meaning. Thanks to his recovering the traditional cultural memory of his ancestors, Tayo can complete the ceremony by himself, adjust, and find his place back on the reservation. His 2Although “half-breed” may seem offensive, it is the word used by Silko to describe Tayo’s as well as her own ancestry (Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white). healing is symbolic of and preparatory to a more global change as rain returns to the region saving the crops and cattle. Tayo’s journey, out of his destructive memories, which are manifestations of evil and witchcraft and back to the healing memory of the Indian way, enables him to restore balance and harmony in the universe as thought can again circulate between the fifth world (the world inhabited by human beings) and the other worlds inhabited by spirits. Memory is at the core of Ceremony. The different encounters with the medicine men, the traditional one and Old Betonie, the modern one, with the women Tayo loves, all avatars of Tse’pina, the spirit of the mountain, are various memories of the same quest or the same healing ceremony. It is by remembering them and understanding their correspondences that Tayo progresses on his way to recovery and that the readers gradually understand the way the novel is structured and what it means. The novel functions like memory itself, giving birth to seemingly disconnected episodes that make sense when put together, reassembled and realigned. Moreover the conventional narrative structure of Tayo’s quest is framed by and intertwined with traditional stories and poems, memories of traditional Laguna storytelling, as if the real creator of the story was not Silko but Thought Woman. The book begins with the poem: Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought-Woman, is sitting in her room and whatever she thinks about appears [. . .] I’m telling you the story she is thinking. Those traditional passages draw on Silko’s personal memories of the stories she was told when a child on the reservation or memories she has revived from the collection of stories published in Franz Boas’s Keresan Texts (a transcription of traditional tales published in 1928, see Nelson 2001). There are altogether 28 “storytelling memories” (whose length varies from a few lines to four pages). Silko blends traditional Indian forms—based on circular patterns, repetitions and circulation from memory and myth to reality—into a novel, a genre favoring a linear conception of time, a sequential and historical development of the story, and a clear-cut distinction between past and present, memory, and reality. She thus creates her own language, one that can express memory. Moreover, the novel is a way for Silko to come to terms with her own mixed ancestry and her sense of alienation. She started writing Ceremony after having been away in Alaska for two years where she felt she had been exiled. The novel is a personal remembrance ceremony enabling Silko to weave the loose threads of her attachment to her Native ancestry and of her white academic education back into significance: “Writing a novel was a ceremony for me to stay sane” (Arnold 2000, 24). Memory and the Blurred Frontiers between Past and Present The treatment of diegetic time is quite unconventional in Ceremony, as noted by most critics and reviewers. Although analepsis is a common device in most conventional novels, time shifts are so frequent in Ceremony that they blur the frontier between the main narrative and the secondary narratives that are Tayo’s various memories and visions. The story shifts to and fro between the time of Tayo’s return to the reservation after he is back from the war, and various memories—childhood scenes, war episodes, and other times before he left for the war. Those shifts back in time are not systematically signaled as such— there are few dates, few accurate references to places which would help the readers to chronologically reorganize the diverse fragments constituting Tayo’s story. The fragmented narratives are the representations on paper of the disruptive forces released by Tayo’s memories and the readers must agree to getting lost in the succession of embedded stories going back in circles rather than following a straight time line from beginning to end. Like Tayo, the readers will understand later and what they remember will then make sense, as Night Swan (one of the female characters Tayo meets during his quest) tells him: “You don’t have to understand what is happening. But remember this day. You will recognize it later” (Silko 1977, 100). Only when the tense of the first verb of the analepsis is a pluperfect is the shift clearly indicated. Even then, the following verbs are in the simple past (also the prevailing tense of the main narrative), which creates ambiguity as to the exact point where the main narrative is resumed, as in the following example:3 “You see,” Josiah had said, with the sound of the water trickling out of the hose into the empty wooden barrel [. . .]. He pointed his chin at the springs [. . .]. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead [. . .]. Tayo knelt on the edge of the pool and let the dampness soak into the knees of his jeans. (Silko 1977, 45–46) Although it is quite clear that the first paragraph is a memory because of the use of the pluperfect and the situation (Josiah is dead by the time Tayo returns from the war), the status of the following paragraph (“Tayo knelt…”) is ambiguous, and the similarity of the setting misleads the readers into believing initially that it is part of the same memory sequence whereas the main narrative has been resumed. The translation into French reads thus: “Tu vois, lui avait dit Josiah par-dessus le bruit de l’eau qui dégoulinait du tuyau dans les tonneau de bois vide [. . .]. Du menton, il avait montré les sources [. . .]. Il avait enlevé son chapeau et essuyé son front [. . .]. Tayo s’agenouilla au bord du bassin sans se soucier de l’eau qui trempait les genoux de ses jeans. (Silko 1992, 55) The translator has made a grammatically safe choice. The shift from pluperfect to past, which is quite frequent in English fiction, has been neutralized through a more consistent use of a plus que parfait in French. The passé simple, used for the main narrative, is deemed inadequate as soon as the diegetic chronology is upset—a stylistic rule many, but not all, French novelists adhere to. That “safe” choice is not consistently applied. For other time shifts the passé simple is used for anterior actions but only after a series of plus que parfait has clearly delineated the time frame: He stood outside the train depot in Los Angeles and felt the sunshine; he saw the palm trees [. . .] he realized why he was here and he remembered Rocky and he started to cry. [. . .] 3 Words discussed in the ensuing analysis are given in bold in the quotes. The new doctor asked him if he had ever been visible and Tayo spoke to him softly and said that he was sorry but nobody was allowed to speak to an invisible one. (Silko 1977, 15) Devant la gare de Los Angeles, il avait senti la caresse du soleil; il avait vu les palmiers [. . .] il comprit pourquoi il était là, il se souvint de Rocky et il se mit à pleurer. [. . .] Quand le nouveau docteur lui avait demandé s’il avait jamais été visible, Tayo lui avait répondu d’une voix douce qu’il était désolé mais que personne n’avait le droit de parler à un être invisible. (Silko 1992, 23) Whereas the English original allows for more indeterminacy (the readers will not immediately understand that the first passage is the memory of a scene that took place just before Tayo’s return and that the second passage is another shift in time, neither the continuation of the preceding passage nor the resuming of the main narrative), the French readers are guided by the translator’s choice, which clarifies the order of the successive time sequences. Although choosing between imparfait, plus que parfait, passé simple, and passé composé to render a simple past is a controversial point, the passé simple—even if it is an obvious choice for a translator—may not be the most appropriate tense in the case of Ceremony. The use of the imparfait in some passages makes it possible to keep some referential indeterminacy as shown in that example where it is not clear if the second passage is still part of Tayo’s memory of the war or of the main narrative: Rocky had reasoned it out with him; […] Tayo nodded, slapped at the insects mechanically [. . .]. He had to keep busy; he had to keep moving so that the sinews connected behind his eyes did not slip loose and spin his eyes to the interior of his skull where the scenes waited for him. (Silko 1977, 8–9) Rocky s’était efforcé de le ramener à la raison ; [. . .] Tayo avait acquiescé; d’un geste machinal de la main, il avait écrasé quelques insectes [. . .]. Il fallait qu’il s’occupe ; il fallait qu’il reste actif pour que les muscles qui se rejoignent à l’arrière de ses yeux ne se relâchent pas, les faisant ainsi pivoter vers l’intérieur du crâne, là où toutes ces scènes l’attendaient. (Silko 1992, 16–17) Even if it is not conventional to use the imparfait for single past actions, that tense might have the potential to accommodate Silko’s literary treatment of memory, as some French writers have done to give extra depth to their past narratives, J. M. G. Le Clézio, for instance (see Lepage 2008). Alternatively, using a passé composé instead of a passé simple as the prevailing tense for both the main narrative and the memories would have been a way to signal the shift from conventional fiction writing and would have insisted on the connection with oral tradition. Grammatical constraints and the translator’s wish to conform to the more conventional writing norms do not explain all the occurrences of plus que parfait in the French text. They illustrate the translator’s symptomatic wish to guide his readers, to help them through the maze of the original novel, as in the following example where a whole sentence has been added: They unloaded the cows one by one, looking them over carefully. (Silko 1977, 77) Quand Tayo eut ouvert le grand portail du couloir d’entrée du corral, Robert ouvrit la porte de la bétaillère. Ils firent sortir les vaches une par une, en les inspectant attentivement. (Silko 1992, 88) The time of the action as well as the identity of the characters have been made explicit in French. However, reducing ambiguity and reordering Tayo’s memories imposes a Eurocentric vision on a hybrid text. In fact, it brings more confusion to the readers as it prevents them from being aware of the blurred frontiers between past and present and between memory and reality, essential to the understanding of the novel. Indeed Ceremony reintroduces in the linear development of the novel the memory of a more ancient time, the Indian vision of time, which is circular, cyclical, always moving but not going directly from one point to another: The Pueblo people and the indigenous people of the Americas see time as round, not as a long linear string. If time is round, if time is an ocean, then something that happened 500 years ago may be quite immediate and real, whereas something inconsequential that happened an hour ago could be far away. Think of time as an ocean always moving. (Arnold 2000, 149) Memory as Repetitions, Echoes, and Resonances Repetitions and echoes are the backbone of the writing in Ceremony, and the coherent structure they create counter- balances the confusion brought about by Silko’s fluctuating treatment of diegetic time. Repetitions work at the level of sentences and paragraphs but also at the higher level of the whole novel. In sentences, repetitions give rhythm to the narrative and endow it with a typically oral dimension. The following passage illustrates how repetitions structure the sentences and help the readers/listeners keep track of the important notions: He could get no rest as long as the memories were tangled with the present, tangled up like colored threads from old Grandma’s wicker sewing basket when he was a child [. . .]. He could feel it inside his skull—the tension of little threads being pulled and how it was with tangled things, things tied together, and as he tried to pull them apart and rewind them into their places, they snagged and tangled even more. So Tayo had to sweat through those nights when thoughts became entangled; he had to sweat to think of something that wasn’t unraveled or tied in knots to the past (Silko 1977, 6–7) Il ne pourrait trouver le repos tant que les souvenirs et le présent s’enchevêtreraient comme les fils de couleur dans le panier à couture de Grand-mère : [. . .] Sous son crâne, c’est cela qu’il sentait, la tension des fils minces que l’on tirait, et les choses emmêlées, attachées ensemble, qui, lorsqu’il essayait de les démêler et de les rembobiner, chacune à sa place, s’accrochaient et s’emmêlaient encore davantage. C’est ainsi que Tayo devait passer de longues nuits en sueur quand ses pensées s’embrouillaient; il devait faire d’énormes efforts pour penser à quelque chose dont le fil ne soit pas défait ou attaché au passé par des nœuds inextricables (Silko 1992, 14–15) The translator has reduced the number of repetitions by erasing some occurrences (the two occurrences of tangled have been reduced to one in the first sentence) and by resorting to synonyms (s’enchevêtrer, emmêlées, s’emmêler, s’embrouiller for tangled; en sueur and faire d’énormes efforts for sweat). The destruction is not systematic, however. For instance, the translator manages to keep the repetition of comfort and comfortable (a word difficult to translate into French) by using bien and bien-être which work on both material and moral levels: We know these hills, and we are comfortable here.” There was something about the way the old man said the word “comfortable.” It had a different meaning—not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land and the peace of being with these hills. (Silko 1977, 117) Nous connaissons ces collines, et nous y sommes bien. » Il y avait quelque chose de spécial dans la façon dont le vieil homme avait dit le mot « bien ». Il prenait un sens différent : ce n’était pas le bien-être que procuraient les grandes maisons, une nourriture riche ou même des rues propres, mais le bien-être né du fait d’être à l’unisson de la terre, la paix ressentie à se trouver dans ces collines. (Silko 1992, 129–130) At the macro level of the whole novel, repetitions give meaning to the various interconnected episodes. Repetitions of words create a textual memory that enables the readers to interpret the story correctly, exactly like Tayo who will gradually learn to recognize the pattern underlying what he goes through. For instance, when Tayo walks to the toilets in a bar (Silko 1977, 56), the dirty wet floor mentally takes him back to his ordeal in the jungle (Silko 1977, 11). The shift from a real situation to a memory is textually signified by the repetition of the same phrase—“It was soaking through his boots/it soaked into their boots”—in the two passages. In the translation, although the readers will understand the situation, there is no textual link between the two scenes but only a semantic link as two different phrases are used: “qui pénétrait dans ses bottes” (Silko 1992, 66)/“s’infiltrait dans les chaussures” (Silko 1992, 19). Many passages echo each other as if the various episodes and the various characters were diverse avatars of the same event, Tayo’s encounter with the spirit of the mountain and his becoming whole again. Repeated words form a network of key words whose occurrences weave a significant textual material connecting and reuniting what first seems disconnected. Through their reiteration the readers can recognize the resemblance and understand that time and storytelling are cyclical as Old Grandma concludes: “It seems like I already heard these stories before . . . only thing is, the names sound different” (Silko 1977, 260). The network of recurring words organizes the novel around key themes such as dampness and dryness, circles and whirls, weaving and scattering. In the translation, the structure is less obvious because of lexical variety. For instance, the word scatter which is central to Tayo’s broken psyche is translated by two different verbs, disséminer and disperser, as well as by a whole range of words according to the cotext: l’entouraient (Silko 1992, 117), franchirent le sommet (Silko 1992, 195), faire voler (Silko 1992, 231), laisser derrière (Silko 1992, 250), s’effriter (Silko 1992, 214), parmi (Silko 1992, 168), and s’égaillèrent (Silko 1992, 243). The important word scatter has virtually disappeared from the French translation, made invisible by the translator’s decision not to maintain its repetition. The destruction of repetitions is not systematic, how- ever, as the recurrences of some words are maintained. For instance whorls (of flesh, of skin), which appears in the morbid episodes dealing with witchcraft, is systematically translated by volute, making it possible for the French readers to link the various scenes together and to establish the connection with the poems relating the invasion of the evil spirit: “il se peignit le corps/les volutes de chair” (the poem about Pa’caya’nyi who tricks people into witchcraft, Silko 1992, 56), “D’autres défirent des paquets en peau/pleins d’objets répugnants:/des silex sombres, des cendres de hogans brûlés/où reposaient les morts,/Des volutes de peau” (the poem about a witchcraft competition during which white people are invented and turned loose to destroy the Indian world, Silko 1992, 147), “Pinkie lui maintint la jambe, et Leroy trancha la volute de chair sous le gros orteil de Harley” (the torture scene in which witchcraft attempts to engulf Tayo’s life and the world in general, Silko 1992, 271). By reducing the number of repetitions, the translator brings considerable changes to the material texture of Silko’s novel of textual memory. His motivations may be an adherence to French stylistic norms that still consider repetition to be inelegant despite its use by great writers. He thus imposes his own view, his own cultural memory on the original text and destroys its inner rhythm and its signifiance (to use Meschonnic’s (1999) word). Repetitions are essential to Silko’s endeavor to write a text which reads as a memory of the oral tradition of storytelling and deliberately blurs the frontier between genres (tales, songs, poems, and novels), between storytelling and story-writing, between Indian traditions and Western culture: “So I play with the page and things that you could do on the page, and repetitions. When you have an audience, when you’re telling a story and people are listening, there’s repetition of crucial points” (Arnold 2000, 71). Systematicity is essential to maintain the way lexical networks function. Each repetition is important. As Berman states when he studies how the deforming tendencies transform a text, each word must be chosen carefully and the use of synonyms is deceptive. Words have their own lives, their own textual bodies from which they derive their power: “The words of the story poured out of his mouth as if they had substance, pebbles and stone extending to hold the corporal up” (Silko 1977, 12). Silko’s writing is like weaving: the intricate patterns suffer no mistakes, no holes. Storytelling and story-writing is a sacred act, a ceremony in which each word has its part to play. Memory and the Landscape The landscape is the central character of Ceremony. As stated in Place and Vision, in which Nelson dedicates a whole chapter to the landscape of Ceremony, the geophysical landscapes “serve not only as the ‘settings’ of these [Native American] fictions but also as principal ‘characters’ in them” (Nelson 1993, 9). It is only after being reunited with the landscape that Tayo can recover his vital energy. The landscape is the place where Indian memory lies, the landscape is Indian memory: “We are the land. [. . .] More than remembered, the earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth” (Paula Gunn Allen in Nelson 1993, 1). Describing and naming the landscape is therefore a delicate part of the ceremony of writing. Locations and directions are given with accuracy. The words connected to the landscape are the names of the places, the words describing those places as well as the names of the plants, animals, and spirits inhabiting the land. All those names recreate the landscape of the American Southwest where the Laguna Pueblo reservation is located and they bear the memory of its history. The original Indian names have been largely replaced by English names or by Spanish names, the languages of the enemy, to use Gloria Bird’s phrase in Reinventing the Enemy’s Language (Harjo and Bird 1997), that is to say the languages of the settlers: “But the fifth world had become entangled with European names: the names of the rivers, the hills, the names of the animals and plants—all of creation suddenly had two names: an Indian name and a white name” (Silko 1977, 68). The Pueblo names are still there, though, in the names of the characters of the traditional stories and the names of the spirits inhabiting the land. They stand out in the English text as their morphology is quite different from that of the European names and display a characteristic apostrophe: Tse-pi’na orTs’eh, K’ou’ko, Ck’o’yo, A’moo’ooh, Ku’oosh. . . The Pueblo names have been used in the translation without any change as if they had resisted one more displacement. Most Spanish names are maintained too: mesa, arroyo, Casa Blanca . . . with the exception of burro (âne, bourricot). It is the English names that are problematic for the translation into French. When they are kept, which is the case of many place-names, they stand out as memories or traces of the original English text, whereas in the original they blend seamlessly into the main narrative in English. In Cérémonie, place-names such as Wake Island, Dixie Tavern, Purple Heart, or Prairie Dog Hill remind the readers of the European settlers’ imprint on the American landscape but also suggest that the “entanglement” with English names is only a passing stage in the history of the landscape. The names and languages may change, but the landscape and its ancient memory will remain unchanged. The English language, which dominates the text of Ceremony, is pushed back to the margin through translation. The names of plants and animals are translated into French and raise many difficulties. Most English names are both simple and precise. As they are based on a simple generic word (grass, tree, weed, hill. . . ), names such as wild rose bush, salt bushes, snakeweed, rabbit brush, foothills create a realistically complex environment (Silko has drawn on her accurate knowledge of the Southwest landscape). The geographically- literate readers will recognize it. However, those who are unfamiliar with such settings will not be lost and will manage to find their way among grass, trees, weeds, and hills. In French, the translator has to negotiate between two options. He can favor the exact translation which is very often a scientific term unknown to most readers: Salt bushes/atriplex, arroche; snakeweed/bistorte, gramma grass/ bouteloue. . . Alternatively, he may opt for a literal translation that will be understood but may not refer to an actual plant or animal. The few cases when literal translations correspond to the reality of the environment (rock sage/sauge de rocher, bee-wee plants/l’herbe-aux- abeilles, rabbit weed/herbe-aux-lapins. . . ) are not enough to compensate for the different vision of the world the numerous scientific names produce. Moreover, the scientific words in French do not allow the correspondence between geography and myth. The words of the landscape in Ceremony are meaningful and contribute to weave a consistent memory of the universe that reinforces the links between the human world and the spirits. When Tayo meets the mountain lion (puma in French), he also meets the hunter spirit, the companion of Tse’pina, the mountain spirit. When he meets Tse, she is sitting next to a moonflower plant (marguerite dorée) that indicates the feminine power she represents. Tse is a woman and a spirit and the earth, as this passage underlines: “He dreamed he made love with her. He felt the warm sand on his toes and knees; he felt her body, and it was as warm as the sand, and he couldn’t feel where her body ended and the sand began” (Silko 1977, 222). It echoes Josiah’s comment: “This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone” (Silko 1977, 45). Once Tayo acknowledges he is sand and stone like the sandstone cliffs around him, he can be whole again. In the translation, the link connecting sand (sable), stone (pierre), and sandstone (grès) is severed. The landscape in Cérémonie is therefore more scientific and more obscure than in the original; it does not work as the main representation and memory of the harmony of the Indian way. It is not the “living text” mentioned by Nelson, which can be read by the readers. Memory and Translation as Transformation Beyond the linguistic and stylistic difficulties the translator has to face when translating a narrative of memory such as Ceremony, broader questions must be addressed. Is it possible or even legitimate to translate memory in the case of Native American fiction? Can Indian memory, which is so deeply rooted in the ancient languages and in the local environment, survive when uprooted and transferred into a culturally and linguistically alien environment? Silko has already provided part of the answer. Drawing on Indian memory to write her novel, she has opened up a new frontier and contributed to the invention and development of the Native American novel, essentially transgenre and multilingual. She is the one who has translated—that is to say, transformed and rewritten—the oral traditional stories: “I write them down because I like seeing how I can translate this sort of feeling or flavor or sense of a story that’s told and heard onto the page” (Arnold 2000, 71). Therefore, translating Ceremony into another language is doing a second-hand translation in which the main choices have already been made: the degree of multilingualism, of obscurity to which the readers—and more particularly the “tribally illiterate” ones—will be submitted. The inherent tension between the source and target languages, between what we understand and what we do not, between what the translator chooses to reveal and what he/she leaves unexplained is already present in the original. Even the reception of her work and the issue of the target reader has been addressed, as Silko is aware that her readership falls into two categories—Native Americans (who know a lot about Indian memory) and non-Natives (whom she does not want to alienate). For her, making Indian memory accessible to all through her translation is a political choice: “I’m political, but I’m political in my stories. That’s different. I think the work should be accessible and that’s always the challenge and task of the teller—to make accessible perceptions that the people need” (Arnold 2000, 26). Translators have always been suspected of betrayal and Silko is no exception. Being of mixed ancestry, born on the reservation but educated outside it, she is the perfect go-between and a highly suspicious one. Paula Gunn Allen criticized her for giving away tribal secrets which should only be known by Native people, as Nelson reminds us: “In fact, a few years ago another Laguna writer, Paula Gunn Allen, criticized Silko for using some of this oral traditional material, contending that by including a clan story in her novel Ceremony Silko has violated local conventions regarding proper dissemination of such stories” (Nelson 2001). For Silko, translating and rewriting Indian memory is not a betrayal but, on the contrary, a way to redeem Native traditions. Those must not be kept as museum artifacts which are the dead collectible pieces recorded and translated by ethnologists such as Boas, but they must be given the possibility to carry on as living entities. Memory pines for transmission as a way out of oblivion and eradication. Through her translation, Silko reminds the American readers of the Native American heritage of their country and promotes it as a living force in today’s world. Interlingual translation goes one step further in the same direction. Translating Indian memory strengthens it as it will be kept in the minds of more and more readers across the world, and in turn they will pass it on. It will then be safe from destruction, as when kept in the belly of the storyteller (Silko 1977, 2). Paradoxical though it may seem, translating Indian memory is a form of repatriation as it takes it back to its original purpose, helping the people understand and live in harmony. In a globalized world, the people may just mean people in general: “Something in writing Ceremony that I had to discover for myself was indeed that the old stories still have in their deepest level a content that can give the individual a possibility to understand” (Arnold 2000, 147). On a more practical level, the translation and transmission of memory may increase people’s awareness and support of the Native cause and give more visibility to the Indian alternative to the materialistic “American way of life” taking over the world. Silko is aware of the potential impact of Native memory across languages and nations: “In other words, we feel that we get cultural, intellectual, spiritual support from all the people outside the United States. [. . .] There are no isolated people, there is truly now a global village and it matters” (Arnold 2000, 151). The teller/writer is one link in the long chain of the circulation of memory, and the translator another one. The important point is to keep the transmission going even if it means changes on the way. Changes are not always for the worse. In the case of Indian memory, the displacement brought about by the interlingual translation opens up new possibilities. In the French translation, the stories may thrive better in a new medium, freed from the English language (the linguistic memory of the trauma of colonization). Memory itself is not a fixed form. It is based on repetitions and differences, like translation—two notions at the core of Deleuze’s early philosophical thought and analyzed at length in Différence et Répétition in link with the power of language: “La répétition est la puissance du langage” (“Repetition is the power of language”—translation mine—Deleuze 1968, 373). The memory of an event is a repetition of the event, both similar to and different from it. Each time the memory comes back it is slightly modified, too, as repetitions are never identical. The same relationship links the text and its translations, which are the memory of the text. They are not equivalents but repetitions of the original, different but not necessarily less valuable, less trustworthy, or less authentic. The transformation process at the core of memory and translation is a regenerative power that keeps life going. The old stories, like the old healing ceremonies, must be adapted to their new environment—be it linguistic or cultural—the way Betonie has managed to devise a new ceremony to cure Tayo of his modern disease. Translation and memory are two modes of survival (“‘survival’ as a cultural practice and symbolic action, and above all as a process that extends life” (Brodzki 2007, 5)) and revival, a way to share the gift of the healing force or the burden of the trauma. Conclusion Memory as the main theme and material of Ceremony has shaped the novel’s language. It is based on correspondences and resonances that can evoke the chaos of traumatic memory and of witchcraft but that also symbolize the redeeming force of the Indian way whose ceremonies can restore harmony. The specificity of Silko’s writing requires attentive translating strategies that enable the transmission of its textual and poetic density. The memory of the text is particularly threatened when the translator yields to some of the deforming tendencies defined by Berman in his chapter “L’analytique de la traduction et la systématique de la déformation” (Berman 1985, 65–82), and more particularly clarification (thus replacing cyclical time with linear time), the destruction of rhythm (the rhythm of oral tradition), and the loss of meaningful networks which equate writing with healing ceremonies. Like all poetical texts, Ceremony challenges easy solutions. Those texts need transformation rather than stereotyped equivalences. To translate them is to listen to the text and its resonances, to its signifiance rather than concentrate on its superficial narrative meaning. Translators will then be able to draw on that intimate memory of the text to rewrite it in an act of sharing and transformation, not a move of appropriation. Narratives of memory ask for translation more than anything else as transformation and circulation are their essence. Like the Indian stories they have “a life of their own” (Arnold 2000, 72) whose natural development is translation. Translators are similar to Betonie, the modern healer. “But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies [. . .] things which don’t shift and grow are dead things” (Silko 1977, 126). Translators, as life-givers of those narratives, have the responsibility of choosing carefully and creatively so that reading the translated text will be a renewed ceremony that revives the power of the original and transmits its memory. References Allen, Paula Gunn, ed. 1996. Song of the Turtle: American Indian literature, 1974–1994. New York: Ballantine Books. Arnold, Ellen L., ed. 2000. Conversations with Leslie Marmon Silko. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Berman, Antoine. 1985. Les Tours de Babel: Essais sur la traduction. Mauvezin: Trans-Europ-Repress. Berry, Christina. 2013. “What’s in a Name? Indians and Political Correctness.” All Things Cherokee website. Accessed November 20, 2013: http://www.allthingscherokee.com/articles_culture_events_070101.html. Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bruchac, Joseph, ed. 1994. Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers’ Festival. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1968. Différence et répétition. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Harjo, Joy, and Gloria Bird, eds. 1997. Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America. New York: W. W. Norton. Lepage, Pierre. 2008. “Le Clézio et l’oubli de l’Afrique.” Le Monde des Livres, September 9. Accessed November 20, 2013. http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2008/10/09/le-clezio-et-l-oubli-de- l-afrique_1105152_3260.html. Means, Russell. 1996. “I am an Indian American, not a Native American!” Accessed November 20, 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20010208120908/http://www.peaknet.net/~ aardvark/means.html. Meschonnic, Henri. 1999. Poétique du traduire. Lagrasse: Verdier. Momaday, N. Scott. [1968] 2010. House Made of Dawn. New York: HarperCollins. Nelson, Robert M. 1993. Place and Vision: The Function of Landscape in Native American Fiction. New York: Peter Lang. ———. 2001. “Rewriting Ethnography: the Embedded Texts in Leslie Silko’s Ceremony.” In Telling the Stories: Essays on American Indian Literatures and Cultures, edited by Elizabeth Hoffman Nelson and Malcolm Nelson, 47–58. New York: Peter Lang. PDF available at https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~rnelson/ethnography.html Parker, Robert Dale. 2003. The Invention of Native American Fiction. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Silko, Leslie Marmon. 1977. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books. ———. 1992. Cérémonie. Translated by Michel Valmary. Paris: Albin Michel. ———. 1997. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today. New York: Simon & Schuster. Welch, James. [1979] 2008. The Death of Jim Loney. London: Penguin Classics. Wright, Anne, ed. 1986. The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright. Saint Paul MN: Graywolf. is senior lecturer in Translation Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris 3. Her research concentrates on the interaction between form and meaning, on the translation of the voice, and the syntactic organization as well as normalizing effect at play in the translation process. She has either edited or coedited Palimpsestes 18 (Traduire l’intertextualité, 2006), Palimpsestes 24 (Le réel en traduction: greffage, traces, mémoire, 2011), and Translating the Voices of Theory (2015). She is also interested in intersemiotic forms of translation and Native American voices.

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Abstract: Over the course of the last five years my research has led me to conclude that the literary representation of a trauma is not the immediate step after the historical event and that there are other, intervening layers in between. First is the occurrence of the historical event. What then follows is the translation of that event in the minds of the survivors—that is, in their memory and interpretation of the event. Then, memory becomes the subject of oral history. This oral history enters the minds of the writers of memoir and fiction, where it becomes a literary translation. Finally, the filmmaker, if such a story makes it to this step, translates the text in order to render her interpretation of it as film. If we acknowledge that translation involves interpretation, then what exists here are different layers of translation. The aim of the paper is to analyze the different effects that each medium (literature, translation, cinema) may have on the experience of its readers and audience—what that medium is trying to cultivate, the limitations of each, and how all of them in different ways bring greater attention to the historical phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide. Introduction Thinking about the contribution of literature to raising awareness about the Armenian Genocide, I have asked myself whether literature is the immediate step after the historical event. My research has led me to think that it is not. In this paper, I will propose the following schema to chart the development in Genocide awareness from the historical event to its interpretation within an act of artistic representation. First is the occurrence of the historical event. What then follows is the translation of that even in the minds of the survivors—that is, in their memory and interpretation of the event. Memory then becomes the subject of oral history, and this oral history enters the minds of the writers of memoir and fiction, where it becomes a literary translation. Finally, the filmmaker, if such a story makes it to this step, translates the text in order to render his or her interpretation of it as film. In effect, we have here different layers of translation upon translation—to use memoirist Günter Grass’s term, with this theory we are “peeling the onion” (Grass 2008). With a focus on the renowned Italian–Armenian novelist Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narrative La masseria delle allodole (2004; English translation Skylark Farm, Arslan 2006), I’ll first discuss the literary genre as an instrument that brings greater attention to the historical memory of the Armenian Genocide. Then the power of translation related to the Genocide as an instrument of cultural, historical, and linguistic interaction will be both explored and problematized. For example, why has this particular book been chosen for translation into sixteen languages?1 In what ways have these translations contributed to the awareness of the Genocide in their given countries? Exploring the impacts these translations have had in their given countries, there will also be an examination of readers’ reactions following their respective publications in various languages by presenting interviews with some of the translators. Finally, I will focus on the theme of the Armenian Genocide in cinema and will deal with the dramatized version of the Genocide narrative La masseria delle allodole by the Italian directors the Taviani brothers (Taviani and Taviani 2007).2 The Armenian Genocide in Literature In every trauma, in every situation, there are always at least two sides, two prevalent stories, and the power dynamics are strong. On the one hand, the side that “successfully” commits Genocide usually determines the way its history is written (or not written), as is the case of the Armenian Genocide, which is varied and has been contested for many years. Then there is the side of the 1 So far, the book has been translated into Dutch, English (four editions), Eastern Armenian (two editions), Finnish, French, German (two editions), Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Western Armenian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish. 2 The present study springs directly from my experience in translating Armenian Genocide narratives and from the outcomes of the course I taught at California State University, Fresno— Armenian Genocide and Translation while being the 10th Henry S. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at CSUF. people who have suffered the overwhelming trauma. This side, especially when silenced by the perpetrator, attempts to record any history of the event, albeit painful, and often, as we look over these testimonies, it is clear that any proper investigation or analysis of this traumatic event should be undertaken by someone with psychoanalytic and linguistic skills. One of the consequences of the Armenian Genocide was the dispersal of those who survived into a global Diaspora. Traumatized and impoverished, involuntary exiles and immigrants in a new land, they struggled to survive. Part of their survival strategy was to write what they had experienced and witnessed. Survivor stories emerged painfully and with great difficulty. The obstacles were many: a fragmented, traumatized community with far too few resources. The challenges they faced included the fact that they were either forced to write in a language that few in their new lands understood or that they had to struggle to describe the indescribable in a foreign tongue. Despite all the trauma and difficulties, the immigrants decided to put pen to paper to document that which the world needs to better know and comprehend. Even though the potential audience and publishers were greatly limited, these important survivor memoirs emerged, often in isolation, in small print runs and sometimes as unpublished manuscripts. They emerged in a variety of locales and conditions that characterized the global Diaspora. These Diaspora fragments disseminate Armenian culture and seeds across differing landscapes. In so doing, the Armenian identity has evolved and become more diverse and complex and has contributed to an emerging multiculturalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The survivor memoirs provided and continue to constitute an invaluable research tool not only for researchers but also for Genocide fiction writers, who take their insights from those stories and, in thousands of literary flavors, offer the reader the historical dimension of the Armenian Genocide. It is true that it is not possible to penetrate the world of the Armenian Genocide without reading the history. However, as Rubina Peroomian asserts (Peroomian 2012, 7), documents, statistics, and data do not provide the whole story. On the other hand, the extremely important memoirs and eye witness accounts alone often cannot express the unthinkable horror of the Genocide as the blockages and psychological borders can impede the author’s revealing the whole trauma. Hence the importance of historical fiction, which, by fusing historical fact and creative writing, can provide access to a larger readership in terms of global impact. An example of this phenomenon, with a particular symbolic and powerful radiation and with a priority function of meaning, is the Italian–Armenian novelist Antonia Arslan’s Genocide novel La masseria delle allodole (Arslan 2004). Antonia Arslan, who was born and grew up in Italy and was professor of modern and contemporary Italian literature at the University of Padua, has published on Italian popular fiction and Italian women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, her most recent publications have focused on her Armenian heritage. Her first approach to her Armenian heritage was, surprisingly, through translation. With the help of two Armenians (as she doesn’t know Armenian) she has translated/edited two volumes by Daniel Varujan, one of the most significant Armenian poets of the twentieth century, into Italian: Il canto del pane (Varujan 1992) and Mari di grano (Varujan 1995).3 Here is Antonia Arslan’s testimony about her translation: Poetry functions in an immediate and unexpected way. I discovered Daniel Varujan, his strength and his grace, when reading some of his poems in Italian and the entire The Song of Bread in French, translated by Vahé Godel. So it was that I concentrated on the text of his last work, which completely fascinated me. I already had a lot of experience translating poetry—from French, English and German—but my work with Varujan was a great adventure, also because of my collaboration with two young and enthusiastic scholars, C. H. Megighian and A. H. Siraky. The Italian edition of The Song of Bread (Varujan 1992) became the seventh one, and it enjoyed much success within the Italian secondary schools. I further translated other pieces of Varujan’s poetry; I published twenty of them in the volume Seas of Wheat (Varujan 1995) and the others in magazines. I also want to remind us that he was a great poet, one of the major ones since the beginning of the 1900s, equal to no one, but less known because he wrote in a minority language. (Haroutyunian 2012a) Translating Varujan’s poetry became part of the process of 3 In 1915 at the age of thirty-one, Daniel Varujan was on the verge of becoming an internationally renowned poet but he was brutally murdered by the government of the Young Turks, like other Armenian poets such as Siamanto, Grigor Zohrab, and so on. discovery of her own Armenian identity.4 It brought her to the unknown path of her lost ancestry and the birth of her first novel, the best-seller Skylark Farm, in which, drawing on the history of her own ancestors, she tells of the attempts of the members of an Armenian family caught up in the Armenian Genocide to escape to Italy and join a relative who had been living there for forty years. This book won many prestigious awards in Italy and worldwide.5 Skylark Farm belongs to a genre that mixes autobiography and biography, history and fiction, documentary and memory. First of all, Arslan introduces her fifty-three-year- old grandfather Yerwant, an important physician living in his adopted Italian hometown of Padua in the months leading up to the Second World War. [H]is mother, Iskuhi, the little princess, died at nineteen giving birth to him. My great-grandfather then remarried an “evil stepmother,” who bore him many other children; my grandfather couldn’t stand her, and so, at the age of thirteen, he requested and was granted permission to leave the little city and go to Venice, to study at Moorat-Raphael, the boarding school for Armenian children. (Arslan 2006, 17) Yerwant never again returned home. Now, after forty years, he hopes to reunite with his brother Sempad, a successful pharmacist, who continued living in his little city in Anatolia. In 1915, Yerwant enters his fiftieth year, and he is satisfied—and alone. . . “I am now a citizen of Italy; the Ottomans can’t touch me any more,” he thinks. (Arslan 2006, 45) But World War I begins, and the ruling Young Turk party closes the border and when Italy enters the war on May 24, 1915, Yerwant’s dream vanishes. He will never be able to return to his country of origin in his red Isotta Fraschini, the doors of which were encrusted with the silver coat of arms that featured an intertwined Y and A, standing for Yerwant Arslanian. He will 4 She then went on to edit different works on the Armenian Genocide, including Hushèr: la memoria. Voci italiane di sopravvissuti armeni (Arslan, Pisanello, and Ohanian 2001); she has worked with Boghos Levon Zekiyan on the Italian version of Gérard Dédéyan’s Histoire du peuple arménien (Dédéyan 2002) and Vahakn Dadrian’s Storia del genocidio armeno (Dadrian 2003); and translated Claude Mutafian’s brief history of the Armenian genocide from the French (Mutafian 2001). 5 Arslan’s more recent publications include Il libro di Mush (2012), which is an account of the largest extant Armenian manuscript that was preserved in two halves by two separate women, each of whom took one half when escaping the city of Mush during the Armenian Genocide; Il rumore delle perle di legno (2015); and Lettera a una ragazza in Turchia (2016). never see his family again as they will be exterminated almost entirely by the Young Turks. From that moment on for Yerwant the distant Fatherland remained forever remote, and when his children got older Yerwant even changed their names. Antonia Arslan talks about a contradiction in the behavior of her grandfather: at first he did not want to deny his ancestry, and gave his children four Armenian names each—Yetward, Erwand, Armenak, and Vardan; Khayel, Anton, Aram, and Maryam—but later tried to erase their origin: “And in 1924, he will petition the Italian government to allow him to legally remove from his surname that embarrassing three- letter suffix, -ian, that exposes so plainly his Armenian origin” (Arslan 2006, 160). During the deportation, the women performed a crucial role not only by bravely making sacrifices to protect the children, but by persistently working to preserve memories of their land. These are a few stories, objects, and photographs, “relics or icons from a terrible shipwreck” (Arslan 2006, 19), and a few other items shipped from Sempad as a gift to his relatives in Italy. Thanks to this “act of memorial transmission,” the author can now see and touch objects and images belonging to her Armenian family and therefore be reunited with its indefinite past (Alù 2009, 369). Here, as readers, we are made witness to familiar historical narratives—perhaps we share similar ones, perhaps we’ve read firsthand accounts in books. But what happens when a historical event penetrates literature? First of all, the literary genre is a powerful medium that is able to bring the historical phenomenon to the attention of the masses. By reconstructing her family history in the novel, Arslan is merging both historical research and imagination culled from collective memory; she also becomes the protector of her familial memory and historical archive. Taking an input from Bella Brodzki’s idea that “[c]ulture’s necessarily overarching orientation toward the future only obtains by sharing its past” (Brodzki 2007, 113), I conducted an experiment on collective memory and testimony in an assignment I gave to my students at Fresno State. I set an assignment in which they were called to write the story of their ancestor’s survival. Most of them said to me, “I know something about my great grandparents, but I’m missing a lot of details. What should I do?” This is exactly what I was hoping for, and advised them to fill in the gaps with their imaginations and to take advantage of their parents and grandparents and ask them questions. As evidenced by Brodzki, “[t]hinking both psychoanalytically and historically also means that while we harbor the dream of plentitude, we always begin with a gap” (Brodzki 2007, 113). For their assignment, some of my students contacted their relatives living in other countries to inquire about their grandparents and, as the students shared some amazing stories in class.6 This assignment contributed to raising their personal awareness of their ancestors’ voyages towards refuge. Antonia Arslan has done the same in filling in the gaps of an unknown past. In the meantime the geography, the places, and the itineraries that she describes in her novel reveal not only significant moments of family history but also its inclusion in a determinate social space and national history (Alù 2009, 364).7 This is important because it gives the historical part to “historical fiction.” For yet another class assignment, based on the concept of Rushdie’s “translated man,” students worked together to write the names of the native cities and villages of their ancestors, as well as the places through which they passed on their long journeys of migration before arriving in the United States.8 We also included in the map the languages they had learnt along the way. This initial exercise helped the students to visualize, re-realize, and appreciate both their ancestors’ geographical passages and the students’ indelible connection to them. Further, the act of writing it on the board—taking pen in hand—implicated them as the bearers and continuers of their ancestral memories. I have always been obsessively diligent throughout my academic career to erase whatever is on the board after any given lesson. However, what 6 Some of these stories have already been published in the Hye Sharzhoom newspaper (Fresno 2013, 35/1, 2). 7 In her article, Alù refers to Anne Muxel who in her Individu et mémoire familiale explains how rediscovering familiar places and spaces can help us to recover a biographical path as well as the origin, progress, and decline of a social, individual, and collective destiny (Muxel 1996, 47). 8 In his book of essays Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie asserts that “Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained” (Rushdie 1992, 17). was created on the board that day was an interwoven tapestry of names, places, times, and languages that neither my students nor myself even dared to erase. The memory seemed at once too fresh and validated yet again. So, we decided to leave it as it was. I took a picture before the next instructor could “erase our ancestors,” preserving this image at least through another medium—if not the word, the image. We were all excited and surprised to discover that among all our ancestors, they collectively spoke sixteen languages including Armenian, English, Arabic, French, Turkish, Spanish, Vai, Pele, Fula, Russian, German, Romanian, Bulgarian, Latin, Greek, and Kurdish. In the same way, Antonia Arslan’s undertaking the mission of retelling the story continues the voyage of her ancestors. In one of her numerous public lectures Antonia said: “The idea of my past was bothering me for years, so one morning I decided to write: ‘Zio Sempad è solo una leggenda, per noi: ma una leggenda su cui abbiamo tutti pianto.’”9 This is the very first sentence of the novel, and Antonia once told me that, while many passages of the book have undergone editing, that sentence remained unchanged. What is interesting is that Antonia never mentions the name of her grandfather’s birthplace, calling it “little city.” “No one, patient reader, ever went back to the little city,” finishes Antonia Arslan in her book (Arslan 2006, 268). She does this intentionally— firstly because this is a novel and not a memoir and secondly because she doesn’t want to personify but rather render the idea more globally and not to give the reader the impression that the Armenians were persecuted in that specific place. I’d like to share the last classroom example from my California State University experience, which dealt with the question of the story’s transmission. By using their part of the genealogical tapestry I spoke of before, each student illustrated the geographic and linguistic journeys of their ancestors. I asked the students, as an extension, to report their family history to one partner in the classroom. It was then the task of the partner to re- reflect the story and report it. After a series of retellings, the students eventually had to report these stories back to the class, 9 Uncle Sempad is only a legend, for us—but a legend that has made us all cry (Arslan 2006, 17). thus directly engaging in the process of transmission and translation. Our aim was to internalize the process of a story’s transmission and to show how feelings, details, chronology, and so forth are translated as they pass from one person to another. Thus, the story, especially the oral tale, is a shared substance between interlocutors, and simply does not exist without both the teller and the listener, the writer and the reader. So when we return to consider the gravity of Arslan’s work in the telling of the Armenian Genocide from a very personal perspective, we come to the realization that, by sharing her own family history, we also become a responsible player of that story as readers. In this case, we are both called upon to consider and remember the Genocide and are also invited to enter its discourse. To consider Arslan’s work on such a global scale, then, is of tantamount importance. Through the pen of the writer Antonia Arslan, the Armenian Genocide is thus carried beyond its historical limits, slipping from the desks of historians and entering the minds and imaginations of ordinary people. Of course, when a historical event becomes literature it is enriched with new shades and colors. New heroes are born who are given names and are assigned identities. Families are born belonging to one nationality or to another who are placed in this or that social class. This is where literary fiction comes into play. And she weaves the plot. Through a love story, a common conversation in the home, or between neighbors, and through a description of a relationship between two individuals of two different nationalities (such as the Armenian and Turkish) or minorities (Armenians and Greeks), Antonia Arslan introduces the historical dimension to the story. A sentence from the prologue that was also used for the blurb on the book cover reads: My aunt always used to say: When I’ve finally had it with you, when you get too mean, I’m leaving. I’ll go stay with Arussiag in Beirut, with Uncle Zareh in Aleppo, with Philip and Mildred in Boston, with my sister Nevart in Fresno, with Ani in NY, or even with Cousin Michel in Copacabana—him last, though, because he married an Assyrian. (Arslan 2006, 5) With this sentence, the author introduces the complex phenomenon of the Armenian Diaspora created by the Armenian Genocide. When a non-Armenian reader, completely ignorant of not only the essence but also the existence of the Armenian Genocide, buys the book for its literary value, while reading this sentence, asks herself: How can a single person, Antonia’s aunt, have so many relatives around the world? The answer will come on reading the book. Before writing her Genocide narrative, Antonia Arslan consulted many history books. But the plot also came to her through saved photographs. As Daniel Sherman has it: “Sight is the only sense powerful enough to bridge the gap between those who hold a memory rooted in bodily experience and those who, lacking such experience, nonetheless seek to share the memory” (Sherman 1999, 14). Thus the picture becomes a complicated form of self- portrait that reveals the ego of the writer that is necessarily relational and at the same time fragmentary. Similarly, descriptions of group photographs in Skylark Farm are used by Antonia Arslan to recover the bonds with her dispersed Armenian relatives (Alù 2009, 373): Arussiag, Henriette, and Nubar, two girls and a little boy dressed as a girl. Along with Nevart they are the numb survivors who will, after escaping Aleppo, come to the West. These children now look out at me from a snapshot taken in Aleppo in 1916, one year after their rescue, just before they embarked for Italy: their grave, childish eyes are turned mysteriously inward, opaque and glacial, having accepted—after too many unanswered questions—the blind selection that has allowed them to survive. They are wearing decent orphan clothes, but they seem dressed in uniforms of rags, and at a quick glance the eye sees prison stripes. Their dark Eastern eyes, with their thick brows tracing a single line across their foreheads, repeat four times, wordlessly, the fear of a future that will be inexorable and the hidden nucleus of a secret guilt. (Arslan 2006, 23) Transforming and translating the protagonists of the pictures into the characters of the book, Antonia is linking herself through a bridge towards her ancestors: But it will be Zareh the skeptic, the European, who will save the family legacy, the children, and the photographs: the four little malnourished bodies curled together like dying birds, their small skulls all eyes, and the precious packet of family portraits, sewn up along with Gregory of Narek’s prayer book inside a velvet rag and passed from hand to hand from the dying to the survivors. Parched, dried skeletons—memorials of a life that had been cordial and boisterous, with plenty of water, plenty of hospitality and mirth. (Arslan 2006, 29) These images, along with a few objects protected by the women during the massacre and deportation, become relics of which the author becomes the possessor through the acts of postmemory. In addition, the images included or only described in Skylark Farm, along with the text, are the subject of memory and commemoration as well as collective pain, the lieux de mémoire that stop time, block forgetfulness, immortalize death and materialize the immaterial (Alù 2009; Nora 1989). In her 2007 book Can These Bones Live, Bella Brodzki directs her attention to processes of intergenerational transmission, conceived as acts of translation, to how the value of memory or remembrance as an instrument of historical consciousness is inscribed in a culture [. . .] What connects and divides two generations and their respective cultural narratives, where are the borderlines of a life and text, what are the ways in which processes of translation perform as well as disrupt the work of cultural memory? (Brodzki 2007, 111– 112). In the case of Antonia Arslan, the intergenerational transmission took place through her beloved grandfather who entrusted her with the task of retelling his trauma and memories for a country that no longer exists, for the columns of deportees, for a family dying beneath a poisonous sun, for the unmarked graves along the dusty roads and paths of Anatolia; and for everything that disappeared with them, everything alive and fragrant, exhausted and joyous, painful and consoling: the country’s soul. (Arslan 2006, 40) The Armenian Genocide in Translation When we talk about Genocide and translation in a global sense, we inevitably enter a discourse about memory. Let’s think for a moment of the psychological state of the trauma victim: they are pained, they block things out, sometimes repress the memories that are too painful. The Armenian Genocide survivors’ silence was also due to the fact that they were over-protective of their children considering them a representation of survival and treating them as substitutes for the relatives who perished and communities that had been wiped out. Thus with the aim to ensure their protection, the parents often refused to share the trauma with the second generation.10 Genocide trauma is translated by the very person who experienced it by the memory they retain of the event. What about when a trauma is translated into artistic literature? Are we obliged to then preoccupy ourselves with less important “factual” matters—was it really fifty days that the woman walked through the desert, or thirty? Historical fiction is a genre that fuses a historical fact with creative writing. Thus, as a fiction, we are ultimately obliged as readers to be less preoccupied with the precision of less important facts, but rather occupy ourselves with the rendering of feeling and narrative form within a historical space. And it is in this moment of not being preoccupied with the fact or fiction of memoir, biography, or a historical text that we are able to immerse ourselves in the heart of the matter. How do we feel about this situation? How can we relate to it? How do we interpret it ourselves? Certainly a lot of truth also comes out through creative writing and not only through memoir or biography or other forms of factual writing where the blockages and psychological borders stop the author from revealing the whole trauma. *** Every book has its birth story, and analogously every 10 While exploring the impact of World War II on the second-generation Armenian–American identity, Aftandilian (2009) noticed that the war brought the memory of the Armenian Genocide to the forefront within Armenian–American families, as survivors of the Genocide had to send their sons off to war. Aftandilian interviewed World War II Armenian–American veterans and found that the topic of returning home was more emotional than the topic of their combat experience. His research on the children of survivors found that many children were named after the murdered relatives. These children felt special, because an obligation was placed on them, directly or indirectly, to bear the hopes and aspirations of the survivors not only for the family, but also for the Armenian people as a whole. One of my students at California State University, A. Pilavian, wrote in her final paper: “I never really knew the details about how my family began or how much they sacrificed to live a better life. I used to get angry with my family when they wouldn’t tell me things that I wanted to know from their past experiences. What I came to realize is that when people don’t speak of something tragic that has happened in their life, it actually eats at them more. The reason they feel that it’s better to keep quiet is so that they don’t disrupt the peace in their life that they finally have now.” translation has its birth story. Most of the translations of Antonia Arslan’s Skylark Farm have been executed according to the standard ways when a publisher decides to commission a book’s translation. However, there is something immediately striking about the book’s Hungarian edition. The Hungarian translation was published in Romania, and not in Hungary (Arslan 2008). Here is the explanation given by the book dealer Kinga Kali: As you perhaps know Hungary still does not recognize the Armenian Genocide—and there is not much knowledge about it in the Hungarian book publishing. The publishers I contacted simply did not respond to my proposal—to publish the Hungarian translation of Skylark Farm. I had the idea to go to Mentor, a Hungarian publishing house in Transylvania, Romania. I also offered a complete plan for advertising the book in Hungary. They accepted the proposal. Mentor publishers in Romania took all the risks in dealing with a theme intentionally kept from public view in Hungary. This is why Antonia was able to go and give her book tour in both Hungary and Romania. The circulation of Antonia’s Genocide novel, thanks to its Hungarian translation, among common Hungarians is extremely important because Hungary has yet to recognize the Armenian Genocide.11 After the publication of Skylark Farm in Romania, the book dealer together with the publishing house managed to organize several book presentations in Budapest and in a few Transylvanian towns in Romania with a Hungarian majority. While I was in Budapest for a conference, I met the dealer and asked her about the impact of the translation and its contribution to raising awareness in Hungary. She replied that The majority of the people I gave the book [to] as a present and [who] 11 Hungary was the country where, in 2004, Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant of the Azerbaijani army, used an axe to hack the twenty-six-year-old Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan to death in his sleep. Both were participating in an English language training course within the framework of the NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace initiative in Budapest. Ramil Safarov was imprisoned in Budapest for the murder until he was extradited to Azerbaijan in 2012. To the shock of many, Azerbaijan promoted him and made a hero of the murderer. In reaction, Armenia formally suspended ties with Hungary. shared it with their friends said that by reading it for the first time, they were able to understand what the Armenian Genocide meant. They usually had knowledge about the Jewish Holocaust, but not about the Armenian one—at least, the younger generation did not know anything about it. The mother of a friend of mine was revolted, and cried, “why are people in Hungary not informed about all of this, and why is this not included in the history classes at the school?” Here we see a Hungarian girl dreaming of bringing knowledge to her people about the historical event of the Armenian Genocide, by translating the Genocide narrative Skylark Farm: When I met Antonia Arslan in 2004 during her book presentation, I decided to let my Hungarian nation learn about this book, and my dream came true within four years. In June 2008, the book was released and presented for the very first time at the Budapest Book Fest. Narrative and translation therefore once more prove themselves valid tools in the raising of awareness about the historical event. Later I had the chance to contact Kinga Júlia Király, the Hungarian translator of the novel. Antonia Arslan’s Skylark Farm was the most shocking translation I’ve ever made, she said. When I got the book from Italy and I started reading it for the first time, I couldn’t even imagine that such a horrible national destiny does exist. After reading one fourth of the novel I had to buy a new armchair, which I still call my “Skylarkfarmchair”: I needed a new position, a new posture for my body in order not to be absorbed by the novel, not to read as a whatsoever fiction, but keep my awareness till the end of it. As I have Armenian origins, too, since my family came to Transylvania in the seventeenth century, the novel had awakened in me, somewhere deep inside, a never felt receptivity toward suffering and misery. And I struggled for good amidst with my shamefacedness which [incapacitated] me in my translation. How should I translate those terrifying events, bring the best close to the reader, what Sempad’s family had endured? How should I repaint the “Armenian blood- flowers” on the walls (Arslan 2006, 118)? Am I allowed to do such things? Is this reasserting, recommitting a Genocide? It was much more than [a] matter of ethics or aesthetics. More than literature, as well. I still remember the deep impact which Nevart’s death in the thunderbolt made on me (Arslan 2006, 175). When I had to read a sequence from the book for the first time in front of an audience, I [chose] Nevart’s death. But I could not do it. I felt such discomposure, such sorrow, such mourning, that I started to cry. That was too much for me as translating is an intimate act while sharing Genocide, in fact, [. . .] is a reaction. I owe this translation a brand new life, since I became wide open for suffering. Skylark farm – in a sacred sense – had made my life. Further, I also interviewed Hillary Creek, who translated into English a section of Antonia Arslan’s second novel A Road to Smyrna, which has now been entirely translated into Armenian (Arslan 2012): I am a historian (economic and social), she said, with a special interest in the Middle East from 1890 on, as my research has in some part been on petroleum politics in the area. As a social historian I am obviously interested in the life of ordinary people and find a rich source in the literature, drama, art, and music of the period. I researched [the] bare facts, chronological history of the time, movements, and main characters, before starting translating. But I was born into postwar London when the city was in large part rubble, rationing didn’t stop till I was six. The war was still very close, my mother (a teacher) had spent the Blitz finding and taking care of young kids who escaped from evacuations and returned to find nothing. So I had her memories. Then I have many friends who have had to flee from political persecutions and I have long been interested and involved in human rights questions. So if anything it was not one event, but rather a combination of first, second and third hand tales and memories that were my points of reference. Now, some of my personal thoughts about the Genocide novel as an Armenian experience and the Armenian translator of Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narratives. In 2004, when I read Skylark Farm all in one sitting, I could not imagine that three years later I would have the honor of being the Armenian translator of this best-seller. It all began in the fall of 2005, when a Festival of Friendship between Armenia and Italy was organized in Yerevan and there were many events held both on academic (conferences, round tables) and popular (Italian opera or cinema evenings) topics. At that time I was in Armenia participating in a conference at the Academy of Sciences with a paper on Dante’s Armenian translations (Haroutyunian 2006, 2012b). Of course, among the events, I could not miss the presentation of Skylark Farm, which had just been published in Italy and was already proving to be very successful. At the event, the author and the directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani were supposed to be there to present the book and forthcoming film. Antonia suggested that I translate the three most moving episodes of the book so they could be read at the presentation. It was after this that Antonia asked me about going forward with the translation. But the deadlines were very precise. The Armenian translation had to be ready for the release of the film by the Taviani Brothers. There was very little time, and the responsibility was huge. The heroes of the story were talking to me, just as Antonia says in her acknowledgments: I must first thank those who spoke to me: Sempad and Shushanig, Ismene and Isaac, Nazim the beggar, and Yerwant, with his neat Pirandello goatee. And then Azniv and Veron, the great aunts I never knew; funny, tiny Henriette, who spoiled me; Zareh and Rupen, my legendary great uncles. I thank my audacious, whimsical mother, who raised me unleniently; Khayel, my serious, sly father, who worried about everything; my uncle Yetwart, and my cousins Yerwant, Ermanno, and Teresa; my little brother Carlo . . . (Arslan 2006, 271) I was too emotionally involved in the story. I was feeling a kind of duty to make their story available to Armenians. I often skipped lunch. I was so immersed in the book and its characters that I was almost ashamed to take a break to eat while they were walking along the dusty roads of Anatolia, hungry and exhausted, destroyed by deportation. It seemed that they were beckoning me to tell their story because they desperately wanted to be heard. When I go to the episode that tells of the horrific massacre at the Farm, I was completely blocked as it was too hard to switch off emotionally and think about the word order of the sentence or make a choice of adjectives when the plot was describing the murder of the little boys in front of their mother: Garo lies placidly with his handsome smile, holding his little hands over his open belly. Leslie, scurrying on all fours, tries to hide beneath the sideboard sparkling with crystal, but he’s dragged out by his feet and flung against the wall, where his small round head smashes like a ripe coconut, spraying blood and brain across the delicate floral design. Thus are flowers born from the blood of the Armenian Calvary. (Arslan 2006, 118) After a while, emotionally drained, I decided to skip those passages and return to them once I’d completed the book. I finally managed to keep my promise, finishing the book before the screening of the film, which took place July 10, 2007, at the opening of the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan (Arslan 2007). In the translation I have maintained the foreign expressions in Turkish, French, and English used by the author in the Italian text, because it was worth reviving those expressive nuances in Armenian, especially taking into account that these terms not only precisely characterized the cultural environment of that generation during the Genocide, but were also a part of the characters’ everyday lives. So I precisely preserved foreign words in transliteration, inserting notes to facilitate comprehension and reading. From Text to Reel: Cinematic Translation of Arslan’s Skylark Farm to the Taviani brothers’ film The Lark Farm There is always the matter of fidelity of the film to the novel, generally expressed as a function of adequacy and acceptability, whereby the former is more or less what we mean by equivalence, and the latter is more or less what we mean by audience believability. For example, many readers usually watch movies based on the books they’ve read and end up being disappointed. Why? Because so many parts of the story are cut out. So we as readers look for mistakes and sometimes disregard whether the movie was well directed, produced, and so on. I think we should never compare them, but rather consider them separately. When a book is translated into a movie, questions inevitably arise. One of the first is to ask about the film genre (documentary, drama, historical narrative, etc.) that the filmmaker has chosen since each film genre creates a different kind of viewing experience for the audience. The famous Italian film directors and screenwriters the Taviani brothers’ Lark Farm is based on a historical novel, so the goal is to awaken curiosity, interest, even engagement in a historical event; the limitations and strengths of a film translation are evident in the selection of passages from the novel, the filmic treatment of those passages, the omission of passages, and so on. The Taviani brothers announced right away that the film would be “liberally” based on Skylark Farm—that is, the plot would be relatively the same but the directors had the right to change things or make additions, and in fact they editorialized and accessorized the film and inserted fictional material in the movie such as love interests and so on. This is quite normal because, even if it originates in a novel, the filmmaker translates her or his perception/translation of the fiction into film. This reflection leads into the relationship of the source (novel) and the target (film) and opens up such questions as what other source modeling material is evident in the film. In fact, the Tavianis have not only cut episodes from the novel but they have also added some. There is an episode in the film that recalls a passage from another Genocide narrative by Alice Tachdjian, Pietre sul cuore (Stones on the heart), published in Italy in 2003. In the book there is a scene where two women are forced to dispose of the child by suffocating him between them as they sit back to back (Tachdjian 2003): We were terrorized by the Turks’ cruelty, writes Tachdjian in her memoir. We understood that they were trying to annihilate us all, but before they found joy in killing the children in front of their mothers, who were going mad throwing themselves from the cliffs. The Turks were opening the wombs of pregnant women with yatağan, they were stabbing children and then drowning [them] in the rivers. They even took [the] clothes from the dead, to resell them afterwards. [. . .] Our two-month-old baby was crying because he was hungry, there was no milk in Hripsimé’s breasts, the grass that she ate on the streets caused terrible stomachache for the child. However the poor creature [was] destined to die of hunger, diarrhea, or by the sword. To avoid being discovered by his cries, our mother and sister suffocated the baby in the middle of their backs, one against the other, without looking at him. He [was] extinguished like a candle . . .12 When the Taviani brothers asked Antonia Arslan to dramatize Skylark Farm, there was also much interest from 12 Tachdjian’s book hasn’t been translated into English yet. We translated this piece of a memoir as a class assignment during my Armenian Genocide course at Fresno State as I wanted my students to experience what Genocide translation meant. Since the memoir was in Italian, the process of translation took place with me providing the initial translation into English, and then working collectively with the students. Hollywood in acquiring the movie rights. But Arslan was aware that in the past the several attempts to produce a Hollywood film about the Armenian Genocide were blocked. She knew that prominent directors and actors throughout the decades had attempted to produce a film based on Franz Werfel’s novel Forty Days of Musa Dagh, but without success.13 Antonia Arslan therefore agreed to the Taviani brothers’ suggestion. The film is a Spanish coproduction and the Spanish actress Paz Vega is a central character in the movie. Even the Spanish translation of the movie Skylark Farm is entitled El Destino di Nunik as she interprets Nunik’s role.14 In fact when the film had just come out some Armenians were concerned by the fact that the filmmaker had inserted a double love story for Nunik with two Turkish officers played by two actors, the Italian actor Alessandro Preziosi and the German Moritz Bleibtreu. In her novel Antonia has only one love story. A change I dislike in the film is Nunik’s second romance with a Turkish soldier, one who is helping lead a caravan of Armenian women to their death in Syria, wrote one of my students at California State University Fresno in his final paper. I feel like Nunik must have a very deep case of Stockholm Syndrome, as she seems to only fall in love with Turkish soldiers. Besides catering to fans of romance movies I can’t understand why this change was made. It almost seems to pander to a Turkish audience by showing a sympathetic Turkish participant in the Genocide, who we’re meant to feel sorry for because he doesn’t really want to be there. Was he added to make any Turk watching feel less guilty? Obviously, the Turkish audience for this movie would be small if not nonexistent, so the addition of this character is puzzling. The two characters are both serving the same purpose as a sympathetic perpetrator and love interest, so it would make a lot more sense to merge them together, from a storytelling perspective. As it is the second Turkish soldier is redundant at best, and raises a lot of unfortunate implications.15 During the “film vs novel” discussion with cinema critic Dr. Artsvi Bakhchinyan from Armenia, he confessed: 13 According to Variety magazine, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh has become “the most on- again and off-again motion picture production in Hollywood history” (Torosyan 2012). 14 This character is Azniv in the book, and unlike the film is not a central character in the volume. 15 An excerpt from the final paper by Suren Oganessian. Like from any artistic display of the Armenian Genocide, Armenians had great expectations from the Tavianis’ film, and as a general rule these expectations were unjustified. Of course, we should be grateful to the great masters of cinema for being able to bring the pain of our people to the public at large, which was not sufficiently informed of the history of this tragedy. However, in my humble opinion as a film critic, the extremely classical shape, style, and language in which the story was presented was at least half a century late. The same cannot be said about the book. The presented motivations for the film as a tragedy remain almost undiscovered. According to the film, one perceives the false notion that those motivations were purely economic. From historical and psychological points of view, the behavior of the main heroine of the film is not characteristic of an Armenian woman at the beginning of the twentieth century and gives the wrong idea that the Armenian women, like Nunik, were throwing themselves into the arms of the Turks. In fact, the opposite occurred. The fictional part of the film suffers due to the dialogues that are not characteristic of everyday home speech. Perhaps the film’s small budget caused some “artistisms” inappropriate to present-day cinematography (for example, in the deportation scene, the clothes the deportees are wearing are not convincing). From my perspective, the film works especially well for an audience with little or no knowledge about the Armenian Genocide. By contrast, Armenians, more aware of the Genocide, have more mixed sensations, either of gratitude towards the filmmakers or of disappointment due to the dubious accuracy of some aspects, as we saw above. A completely unaware person however would begin to learn about the historical phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide. The filmmakers managed to put together an excellent cast. They stated in one of their interviews that the actors were not only involved professionally but also emotionally. According to the directors, after watching the whole film for the first time the Turkish-born Greek–Jewish actor Tchéky Karyo burst into tears and when he calmed down he said that he had not only watched the tragedy that they had played, but he had also seen his Jewish uncle and grandfather. So in the imagination of the actor Karyo the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust all of a sudden were superimposed.16 16 Il genocidio dimenticato: intervista ai Fratelli Taviani [Parte 1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pnyzq4kROA. When we ask about the effect of a film, we are dealing with the rhetorical and artistic purposes of the film—that is, we are probing into the film’s skopos or purpose with regard to the audience. A novel would have similar artistic and rhetorical purposes, but executed along different lines since the experience of reading a novel is stretched out over several hours if not days while the experience of viewing a film is usually contained in under two hours. And this is a very important point as movies usually reach an even larger audience, and sometimes viewing a massacre with your own eyes might prove more powerful than reading about it. The grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of film create meaning in their own right but also invite the viewers to make meaning out of the viewing experience. Film has the potential to be an excellent tool in raising awareness about a historical event in less than two hours to an audience of hundreds of thousands.17 When in 2006 the Taviani brothers were shooting the film, their intention was to raise awareness about the Armenian Genocide and show the world the need to stop such crimes against humanity from reoccurring. Their desire also was to see their movie circulating in the schools. Today their goal has been fulfilled as the film is shown in many Italian schools mainly to eighth-graders who are learning about World War I and students doing their last year of high school. This film has two major advantages: it stimulates reflection on a story known only by a few, in part because few film makers have brought this Genocide onto the screens before. Secondly, this film shows that good and evil are not at all on one side or the other. Conclusion In his Les Lieux de Mémoire, Nora asserts that In fact, memory has never known more than two forms of legitimacy: historical and literary. These have run parallel to each other but until now always separately. At present, the boundary between the two is blurring; following closely upon the successive deaths of memory–history and memory–fiction, a new kind of history has been born, which owes its 17For audiovisual translation, among others see Zatlin 2005; Díaz-Cintas 2009; Cronin 2009; and the collection of essays by Agost, Orero, and di Giovanni 2012. prestige and legitimacy to the new relation it maintains to the past [. . .] History has become the deep reference of a period that has been wrenched from its depths, a realistic novel in a period in which there are no real novels. Memory has been promoted to the center of history: such is the spectacular bereavement of literature. (Nora 1989, 24) In the novel, by reconstructing her family history Arslan is merging both historical research and the imagination from a collective memory. Historical research and imagination that have both been brought together by a collective memory are very important even independently, and the merging of them all is quite fascinating, especially with regards to the collective. And the consequence of the novel is a sort of catharsis for Arslan and her family as she becomes both receptacle and protector. Here we can also call into question the very genre of art and literature, depending on the author’s intention. For example, “art for art’s sake” or art for a social cause, or testimony for catharsis. Literature and testimony are different, and then there is the literature of testimony, which is another genre altogether. Why is the “literature of testimony” an actual genre? And, further, even if it is not exactly Arslan’s testimony but a retelling of a retelling, Arslan’s text is a literature of testimony. Collecting personal and public memories affords coherence and integrity to interrupted stories that have been fragmented or compromised by loss, dislocation, and division. In our case, the journey into Arslan’s family’s past transcends the silence and fills the gaps in a personal history. Family history, personal history, and national history are, in fact, interrelated and at times one. Finally, in Skylark Farm, through the research of original documents and acts of postmemory, the author unites her present to the lost world of her family, and in this way strengthens her roots and anchors her identity. With the memory what is past returns to be actual. The memory is not only an act of remembering, but it can become a living entity, can become a vibrant emotion. Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narrative with its thirty-six reprints in Italy alone, where the Armenian community only has 2,000 members, has sold over 500,000 copies to an Italian readership for the most part previously unaware of the Armenian Genocide. However, it is through the power of translation into fifteen languages that Skylark Farm has surpassed the borders of Italy, taking the knowledge of the Armenian Genocide throughout the globe and thereby contributing to its “afterlife”—to use the word of Walter Benjamin (Benjamin 1999)—as well as its cinematic rendering to a global audience. References Aftandilian, Gregory (2009), “World War II as an Enhancer of Armenian- American Second Generation Identity,” JSAS 18:2, 33–54. Agost, Rosa, Pilar Orero, and Elena di Giovanni. 2012. Multidisciplinarity in Audiovisual Translation. Alicante: University of Alicante Press. 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Edited by Gérard Dédéyan. Toulouse: Éditions Privat, 1982. Díaz-Cintas, Jorge. (2009). New Trends in Audiovisual Translation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Grass, Günter. 2008. Peeling the Onion. Translated by Michael Henry Heim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Haroutyunian, Sona. 2006. “La Commedia dantesca in armeno.” In IX Rassegna armenisti italiani, 20–26. Venice: Padus-Araxes. Accessed February 16, 2017. PDF available at http://www.24grammata.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/Armenisti-Italiani-24grammata.com_.pdf. ———. 2012a. “Interview with world famous novelist Antonia Arslan.” PDF available at book platform: your gateway to book culture in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. Accessed February 16, 2017. http://www.bookplatform.org/images/activities/417/docs/interviewantoniaar slanen.pdf. ———. 2012b. “‘The Homer of Modern Times’: The Reception and Translation of Dante in the Armenian World.” In Like doves summoned by desire: Dante’s New Life in 20th Century Literature and Cinema. Essays in memory of Amilcare Iannucci, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Gianluca Rizzo, 89–109. New York: Agincourt Press. Accessed February 16, 2017. https://www.academia.edu/18710985/_The_Homer_of_Modern_Times_the _Reception_and_Translation_of_Dante_in_the_Armenian_World. Nora, Pierre. 1989. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations (26), special issue Memory and Counter-Memory, 7–24. doi:10.2307/2928520. Muxel, Anne. 1996. Individu et mémoire familiale. Paris: Nathan. Mutafian, Claude. 2001. Metz Yeghérn: Breve storia del genocidio degli armeni. Translated and edited by Antonia Arslan. Milan: Guerini e Associati. Peroomian, Rubina. 2012. The Armenian Genocide in Literature: Perceptions of Those Who Lived through the Years of Calamity. Yerevan: The Armenian Genocide Museum–Institute. Rushdie, Salman. 1992. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. London: Vintage Books. Sherman, Daniel J. 1999. The Construction of Memory in Interwar France. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Tachdjian, Alice. 2003. Pietre sul cuore. Milan: Sperling & Kupfer Editori. Taviani, Paolo, and Vittorio Taviani, directors. 2007. La masseria delle allodole. Released in English as The Lark Farm (2007). Ager 3, France 2 cinéma, Flach Film et al. Torosyan, Lilly. 2012. “New Documentary on ‘The Forty Days of Musa Dagh’ and Hollywood.” The Armenian Weekly, October 5. Accessed February 16, 2017. www.armenianweekly.com/2012/10/05/new-documentary-on-the- forty-days-of-musa-dagh-and-hollywood/. Varujan, Daniel. 1992. Il canto del pane. Translated by Antonia Arslan. Milan: Guerrini e Associati. ———. 1995. Mari di grano e altre poesie armene. Translated by Antonia Arslan. Paoline. Zatlin, Phyllis. 2005. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. teaches Armenian language and literature at the Università degli Studi di Venezia—Ca’ Foscari (Venice, Italy). She received her first PhD in philology and translation (Yerevan State University) and her second in linguistics (Università degli Studi di Venezia—Ca’ Foscari). She has been visiting professor at the Nida School of Translation Studies, Yerevan State University, California State University Fresno, and City University of New York. She has authored many scholarly papers and translated books, including Antonia Arslan’s bestsellers. In her recent monograph The Theme of the Armenian Genocide in the Italian Literature she metaphorically analyses Genocide literature as “translation of trauma.”

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Siri Nergaard: Marianne, I would like to start by asking you to introduce yourself, to tell us how you started to work on memory, and how you developed the idea of postmemory. Marianne Hirsch: I was very late coming to questions of memory. I really started to think about it in the late 1980s which was, I guess, the beginning of Memory Studies and Holocaust Studies, when it became a field of inquiry. But actually, thinking back, my Master’s thesis in 1970 was already on memory. It was a thesis in Comparative Literature and it was on Nabokov’s Lolita and Musil’s novella Tonka, and it was, in each case, about the protagonist’s memory of a lost love. So it is in some ways an old topic, and also a much newer and different one, though it did not concern me for a very long time, because I was actually interested in the new. The new novel, the new wave, postmodernism and the beginnings of second-wave feminism, and the issue about how to remake the world: the past was very far from my consciousness for over a decade. If someone had told me in the ’70s that I would be working on memory, and particularly my family history and the history of my parents during the Second World War, I would have said, “who’s interested in that?” and “why would I be interested in that?” When I did come to the study of memory, I think that it was actually through my work in feminism which was very much about analyzing, contesting, critiquing the ethos of family, of traditional family structures. I wrote a book on mothers and daughters in literature that then led me to genealogies: the story of genealogies that of course also leads to memory. This trajectory is not just about my own formation, it’s really about my generation where actually, strangely, a number of people working in feminism and women’s literature and feminist theory ended up working on issues of memory. I see a lot of threads of continuity between these fields and how we all suddenly, it seemed, moved from one interest to another. Not that we left behind the questions of gender. On the contrary, they’re still infused in the work. It’s a work that has a similar commitment to tell untold stories, to ensure that stories of suffering and catastrophe aren’t forgotten—those kinds of commitments. So, this is how I see the relationship. Cristina Demaria: I have a very similar itinerary. This is also how I started moving toward memory. Marianne Hirsch: . . . How do you explain the continuities? Cristina Demaria: . . . In a very similar way to the one you said: to give voice to untold stories, or narratives that can be told differently. And as you said before, in the 1970s the tendency of critical theory was oriented towards the new and the future. Nowadays memory is often seen in connection to the future; memory of course is written in the present to rewrite the past, but also for a future. So, the very role of memory has changed very much, but to me its connection to gender studies is still very important. I remember that the first essay I read of yours is the one on Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah and the women. Marianne Hirsch: . . . that’s really the beginning of my getting involved in that field, that was the very beginning. . . Cristina Demaria: Do you agree with those who say that the concept of memory became important as a category in order to bring history and materiality back into theory? Marianne Hirsch: Yes, I agree though it may not be the only explanation. In fact, materiality and bodies didn’t really disappear: to say that deconstruction was completely antimaterial is not really true. But I think people saw it as the linguistic turn and, so, saw that not only materiality was missing but also history, in a sense. So, then we had the new historicism that was also about material objects, and memory studies kind of grew up around the same time. I think that there are many other reasons for the appeal of memory, one of them, the attractiveness of the interdisciplinarity of this field, that anthropologists, sociologists, historians, philosophers, and psychoanalysts, literary and visual culture theorists could actually work together. That didn’t really happen for me in any other context as vibrantly as around questions about memory. Siri Nergaard: And also translation studies, later on, can be, in many ways, connected to memory. Bella Brodzki, with her book has demonstrated how strongly connected these two themes are. In regards to this interdisciplinary connection I would like you to develop what you just told us about your starting your research on memory through Shoah, a film in which you noticed the absence of women, but where the women were translators. Marianne Hirsch: Exactly, Shoah shows a particular relation to the Holocaust, which was a very central site of the development of memory studies. Shoah really shows how central translation is to the whole, I mean, first of all to the experience of the Holocaust and its aftermath, and then to the representation and the study of it. Many films wouldn’t do it that way, but because Lanzmann decided to take time to show the process of translation and to foreground it, I think he points to something that’s actually very much a part of the field, which is that, a lot of people who lived through that historical moment, may not have had a primary language but lived their daily lives, at home, in the ghettos and camps, and in the aftermath, in and through translation. You asked me earlier, “what's your first language?” and I said “German,” but neither my parents nor I lived in a German- speaking country, except for one year in Vienna, so we were always minority speakers of a language that we claimed as ours, but that was actually denied us as Jews. So, it’s a very complicated relationship to a first language, but many survivors of the Holocaust, may not have had a first language at all. Many people were young and they might have grown up speaking Yiddish in school and then Polish on the street, they were deported to a camp where they learned German, and later they ended up in a DP camp in Italy, and in the end they went to Israel or the United States. When you listen to or watch their testimonies, they are most often speaking a “foreign” language. What is the status of those testimonies? In the study of memory, testimony, and witness in the first person is really important, but the witness’s relation to the language she speaks is very often mediated by the multilingualism in which she lived and lives. Siri Nergaard: Yes, and when you then have the person to whom the memory is transmitted, the generation of postmemory, further languages are involved. As you told us, you spoke German with your mother, but the language you are writing in is English, so you are really translating these memories again, for I don’t know, the third, fourth, or fifth time. Marianne Hirsch: Well, you know, it’s very complicated and, I’m always wondering, what am I doing to these stories, to their authenticity. The book that Leo Spitzer and I wrote on the community that my family grew up in, Czernowitz, Ghosts of Home, was based on a lot of interviews, a lot of readings and documents and literature as well, but a lot of interviews. We interviewed people in German, we interviewed them in English, we interviewed them in Romanian, you know, whatever they wanted to speak. But the book is in English, so most of the quotes we used had not only to be edited but also translated. We also used my father’s memoir quite extensively. He wanted to write it in English because he wanted to write it for his grandsons. His English was a language acquired very late in life, and the experiences he wrote about were in German and Romanian. So, his words are already a process of translation, of multiple translations. I think these language issues are at the core of memory studies. Siri Nergaard: There is also the time of translation in the metaphorical and literal way. Marianne Hirsch: It is time, but it’s also the mediation of the translator, especially significant if the translator is the child of the person and wants to hear certain things, then it’s more than just a professional translation, right? There’s a kind of investment that’s part of what I talk about as postmemory; the personal investments and the desires, and the curiosities of the second generation. Then, you get the parents’ words but you have to translate them; how do you trust that your investments aren’t somehow also structuring the translation? Siri Nergaard: As I see it from a translation point of view again, what you are telling here about the transmission and mediation of a memory, through language, the personal involvement by the translator, her investments, are assuming in a way what I see as the core aspects of what translation is about. In the translation of the other’s memory you can find a kind of archetype of what translation really is. Translation always implies change because of personal and cultural investments giving memory a new nature, a new identity of that memory since you have put it into another context and another language. Marianne Hirsch: Yes, I think that’s true. And then, of course, a lot of these stories are diaspora stories with memories of migration and refugeehood that are inherent as well. There, of course, you have multiple translations, cultural translations, and linguistic [translations] as well. Siri Nergaard: Could you tell us how you define and how you developed this concept that has been so helpful and fruitful for us—the concept of postmemory? Cristina Demaria: And together with that, let us include the question Bella Brodzki wanted to ask you: Have there been applications or appropriations—translations into new and different contexts—of your very generative term “postmemory” that have surprised or perhaps even enlightened you in ways you hadn’t anticipated or envisioned? Marianne Hirsch: Well, it started as a very personal need for a term, not just for me but also for a number of colleagues who met at feminist conferences in the 1980s. Informally, at lunch or breakfast we started talking about our family history and then it turned out that we had similar family histories, and similar symptoms and syndromes that came from them. It was the moment when important texts like Art Spielgeman’s Maus and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, monuments about memory were starting to come out. We realized that we are the inheritors of these histories but we hadn’t really thought about what that meant. For me it was really reading Maus and thinking about it and talking to people like Bella, who had actually gone through similar family experiences. We all felt like our parents’ memories of their youth were overshadowing our own memories of our childhoods. It was a really powerful sensation that demanded a term that was like memory but it wasn’t actually memory. So, that’s where the idea actually came from, so it was quite personal and it was rooted in this history of inherited histories. But of course this is part of a much larger story. Just yesterday, we had a discussion with the filmmaker Laurent Bécue- Renard who made the film Of Men and War, based on interviews with traumatized veterans of the Iraq War in a treatment program in California. He said that the reason he made this film, and his previous film about Bosnian widows called Tired of War, is because he felt like he needed to understand his own grandparents. His two grandfathers fought in the First World War; he never met them, but he wanted to understand how these very young men went into trench warfare, came back, started a family of which he is the product. The widows, wives, grandmothers whom he met lived with an unspoken history. As he said, “aren’t we all the inheritors of the wars of the twentieth century?” If this is postmemory, it is so in the sense not even of stories, it’s really about the affects and the behaviors and the kinds of. . . Cristina Demaria: As you said, “products.” Marianne Hirsch: . . . Yes, the products, it’s really in the DNA that we have inherited, we are all the products of that. We all live with those legacies. Laurent Bécue-Renard is trying to understand how that shapes masculinity and femininity and the culture, and how these histories are transmitted even if they’re not really told. And that really kind of subsumed what I wanted to do with that term. It was fascinating that he’s third generation and he didn’t talk about his parents in France during the Second World War, but about his grandfathers. When he was interviewing the veterans of Iraq who were, probably, twenty years younger than he is, it was as their grandson, in a sense. This is something I didn’t quite understand in the beginning—that the temporal implications [. . .] are so complex that history stops being linear and is somehow simultaneous rather than genealogical. So, something else I learned is that although I never saw postmemory as a strictly biological, biographical, or familial structure, for some the literal connections are supremely important. I saw it more as a generational structure and I think that memory is always mediated through stories, through narratives, through images, through media. Even when it’s within the family, it’s still mediated. So, I was always very insistent on that, but then people who are children or grandchildren of survivors or actors within certain histories, wanted to preserve a special place for that literal relationship. In my book on postmemory, I tried to make space for them by distinguishing between familial and affiliative postmemory. At first it surprised me that people felt very protective of that space which is a position I’m not always that sympathetic to, because it feels like identity politics to me, or some sort of authenticity that I’ve always been suspicious of. The other thing that happened in the time that I’ve been working on postmemory is that a lot of interesting work in queer theory that complicates linearity, linear histories emerged. A critique that complicates the idea of genealogy and that looks at alternative kinds of family structures. And so I felt like my work was, in some ways, already doing that, even though it looked like it was about family, it wasn’t really, it was about a contestation about a kind of traditional family structure. Those are things that surprised me because I felt like there were some conversations that I didn’t quite realize I would be in but, I ended up in. Cristina Demaria: I was thinking of this very idea of affiliation and the ways in which different forms of commemoration of post dictatorship have developed in Latin America, very much linked memory is preserved, as in the movements of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo: the bearer of a certain memory is legitimized as such through a family connection. But there is a tendency now in Argentinean Memory Studies to go towards a more affiliative idea of memory and postmemory, since the very idea of family in a Latin culture can be also very much of a problem; it can be very traditional and has been used to support the dictatorship: God, the traditional family, and the country. . . Marianne Hirsch: Well it’s fascinating in Argentina because of course, that’s where family have DNA tests actually, so that a very literal, biological definition of identity has a political impact unlike many other places. Each context has its own politics and I think that’s what’s so interesting about working transnationally as you do and as I have. It is actually, if I can say it in more metaphorical terms, the untranslatabilities between these contexts: in any other context, if you wanted to do a DNA test to find out if you’re really the daughter of this person who’s already handed down to you all of these histories, you might think that that was a kind of identity politics, but, in Argentina it’s actually really important, because the people raising you could be the perpetrators of the crimes against your biological parents. Cristina Demaria: In the same context there are different layers. This idea of limiting the “property” of memory to the biological family, and to the associations of direct victims had stopped the more affiliative and cultural ways of elaborating the past. But now it is changing. I would like to move to your work within Women Creating Change, where there are scholars but also artists and performers. How do you work together, do you translate? And what happens when you go to a place like Istanbul, as you recently did, where you confront, different cultures, a very particular past and a troubled present. . . Marianne Hirsch: The larger project is called Women Creating Change but the working group within that that some of us have started, is called Women Mobilizing Memory and it really has to do with what you said before: how can memory be mobilized for to the idea of family transmission. Think of Argentina and how change in the future? Rather than being weighted down by a past that you can never get over. The trauma paradigm that came out of this wonderfully rich theoretical work of the 1990s is very much about keeping the wounds open and understanding the unspeakability of certain crimes, the kind of crushing of the human and of language through acts of persecution and genocide and the destruction of a culture. That’s been a very powerful paradigm in the study of memory. Our thought in working more comparatively and transnationally was to look at whether the practices of memory look the same in different places. One of the key questions is how can memory become activist and how can it become more future-oriented? How can the past be transmitted, how can we make sure that certain histories aren’t forgotten… Cristina Demaria: Not just to be “preserved,” but as living memories… Marianne Hirsch: Right, and not for monumentalization in some kind of a museum, but for change. That’s where the feminist angle is coming in. To do that work, we really thought it would be interesting not just to have an interdisciplinary academic group but to work together with practictioners—artists, activists, curators, museologists. . . and to see what kind of collaboration would emerge from that. We are working together with the Hemispheric Institute on Performance and Politics: Performance Studies is already the field that takes the kind of embodied nature of memory very much into account. In those conferences, in the Encuentros of the Hemispheric Institute, we’ve had working groups in which we talked about mobilizing memory, but we also always talked about embodiment. It’s really interesting to have academic conversations in a room with artists, dancers, theater practitioners, visual artists, and scholars. Now, I think that question about embodiment and how memory functions in the body is a very different question for a dancer than it is for an academic like me who’s going to write about it. That’s also a process of translation when you think about it, it’s really understanding the multidimensionality of knowledge. When we have visual artists in the group, they’re translating our ideas into a visual work and I feel that we could use that work to think with. As literary critics we do that anyway with the texts that we read, but the multiple texts are very interesting. And, then, you have the embodied practices of memory, like the walk of the mothers on Thursdays in Buenos Aires, or the walk of the Saturday Mothers in Istanbul; similar strategies, very different kind of impact, politically different moments in the histories of these mothers–activists. These practices are a kind of performance, and its cultural impact then becomes a way through which ideas about memory and memory practices can be developed. I find these multidimensional conversations really helpful. So far, we’ve worked in a triangular structure with Chile, Turkey, and the US but people in the group may be working on other sites as well, so it’s more about the conceptual connections than just about the sites. Often we think we understand something and we really don’t. So I think, in terms of translation, one of the things we decided from the very beginning is that we should just assume that we don’t understand. We shouldn’t just assume that things can be easily translated. For example, when the group was in Chile, we went to the Museo de la Memoria, which is a museum commemorating the coup against Allende and the crimes of the dictatorship of Pinochet. The narrative of the museum starts on September 11, 1973—that is, the day of the Golpe. Where’s the background? How are people supposed to understand how this happened? Isn’t there a prehistory? To us from the US, it seemed flawed as a museological choice. But our Chilean partners responded, “here in Chile, when you talk about the background, that's the right-wing thing to do,” because the right said the reason Allende was toppled was because he was failing, and there were strikes because of his bad government. . . The progressive history starts on the day and its aftermath. This is the kind of untranslatability that I think is at the core of this kind of work which I don’t even want to call comparative work anymore, because it implies that you can compare things, so I’m trying to talk about “connective” histories; we provide the connections but often, they’re not easily connectable. We have to start with, “maybe we don't understand,” rather than walking into a situation assuming you know how it should be done, because it’s different in different contexts. Siri Nergaard: It’s very interesting what you are saying about untranslatability and that you don’t want to use the comparative concept. . . Marianne: I mean, I was in comparative literature so you can imagine it’s not so easy for me to say that. . . Siri Nergaard: I understand. I am saying this also because recently there has been a sort of shift in translation studies towards a stronger attention towards untranslatability, an aspect that has been somehow neglected. We have been so focused on translatability, and recognizing it everywhere, that we have almost forgotten that untranslatability exists. Untranslatables exist: as you said, sometimes universes are uncomparable because they are untranslatable, but we can create the connections. Marianne Hirsch: In the conference that we had in Turkey, which was about mobilizing memory for change, there was a really interesting talk by the anthropologist Leyla Nezi who interviewed Kurdish youth and Turkish young people, about the relationship between the two cultures. She said, “in these interviews, nobody meets anybody else,” because for the Turkish young people, the important moments of their lives are ahead of them, but for the Kurdish young people, the important things have already happened for them in the losses that preceded their birth. They live in the same country, but they’re not in the same time zone. I think that’s a really interesting idea of the nonmeeting. How might their lost past be turned toward the future as well? What will make these histories translatable to each other? What kinds of solidarity might be forged between them? And what can we learn from each other’s experiences of memory and activism? These are some of the questions that I’ve been thinking about and translation is at their core. Thank you for giving me a chance to think with you about this. Cristina Demaria and Siri Nergaard: Thank you very much. writes about the transmission of memories of violence across generations, combining feminist theory with memory studies in a global perspective. Her recent books include The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (2012); Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory (2010), coauthored with Leo Spitzer; and Rites of Return: Diaspora Poetics and the Politics of Memory (2011), coedited with Nancy K. Miller. Hirsch is the William Peterfield Trent Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at Columbia University. She is one of the founders of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Social Difference. She is a former President of the Modern Language Association of America and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15527

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Translation does not concern a comparison between two languages but the interpretation of two texts in two different languages. Umberto Eco (2001) Ever since we started publishing this journal I have wanted to dedicate a special issue to memory. Memory and translation are so obviously connected, yet so little studied. Memory—as the retrieval, reconstruction, inscription, and leaving of traces and their effects—plays a central role in any translation process, and translation, in its inherently transformative character, is intrinsic to every memory and memorializing act. Loss, furthering, circulation, redefinition, distancing, transmigration, rewriting are all possible aspects and effects of translation that could not take place if not for some sort of memorialization. * Since the initial planning of this special issue, my editors of choice were also clear to me. I am so grateful to the two fine scholars—and dear friends—Bella Brodzki and Cristina Demaria for having accepted to serve as guest editors for this issue. Their backgrounds and research make them a perfect duo for the present issue. Bella Brodzki’s brilliant Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory (2007) is perhaps the most important publication bringing together translation and memory, demonstrating how “excavating or unearthing burial sites or ruins in order to reconstruct traces of the physical and textual past in a new context is also a mode of translation, just as resurrecting a memory or interpreting a dream are acts of translation.” I found reading this book truly illuminating. Bringing Bella together with Cristina, who for years has studied memory from the somewhat different angle of the semiotics of culture, was a fortunate choice. Cristina’s research is in the most various expressions and testimonies of memory— from reconciliation processes in South Africa and Chile to documentaries of events and experiences of trauma. “Studying memory [as a cultural phenomenon] means considering not only the material conditions, means, or devices through which it is inscribed and transmitted, but also the models, forms, and practices that define those genres that orient, and also retranslate or reenunciate, narrations of the past” (2012, 10; my translation). * I would like to thank Bella and Cristina for their wonderful work in putting this issue together. I also want to thank the authors for their contributions, each of which provides new and diversified insights into how translation works through memory. I am also very grateful for their patience during the many publication delays. Regrettably, it took much longer than expected and originally programmed to publish this special issue. On behalf of the board, I want to apologize to our guest editors, authors, and readers for the unconscionable delay in delivering our journal. Over the past few years, we moved from one publisher to another but now, after a lengthy hiatus, we have finally found a new home with Eurilink University Press in Rome. * Reading this issue’s essays has enriched my under- standing of the relations between translation and memory. I have learned new things, and I have been surprised and pleased. I hope you will join me in appreciating this special issue. * This issue is dedicated to the memory of Umberto Eco, who passed away more than a year ago while we were busy preparing this issue. Translation was one of the themes to which he devoted much interest and writing in his last few years, and his contributions on translation as negotiation, based on his experience both as a translator and as a widely translated author, will continue to accompany us. I am most grateful for the opportunity he gave me to discover and investigate translation through the lens of semiotics, and Cristina Demaria and I, who both completed our doctorates under his supervision, share fond memories of the lively discussions on translation and its limits during our university seminars. S. N. References Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Demaria, Cristina. 2012. Il trauma, l’archivio e il testimone. La semiotica, il documentario e la rappresentazione del “reale”. (Trauma, archive, and witness. Semiotics, documentaries, and the representation of the “real”). Bologna: Bononia University Press. Eco, Umberto. 2001. Experiences in Translation. Translated by Alastair McEwen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Eco, Umberto. 2003. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. Translator/s not specified. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15528

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0. A preface on the translational internationalization of the humanities This special volume is the result of a very long, exciting, yet rather difficult struggle, involving translations and self- translations. Who writes here is the “effect” of two people’s endeavors; two people who have come to know each other to some extent across text, screen, and phone line—who, surely, respect and cherish one another, without ever having met. One is American, the other Italian; they have been invited to write for an International Journal in English, a journal that hosts articles that engage, obviously, not only translation, but that are themselves the product of self-translations. This very process has necessarily become part of the volume’s introduction, since one of its authors is not a native speaker. This is a “fact” that nowadays has become routine at least in the Western-Eurocentric worlds, and none dares question it: we must write in English. Otherwise, our international status will be affected, and not only will we go back to being provincial, addressing only a limited audience, but we will be devalued, score lower on all the national evaluations that determine individual and institutional research funding. This seems to be a one-way trajectory that everyone acknowledges, that some occasionally criticize, but is never actually resisted, since it is the way the global production of knowledge and educational systems work. One might wonder why we are foregrounding the obvious, when we should be writing about translation and memory. As many of the essays here demonstrate, however, the relationship between translation and memory has very much to do with not only the position of the person who is translating, but also with that of the person who is writing about translation, and thus creating an archive–memory of all the lives a text might have, along with its histories and narratives, its former and new translated meanings. If all critical analysis and meditation on the differences between languages—which includes the memory that sustains them, and the memory-texts in the languages that manage to survive—are but a translation/self-translation, often erasing nuances and disregarding untranslatability, then in which recesses of translation (from and into English and into every other language) and memory does the future of the humanities reside? 1. Memory and translation of past intercourses Isn’t this what a translation does? [. . .] By elevating the signifier to its meaning or value, all the while preserving the mournful and debt-laden memory of the singular body, the first body, the unique body that the translation thus elevates, preserves, and negates [relève]? Since it is a question of a travail—indeed, as we noted, a travail of the negative—this relevance is a travail of mourning, in the most enigmatic sense of this word [. . .] The measure of the relève or relevance, the price of a translation, is always what is called meaning, that is, value, preservation, truth as preservation (Wahrheit, bewahren) or the value of meaning, namely, what, in being freed from the body, is elevated above it, interiorizes it, spiritualizes it, preserves it in memory. A faithful and mournful memory. (Derrida 2013, 378) Among the many theoretical perspectives from which one can look at translation, as well as the many objects that can be considered from the point of view of translation theories and practices, the translation/memory nexus is among the most fraught, precisely because memory is by definition contesta- tory, and always mediated, and thereby the most complex and difficult to qualify on almost every level. Because of their tight intertwining, one runs the risk of reiterating or echoing what has been said and done already (see, for example, the recent book by one of the author of this volume: Brownlie 2016). Oversaturated, we struggle to find what else could come from further confrontations between these two concepts: how to consider and render truly heuristic an encounter between translation and memory now, in the age of posttranslation studies (Gentzler 2017)? The quoted passage above from Jacques Derrida dates back many years, and, in the domain of translation theories influenced by poststructuralism, it serves as a milestone in the encounter between translation and memory. In what follows, we would like to go back to what might belong to even older history of memory and translation engagements. If for literary critics and translation specialists this history sounds passé, it is not the case for philosophers or scholars working with language and meaning. One of the first fields of confrontation and exchange between translation and memory was the study of the “meaning of meaning”—semiotics, philosophy of language— whereby the implications of any act of translation became part of many theories and speculations on the working of meaning between languages and cultures (Nergaard 1995). Should this seem peripheral to the main event, we could point to structuralism, and even to the beginnings of poststructuralism, up to its recent neomaterialist transformations, as a way of rethinking languages, cultures, and their relation with history and the “material” world. There we find the crucial work of translation and memory as perspectives and/or as epistemic positions that have enabled the study of languages and cultures and the effects of different temporalities, politics, subjectivities and bodies—that is, of the transformative character of translation in memorializing act. As clarification, let us start from some basic assumptions underlining not a post-, but a no-longer- structuralist, interpretative, and translational conception of how semiosis works, looking at the work of Umberto Eco, to whom this issue is dedicated. Even though his work is recognized as having significantly contributed to the development of Roman Jakobson’s three-fold classification of translation (Eco 2001),1 here we want to mention briefly another concept that he used to explain the workings of semiosis, along with that of memory. The operative first assumption is that every act of interpretation that comprises acts of translation has recourse to an encyclopedia, in the semiotic sense that Umberto Eco (1976, 1984) has given to the term—that in its turn refers to semantic and iconic memories that are part not only of every langue system, but of every act of parole, to go back to Ferdinand de Saussure. In other words, the very idea of how meaning works had already changed in the 1980s, thanks also to Eco’s perspective for which the idea of a semiotic universe is made not so much of signs, but of cultural units; entities that absorb and reflect the influence of the culture in which they find themselves, and which are no longer the lemmas [word; term] of a rigid system of content organization (a dictionary), but rather the nodes of a network of meanings that can be treaded upon in multiple directions, depending on the inferences and the interpretive connections one chooses: a semiotic universe that takes the shape of an encyclopedia. (Lorusso 2015, 81) In respect to translation processes, this concept is relevant for two different reasons. The first is that, in accepting semiosis as operating within encyclopedias, what is most relevant is that every term composing a code is always already interpreted, bringing along the history of its uses and translations; the working of languages moving from its structure to the actual effects and transformations of every signifying practices that define not so much what is a 1 One of the most significant contributions to Jakobson’s classification was made by Eco in Experiences in Translation (2001), starting from Charles S. Peirce’s influence on Jakobson. Even though Eco emphasizes that for Peirce “meaning, in its primary sense, is a ‘translation of a sign into another system of signs’” (Eco 2001, 69), he also argues that Peirce “uses translation in a figurative sense: not like a metaphor, but pars pro toto (in the sense that he assumes ‘translation’ as a synecdoche for ‘interpretation’)” (Eco 2001, 69). language, but what concurs to its different kinds of circulation and transmissions, that is, to its translations. As Patrizia Violi summarizes: “The encyclopaedia marks the transformation of the code from a rule that defines signification and interpretation, into the idea of a system of possible inferences, in which even a principle of choice and of freedom may find a place” (Violi 1992, 99). In a culture conceived as an encyclopedia, the hierarchies fall, because the priorities and the dependencies change according to circumstances (thus locally, and bodily). Meaning starts to be thought of as always already constructed and reconstructed, hence translated, in time (and space), within a dialectic between what is already deposited in the encyclopedia and what is historically and culturally negotiated; between consolidated habits2 and their possible transform- ations. And here is the second reason this concept might play a role: collective memories, thought of in their contingent political, social and historical formations, are what is filtered and negotiated and transformed from local, national and cultural encyclopedia. Memory and its processes are what, in different contexts, emerge as different processes of cultural translation. Every translator, therefore, deals not only with those memories belonging to the cultural and historical contexts in which she operates, and with the different politics of memory surrounding the particular text being translated, but also with the semantic and pragmatic fields (scripts, genres, frames) of which each term, each name, is part. In other words, languages, and not only natural languages but images and sounds as well, are thought of as forms of cultural and historical memory, often capable of directing, but, at least, influencing, what we now think of as the fluxes of linguistic traffic that are produced in those border and contact zones— again, temporal and spatial—wherein translation operates. In other words, whenever we look at the processes of archiving and preserving cultures, we find the modeling, and translating, nature of memory. Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspensky wrote more than forty years ago that the “implanting 2 We refer here to the notion of habit as theorized by Charles S. Peirce (see especially Collect- ed Papers V.4000). of a fact into the collective memory, then, is like a translation from one language into another—in this case, into the ‘language of culture’” (Lotman and Uspensky 1971, 214). And they add—prior to much more recent theorizations of what an “event” is in light of transmedia and current transnational thinking: “Events have multilayered interpretations, they are subject to corrections, revisions. The construction of the historical event is nothing but the translation of something into the language of memory” (Lorusso 2015, 101). A visual example of such influence is the concept of Pathosformel by, recently rediscovered and much discussed in memory studies and aesthetic theory. Developed throughout his life, the unfinished project of the atlas of Mnemosyne, Pathosformeln refers to all those images and forms of pathos (emotions, passions such as fear, awe, and horror) that survive as a cultural heritage imprinted in our collective memory. There are, in other words, antique roots sustaining modern images, their translations—the very way in which their meaning can be reversed—that is at stake whenever we analyze visual cultures.3 2. Memory and translation current transactions However, even though the intersections and exchanges between memory and translation are undeniable, indisputable, and generative, they do not exclude several critical issues: how can these intersections be truly heuristic? Is any confrontation possible without ironing out the actual differences between the two concepts? That is, on the one hand, to think of translation as a way to construct collective memories, their survival, and on the other hand, of memory as always requiring a transfer of time and space, a recontextualizing of its representations and expressions? And even more so if we think of translation as the transformation of one’s own traditions and identity, in itself a process that implies the fatigue of welcoming and of hospitality, the hard work of transmitting one’s own otherness; 3 In the past few years, there has been an increasing interest in Warburg’s project and his idea of Pathosforlmen in many fields (visual studies, aesthetics, history) dealing with the construction and circulation of memory images. Amongst the many author, see the work of Georges Didi-Huberman (2005, 2011). moreover, as a widening of the very concept of multidirec- tional memory (Rothberg 2009). One has to remember all the different practices— individual and collective, linguistic and social—that are at stake in every engagement, to think of practices of translation as both a metaphorical transfer and, as Barbara Godard (see Karpinski, Henderson, Sowton, and Ellenwood 2013) suggests, as metonymical links (see also Tymoczko 1999). In other words, one must not forget the implications of using translation as a metaphor standing in for the encounter with the other that is, also, a transformation of one’s own tradition and memory. This is a choice that is always conveyed by the real labor that accompanies welcoming not only another language, but also another future and another possible past into the negotiations between the translator, the texts, the discourses, and the places, spaces, and times surrounding them. What happens when translation is “translated,” transferred as an expansion and an extension of memories through the figure of testimony and witnessing? And how does translation function in the dynamics of postmemory, as conceptualized by Marianne Hirsch4 and others (see Hirsch 1997, 2012) , in the intergenerational passage that structures both filiation and affiliation? In as much as the concepts and processes of translation and memory are understood to be mutually implicating, if not interpenetrating, in literary critical studies, philosophy, linguistics, distinctions between individual (or autobiographic- al memory) and collective or cultural memory are often not acknowledged. Even when the topic is traumatic memory, in particular, and the analytic categories are drawn from the familiar models of psychoanalytic theory, memory as a phenomenon and a practice is considered to operate across (hence our volume’s title) realms and registers. Likewise, we—as the editors of this volume—are not inclined to privilege either personal or public memory, or engage in debate over the question of priority or precedence. Our essays treat translation in regard to both social and individual memory, reflecting our conviction that, for our 4See the interview with Marianne Hirsch in this issue, in which she revisits the concept of postmemory in its relationship with practices of translation. interpretive purposes, both draw from the same well. There is analytic force and ethical impact in studying the uses and effects of each, and their interconnectedness, as autobiogra- phical narratives, fiction, as well as other forms of literary and cultural expression demonstrate. However, in the disciplines of psychology and the social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, political science, and history, these distinctions do matter, differently; indeed, they are foundational. Having said that, there appears to be a strong drift now in the direction of stressing the effects of the social and the public on personal memory, or an attempt to bridge social science and psychological approaches. This is the case in cutting-edge empirical research in the neurosciences and cognitive psychology, where arguably the greatest advances in memory studies have recently taken place. “Mnemonic consequences,” or what is otherwise referred to as the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, are attributed to the role of conversation/the impact of silence, the said and the unsaid (Stone et al. 2012); this is also true for studies in the reconstructing of memory, which reached its greatest visibility (and notoriety) in the 1990s. Whereas in psychoanalysis the agent of repression is the unconscious (both singular and collective, though to different effect), recent research in cognitive and neurobiological science finds the suppressing or controlling of unwanted memories to be the product of brain systems similar to the mechanisms that stop reflexive motor responses (Anderson and Levy 2009). In studies that seek to bridge psychology—which is method- logyically individually based and functional in its perspective—and the disciplines more generally focused on groups, whether they are nations, tribes, generations, or other units, an important connection is psychology’s recent affirmation that individuals are embedded in complex social networks. Memory, according to neuroscientists, has an epidemiological dimension in the sense of social contagion, which is now exacerbated by social media. Whether mnemonic formations are primarily biological or social in origin, psychology is not interested in the individual qua individual, but in general or universal principles or features that can be extracted. In other words, just because the locus is the individual doesn’t mean that the investment is in the subject or subjectivity. Despite this fundamental difference between the various disciplinary approaches that, nevertheless, needed to be mentioned, what steers much of this work back to literary and cultural perspectives on memory and translation of psychic phenomena is the centrality accorded to narrative and identity. In this respect, Aleida Assmann’s (2015) recent reflections on the working of cultural memory merits mention. Assmann comments not only on neuroscience’s and media studies’ shared “basis in the constructivist hypothesis that events and experiences have no ontological status but are made and remade over and over again” (Assmann 2015, 42), as Lotman and Uspensky (1978) have also said. Her work is also relevant because of her perspective on cultural memory as a domain that must engage with the role of affects—both individual and collective, along with their intertwining— within a diachronic and transgenerational analytical gaze. What does her “model” suggest? Arguably, a sort of rearticulation of the very notion of postmemory, with the added insights of a constructivist point of view. The latter emphasizes the synchronic and embedded quality of a memory fabricated according to actual needs and demands in the present, calls for approaches that focus on the affective dimension of memory in a long-term diachronic perspective, both at the individual and at the collective transgenerational transmission levels. It is probably in this very rearticulation of the relationship between cultural memory and postmemory that processes of translation and rewriting of memories are not only significant because they create an “afterlife of repeated transformations, but also a prehistory”: what is at stake are the ways in which “memory traces interact with previous experiences and cultural patterns; how both of these provide templates that gain a steering function within our mental cosmos” (Assmann 2015, 43). Resonance is thus a form of “stimulating and strengthening the affective charge in the process of remem- bering” (44), where [t]he concept of resonance implies the interaction of two separate entities, one located in the foreground, one in the background. In this case, the element in the foreground does not cover up or elide what exists in the background; on the contrary, the element in the foreground triggers the background and fuses with it. We may also speak of a cooperation, in which the background element nonconconsciously or unconsciously guides, forms, shapes the foreground element. My emphasis here is on the hidden correspondence and the tacit agreement between a surface stimulus and its response on a deeper and nonconscious level, which can enlarge our understanding of the nonconscious but not necessarily unconscious, let alone occult, dynamics of memory. (Assmann 2015, 45) Resonance and a prehistory of memories can be found in the ways in which translation processes, when dealing with the past, are forms of cooperation between background and foreground that might differ, involving both temporalization and spatialization strategies, as our essays and interviews amply demonstrate. As the interview with James Young that we present online (http://translation.fusp.it) amply suggests, ongoing interest in the link between language and landscape, memorial sites, ruins, and layered translations points to the manifold ways that translation is instrumentalized for different memorializing ends, whether they be in the service of creation, reclamation, or effacement of a memory or former version (one’s own or another’s). Arguably, every act of translation displaces a previous one; sometimes, they continue to coexist, even if one of the languages or versions is in the ascendant or dominant position. Translation works in two directions, toward both remembrance/reification and oblivion, along a continuum which is, of course, subject to change over time. Although, for example, we witness the erasing and mistranslating of place names in Brian Friel’s (1981) famous play Translations—in which in 1883 British surveyors are redrawing the map, that is, converting Gaelic names to English ones—in 1922 both Irish and English were made the official languages of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Linguistic appropriation is the primary form of displacement of the other; linguistic imperialism in this form has been one of the great weapons of choice in history. It is important to note, however, that translation involves reaction and resistance, as well as aggression and enactment. Isabelle Jenin’s essay in our volume addresses the replacement of place names in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony, in which the original Indian names for the American landscape are changed to English and Spanish ones. The text, she argues, shows that the “translated” landscape is in some way fundamentally untranslatable, that the Laguna Pueblo spirits that haunt the European settlers’ imprint are exercising their own dominion, keeping their names alive. Toponymy isn’t inherently political, but the history and meaning of place names are dramatically associated with changes of regime, occupation, settlement, and linguistic/ cultural imperialism in general; acts of translation— renaming—are complicit with memorializing and monument- alizing efforts that represent symbolic as well as economic capital investments. They shape, even distort, cultural memory and identity by ensuring certain legacies while effacing, sometimes even burying others. 4. Traces of translatability and untranslatability The working of memory and translation as a kind of urban archaeology has recently been reclaimed and further developed by Sherry Simon (2012). Simon’s overarching project deals with those urban spaces that are divided and polyglot, such as Nicosia, Trieste, and Montreal, addressing translation studies in relation to its growing engagement with those cultural, economic, and political disparities and variations that act on each process of “mediation”. According to Simon, “[s]uch an enlarged understanding of translation includes acts of mediation which are not language transfers in the conventional sense, but are more broadly practices of writing that take place at the crossroads” (8), and “[t]ranslation is a useful and often neglected entry point into questions of diversity and accommodation, identity and community, and the kinds of durable links that can be established across histories and memories” (156). Processes of translation are capable of mobilizing and circulating divergent, indeed conflictual, memories. Therefore, if translation can be thought of as an act that contributes to redefining not only cultural spaces, but also the very spaces where citizenship is identified, it becomes something more than the acknowledgement and the expression of differences. It is also in this sense that translation become a mode, a dispositif in the Foucauldian employment of the term, thanks to which what has passed away, what is apparently past, disappeared, removed, and suppressed, overtakes and exceeds its own predetermined destiny through a rebirth in other contexts, in other times and places, with renewed images. At the same time, the very nature of a dispositif might direct us to reflect again on the status and condition of translatability and untranslatability, whereby speaking of untranslatability does not mean to deny the potentiality of any translation; on the contrary, it means accepting, and always interrogating translation as an actual transformation and interpretation of the memory of cultures or, better yet, of the cultures of memories, their resilience and their resonances. It means continually interrogating the discontinuities and heterogeneities inhabiting every memory construction and tracing of borders, in regards to which we should always exercise not only the work of comparison but, as Marianne Hirsch expresses in her interview in this volume, an effort to imagine new possible political connections and affiliations, new ways of mobilizing memories and their visual, verbal, and performative translations. For Simon, it is undeniable that in every context in which there is a strong awareness of the border—of different languages coexisting, along with competing and often conflicting memories—the suspicion of the “other language” prevails, the other language here acquiring another kind of “untranslatability” entailing any deviation from one’s own, or any inclusion of the translated histories and stories of those living across the material or symbolic border that separates them from us. Both acts of inclusion and exclusion are charged with deep ideological valence: how can we translate what we do not want to translate? Most times, the enemy is the one whose story we do not want to hear; that we do not want to recognize and actually translate, since we might understand it, thus allowing the other’s memory possibly to haunt us. However, as Simon says, cities crossed by linguistic borders— more Trieste and Montreal (to mention her examples) than Jerusalem, or Cape Town (to mention other examples)—are places in which translation can become a very powerful tool, first by bringing along in its very practice the social force of distancing. That is in the confirmation of alterity in the emphasis on social and cultural differences, in the recognition and yielding to religious and national belonging. Second, by calling on the force of furthering, that is, in the creation of new links and bonds through deviant and excessive forms of cross- over: interferences, self-translation, rewriting, transmigration, and countermemorialization. The practice of furthering does not entail a presupposition of sameness; on the contrary, it presumes the integration of memories in conflict or, rather, of their relocation within their own cultural and historical contexts. But is this really possible? 5. Trauma and translation Many of the essays we present here reflect on the practice of translation as a means of managing not only internal borders and conflicting memories. At the same time they address the challenges any translator faces when converting traumatic memories into diverse contexts and spaces with different or competing Histories, whether of the Shoah, the Native American, or the Armenian genocide. It is risky to enter here into a multifaceted debate that some may regard as already “old,” or over-utilized as a trope. However, some of the most significant contemporary “thinking [about] trauma’s future” (Rothberg 2014, xii) includes voices that try to understand the ways in which the category of trauma as an interpretive model might still have an impact on our experience of temporality and its structure. One option is to look at trauma along with its implicated concept of belatedness (Freud’s idea of Nachträglichkeit) This suggests reading trauma not in and for itself, but for its possible representations—verbal, visual, spatial—for when it tries to express a structure of feeling for a (no longer unclaimed) experience; it also implies looking at the coming together of different times, whereby the category of trauma does not point to the disruptive nature of experienced time, but to how we write about it, translate it. These are the complexities of belatedness weaving into the writing, or the (re)calling and the repealing, of past experiences within which trauma is made manifest: questions of narrative and time that are inseparable from ethical and political questions. A further level of confrontation between “new” trauma theory and translation studies emerges once it has become almost unavoidable for any discourse on trauma to travel elsewhere, geographically and geoculturally, to go beyond a Eurocentric and monocultural orientation, to move to another affect-world, in order to better apprehend its impact (Rothberg 2014); to test its future-tense and its slow violence (Kaplan 2015). In so doing, a paradigm in which translation and trauma meet might also start to answer different questions: how do states colonize a disruptive temporality into sovereign chronologies, and how do they translate them; or how is the changing biopolitical horizon in which trauma is both produced and policed affecting its very experience—an example of which is when what is produced and policed regards different people, different places, refugees and exiles; different bodies? There is no doubt that the contemporary technological versions of subjectivity and identity have moved the idea of trauma through many translations and transmutations. We must contemplate the cultural and historical specificity of the concepts and categories of trauma, thanks to its translations, as Michael Rothberg reminds us: “The category of trauma ought to trouble the historicist gesture of much contemporary criticism as well as its concomitant notions of history and culture” (Rothberg 2014, xv). As much as the category of trauma might enable the political, cultural, and social impact of translation, it involves the dislocation of subjects, histories, and cultures. And even though there could be multiple forms of dislocation, deriving from “punctual” events (a massacre, for example) or from systemic violence or transhistorical structural trauma (LaCapra 2001), there is continuity, nonetheless. The task of “theory” is to find it, to look for connections, overlaps, similitude, and translation across the cultural and historical contexts under scrutiny. We discern connections and similarities in the current climate of History and its forms of violence involving different scales of temporality and modes of subjectivity; these are pertinent to both in trauma and in translation studies, but they have probably not, thus far, been addressed sufficiently. In sum, the challenge seems to be how to critically engage with classical trauma theory’s dominant paradigm by rethinking and rewriting how to connect events of extreme violence, disjunctive structures of subjective and collective experience, and discursive and aesthetic forms of rewriting and translation. 6. Media transmediality and the archive Yet another question comes to mind: what is specific to the concept and practices of translation when the current mobilizing of memory results in new and different representations of form and content, which are transformed by what is being called a post-roadcast era (Hoskins 2011)? What does it mean today to move from the unknown to the known, to render something from the past familiar, within the ever-changing forms and formations of contemporary mediascapes and memoryscapes, or else to accept their untrans- latability? In order to answer these questions in their intertwining with memory, one could engage in dialogue with Media- Specific Analysis, which deals mainly with contemporary examples of how a literary genre, as Hayles states, “mutates and transforms when it is instantiated in different media [. . .] MSA insists that texts must always be embodied to exist in the world. The materiality of these embodiments interacts dynamically with linguistic, rhetorical, and literary practice to create the effects we call ‘literature’” (Hayles 2014, 21). Or, also, it could confront itself with a more sociologically oriented tendency that maintains that media “functions” have been unhooked from both the tools and the objects with which they have been traditionally associated. To give the most common example, what we once normally thought of as television has now gone beyond the television set itself, its content released from its “container,” from its specific embodiment, its own materiality. In other words, what used to be defined as a media product—even what is labeled as “literature”—is now a transmedia set of translated events and practices of consumption: programs are seen through streaming or downloaded from the Internet in different countries, fandom providing almost instantaneous subtitles; books and their characters cannot be launched without a YouTube trailer that immediately receives global comments; programs have websites and Facebook pages, their actors living many other lives as characters of a proliferation of narratives produced and archived in fan fiction websites from all over the world, where they become adaptations and local versions of the “original,” of a matrix that is changed through on-going transmedia storytelling (Demaria 2014). What we have briefly described here is now almost a cliché in Media Studies; it is part of a phenomenon that has been called, and from then on overtly quoted as, a convergent and participative culture, of media spreadability (Jenkins, Green, Ford 2013) that endlessly rewrites the return of history and memory through prosthetic tools (Landsberg 2004). The narrative complexity on one hand and the transmedia overflows exemplified by fanfic websites on the other supposedly constitute the evidence of a participatory and spectator-centered culture of prosumers, of a diffuse audience whose agency has helped to blur the boundaries between an original “text” (such as, for example, a TV series) and its transformations and local translations (how the characters and their stories are transformed and reimagined, and their format readapted in different countries). Hence, we still need a reflection on a language of the text that does not exclude the “materiality” of the screen or the computer, as well as the effects of the notion that content outside its containers might induce the very thinking of new forms of translation. The different media and screens implicated in all studies of contemporary digital transmu- tations, their specificity but also their syncreticity—that is, the simultaneous presence of different languages and their particular intertwining effects and affects (verbal, visual, textual, aural)—can allow us to reflect on the peculiar ways in which content might migrate from one digital space to another. Moreover, different—or else very similar—stories might be told. What might be at stake are the main transformations undergone by narrative imaginations (Montani 2010)—from a mimetic account of time (as in epic or ancient theatre), to a more productive projection, first helped by the narrative configurations allowed by the novel and cinema, and currently by contemporary media narratives—remediations and translations of all previous forms and genres (the novel, cinema, TV, and so on) and of the memory of all the antique images (Pathosformeln), languages, and cultures they involve. What is the role of translation in those processes of selection and management of what becomes part of an archive as a set of rules and criteria, as a collection, as a process of distribution and delivery of memory? This problem involves a critical reading of those technologies of memory that are supported by different politics of digital archives, whereby one faces the double and ambivalent dimension of archive as origin and archive as law, of the authority and authorship of the archive. It is the case, to quote but one example, of the recent transfer of CIA and other former classified verbal, visual, and audiovisual documents dealing with the US involvement with the Pinochet dictatorship to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Santiago de Chile.5 These political documents rest on a techno-ethical paradox: between providing free access to memory as a civil or human right and the opacity of a history preserved as a trace of and a testimony to its very secrecy. More generally speaking, when translation meets the archive, it encounters its possible displacements and various transnational administrations of memory (NGOs, humanitarian agencies that demand to speak and designate, to classify and preserve documents in the name of other people’s memories). Hence, how can one analyze such performative acts, this verbal and visual documentality? This refers to the exercises of power that affect subjective and collective investments, the comprehensive power of knowledge-production in relation to the rights and meanings of contemporary archives. 5 For more on this project led by Cristián Gomez-Moya on the archive and human rights, see http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica-91/gomezmoya#sthash.g0wBGq8a.dpuf; and http://www.wordsinspace.net/lib-arch-data/2013-fall/?ai1ec_event=declassifying-the- archive-declassification-documentation-human-rights&instance_id. Accessed July 1, 2016. In conclusion The articles that make up this issue of translation: an interdisciplinary journal offer indeed a range of meditations on an intriguing set of case studies that bring new perspectives on many of the topics we have raised. Each elaborates, in its own fashion, on the author’s respective engagement with the act of translation and transmission as an act that opens up memory’s archive and its various resonances. Instead of individually summarizing the contents of our volume’s contributors’ articles, we have chosen to continue weaving our shared considerations by incorporating some of their principal insights as an ongoing discussion and highlighting the questions they have provoked us into posing. The essays are bookended by interviews with Marianne Hirsch and James Young, respectively. Their impact on this most consequential field of study, as it engages history, architecture, literature, and art, has been extraordinary. Indeed, the field of Memory Studies as such would not exist without their definitive, groundbreaking work. One regards the role of memory when the author is both a translator and a critic of translational processes, as in Adams Bodomo’s essay, in which we find the author’s own poems that he himself translates, and Bernard McGuirk’s article, where he meditates on his own translation both of Haroldo De Campos’s poems and of Brazilian protest songs. Here we find the challenge posed by the echoes, influences, hybridities, and intertexts of contemporary transculturations, whereby the task of the translator involves not abandoning but suspending certain spontaneous choices of literal translation in favor of interaction and indeed transaction. Moreover, underlying all the works, the role translation plays in changing—and even in radically transforming—local, national, and global memories emerges in all its effects, as in the case of the Armenian genocide thanks to the many translations and the cinematic version of Antonia Arslan’s 2007 novel Skylark Farm, which Sona Haroutyunian analyzes, focusing on the relationship between the historical event and its various kinds of representations. Along with these questions, what is put under scrutiny is both the role of the writer as the translator of a fading oral memory (as in Bodomo’s, Jenin’s, and McGuirk’s articles) and of the translator as a witness or a second-degree witness (Deane-Cox); coming into contact with—and sometimes be- traying—the memory of the texts and the memory the texts sought to convey. Or else preserving memory by transforming it into a new genre, a new type of storytelling, as Isabelle Jenin shows us in her analysis of Silko’s novel. These questions are raised and further problematized in Brownlie’s article, where she addresses the ways in which two autobiographical stories by Katherine Mansfield—“Prelude” and “At the Bay”—reflect in style and structure the processes of autobiographical memory. They are also articulated in David Amezcua Gomez’s study of Muñoz Molina’s novel Sefarad, in which he traces how in multidirectional memory (of the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and post-Civil War Spain) “empathetic connections” are translated into monumental fiction. Or yet into monuments tout court, as James Young here (see infra) discusses with Bella Brodzki and Siri Nergaard, pointing to how, in order to understand traumatic memories and their translations, topography, literature, diaries, ruins all collapse into a fragmented yet resonant text, of which one element cannot be read without the other. The problem of accountability and responsibility remains paramount: how much do we really want to translate? And how much can we translate when it comes to postmemories of the Holocaust? Language issues and questions emerging from the translation of first and second generation testimonies are at the core of memory studies, as both Young and Hirsch comment in their interviews, referring both to their own work, and to the influence that a graphic novel such as Art Spieglman’s Mauss and a documentary such as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah had on their own thinking. Moreover: what to give to, or for, the “other”? How is the other constructed as such? How is the other interchangeable with oneself under diasporic conditions; is it a fluid category or status? How is nostalgia translated across these different contexts? Here we go back to the very ambivalent notion of who is a witness in translation and to what she is a witness of, and for whom, given the complexities of postmemory, and the consequences of legacy and identification that this category invokes (see the interview, infra), since processes of trans- mission and forms of aesthetic affiliation are both modes of translation. What emerges from all the contributions is that public, cultural, and national memories (with all the due distinctions) are rewritten every day no matter how previous institutionalized versions have prevailed. The construction of homogeneous cultural and national memories takes place notwithstanding their potential translations, ruins, and ghosts; yet, new translations can affect and determine different politics of memory, changing their archival prospects. What keeps translation itself alive is the tension between self-referentiality and extrareferentiality; it is simultaneously an open and a closed system. There are countless examples throughout history of the dialectic between preservation and destruction (through neglect as well as abuse), and, as a result, of active struggles for restoration of sites of memory, however contested their value. But memory, given that it projects both forward and backward, provides residual rewards for those who desire the new. For this volume’s editors and contributors, the question of how we translate translation—as a carrying over and a covering over of the past—is the means by which, the gesture towards which, we name and rename until infinity. References Anderson, Michael C., and Benjamin J. Levy. 2009. “Suppressing Unwanted Memories.” Currents Directions in Psychological Science 18 (4): 189– 194. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01634.x. Assmann, Aleida. 2015. “Impact and Resonance: Towards a Theory of Emotions in Cultural Memory.” In The Formative Past and the Formation of the Future: Collective Remembering and Identity Formation, edited by Terje Stordalen and Naguib Saphinaz-Amal, 41– 69. Oslo: Novus Forlag. Brownlie, Shioban. 2016. Mapping Memory in Translation. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Demaria, Cristina. 2014. “True Detective Stories. Media Textuality and the Anthology Format between Remediation and Transmedia Narratives.” Between 4 (8). Special issue Tecnologia, immaginazione, forme del narrare, edited by Lucia Esposito, Emanuela Piga, and Alessandra Ruggiero. Available at: http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/issue/view/33/showToc. doi:10.13125/2039-6597/1332. Derrida, Jacques. 2013. “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” Translated by Lawrence Venuti. In Signature Derrida, edited by Jay Williams. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Didi-Hubermann, Georges. 2005. Confronting Images. Questioning the Ends of a Certain Theory of Art. Translated by John Goodman. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Sate University Press. ———. 2011. Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet. L’oeil de l’histoire, 3. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Eco, Umberto. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. ———. 1984. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, London, MacMillan. ———. 2000. Experiences in Translation, Toronto, Buffalo, London, Toronto University Press. Friel, Brian. 1981. Translations. London: Faber and Faber. Gentzler, Edwin. 2017. Translation and Rewriting in the Age of Post- Translation Studies. London, New York: Routledge. Hayles, N. Katherine. [2004] 2014. “Print is Flat, Code is deep: the Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.” In Transmedia Frictions. The Digital, the Arts, and the Humanities, edited by Marsha Kinder and Tara McPherson, 20–33. Oakland: University of California Press. Originally published in Poetics Today 25 (1), 2004: 67–90. doi:10.1215/03335372- 25-1-67. Hoskins, Andrew. 2011. “7/7 and connective memory: Interactional trajectories of remembering in post-scarcity culture.” Memory Studies 4 (3): 269–280. doi:10.1177/1750698011402570. Hirsch, Marianne. 1997. Family Frames. Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2012. The Generation of Postmemory. Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press. Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. 2013. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York and London: NYU Press. Kaplan, E. Ann. 2016. Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Fiction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Karpinski, Eva C., Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, and Ray Ellenwood, eds. 2013. Trans/Acting Culture, Writing, and Memory: Essays in Honour of Barbara Godard. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. LaCapra, Dominick. 2001. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Landsberg, Alison. 2004. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Lorusso, Anna Maria. 2015. Cultural Semiotics. For a Cultural Perspective in Semiotics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lotman, Yuri, and Boris Uspensky. 1978. “On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture.” In Soviet Semiotics and Criticism: An Anthology, special issue of New Literary History, 9 (2): 211–232. doi:10.2307/468571. Montani, Pietro. 2010. L’immaginazione intermediale: perlustrare, rifigurare, testimoniare il mondo visibile. Rome–Bari: GLF Editori Laterza. Nergaard, Siri, ed. 1995. Teorie contemporanee della traduzione. Milan: Bompiani. Peirce, Charles Sanders. Collected Papers. Volumes I–VI. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Rothberg, Michael. 2009. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2014. “Beyond Tancred and Clorinda—trauma studies for implicated subjects.” Preface to The Future of Trauma Theory. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism, edited by Gert Buelens, Sam Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone, xii–xviii. London and New York: Routledge. Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. London and New York: Routledge. Stone, Charles B., Alin Coman, Adam D. Brown, Jonathan Koppel, and William Hirst. 2012. “Toward a Science of Silence: The Consequences of Leaving a Memory Unsaid.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (1): 39–53. doi:10.1177/1745691611427303. Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in Postcolonial Context: Early Irish Literature in English Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Violi, Patrizia. 1992. “Le molte enciclopedie.” In Semiotica: storia teoria interpretazione. Saggi intorno a Umberto Eco, edited by Patrizia Magli, Giovani Manetti, and Patrizia Violi (99–113). Milano: Bompiani. is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches courses in autobiography; modern and contemporary fiction; literary and cultural theory; and translation studies. Her articles and essays on the critical intersections with and impact of translation on other fields and disciplines have appeared in a range of publications, most recently in the collection, Translating Women, edited by Luise von Flotow (2011). She is the coeditor of Life/Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography (1989) and author of Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory (2007). Her current project is coediting a special volume of Comparative Literature Studies entitled Trials of Trauma. is Associate Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna (Italy), where she teaches Semiotics of Media and Semiotics of Conflict. She has worked on gender and translation and, in the past ten years, on collective and cultural memories and their visual, trans-media, performative and artistic representations, focusing recently on traumatic memories of postdictatorship in Argentina and Chile, along the way they intersect with questions regarding biological identity and documentality.

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Abstract: This paper proposes a theoretical and methodological strategy for reconceptualizing African literature in the twenty-first century. Twentieth-century African literature was characterized by colonial concepts through which literature in indigenous African languages was largely neglected while literature in colonial languages was promoted with problematic notions such as “Anglophone African literature,” “Francophone African literature,” and “Lusophone African literature.” African literature needs to be reconceptualized as Afriphone literature, where the notion of African literature must prototypically subsume literature in languages indigenous to Africa. African literature must be reconceptualized first and foremost as African language literature. Many scholars interested in the documentation and revitalization of African languages and cultures, which constitute attempts to preserve the collective memory of these African traditional knowledge systems, are largely in agreement with this, but how to go about doing Afriphone literature remains a research challenge. This paper proposes an approach to addressing the problem based on the theoretical and methodological notion of parallel text. 1. Introduction The Ivorian writer Ahmadou Kourouma, author of the novel Les Soleils des indépendances (1968), has invented the term “diplosie” (Kourouma 1991) to express what he considers to be the reality that the vast majority of African writers presumably think in one language and express themselves (speak, enchant, or write) in another. It is indeed true that many African writers of the twentieth century and earlier did speak their native African languages on the one hand and then wrote many of their works in the former colonial language of their countries, including English, French, or Portuguese, on the other hand. It is also true, however, that while this has continued into the twenty-first Century more and more writers, conscious of the need to document their traditional verbal art and other collective cultural memories of their societies, are beginning to “translate” their own work. This exercise is what I call parallel text practice or parallel-texting. More and more African writers have resolved that the only major way forward to produce literature in African languages and thus preserve these languages, big and small, is for Western-educated writers who still speak their African languages to write parallel texts—that is, produce the same texts that they wrote in English, French, or Portuguese in their African language following the theme, genre, and style of the original as much as possible but not necessarily a word for word translation. Of course, more importantly, they should write first in the African language and then translate into English or other languages, but irrespective of which language the original text is in it has the same effect of producing literature in African languages and making it available for a wider readership because the practice of parallel texts means that the two or more texts must be published concurrently and contiguously—that is, side by side. Parallel text practice as described here is part of a comprehensive agenda by myself (Bodomo 2013, 2014a, 2014b) and a group of academics dedicated to the promotion of African language literature, as part of the general program of documenting the languages and cultures of Africa to reconceptualize African literature and general humanities in the twenty-first century. One of the earliest African writers to set the agenda for producing literature in African languages is the Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Ngugi started his writing career by writing in English but then later realized that the best, and indeed most natural, way to promote African literature is through writing in African languages, so he started writing in Kikuyu and Swahili and translating many of his works into English, especially with works such as Caitani Matharabaini (translated as Devil on the Cross). Indeed, Ngugi at some point did not recognize as African literature any literature that was not produced in indigenous African languages, preferring to call literature in European languages written by Africans Afro-European literature, and decried the constant “Europhonism” of African writers (Ngugi 1986, 2009). The following excerpt from his seminal work of literary criticism, Decolonizing the Mind (1986), captures this thinking: What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without European languages? While we were haranguing enemies in European tongues, imperialists have continued to spout their lies in our native tongues (such as translating the Bible into all African languages...). So, we’re losing the battle because we haven’t been fighting. And the literature that’s been created should be called Afro-European, not African. (Ngugi 1986, 26) From this angle, then, it does not make sense to Ngugi and many African writers who push for an African language literature agenda to describe African literature in seemingly obsolete, contradictory terms such as “Anglophone African literature,” “Francophone African literature,” or “Lusophone African literature,” terms whose definitions we will have to reconsider in the “Discussion” section of this essay. Of course, other African writers had and still have a very different position from that of Ngugi and other campaigners for an African language literature agenda. They often give reasons for why we must not worry about writing in African languages and why we must continue to write in European languages. Some of these include the fact that not all African languages have a script, and that the market share for a writer of African literature in African languages would be insignificant. They also point to the fact that European languages continue to be official languages in African countries where they serve as a lingua franca to speakers who speak a diverse set of languages, so writing in English, French, or Portuguese would be a way of developing a certain kind of “national” literature. The late Chinua Achebe, one of Nigeria’s and Africa’s most renowned novelists, belongs to this group and, in a long polemical argumentation with Ngugi, expressed many of his counterpoints to Ngugi in his seminal “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature” (Achebe 1989). Defending why he writes in English in terms of its serving as a unifying “national” language, he states the following: I write in English. English is a world language. But I do not write in English because it is a world language. My romance with the world is subsidiary to my involvement with Nigeria and Africa. Nigeria is a reality which I could not ignore. (Achebe 1989, 100) Ngugi, however, points to the glaring “abnormality” of arguing for writing African literature in European languages in the following telling statement: The very fact that what common sense dictates in the literary practice of other cultures [to write in your own spoken language] is being questioned in an African writer is a measure of how far imperialism has distorted the view of African realities. It has turned reality upside down: the abnormal is viewed as normal and the normal is viewed as abnormal. Africa actually enriches Europe: but Africa is made to believe that it needs Europe to rescue it from poverty. Africa’s natural and human resources continue to develop Europe and America: but Africa is made to feel grateful for aid from the same quarters that still sit on the back of the continent. Africa even produces intellectuals who now rationalise this upside-down way of looking at Africa. (Ngugi 1986, 28) The foregoing shows that there is clearly a great debate going on within African literature about which language/s is/are best suited for African literature. It is of course not simply an “either–or” scenario, and it is indeed possible to write in both African languages and in European languages. In this essay, I propose how we can write in African languages and still not lose the visibility that is implicit in many of the arguments against the use of African languages. In section 2, I define and sketch the idea of parallel texts as a theoretical methodology for doing African language literature which involves actually having parallel texts in African languages and in European or other languages of wider communication. The theory subsumes the following definition of African literature: African literature is any form of artistic creation produced in the medium of African languages, first and foremost, or any other natural language (written, spoken, or enchanted) by an artist or group of artists with substantial enough experiences of the landscape of the continental landmass of Africa and its associated islands, along with diasporic exportations of the cultures of this continental landmass. (Bodomo 2013, 2014a, 2014b) This definition,1 as can be seen, emphasizes the import- ance of African languages without necessarily excluding a role played by other natural languages, and the literature can be written, spoken or even enchanted as done in libation pouring practices in West Africa. The authors do not have to be African, but must have enough substantial experiences of Africa to be able to express its cultures, both as seen on the continent itself and also in its diaspora communities. In section 3, I use two of my poems written in both Dagaare—my mother tongue, a language spoken by some two million people who live in northwestern Ghana and adjacent parts of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast—and in English. The two are poems about important events in recent African history that might continue to be in the collective memory of many Africans for a long time: the death of Nelson Mandela in December 2013 and the kidnapping of about three hundred schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014. Section 4 contains a brief discussion of the consequences of such an approach that involves the redefinition of a number of issues in African literature and the renaming of African language literature as Afriphone literature, along with a relation of this discussion to a society’s collective memory, while section 5 concludes the essay with a recap of the major points, and points to how we might sustain the agenda for Afriphone literature in the future. 1 Other ways of defining African literature include cataloguing the major themes and stylistic devices that recur in texts by African writers (magic, witchcraft, proverbs, etc). Ayuk (2014) is an example of such an approach. 1. Parallel texts: theory and methodology A parallel text, as used here, is a set of texts in which written (or even spoken and sung) literary expressions in two or more languages are mediated in the form of translation at various levels, including the graphemic, the morphological, the syntactic, the phonological, and certainly the semantic. In effect, the end result of the translation at one or more of these levels is a set of texts existing side by side for ease of cognitive processing by the recipient. A theory of parallel texts is postulated as follows: in a bilingual and biliterate (or multilingual and multiliterate) environment, for more effective and optimal knowledge and information dissemination, language users should produce contiguous texts in at least two of the languages within the bilingual and biliterate environment. The raison d’être for translation is in the fact that multilingualism within a speech community doesn’t necessarily guarantee that all individuals within a community will be polyglottic. There is often a rather intricate distinction between plurality of language at the community level and plurality of language at the individual level. An individual who has lived all her life in a rural area and speaks only one language fluently who now arrives to live in a city where many languages are spoken may be called a monoglot in a multilingual community; on the other hand a person born in a multilingual city and most likely speaking many languages who now gets posted as a civil servant to a rural area where only one language is spoken would be a polyglot functioning within a monolingual community. Theoretically then, since multilingualism is not synonymous with polyglottism, in a multilingual environment where one might have some monoglots, parallel texts as a form of translation are justified if we want to achieve optimal knowledge acquisition and information dissemination within the community. The concept of parallel texts is both a theory and a methodology in the sense that, theoretically, it mediates any dissonance that exists between the number of languages at the community level and the number of languages within individuals; parallel texts mediate and try to resolve the discords between multilingualism and polyglottism, between “lingualism” and “glottism.” Methodologically, it gives writers an opportunity to optimally express themselves by “placing” oral or written texts side by side within a given context, so simultaneous translation or interpretation is a parallel text, and poems written on the same theme and style and placed side by side constitute a parallel text, as I will illustrate in the next section. 2. An illustration with two poems Two important events that attracted much of Africa’s and the world’s attention and are now arguably part of our global collective memory occurred in December 2013 and April 2014— only about four months apart. The first involved the death of the legendary South African freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela, which occurred on December 5, 2013. The other event involved the capture of almost three hundred schoolgirls in the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, where Islamic militants calling themselves Boko Haram are fighting for a separate polity. I captured each of these events in the form of a parallel text, first writing in my mother tongue, Dagaare, spoken in Ghana as mentioned above, and in English. So each of these two poems about important African events are parallel-texted in Dagaare and English—and here parallel-texting actually means producing them side by side. A piece of work written and published in a volume and later written and published in another volume is not a parallel text, it is simply a (delayed) translation. Pairs of text about the same topic and genre qualify as parallel texts only if they exist side by side, on the same page or on contiguous pages. With this background clarification, I now present the two parallel texts, beginning first with the “Mandela” poem to be followed by the “Chibok girls” poem: MANDɛLA GAA LA DAPARE N bakori mine woi Friends N mabiiri woi Children of one Mother Zenɛ Dizemba beraanuu Today December 5 bebiri News coming in bodes not Te yelpaala na ba taa nimiri well N gaa la BBC I flipped unto BBC Ka N noɔre maa fɛlɛlɛ And the news was tasteless A gaa CNN Clicked unto CNN Ka N polaa teɛ kpelele And my heart pumped A yuo CCTV ka a ne a zu CCTV was not any different A gaa GBC ka a le ang deɛ And GBC confirmed it all: la Grandfather, ancestor Ka te saakoma Mandɛla Mandela Deɛ ba la be a tengɛ nyɛ zu Is no longer with us on Earth Te GANDAA Mandɛla na It is our HERO Mandela! la! There he goes as always! O paa yaa deɛ wa yie la! Majestically, in his Dagakparoo, Gangalang! dagakparoo! Kurilane, Sangsalang! Gallantly, in his kurilane! A zɛle tammo ne logiri Bow, army of arrows in tow A te kulo o yiri He is on his way home A kyaare sapare Facing East A te gɛrɛ Dapare On the ultimate journey to Dapare CHIBOK MAMINE HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY WHISPERS FROM BOKO HARAM Yɛ Mamine Bebiri Yaane! A year ago Deyang: 300 sweet little voices said to you: A yɛ pɔgsarebilii kɔɔre ata Mom, mama, mma, Da wa age mare yɛ la Happy Mother's Day! A vare poɔre yɛ You saw them smile, cry A yeli ko yɛ: tears of love Plastering you with ever so Mma, ne fo Mamine Bebiri gentle hugs of gratitude Yaane! In Nico Mbargan language: N puori fo la yaga “Sweet Mother, I no go Ne fo nang wong tuo forget you, Kaa ma ka N baa I no go forget this suffer Kyɛ zenɛ wey you suffer for me” A yɛ pɔgsarebilii kɔɔre ata Today nyɛ 300 sweet little voices are quietened, you may think Yɛ deɛ ba la wong ba yɛlɛ But listen, listen carefully Togitogitogi To the gentle caressing A mang boɔle ka winds of Chibok Ligiligiligi To the chirping little birds over the hills of Maiduguri Yɛ na teɛre ka ba wa yele yeli zaa To the hissing sonics of the praying mantis up on the Kyɛ yɛ kyɛlle, a kyɛlle Jos plateau velaa Kyɛlle a Chibok saseɛ nang And you will hear 300 fuuro lɛ sweet little voices Kyɛlle a Maidugri nuuli From Boko Haram nang kono lɛ dungeons Kyɛlle a Jos tangazu salingsobo nang voorɔ lɛ Yɛ na wong la a yɛ Obstinately whispering to pɔgsarebilii kɔɔre ata kanga you: na zaa Mom, mama, Mma, Happy Mother’s Day! Boko Haram nang pɔge bare (Vienna, May 2014) Kyɛ ka ba nang sɔgle yele: Mma, Ne fo Mamine Bebiri Yaane! (Veɛna, Mee 2014) In the “Mandela” poem, after hearing breaking news on most of the news media of the world, we are imagining how Mandela, our newly minted ancestor, is preparing for the journey to Dapare—the mythical homeland of all departed spirits, of our ancestors—like all men, all warriors in our Dagaare culture, he would have had to wear the smock, our war uniform, arm himself with bows and arrows, face East, and walk away majestically. . . The smock is not only the traditional dress of the Dagaaba, the people who speak Dagaare, it is also a warrior dress etymologically, and is thus appropriate for a man like Mandela who has been a warrior all his life. Indeed, when Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, was declaring the independence of Ghana on March 6, 1957, after a long struggle, he and his lieutenants wore the smock as a dress for the victorious warriors they were. The bow and arrow are further symbols for a great warrior but also meant to help him protect himself as he goes home, and even to hunt for some game if he so desires. As for the symbolism of facing East in Dagaare culture, it expresses the idea that a good man, a good farmer must always rise early in the morning, and make sure he goes before sunrise to the farm. Women in the culture are metaphorically facing West since they stay at home and must particularly check that by sunset they prepare food for the man who comes back home from the farm, from the hunting grounds, or from the war front after a hard day’s job in the wilderness. The “Chibok girls” poem is imagining how the mothers of these girls would have enjoyed their company on Mothers’ Day and other days when they stayed close together and enjoyed each other’s company. It then imagines how it would be without them when the next Mothers’ Day comes around and they would be without these children. The poem, which may be termed a “telepathic poem,” then evokes instances in which the girls may be communicating with their mothers through the medium of the birds, the winds, and the singing insects in the vicinity of the Jos plateau, the most important landmark in that region of Nigeria. 3. Discussion What are some of the consequences for an agenda of parallel texts for the promotion of African literature, and how might we relate the need to produce literary works in African languages to the issue of a society’s collective memory? Reconceptualizations. First, a number of recon- ceptualizations have to take place to put things in perspective as a consequence of this agenda. We agree with Ngugi that the “normal” for African literature should be African language literature. We reconceptualize that here as Afriphone literature, and claim in this paper and in previous work (Bodomo 2013, 2014a, 2014b) that the most prototypical form of African literature is Afriphone literature. This does not in any way exclude the use of European languages in African literature, but those cannot be the norm. Indeed, terms like Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, and Lusophone African literature are obsolete, twentieth-century colonial notions about African literature. Rather, we reconceptualize that Anglophone African literature as used in the twentieth century is literature that was written about Africa in English. It is essentially English literature about Africa. The new conceptualization of Anglophone African literature is one of translated literature. A piece of work is, first and foremost, considered Anglophone African literature if it was first written in an African language and then translated into English. Any piece of work that was first written in English about Africa (whether or not by an African) is English literature about Africa. However, if a piece of work is written in English and translated into an African language, that translated version is African literature. In the same vein, Francophone African literature as used in the twentieth century meant literature that was written in French about Africa. But we shall not refer to it like that now— we shall refer to it as French literature about Africa (whether or not written by an African). In the twenty-first century, the reconceptualization of Francophone African literature is literature that was first written in an African language and then translated into French. If a piece of work is written in French about Africa and translated into an African language, that piece of work qualifies as African literature. Finally, Lusophone African literature in the twentieth century meant literature written in Portuguese about Africa. However, in the twenty-first century, where there is a robust agenda for the promotion of Afriphone literature, Lusophone African literature qualifies as such if the original text was written in an African language. Lusophone African literature is not literature first written in Portuguese but that which was translated into Portuguese from an African language. If however a piece of work originally written in Portuguese now gets translated into an African language, the translated text is African literature. As can be seen from this reconceptualization of Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, and Lusophone African literature, the parallel text pair is a pair comprising Afriphone literature and Europhone African literature; in the case of the “Mandela” and “Chibok girls” poems, a Dagaare-phone African literature and an Anglophone African literature. Afriphone, then, in itself is a cover term for the many African language literatures that are expected to blossom from the Afriphone literary agenda in the twenty-first century. Parallel texts and collective memory. The practice of parallel texts as outlined in this paper is clearly a specialized form of translation. This specialized form of literary translation connects to an important discussion on the relationship between literary translation and cultural memory (what I call collective memory here), as espoused in works like Long’s (2008). In Long’s paper, she investigates “the relationship between literary translation and cultural memory, using a twentieth century film version of one of Shakespeare’s plays as a case study in inter-semiotic translation” (1). The work goes on to clarify that the common perception of translation is often confined to its use as a language learning tool or as a means of information transfer between languages. The wider academic concept embraces not only inter-lingual translation, but both intra-lingual activity or rewording in the same language and inter-semiotic translation defined by Roman Jacobson as “the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems” (Jakobson 1959, 114). (Long 2008, 1) If more and more African writers do parallel-texting, as proposed here, the end result of this literary practice would be the documentation of the verbal art and other traditional linguistic knowledge systems, including ideophones, proverbs, and other kinds of verbal indirection towards preserving and enriching the collective memory of contemporary African societies. The term “collective memory” as I use it here could form the basis of what one may term “African memory” 1 in the sense that it evokes some typically traditional African ways of remembering the past—including not just the oral transmission modes involved but also of recognizing some older individuals with experiences of the society’s past as repositories of the history and culture of their society. In short, knowledgeable elders are considered as authoritative custodians of each rural African society’s past. This fact is encoded by an African saying that whenever an old man dies it is like a library that burns down! These traditional collective memory practices have formed the basis of memory documentation in contemporary African polities, with two of the most prominent ones being attempts to document the painful apartheid past in South Africa through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) sittings (Gade 2013), and the attempt to document the collective 1 I would like to thank Critina Demaria, one of the editors of the present journal, for suggesting that I connect my idea of parallel text as a translation/writing process to the idea of memory documentation, and for questioning whether one can indeed talk of an “African memory.” memory of the 1994 Rwandan genocide (Rettig 2008) in which more than half a million people lost their lives. Parallel texts in the Curriculum. To summa- rize this discussion section, further consequences for the practice of African literature in school and university curricula are that African literature programs ought to focus on African language literatures and not literature in European languages about Africa. They may, obviously, do courses on Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, and Lusophone African literature but, in line with the twenty-first- century definition of these literatures, these must be translations into English, French, and Portuguese respectively from African language literature. In sum then, African literature in the twenty-first century is literature that is written originally in an indigenous African language or that has been translated from an African language into other languages. It is Afriphone literature if it stays in the original African language, Anglophone African literature if it is translated from an African language into English, Francophone African literature if it is translated from an African language into French, and Lusophone African literature if it is translated from an African language into Portuguese. 5. Conclusion In this paper, we have proposed the concept of parallel texts as a theoretical and methodological strategy for reconceptualizing African literature in the twenty-first century. As described in the paper, a theory of parallel texts stipulates that in a multilingual and multiliterate environment, for more effective and optimal knowledge and information dissemination, users of language should produce contiguous texts in at least two of the languages within the said environ- ment. Drawing from this, a parallel text would then be a set of texts in which written literary expressions in two or more languages are mediated in the form of translation at various levels, including the graphemic, the morphological, the syntactic, the phonological, and certainly the semantic. Conclusively, the end result of the translation at one or more of these levels is a set of texts existing side by side for ease of cognitive processing by the recipient, and may serve to document the collective memories of African traditional societies in the form of preserving various kinds of indigenous verbal art. Two poems by the author have been used as illustrations of these concepts and it is expected that more writers would set about practicing parallel-texting, and indeed that publishers will from now onwards encourage the publication of parallel-texted volumes. Many scholars of African languages, linguistics, and literatures are interested in the documentation and revitalization of African languages and their associated cultures. They are largely in agreement that this is an urgent task, but how to go about doing this remains a research challenge. This paper has proposed an approach to addressing the problem with the theoretical and methodological notion of parallel texts. It is hoped that more parallel-texted volumes will be published within the next ten years for the promotion of Afriphone literatures. This parallel-text approach as a special kind of writing and translation process could indeed be contributing to the construction of a new and richer collective memory which is an instance of the idea of African memory, as discussed above. References Achebe, Chinua. 1989. “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature.” In Historical and Cultural Contexts of Linguistic and Literary Phenomena/Contextes historiques et culturels des phénomènes linguistiques et littéraires (Proceedings of the Seventeenth Triennial Congress of the Fédération Internationale del Langues et Littératures Modernes held at the University of Guelph, August 18–25), edited by G. D. Killam, 3–8. Guelph, Ontario: University of Guelph. Ayuk, Hamilton. 2014. What is African literature? Accessed June 6, 2014. http://princehamilton.blogspot.co.at/2009/06/what-is-african- literature.html. Bodomo, Adams. 2013. Lecture notes for “Language, Literacy, and Literature: The Language Question in African Literary Expression” (Course no. 140251), Department of African Studies, University of Vienna. ———. 2014a. “Survey Report on African Languages and Literatures.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Vienna, Austria. ———. 2014b. “The Language Question in Defining African literature: Contributions from Linguistics and Cognitive Science.” Paper presented at the Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland (VAD), Bayreuth University, June 11–14, 2014. Gade, Christian B. N. 2013. “Restorative Justice and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Process.” South African Journal of Philosophy 32(1): 10–35. doi:10.1080/02580136.2013.810412. Jakobson, Roman. 1959. On Linguistics aspects of Translation. Accessed November 12, 2014. http://complit.utoronto.ca/wp- content/uploads/COL1000H_Roman_Jakobson_LinguisticAspects.pdf Kourouma, Ahmadou. 1968. Les Soleils des indépendances. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Repr. Paris: Les Éditions du Seuil, 1970. ———. 1991. Comments. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on African Literatures. Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization, Lagos, Nigeria. Long, Lynne. 2008. “Literary translation and cultural memory.” Unpublished article, draft version, University of Warwick, UK. Last accessed November 12, 2014. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/202/. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. ———. 2009. Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance. New York: BasicCivitas Books. Rettig, Max. 2008. “Gacaca: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Postconflict in Rwanda?” African Studies Review 51 (3):25–50. doi: 10.1353/arw.0.0091. is Professor of African Studies and holds the chair of African Languages and Literatures at the University of Vienna. He specializes in African linguistics, African language literatures, global African diaspora studies, and digital humanities with particular reference to the digitization of African languages and their oral cultures. As Director of the Global African Diaspora Studies (GADS) research platform at the University of Vienna, he has expertise and broad interests in the study of the sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects of Africa and its global relations.

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Abstract: “Get thee behind me Satan, I want to resist”. . . To translate memory across cultures and disciplines is an act of defiance, a proud sign of disobedience, tacitly performed by one of the most celebrated and internationally renowned practitioners and seminal theoreticians of the tasks facing the translator, the Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos. In “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation,” he writes: “If it has no Muse, it could be said to have an Angel; translation has an angelical function, that of bearer, of messenger. It is a messianic point or a semiotic place of convergence of intentionality.” Addressed here are the challenges posed in translating memory, memories, as the retrieval, reconstruction, inscription, and leaving of the traces and effects of a markedly memorializing act. The task of the trans(at)l(antic)ator involves not abandoning but suspending certain spontaneous choices of literal translation in favor of inter- and trans-action. The responses are: differ, defer, never with indifference, always without deference; address not only urgently political issues of The Movimento dos Sem Terra, primordial in Brazil, but also the transactions, with and in the Movement, of so many poets and songwriters and now, perhaps even more defiantly, with a Brazilian-inflected countertheory to the rescue. Remembering (belated) versions The invitation to “establish a dialogue with and among scholars working on the intersections between translation studies and memory studies as they are presently configured and might be envisioned in the future,” keynote of this special issue on translating memory across cultures and disciplines, proleptically, had been tacitly accepted avant la lettre and throughout his career by one of the most celebrated and internationally renowned practitioners and seminal theoreticians of the tasks and challenges facing the translator, the Brazilian poet and transcreator, Haroldo de Campos. In “Committing Translation or the Task of the Trans(at)l(antic)ator,” the introductory essay to my translations of the ineradicably political memories and cultural expressions of ideological indignation of the MST (Movement of the Landless Rural Workers in Brazil) in Landless Voices in Song and Poetry. The Movimento dos Sem Terra of Brazil (Vieira and McGuirck 2007, XXI–XXIV), I addressed and now return to the challenges posed in translating memory, memories, as the retrieval, reconstruction, inscription, and leaving of traces and their effects of a markedly “memorializing act” (Vieria and McGuirck 2007); in and for a Brazil confronting its own secular inequalities and injustices, alerted to that sovereign state’s and that nation’s continuing struggle to emerge from the cliché-ridden inscription on its national flag, the ever-ironic “Ordem e Progresso.” Under whose orders and for the progress of whom was national memory to be reinscribed, translated, indeed transferred from the hegemonies of a very recent twenty-year military regime and its transitional legacies in the period of rebuilding a democracy from 1984? Further, on undertaking this commission, I recalled the advice of Umberto Eco as I reflected on the experience of having worked, together with the Brazilian critic and translation theorist, Else Vieira, in preparation of Haroldo de Campos in Conversation (McGuirck and Vieira 2009), the volume that arose, in memoriam, not least from the numerous meetings that, as editors, we held between 1999 and 2002 with Haroldo and his wife Carmen Arruda Campos in the hospitality of their Library of Babel home:1 I frequently feel irritated when I read essays on the theory of translation that, even though brilliant and perceptive, do not provide enough examples. I think translation scholars should have had at least one of the following experiences 1 This volume contains renderings in English of the following Haroldo de Campos essays touching variously on his theories of translation: ”On Translation as Creation and Criticism,” ”Constructivism in Brazil: Concretism and Neo-Concretism. A Personal Post Scriptum,” “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation,” “On Homerotherapy: Translating The Iliad,” and “The Ex- centric Viewpoint: Tradition, Transcreation, Transculturation.” during their life: translating, checking and editing translations, or being translated and working in close co-operation with their translators [. . .] Between the purely theoretical argument that, since languages are differently structured, translation is impossible, and the commonsensical acknowledgement that people, after all, do translate and understand each other, it seems to me that the idea of translation as a process of negotiation (between author and text, between author and readers, as well as between the structure of two languages and the encyclopaedias of two cultures) is the only one that matches experience. (Eco 2003, 36) In such “a process of negotiation,” in that multiple “in- betweenness,” here evoked by Eco but previously the subject of an indispensable meditation on a specifically Latin American project, the “entre-lugar” of Silviano Santiago, “between sacrifice and play, between prison and transgression, between submission to the code and aggression, between obedience and rebellion” (Santiago 1978, 11), and as translator of the poems and songs of the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST, or Movement of the landless rural workers), I soon confronted commitment, in various of its encyclopaedic forms. What had they done to my song? The preceding decades had witnessed the revitalizing of popular music as a vehicle for political activisms in Brazil. One obvious source had been the música sertaneja of land-deprived migrant workers, driven to the cities and taking with them their country music, be it traditional or, more recently, influenced by the commercial brands of the southern cultures of the United States. No less influential had been the pagode movement’s samba- esque registering of the violent tensions of poverty in hardly couched critiques of repressive regimes, military or otherwise. The performances echoed, consciously or subliminally, the prosodies—high and low—of Brazilian Portuguese and the broadsheet and cordel strains of popular imaginaries from across and beyond the nation. For Brazil has never ceased to explore and express its sensitivity to the ideological power of the protest song; not least, and latterly, against the imagined and projected versions of what is to come peddled, for many of its displaced, unrepresented and unlikely-to-be-remembered vic- tims, by the invasive myth-makers of a nation awarded the Trojan horses of a World Cup and an Olympic Games. At the time of committing myself to undertake the translations of unabashedly radical texts, it was the centenary of the birth of the celebrated Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Inspiration of politically committed poetry and song for not a continent but a world, he had long ago been described by Federico García Lorca as being closer to blood than to ink. It was on such a note—often indissociable from tears or from wine—that the anguish and euphoria, the despair and hope that suffuse the texts I translated were approached and embraced. My locus of transcreation was, and is, unavoidably and unapologetically, Anglophone; it is also, though tempered, European. As a critic and translator of, primarily, literatures in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian, I exploited the availability of translation alternatives from those traditions as well as from any Brazil-specific contexts that informed the choices made. Pace Umberto Eco, I often wrote as both Mouse and Rat, chewing or munching in a further in- betweenness or the negotiated hybridity that I had experienced in tussling with Haroldo de Campos himself.2 For part of our “translating, checking and editing translations, or being translated and working in close co-operation” had been the daunting enterprise of revisiting “o anjo esquerdo da história”; beginning with the resonantly intertextual reference to Walter Benjamin’s “angel of history. His face [. . .] turned towards the past” (Benjamin 1999, 249), broached at once in the title of this long de Campos poem. Written to commemorate the victims of the notorious massacre in 1996 of nineteen protesting members of the MST at El Dorado dos Carajás in the State of Pará, and originally rendered into English by Haroldo as “the left-winged angel of history.” Engagement with the calculatedly syntagmatic disconti- nuity and attendant staccato rhythms of the Brazilian Portuguese text also had to take into account a context of commitment and contributions, to and in the Movement, of such distinguished Brazilian artists as Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Frei Betto, and many others, including Haroldo de Campos himself, and thus readdress previous tasks of the other—cultural inseparably from linguistic—translator(s). 2See the facsimile of Haroldo de Campos’s scribbled distinction between chewing and munching with reference to my translation of “quoheletic poem 2: in praise of the termite,” in McGuirck and Vieira 2009, 339. The Latin American protest song explosions of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, of which Robert Pring-Mill reminded us in “Gracias a la vida” The Power and Poetry of Song (1990), had hardly left Brazil unaffected by the echoes, influences, hybridities, and intertexts of contemporary transculturations. He listed civil rights, the peace movement, and the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in the US; Italian CantAcronache; the Greece of Theodorakis; the Catalan Nova Cançó; the Portuguese Nova Canção; Irish songs of “the troubles”; and Asian and African instances from the Philipines, East Timor, and Mongolia, to Mozambique and Angola. Not least of the intertexts of Brazilian protest song and poetry were the Cuban, Argentine, and Chilean expressions that sprinkled the MST artists with inspirations taken from the archives of the Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and nueva canción traditions. If any one element of Pring-Mill’s seminal analysis can be said to have informed the texts of the MST, it is this evocation: “Asked about his own songs (in 1973), the Uruguayan Daniel Vigliette said firmly that they were as much de propuesta as de protesta: designed not merely to protest but to propose—in other words not merely to ‘tear down fences’ (quite literally so in Viglietti’s own anti-latifundista ‘A desalambrar!’) but also ‘to build bridges’ and to be constructive” (Pring-Mill 1990, 10). Pring-Mill identified three functions of such texts: “response to an immediate environment”; “instrument of political and social change”; communicating a “horizon of expectations” and “presuppositions.” Yet he was quick to add a vital rider on cultural difference: “the whole rhetoric of such poems and songs is very different from ours, partly because Spanish [and here read Portuguese] handles issues more violently—more dramatically and emotionally—than English (sometimes in ways which we may find indecorous)” (Pring-Mill 1990, 10–14). He continued: The messages of individual Latin American songs function within the framework of belief they foster and reinforce, in that extremely different social context. In countries where illiteracy is as high as it is in most of Latin America, where censorship and repression are so often at work, and where the official media are so rarely to be trusted, the message-bearing function of poesía de compromiso—sung or unsung—has an importance which it is not easy for a more literate academic audience to appreciate. Its messages perform a varied series of useful social functions [. . .] all of which are doubly important in the context of predominantly oral cultures. Thus they serve both to report and to record events (interpreting them, naturally enough, from specific points of view, which will strike all those who disagree with them as prejudiced); they praise, or lament, heroes and denounce tyrants; they protest against abuses and propound solutions (whether these are viable or not); and they teach many kinds of practical lessons, which their listeners are encouraged to put into practice. (Pring-Mill 1990, 77) Pring-Mill, a decade or so on, would hardly have been surprised not to have the last word. He might also have smiled at the risky certainty, in respect not only of rhetoric but also of politics, of Perry Anderson, as a heady mixture of denunciation and the recuperation of misappropriated national memories promised to turn to propounded solution in the form of a first left- wing figure, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, democratically elected in 2002, on the crest of the MST wave of popular protest: “the symbolism of a former shoe-shine boy and street vendor achieving supreme power in the most unequal major society on earth speaks for itself [. . .] A climate of popular expectation surrounds Lula that no President of the New Republic has ever enjoyed at the outset of his mandate. Hope of relief from the misery of the last years will not vanish overnight” (Anderson 2002, 21). Get thee behind me Satan, I want to resist. . . The risk of failing to render the textual wrath of a poem written in the indignation of 1996 protest amidst the 2002 days of heady triumphalist expectation—with popular memory of tyranny and criminality and a consciousness of the threat of impunity all too readily fading—seemed but one looming contention. The task of the trans(at)l(antic)ator therefore involved not abandoning but suspending certain spontaneous choices of literal translation in favor of inter- and trans-action. The challenges were: differ, defer, never with indifference, always without deference; address not only issues dear to the MST, primordial in Brazil, but also the transactions, with and in the Movement, of so many poets and songwriters and now, perhaps even more challengingly, but with a Brazilian inflected countertheory to the rescue, of Haroldo de Campos himself, from his essay on “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation”: Translation, like philosophy, has no Muse [. . .] says Walter Benjamin (“Die Aufgabe des Uebersetzers”). And yet, if it has no Muse, it could be said to have an Angel [. . .] translation has an angelical function, that of bearer, messenger [. . .] it is even, for the original [. . .] a messianic point or, in lay terms of modern theory of signs, a semiotic place of convergence of intentionality [. . .] Benjamin inverts the relation of servitude which, as a rule, affects ingenuous conceptions of translation as a tribute to fidelity. Fidelity (so-called translation literal to meaning, or, simply, inverted, servile, translation) [. . .] Therefore, in the Benjaminian perspective [. . .] the original is what in a certain way serves the translation, at the moment when it unburdens it from the task of transporting the unessential content of the message [. . .] and permits it to dedicate itself to an other enterprise of fidelity [. . .] the “fidelity to reproduction of form” [. . .] It is oriented by the rebellious slogan of non serviam, of non-submission to a presence which is exterior to it, to a content which remains intrinsically unessential to it [. . .] a satanic enterprise. The “cursed” counterpart of the angelical nature of translation is Hubris, the semiological sin of Satan, il trapassar del segno (Paradiso XXXVI, 117), the transgression of sign limits [. . .] A translator of poetry is a choreographer of the inner dance of languages [. . .]. (Haroldo de Campos 2009, 233–236) How many angels? On the head of opin. . . ionated Manicheans be it, however, whether scholastic or materialist, to limit the inspirers of Brazilian or any other translators to but two angels: the good, the bad. And the ugly configuration of Haroldo’s predecessor poet Drummond de Andrade’s anjo torto (“crooked angel”), in “Poema de sete faces” (Poem of seven faces), as long ago as 1930, should have alerted subsequent and would-be theorists to both the revelations and the dangers of going transcendental in “the retrieval, reconstruction, and inscription” of remembering, as surely as the Shakespearean “seven” it echoes had led to “mere oblivion/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”3 The figure of the postmodern angel, always and already fallen, was also one too easily overlooked, left behind (Drummond’s “gauche na vida”/ “gauche in life”?), in the long march of historical materialism. . . 3 The caution of such philosophers as Richard Rorty in respect of the temptation to go transcendental in the memorializing of historical events had long ago been poeticized by Drummond de Andrade and, inherited, by Haroldo de Campos, not least in echo of William Shakespeare’s Jaques in As You Like It, Act II scene VII: “Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history.” often the most dogmatic of “the imagined and projected versions of what is to come” on the part of de Campos’s Marxisant Brazilian detractors, as will be revealed in and after a reading of the poem; and of its guest.4 For into the space of neglect—of suppressed memory—Haroldo de Campos had injected “o anjo esquerdo da história,” for him “the left-winged angel of history”; “the angel on the left of history” in my transjection, my inherently “transformative” but necessarily subsequent swerve, my own anxious clinamen). o anjo esquerdo da história the angel on the left of history os sem-terra afinal the landless at last estão assentados na are settled in pleniposse da terra: full possession of the land: de sem-terra passaram a from landless to com-terra: ei-los landed: here they’re enterrados interred desterrados de seu sopro their life’s breath de vida unearthly aterrados earthed terrorizados terrified terra que à terra earth which onto earth torna returns pleniposseiros terra- land-holders pleni- tenentes de uma potentiary of a (single vala (bala) comum: bullet) common grave: pelo avesso afinal outside in at last entranhados no holed deep into lato ventre do the broad-bellied latifúndio acres of the latifundio- que de im- land once barren produtivo re- so sudden- velou-se assim u- ly shown to be most f- bérrimo: gerando pingue ecund: udder-spawning profit messe de crop of sangue vermelhoso reddening blood 4 In ”Constructivism in Brazil: Concretism and Neo-Concretism. A Personal Post Scriptum,” Haroldo de Campos offers his riposte to Roberto Schwarz, as emblematic propagator of the attacks levied against the concretists and de Campos’s notion of a postutopical poetry. My “Laughin’ again he’s awake: de Campos a l’oreille de l’autre celte” addresses the polemic extensively in McGuirck and Vieira 2009, 126–152. lavradores sem un-labored lavra ei- labor: here they’re los: afinal con- larvaed at vertidos em larvas last em mortuá- on mortal rios despojos: remains ataúdes lavrados coffins labored na escassa madeira from the scanty timber (matéria) (timbre) de si mesmos: a bala assassina of themselves: the assassin bullet atocaiou-os stalks them mortiassentados thirst-squatting sitibundos death-settlers decúbito-abatidos pre- decumbents cut down pre- destinatários de uma destined for a agra (magra) meagre (earth) acre a- re(dis)(forme) forma grarian —fome—a- —famine— grária: ei- re (de)(formed) form los gregária here they are: gregarious comunidade de meeiros commune share-cropping do nada: nothingness: enver- shame- gonhada a- faced in goniada agony avexada vexed —envergoncorroída de —shamecorroded by imo-abrasivo re- inmost abrasive re- morso - morse- a pátria landless (como ufanar-se da?) (‘how shall we extol thee?’) apátrida homeland pranteia os seus des- laments its dis- possuídos párias – possessed pariahs – pátria parricida: parricide patria que talvez só afinal a for maybe only at last the espada flamejante fiery sword do anjo torto da his- of the crooked angel of his- tória cha- tory flam- mejando a contravento e ing against the wind and afogueando os burning the agrossicários sócios desse agrokilltural cronies of that fúnebre sodalício onde a somber sodality where morte-marechala comanda uma field-marshal death commands a torva milícia de janízaros-ja- grim militia of janissary-gun- gunços: men: somente o anjo esquerdo only the angel on the left da história escovada a of a history groomed against contrapelo com sua the grain shall manage with its multigirante espada po- multiswirling sword derá (quem dera! ) um dia (if only!) one day to convocar do ror convoke from the nebulous nebuloso dos dias vin- mass of days to douros o dia come the at last afinal sobreveniente do overriding day of the justo just ajuste de adjustment of contas accounts (Haroldo de Campos, 1996 © Translation Bernard McGuirk 2002) The task of transacting—trans/dancing—with Haroldo de Campos’s poetry was made the more challenging by his Mephistofaustic promptings. In the essay, he had willingly reen- gaged with both Marx and Nietzsche in a reminder that translation in particular and writing in general always perform the act of transcreation, a refutation of original (etiology) and target (teleology), not only linguistically but also culturally and, let it be stressed, ideologically. Self-consciously, he had echoed Marx’s precursor complaint against the censuring of his style. Self- mockingly, he had appropriated Nietzsche’s plea for the neces- sarily sublime “maldade”—the “evil”—of mischievous content and form. Radical content radical form radical translation Countless Brazilian artists had reacted, in creative political interventions, to the obscenity of the murderous repressions perpetrated against the MST—as did de Campos, here, to the massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás. Cyclical repetitions of organized violence, the option against the poor—in cynical inversion of the “for the poor” slogan of Liberation Theology— had triggered the indignation and the artistry of such as Frei Betto’s “Receita para matar um sem-terra”/“Recipe for Killing the Landless”, Sebastião Salgado’s (1997) photography, in Terra, and Chico Buarque’s “Levantados do chão” (Raised from the ground). These contemporary artists, however, no less than their predecessors Graciliano Ramos, João Cabral de Melo Neto, or Glauber Rocha, will not be remembered for their indignation alone. Each—and differently—had had to make another option, broadly definable as the style of mischief-making that is the prerogative of any radical art. Style also functions as a sharecropping, a participating in the intertextuality available to the individual artist; or, in de Campos’s formulation, Karl Marx’s “property of form,” inseparable from his “individual spirituality.” Such an option, being for the poor, should never be poor. Even to think as much would be either to neglect the need for creativity or to misread it. To confuse, say, Graciliano Ramos’s calculatedly daring minimalism, in Vidas secas (Barren lives) of 1938, with some unmediated response to the prescriptive exclusions of the Soviet Writers’ Congress of 1934. To ignore João Cabral de Melo Neto’s career-long engagement with the materiality of words or with what Francis Ponge called Le parti pris des choses. To undersell, perversely, the difficulty of his own challenge: “É difícil defender/só com palavras a vida” (It’s hard to defend/only with words life) (Morte e vida severina [Death and Life of Severino]), of 1956. To imagine a tabula rasa (inter-cine-text- less) Glauber Rocha, deprived, in the 1960s, of a dialogical relationship with Italian neorealism. To conceive that, in postmodernity, the compassions of Sebastião Salgado did not reflect, and reflect on, Don Macullin’s 1970s photography of the oppressed. To fail to hear in Chico Buarque’s song the 1990s echo of José Saramago’s “Do chão pode levantar-se um livro, como uma espiga de trigo ou uma flor brava. Ou uma ave. Ou uma bandeira” (From the ground a book can rise, like an ear of wheat or a wild flower. Or a bird. Or a banner). But there is neither need nor time for doubt. The urgent indivisibility of radical content from radical form is better demonstrated by critical artistry than by artless criticism. An unapologetic option for the inseparably transcendental and material underpins the very title of “o anjo esquerdo da história.” Whether God is dead or not (and whether such a dominant metaphysics of absence might be Marxian or Nietzschean in inspiration), the conspiracies of history are still played out amidst the configurations of narrative. Which is not to see history as narrative (that is, only as troped)—for that would be to deradicalize both history’s powers and any reading of it. In Le monolinguisme de l’autre (1996), Derrida elaborated on the “call for an outside.” In “o anjo. . . ,” de Campos called upon a figure, that of the avenging angel, which inhabits, simultaneously, both the inside and the outside of “a história.” He even staked out for it a particular location, the place of enunciation for a nuncio to a nation, for a committed messenger. Yet the call is not voiced until after that necessary delay that enables the poem to revisit, to reinhabit, to relive the arduous struggle for a hearing, paradoxically, on behalf of a voice—that of poetry—no less excluded, traditionally, than the referents of its echoing anger. Thus, by way of (not) analyzing the poem, I prefer to comment on aspects of my own transjection of it. Cheek to cheek. . . and the ear of the other Cast at me as a throw of the dice, the poem impelled me to reject paraphrase. Haphazardly, I projected it, rather, only as recastable. For the game was too serious to stop at a single appropriation. The ear of this other, too, had its particularity, its “properties of form,” its “individual spirituality.” An Irish specific of a past inherited, part-interred (ex-patria), in an England pre- , pro- , and post-Thatcher, suffused and infused my option for an irony that filtered distorted echoes of another, unofficial, “national” anthem: “Land of Hope and Glory.” “How shall we extol Thee?” who were born not of, but only on, Thee. Here I played with another geopolitics, one of parallel clichés, terra firma, “broad acres,” “field-marshals” of a homeland unheimlich and—sublime “maldade”—of the Mal-vinas, with their no less somber soldiery.5 That the translation must speak for, and of, itself is but part of the point. In language, for Bakhtin, the word was always half someone else’s. . . whether spoken or written. Had de Campos not taken but half of Mallarmé’s angelism, appropriating 5“Land of Hope and Glory” operates as a much appropriated English national hymn. It has been adopted as the official anthem and is sung at the annual conferences of the Conservative Party. poetry’s power of memory but adding to it a specifically Brazilian infernal vision (“quem dera!”), that of Canudos, and of Antônio Conselheiro? A post-Blake m(isc)arriage wherein the legacy of revolutionary mysticism assailed, as forcefully as does dialectical materialism, the hell-on-earth of landless utopians yet to glimpse a Brazilian heaven of agrarian reform? Such a politico-poetics could not presume to deprive those sem terra of the configurations, including the martyrs, saints, and avenging angels, of their local narratives, small or grand. . . sem céu? Heaven-less? Who knows? Who would impose? If their collective history had certainly been groomed against the grain (where every day was—is?—a last day), at least the poem leaves its protagonists “lying still” with their theology and with its (dis-) placements.6 Haroldo de Campos was no angel, least of all in his own poetic practice. He was unstintingly confident, certainly enough to lampoon critical and ideological rigidities and excesses. Acutely alert to the fact that Brazilian neo-Hegelians, no less than their counterparts elsewhere, in their determination to confront the brutality of much of Latin American society, have fallen precisely into the lure of a discourse too mimetic of brute reality, too mirroring ever to achieve a cutting edge, Haroldo de Campos convoked the figure of poetry itself. He knew that poetry is a master teaser, a baiter of stiff contemporary realists or the limp lamp bearers of reflection theories past and present. The inter- and intracultural transluciferations of his textual performances had allowed for the inter-action of Brazilians speaking and listening to Brazilians being listened and spoken to; in turn, they inspired that other, the present trans(at)l(antic)ator whose sign/ature shuttles to and fro, ever seeking to perform intra-, but never faithful, ever faith-less, illusorily face-less, scorn-fully masking source, mourn-fully eschewing target, settling (lawlessly), for an ever extra-trans-mission of occupations, pre- occupations, needs, urgencies. 6 The reference is to the 1902 foundational memorializing of the Canudos war of 1896–1897 in the seminal text of Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões, in which the rebellion and massacre of the sertanejo inhabitants of the Brazilian interior, in the State of Bahia, prefigure the plight, a century on, of the sem terra of El Dorado dos Carajás. Stormy (whether you like it or not. . . ) Whence, for Haroldo de Campos, the “anjo esquerdo da história”? In his unapologetic rejection of “unacceptable cognitive models,” the challenge of de Campos is consistent, not least when addressing the angel as an appropriated icon of the left, inherited from Walter Benjamin’s seminal formulation: This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. (Benjamin 1999, 249) His reconfiguration, in poetry, of the readily packaged but not so smoothly imported “anjo,” regarded by Else Vieira as a de Campos “mutation” in the poet’s resistance to allowing Benjamin’s “Angelus Novus” cum “angel of history” to be unproblematically appropriated as emblematic of a Brazilian historical materialism, must also be seen as an instrument of Haroldo’s staunch debunking of those theorists who would unquestioningly identify their ideological stance with “the storm of progress.”7 Most notoriously, Roberto Schwarz, “sociologizing critic, of vocational incompatibility with the new in poetry” (de Campos, in McGuirk and Vieira 2009,197): The basic scheme is as follows: a tiny élite devotes itself to copying Old World culture [. . .] As a result, literature and politics occupy an exotic position, and we become incapable of creating things of our own that spring from the depths of our life and history [....] But why not reverse the argument? Why should the imitative character of our life not stem from forms of inequality so brutal that they lack the minimal reciprocity [. . .] without which modern society can only appear artificial and “imported”? (Schwarz 1992, 85– 89). 7 See the sections “Protean Angels: Shifting Spectres of Walter Benjamin” and “Crooked Angels, Satanic Angels: From Determinism to the Recovery of Revolutionary Possibility” in “Weaving Histories and Cultural Memories. The (Inter)National Materialisms of o anjo esquerdo da história,“ in McGuirck and Vieira 2009, 170–175. Far from resembling “devoted copying,” such Haroldo de Campos performances as I have dealt with here, whether in his criticism or in his poetry, are, to use his own formulation, “textos de ruptura”(rupture texts). In Panorama do Finnegans Wake (1962), the de Campos brothers, Augusto and Haroldo, had already embarked—for a hybrid genre of transl-iter-ation—on the journey of strenuous excursions demanded, by the modern artist par excellence, Stéphane Mallarmé.8 As has been seen in respect of “o anjo esquerdo da história”, any “angelism” inherited from Mallarmé is supplemented by the daemonic; is traced (as even Roberto Schwarz might admit) by the diabolic. The recuperative moves of the poem play with “fallen” transcendentalism and that corrective shift which—for Haroldo de Campos, no less than for any Marxist—tugs “a história” (history and the story of history) always to the Left. Not “going transcendental,” but refusing to forget that particular -ism (without being “-ista”). Not appropriating an already unbalanced Brazilian history (which ever was and still is on the Right). Rather, engaging with it and in it through concrete performances. Destabilizing the dubious claim that we judge our own time by its politicians, the past by its artists. Searching for poetry’s readmission to a Res Pública Brasileira in which the artist (in academic freedom, pace Roberto et al) might also stage the still-to be-negotiated identities of the nation. Writ(h)ing, in agon, so that sub-alterity (sic) might no longer be a leper’s bell to be hung, by the dark forces of any “sociologizing” thought-police, about the neck of Brazil’s excluded artists. Are Haroldo de Campos’s “o anjo esquerdo da história” and my transjection of it—as not abandoned or to be forgotten, mutilatedly only “left winged” and but formerly “of history,” but rather ever active, whole, uncut, as ”the angel on the left of history”—merely a further negotiated staging? Or just a plea for the performative poet–critic to be heard as also improvising politically against, in counterpoint to, “unacceptable cognitive 8 “The double effort required to allow Mallarmé’s gaps their full disjunctive and destructive power, yet at the same time remain attentive to the multitude of invisible currents which pass back and forth between the separated segments, will strike many readers as inexcusably arduous and unrewarding,” and “such moments are of the essence in Mallarmé [. . .] the type of modern artist [. . .] intent on breaking up ready-made Gestalten and smooth surface textures in order to compel his audience to look elsewhere for artistic coherence, to venture beneath the surface into the difficult, undifferentiated world of unconscious process, to interrupt the easy flow of horizontal perception with strenuous excursions into multi-level, all-at-once ‘verticality’” (Bowie 1978, 6 and 16, respectively). models” of a Brazil in construction. . . though sorely lacking in deconstruction? Trans memoriam To Jacques Derrida’s “there is always something sexual at stake in the resistance to deconstruction” (1987, 196), this particular re- reader—and re-hearer—of Haroldo de Campos would add: “and cultural, and ideological.” But isn’t that where the guest translator came, invited, between 1999 and 2002, by and with Haroldo and Carmen, and with Else, into the hospitality of the Babelic home of Brazil and Brazilian letters? Unheimlich? Years on, I am still questioning the possibility of speaking or hearing “do exterior,” “from abroad”; but, now, it is because I have listened, learned, read, and may even write, that intra- has a history which includes extra-; that il n’y a pas d’hors contexte. At, and beyond, the limits of the languages and the antics of nations—not least in transatlantications—the sting and the contamination of the tse-tse flies in the face of hygienic, much less immune, bodies such as text, context, literary, semiotic, cultural, or translation studies. In aporetic threshold perfor- mances, where differences between some “outside” and some “in” are never abolished but ever undermined, not merely inverted but politically subverted, “transtextuality” is a new wor(l)d. . . but it is readable, habitable, pleasurable; like tsextuality. This place of aporia is before a door, a threshold, a border, a line, or simply the edge or the approach of the other as such Jacques Derrida (1993, 12) Coda: translator’s note The discourse of the author of the above is considered by the journal reviewer to perform that approach to translation theory to which it attempts to give (further) voice. Subsequent to the medium chosen by Haroldo de Campos to deliver a poetic rebuke to the perpetrators of the 1996 massacre at El Dorado dos Carajás, will there have been, will there be, a creative intervention that, similarly or comparably, addresses and challenges the contem- porary social upheavals and political manifestations of the opposition to a contemporary Brazil that projects as heaven-sent the staging of a World Cup and an Olympic Games in the best of all possible wor(l)ds? A diabolic fait accompli; or do post-Haroldo undoings—the transluciferations of successor artists—loom. . . ? The task of the present trans(at)l(antic)ator is to await texts from writers who, also, will have undertaken such “imagined and projected versions of what is to come.” Then, in a necessarily matching performative meditation, will it be conceivable to “update.” Pace academe passim. . . Ite, missa est. The sacrifice (of the masses) in the interim will have found but formulaic, liturgical, expressions of their material—street, stadium, factory, favela, commune, congress—protests, however real, however righteous; whether or not arising from the left of history. Chronicles of a dearth foretold; testimony to a lack of devilishly challenging artistic engagement? The avenging angel of poiesis awaits; translations will follow. References Anderson, Perry. 2002. “The Cardoso Legacy.” London Review of Books 24 (24): 18–22. December 12. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n24/perry- anderson/the-cardoso-legacy. Andrade, Drummond de. 1930. “Poema de sete faces.” In Alguma poesia. Belo Horizonte: Edicoes Pindorama. Reproduced in Alguma Poesia. Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Poesia e prosa, 70. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar, 1979. Benjamin, Walter. 1999. Illuminations. Edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. London: Pimlico. Betto, Frei. 2002. “Receita para matar um sem-terra.” In Landless Voices in Song and Poetry, edited by Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira and Bernard McGuirk, 77–78. Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2007. Bowie, Malcolm. 1978. Mallarmé and the Art of Being Difficult. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campos, Augusto de, and Haroldo de Campos. 1962. Panorama do Finnegans Wake. n.c.: Conselho Estadual de Cultura, Comissão de Literatura. Campos, Haroldo de. [n.d.]1998. “anjo equerdo da história.” In Crisantempo: no espaço curvo nasce um, 69–72. São Paulo: Perspectiva. Originally in ptnotícias. São Paulo: Diretório Nacional do Partido dos Trabalhadores. ———. 2009. “On Mephistofaustic Transluciferation.” In McGuirk and Vieira 2009, 233–236. Translation by Bernard McGuirk. Derrida, Jacques. [1984] 1987. “Women in the Beehive: A Seminar with Jacques Derrida.” In Men in Feminism, edited by Alice Jardine and Paul Smith, 189–203. New York and London: Routledge. Originally published in Subjects/Objects 2 (12). ———. 1993. “Finis.” In Aporias: dying—awaiting (one another at)the “limits of truth”; mourir—s’attendre aux “limites de la vérité”, 1–42. Translated by Thomas Dutoit. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1996. Le monolinguisme de l’autre, ou, La prothèse d’origine. Paris: Galilée. Eco, Umberto. 2003. “Of Mice and Men.” The Guardian Review, November 1. Complete version available at https://free- minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=7425.0. McGuirk, Bernard, and Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira. 2009. Haroldo de Campos in conversation: in memoriam 1929–2003. London: Zoilus. Melo Neto, João Cabral de. 2000. Morte e vida severina e outros poemas para vozes. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira. Pring-Mill, Robert D. F. 1990. “Gracias a la vida”: The Power and Poetry of Song. The Kate Elder Lecture, Queen Mary University of London. An expanded version published London: University of London, Dept. of Hispanic Studies, 1999. Santiago, Silviano. 1978. “O entre-lugar do discurso latino-americano.” In Uma literatura nos trópicos, 11–28. São Paulo: Perspectiva. Salgado, Sebastião. 1997. Terra. Preface by José Saramago, and poetry by Chico Buarque. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. English edition published as Terra: Struggle of the Landless. London: Phaidon, 1997. Schwarz, Roberto. 1992. Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture. Edited and with an introduction by John Gledson. London and New York: Verso. Vieira, Else Ribeiro Pires, and Bernard McGuirk. 2007. Landless Voices in Song and Poetry: The Movimento dos Sem Terra of Brazil. Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press. is Emeritus Professor of Romance Literatures and Literary Theory at the University of Nottingham. He is president of the International Consortium for the Study of Post-Conflict and has published widely on and translated literatures in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. His most recent books are Latin American Literature: Symptoms, Risks and Strategies of Poststructuralist Criticism (2013), Poesia de Guerra (1998), Falklands–Malvinas: An Unfinished Business (2007), and Erasing Fernando Pessoa (2017). He has also edited, with Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira, Landless Voices in Song and Poetry: The Movimento Dos Sem Terra of Brazil (2007) and Haroldo de Campos in Conversation: In Memoriam 1929–2003 (2007); and, with Constance Goh, Happiness and Post-Conflict (2007).

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Abstract: “I have invented very little in the stories and voices that weave through this book. Some of them I was told and have carried in my memory for a long time. Others I found in books.” These words—from the Author’s Note of Muñoz Molina’s Sepharad—could be said to be the starting point of my article. Muñoz Molina’s novel illustrates a good example of what Michael Rothberg defines as “multidirectional memory” since the memory of the Holocaust, the multiple exiles that have taken place in Europe, and the memory of postwar Spain coexist—like the tesserae of a mosaic—in the structure of this novel. In this sense, Sepharad can be seen as a landmark in recent Spanish literature, being the first novel that provides a juxtaposition of these formerly isolated memories in a fictional work. It is, therefore, the aim of this article to explore the manner in which Muñoz Molina manages to translate into fiction the shared European memory of the twentieth century, also paying attention to the narrative techniques used by this Spanish author. 1This paper is a result of the METAPHORA research project (Reference FFI2014-53391-P), funded by State Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation of Spain. Cómo atreverse a la vana frivolidad de inventar, habiendo tantas vidas que merecieron ser contadas, cada una de ellas una novela, una malla de ramificaciones que conducen a otras novelas y otras vidas”.2 Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad (2003, 720-721) “De te fabula. The story is about you”. Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture (1976, 186) One of the most revealing passages that the reader of Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad (first published in 2001) may encounter in this so-called “novela de novelas” occurs in the “Author’s Note,” which brings this novel to its end: “I have invented very little in the stories and voices that weave through this book. Some of them I was told and have carried in my memory for a long time. Others I found in books” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 383). This passage could be said to be the starting point of this essay since it helps explain the complex relationship which we find in this novel between memory and imagination, as well as between storytelling and memoir. Sefarad is described by Muñoz Molina as “un mapa de todos los exilios posibles” (a map of all possible exiles) (Valdivia 2013, 26), and in this sense the novel represents a manifold and heterogeneous approach to this theme. Similarly, this novel constitutes a landmark in Spanish literature, as it juxtaposes in a fictional work both the Spanish and European shared history of the twentieth century in an unprecedented manner (see Valdivia 2013; Hristova 2011; Baer 2011). As it could be claimed that Sefarad is founded on a multidirectional approach to memory (Valdivia 2013, 13), it is my purpose to explore the manner in which this approach is translated into fiction in this novel. Similarly, I would like to pay attention to those narrative techniques used by Muñoz Molina that enhance this multidirectional approach. In this sense, both polyacroasis (that is, the plural interpretation of discourses), as 2 All quotations in Spanish from Sefarad are from the 2013 edition (see References list) and referenced in parentheses as such in the text. All quotations in English are from the 2003 edition of Margaret Sayers Peden’s translation (see References list). The English translation will be offered throughout in footnotes, except where only short passages are cited in-text. “How, when there are so many lives that deserve to be told, can one attempt to invent a novel for each, in a vast network of interlinking novels and lives?” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 365) defined by Tomás Albaladejo (1998, 2011), and the empathetic turn of Muñoz Molina’s novel, account for an effective translation of memory, as I will try to demonstrate. Multidirectional Memory in Sefarad Instead of the idea of collective memory as competitive memory (Rothberg 2009, 3), in Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization a new conceptual framework is proposed which “consider[s] memory as multidirectional: as subject to ongoing negotiation, cross- referencing [. . .] as productive and not privative” (Rothberg 2009, 3). In other words, this model of competitive memory should be replaced by a dynamic multidirectional model that allows the interaction of different historical memories (Rothberg 2009, 2–3). In Rothberg’s study, the work of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs is considered crucial, since for him “all memories are simultaneously individual and collective” (Rothberg 2009, 14–15) so that an effective transmission of the past depends on the manner in which the interaction and juxtaposition of both individual and collective memory is understood. In this sense, as Pablo Valdivia has stated in his edition of Sefarad, the structure of Muñoz Molina’s novel could be said to represent a good illustration of what Michael Rothberg has defined as “multidirectional memory” (Valdivia 2013, 13). The memory of the Holocaust, the multiple exiles that have taken place in Europe, including the Spanish republican exile, and the memory of postwar Spain coexist in the structure of these seventeen intertwined chapters or “novelas” that shape Sefarad. Thus, Sefarad constitutes a landmark in recent Spanish literature since, before this novel was published in 2001, the juxtaposition of the Spanish and European shared memory of the Holocaust and its aftermath, along with the memory of the Spanish republican exile, its Civil War, and its postwar period has never been staged in a fictional work (Valdivia 2013, 14; see also Hristova 2011). As a result of this, Muñoz Molina’s novel also constitutes an attempt to connect the Spanish and European shared culture so as to fill the voids of our shared history3 (Baer 3 As Pablo Valdivia has suggested in his edition of Sefarad, in the article “Escuchando a Canetti,” published in the Spanish newspaper El País in 1997, we can clearly appreciate Muñoz 2011; Valdivia 2013). In order to illuminate those cultural links, the Spanish author creates a complex and ambitious fictional artifact haunted by voices rather than characters in the traditional sense (Valdivia 2013). Actually, voices (“voces”) is the word Muñoz Molina uses in the “Author’s Note” to refer to the characters who weave through the book. Some of these voices are fictional and others belong to real people who bore witness to their atrocious experiences, and they all constitute an “imagined community of voices” (Herzberger 2004, 85; Valdivia 2013, 15). Hence, in Sefarad we read the testimonies and listen to the voices of Victor Klemperer, Margarete Buber-Neumann, Primo Levi, Francisco Ayala, Evgenia Ginzburg, José Luis Pinillos, Franz Kafka, or Milena Jesenska, to name but a few. Marije Hristova (2011) has referred to these characters as “iconic characters” or “iconic writers”—that is, historical figures appearing in the novel who in turn have bequeathed to us their “iconic testimonies.” According to Baer, the weak connection between Spain and the memory of the Holocaust is not historical but cultural (Baer 2011, 114). In this sense, this cultural disjointedness is also suggested in the “Author’s Note,” when Muñoz Molina reveals that many of the testimonies and memoirs of victims of totalitarian regimes that led him to write Sefarad were not translated into Spanish by the time he was writing and published his novel. This is the case of Margarete Buber Neumann’s Als Gefangene bei Stalin und Hitler. Eine Welt im Dunkel ([1947] 1997), Victor Klemperer’s “Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten.” Tagebücher 1933–1945 (1995), Jean Améry’s Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwäl- tigten (1997), and Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind (1967), whose memoirs the author could only read in their French and English translations. In fact, it was Antonio Muñoz Molina himself who inserted in the novel his own translation of passages taken from the memoirs we have Molina’s reflections on what he considers a certain lack of interest in Spain regarding the international discussions on the Holocaust memory: “Me llama la atención lo poco que se ha escrito en nuestro país sobre el Holocausto, y el eco tan débil o simplemente nulo que tienen entre nosotros los grandes debates internacionales sobre ese acontecimiento que, junto a la tecnología de la guerra total y el terror de las tiranías estalinistas, ha definido este siglo [. . .] se diría que a nosotros tales cosas no nos afectan, como si España fuera ajena a la historia judía de los últimos cinco siglos, o como si nuestro país no hubiera padecido durante casi cuarenta años una dictadura que debió su triunfo, en gran parte, a la ayuda del mismo régimen que provocó el Holocausto y arrasó Europa entera” (Muñoz Molina 2007, 377–380). previously mentioned. Thus, in Sefarad the creative writer and the translator meet, as will be analyzed in the last section. In Sefarad, the author introduces a variety of testimonies and memories that had been previously overshadowed by other memories, to the extent that they were unknown for many Spanish readers, an aspect which suggests a parallelism between Rothberg’s multidirectional memory model and Muñoz Molina’s novel (Valdivia 2013, 13). In this sense, Sefarad can be contemplated as a mosaic made of many tesserae, every one of which is part of an imagined community of voices. Needless to say, every tessera is required to understand the whole picture. In “Münzenberg,” one of the seventeen chapters that make up Sefarad, Muñoz Molina’s “basic narrator” (Hristova 2011) reveals his plans to write a novel, which, quite startlingly, seems to be inspired by the same approach to fiction that Rothberg proposes for history (Valdivia 2013): He intuido, a lo largo de dos o tres años, la tentación y la posibilidad de una novela, he imaginado situaciones y lugares, como fotografías sueltas o como esos fotogramas de películas que ponían antes, armados en grandes carteleras, a las entradas de los cines [. . .] Cada uno cobraba una valiosa cualidad de misterio, se yuxtaponía sin orden a los otros, se iluminaban entre sí en conexiones plurales e instantáneas, que yo podía deshacer o modificar a mi antojo, y en las que ninguna imagen anulaba a las otras o alcanzaba una primacía segura sobre ellas, o perdía en beneficio del conjunto su singularidad irreductible. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 383)4 This passage is highly revealing since we are told that the narrator’s plan for writing his novel consists of juxtaposing snapshots in order to create a pattern where no image nullifies or overshadows the others, since each of these images is unique and necessary to produce a true and coherent mosaic. This is what we find precisely in Sefarad; different testimonies and memoirs from victims of any political regime or from any kind of exile, each of which are equally significant in a clear multidirectional approach to memory (Valdivia 2013). 4 “For two or three years I have flirted with the idea of writing a novel, imagined situations and places, like snapshots, or like those posters displayed on large billboards at the entrance to a movie theatre. [. . .] Each became a mystery, illuminating the others, creating multiple links that I could break or modify at my whim, patterns in which no image nullified the others or gained precedence or lost its uniqueness within the whole” (Muñoz Molina 2003,140). Thus, one of the essential questions that are raised while reading Sefarad is how appropriate literature may be as a vehicle for bearing witness to history (Gilmour 2011, 840). The main narrator of Sefarad does not evade this issue, something which is reflected on many occasions throughout the novel. This is the case of the chapter “Narva,” in which the narrator meets a friend of his for lunch, the Spanish psychologist José Luis Pinillos. Pinillos enlisted in the Blue Division, the Spanish Army that served in the German Army during the Second World War. The testimony that the Spanish psychologist bequeaths to the narrator is that of his dramatic experience in the Estonian city of Narva. There, Pinillos met a Jewish woman who asks him to bear witness to the extermination of the Jewish population. At a certain point of the narration, the Spanish psychologist admits that “[y]o no sabía nada entonces, pero lo peor de todo era que me negaba a saber, que no veía lo que estaba delante de mis ojos” (Muñoz Molina 2013, 630) (“I didn’t know anything then, but worst of all was my refusal to know, what was before my eyes” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 307)), attracted as he was by what German civilization represented during his student years: “no quiero ocultarlo, ni quiero disculparme, creía que Alemania era la civilización, y Rusia la barbarie” (Muñoz Molina 2013, 630) (“I don’t want to hide anything or try to excuse myself, I thought that Germany was civilization and Russia barbarism” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 307)). After that meeting, he would never see the Jewish woman again and the experience of that meeting haunted him for many decades, until the very day the narrator and the Spanish psychologist met for lunch. This chapter contains essential reflections on the role of literature as a vehicle for transmitting the memory of the past. Moreover, the very mechanisms of storytelling are unveiled in a remarkable manner. After hearing Pinillos’s testimony, and particularly what meeting the Jewish woman meant for him, the basic narrator has an epiphanic revelation, which is reflected in the following passage: Él, que no quiso ni pudo olvidarla en más de medio siglo, me la ha legado ahora, de su memoria la ha trasladado a mi imaginación, pero yo no quiero inventarle ni un origen ni un nombre, tal vez ni siquiera tengo derecho: no es un fantasma, ni un personaje de ficción, es alguien que pertenecía a la vida real tanto como yo, que tuvo un destino tan único como el mío aunque inimaginablemente más atroz, una biografía que no puede ser suplantada por la sombra bella y mentirosa de la literatura [. . .] (Muñoz Molina 2013, 637)5 As the previous passage reflects, Muñoz Molina is aware of the risks involved in transmitting and translating memory into fiction. He is aware, in other words, of the limits of literature and invention (Gilmour 2011, 840),6 which is probably why Muñoz Molina declares in his “Author’s Note” that there is very little invention “in the stories and voices that weave through [Sefarad]” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 383). On the other hand, Sefarad never stops questioning the legitimacy of literature to approach memory. Perhaps, José Luis Pinillos’s testimony faithfully illustrates the author’s approach to memory: [. . .] si yo estoy vivo tengo la obligación de hablar por ellos, tengo que contar lo que les hicieron, no puedo quedarme sin hacer nada y dejar que les olviden, y que se pierda del todo lo poco que va quedando de ellos. No quedará nada cuando se haya extinguido mi generación, nadie que se acuerde, a no ser que alguno de vosotros repitáis lo que os hemos contado. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 644)7 At the very end of this passage, the Spanish psychologist appeals to the narrator and asks him to narrate what he has just told him (an idea that is lost in the English translation we offer below). In this sense, it is relevant to refer to Cristina Demaria’s study Semiotica e Memoria. Analisi del post-conflitto. In this study, Demaria refers to the necessity of exploring what Lotman defined as the process of translating experience into the text (“processi di traduzione dell’esperienza in testo”) when we transmit the past, paying special attention to the interaction 5 “He who has not been able to forget her for more than half a century has bequeathed her to me now, transferring the memory of her to my imagination, but I won’t give her an origin or a name, I haven’t the authority, she isn’t a ghost or a fictional character but someone who was as real as I am, who had a destiny as unique as mine although far more cruel, a biography that can neither be supplanted by the beautiful lie of literature” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 312). 6 Concerning the issue of how legitimate it is for fiction to transmit memories of traumatic experiences, Gilmour has observed that “the dilemma of how to keep memories of these experiences alive and to transmit them to future generations has become a pressing question in contemporary cultural studies, in particular in relation to the Holocaust” (Gilmour 2011, 839). 7 “[. . .] because I’m alive I have the obligation to speak for them, say what was done, so that the little that remains of them in people’s memories will not be lost for all time” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 317). between individual and collective memory (Demaria 2006, 37).8 Hence, I would affirm that the inclusion of the iconic characters’ testimonies in Sefarad accounts for this sort of translation of experience into the text. The issue of the legitimacy of literature as a vehicle for the transmission of memory and traumatic knowledge is an essential feature in Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad, which, I feel, is effectively carried out (Gilmour 2011, 840). On the other hand, it should not be overlooked that the transmission of memory may function—as we consider it does in Sefarad—as “a spur to unexpected acts of empathy and solidarity” (Rothberg 2009, 19). Empathetic polyacroasis as a narrative principle in Sefarad One of the most remarkable aspects of Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad is the importance of storytelling as a principle that articulates the novel (Herzberger 2004, 85; Valdivia 2013). As Herzberger has pointed out Sefarad “is a novel of multiple narrators, characters, and plots that turns inward to celebrate the construction of its stories.” (Herzberger 2004, 85). It is important to highlight how significant storytelling, listening, and reading are in the construction of this novel. In this sense, the inclusion of the iconic characters’ testimonies in a novel where storytelling and listening is vital accounts for what Herzberger defines as “a hybridized narrative rooted in imagination and reference” (Herzberger 2004, 86). A fruitful tension that contributes to trigger an empathetic response from the reader (Herzberger 2004, 86). On the other hand, one of the most remarkable achievements of Sefarad is its “basic narrator”—that is, the oscillating narrative voice underlying the seventeen chapters or “novelas” (Hristova 2011; Gilmour 2011; Valdivia 2012, 591– 592). Actually, this basic narrator constantly changes the grammatical person from “yo” to “tú,” “él,” “vosotros,” or “ellos” (Valdivia 2012, 591–592; see also Gilmour 2011). Thus, orality and storytelling are essential features for this basic narrator to 8 Cristina Demaria affirms in her study that “[l]a trasmissione del significato del passato, la trama in cui si intrecciano alcuni eventi che divengono così rilevanti, può cioè trovarsi a dipendere dal modo in cui, di volta in volta, memoria individuale e memoria collettiva interagiscono. È necessario dunque indagare più a fondo quelli che Lotman definisce come processi di traduzione dell’esperienza in testo, l’interazione e anche il conflitto fra una memoria individuale e una collettiva, culturale e sociale” (Demaria 2006, 37). develop his narrative possibilities. Characters, be they iconic or fictional, tell each other stories and transmit their testimonies to those who are willing to listen, to the extent that the manner in which their identities may be perceived depends to a great extent on those stories (Herzberger 2004; Gilmour 2011; Hristova 2011; Valdivia 2012; Valdivia 2013). Hence, both orality and storytelling allow us to establish a connection with the rhetorical concept of polyacroasis (Valdivia 2012, 593–594). The term polyacroasis (polyakróasis)—that is, a plural hearing, plural interpretation of an oral discourse—has been proposed by Tomás Albaladejo “to refer to the characteristic consisting of the differences between the hearers of rhetorical discourse” (Albaladejo 1998, 156). Thus, polyacroasis contributes to illuminate and elucidate the mechanisms of the plural reception of discourses taking place in a given rhetorical event (Albaladejo 1998). As this reception is not only restricted to oratorical events, Albaladejo has also proposed this concept to analyze literary works, especially those at the very core of which literary communication lies (Albaladejo 2009, 2). Polyacroasis therefore contributes to elucidate the strong link between literature and orality (Albaladejo 2009, 3–4). In this sense, Sefarad constitutes a rhetorical event where the characters or voices that dwell in the novel narrate to each other the novel they take with them.9 Yet the reader is also appealed to and turned into another character of the novel by means of empathy, to the extent that readers may experience what Northrop Frye affirmed the final message of the genre of romance was—that is, “de te fabula: the story is about you” (Frye 1976, 186). In this sense, the use in the novel of the rhetorical figure of apostrophe reinforces the sense of empathy the novel conveys, since the reader’s attention is drawn in a very effective manner (Valdivia 2013): Y tú qué harías si supieras que en cualquier momento pueden venir a buscarte, que tal vez ya figura tu nombre en una lista mecanografiada de 9In Sefarad, there are multiple references to Benito Pérez Galdós’s Fortunata y Jacinta. Muñoz Molina introduces in Sefarad a famous quotation taken from that novel, “Doquiera que el hombre va lleva consigo su novela,” which Margaret Sayers Peden translated into English as “Wherever a man goes, he takes his novel with him”(Muñoz Molina 2003, 44). presos o de muertos futuros, de sospechosos, de traidores. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 243)10 Clearly, the use of apostrophe triggers an empathetic response from the reader, who may experience a total identification with the voices that dwell in Sefarad (Gilmour 2011, 851). In addition to this, empathy is similarly stimulated by manipulating the voice of the basic narrator (Gilmour 2011, 851; Valdivia 2012). What Gilmour has described as “a constant oscillation between the third person, él or ella, and the first person, yo,” (Gilmour 2011, 852; Valdivia 2012; Valdivia 2013, 258) creates a web of empathetic connections among the main narrator, the gallery of multiple voices that weave through the book, and an empathetic reader. As we have seen before, Muñoz Molina tells us in the “Author’s note” that both the testimonies he listened to and stored for a long time in his memory and the books he read were vital while plotting and writing Sefarad: the rest was invention. However, it could be affirmed that the part of the novel that stems from invention completes full circle this web of empathetic links (Gilmour 2011). In other words, as Gilmour has pointed out, the use of an empathetic imagination accounts for the manner in which Muñoz Molina, via his basic narrator, translates into fiction other people’s memories (Gilmour 2011, 847). This basic narrator has been referred to by Valdivia as a “yo fluido,” a sort of flowing manifold narrator whose nature is clearly explained in the following passage taken from the chapter “Dime tu nombre”: Nunca soy más yo mismo que cuando guardo silencio y escucho, cuando dejo a un lado mi fatigosa identidad y mi propia memoria para concentrarme del todo en el acto de escuchar, de ser plenamente habitado por las experiencias y recuerdos de otros. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 680)11 This multiple oscillation among different grammatical persons is accompanied by the use of direct speech, as we can appreciate when Muñoz Molina provides his own translation into 10 “And you, what would you do if you knew that at any moment they could come for you, that your name may already be on a typed list of prisoners or future dead, or suspects, or traitors?” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 45). 11 “I am never more myself than when I am silent and listening, when I set aside my tedious identity and tedious memory to concentrate totally on the act of listening, on the experiences of another” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 340). Spanish of the iconic characters’ testimonies he has read in books. In the following passage we can appreciate a clear example of this flowing oscillating narrator: Evgenia, te están tendiendo una trampa, y es preciso que escapes mientras puedas, antes de que te partan el cuello. Pero cómo voy yo, una comunista, a esconderme de mi Partido, lo que tengo que hacer es demostrarle al Partido que soy inocente. Hablan en voz baja, procurando que los niños no escuchen nada, temiendo que el teléfono, aunque está colgado, sirva para que les espíen las conversaciones. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 258)12 The quotation that appears in italics is an excerpt, translated into Spanish by the author himself, and taken from Evgenia Ginzburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind, a memoir that had not yet been translated into Spanish when Sefarad was being written. Then, after that passage, without using quotation marks, the first person is used and we are told what the “basic narrator” imagines Evgenia Ginzburg might have said in the very moment she learnt she was under threat. In other words, the basic narrator haunts Ginzburg’s mind and empathetically imagines how Ginzburg might have reacted. Finally, in the last sentence, the basic narrator shifts to the third person plural (Valdivia 2013, 258). Needless to say, this masterly use of narrative technique requires an empathetic imagination on the author’s part (Gilmour 2011; Valdivia 2013, 258). The manner in which polyacroasis functions in this novel can not be explained if we are unaware of that web of empathetic connections—or “malla de ramificaciones”—among the different voices, the reader’s response, and the empathetic imagination deployed by Muñoz Molina. Therefore, a new question should now be raised. Is empathy an effective vehicle for both transmitting and translating memories? Does the author’s empathetic involvement in retelling and translating testimonies account for a successful transmission of memory? According to Rothberg, remembrance and imagination can be seen as both material and fundamentally human forces that 12“Eugenia, they’re setting a trap for you, and you must run away while you can, before they have your head. But why would I, a Communist, hide from my Party? I must show the Party that I’m innocent. They speak in low voices, trying not to let the children hear, afraid that the telephone, even though the receiver’s down, will allow someone to listen” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 53). “should not lead to assumptions of memory’s insubstantiality” (Rothberg 2009, 19). It is possible that, as Sefarad reflects, translating multidirectional memory into fiction acquires a more significant and enriched dimension when empathetic imagination is present. Translating the Other culturally in Sefarad The role of translation in postconflict cultures is an aspect that has been taken into consideration in Nergaard’s “Translating the Other: Journalism in Post Conflict Cultures” (Demaria and Wright, 2006). In this article, Nergaard analyzes examples where one culture translates another (Nergaard 2006, 189). In this sense, Nergaard proposes an understanding of translation “as the process through which concepts and discourses in one culture are interpreted and transformed in order to be introduced into another” (Nergaard 2006, 189). Translation is also referred to as “one of the privileged spaces where cultures meet [. . .] in terms of alterity and difference” (Nergaard 2006, 189). Translation thus allows us to represent the Other, a complex process that Nergaard calls cultural translation (Nergaard 2006, 191). In this epigraph I would like to explore the presence of cultural translation in Muñoz Molina’s novel, and to what extent fiction may contribute to an effective translation of the Other and, as a result of that, can contribute to create and shape knowledge. When the so-called basic narrator declares that he is never more himself than when he sets aside his identity to concentrate on the experiences of another (Muñoz Molina 2013, 680), he is suggesting that “he is never more fully himself than when experiencing both self and other” (Gilmour 2011, 849.) In this sense, it seems that the very idea of representing and translating the Other appears to be one of the engines of Sefarad, being the other and the translation of his or her experiences one of the key motifs that articulate the novel. We have previously referred to the manner in which Muñoz Molina translates into fiction the iconic characters’ testimonies. In some occasions the author himself translates passages into Spanish, which lend verisimilitude to the novel. In other occasions, the iconic characters are haunted by the oscillating narrator (“yo fluido,” as proposed by Valdivia) who imagines empathetically what these “iconic characters and writers” might have thought or said (Valdivia 2013). This exploration of the characters’ thoughts appearing in Sefarad, via an oscillating narrator, constitutes an example of what could be defined as an empathetic cultural translation. The most significant instance of this representation of the Other in Sefarad appears in the chapter “Eres.” In this chapter, Muñoz Molina appeals empathetically to the reader by means of the use of apostrophe. Thus, the chapter triggers in the reader a sense of identification between him or her and the Other (Valdivia 2013, 601). In this sense in Sefarad “the possibility of becoming ‘the other’ is a recurrent theme” (Hristova-Dijkstra and Adema 2010, 74), something that is illustrated when the reader is asked the following question: “Y tú qué harías si supieras que en cualquier momento pueden venir a buscarte, que tal vez ya figura tu nombre en una lista mecanografiada de presos o de muertos futuros, de sospechosos, de traidores”(Muñoz Molina 2013, 243) (“what would you do if you knew that at any moment they could come for you, that your name may already be on a typed list of prisoners or future dead, or suspects, or traitors?” [Muñoz Molina 2003, 45]). In the following passage from the chapter mentioned above, we encounter a representative example of the manner in which the virtual identification between reader (Self) and the Other is triggered: Eres quien mira su normalidad perdida desde el otro lado del cristal que te separa de ella, quien entre las rendijas de las tablas de un vagón de deportados mira las últimas casas de la ciudad que creyó suya y a la que nunca volverá. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 619)13 The effect these words have on the reader is that of fostering a total identification with the Other, to the extent that we come to recognize how “the ‘totally other’ constitutes one’s identity” (Hristova-Dijkstra and Adema 2010, 74). * 13 As Margaret Sayers Peden’s 2003 translation into English of the 2001 Spanish edition of Sefarad is being used throughout this article, and as this translation omits many passages from the original 2001 Spanish edition, including the passage I have just cited, no English translation is being provided in this instance. Sefarad has been described by its author as a “mapa de todos los exilios posibles” (a map of possible exiles) (Valdivia 2013, 26). In this sense, it could be affirmed that the theme of exile constitutes a subtext in Sefarad since it is the place where the narrator and the reader empathize imaginatively with the Other (Gilmour 2011, 854): Aún despojándote de todo queda algo que permanece siempre, que está en ti desde que tienes memoria [. . .] el núcleo o la médula de lo que eres [. . .]: eres el sentimiento del desarraigo y de la extrañeza, de no estar del todo en ninguna parte [. . .] (Muñoz Molina 2013, 609)14 In the Introduction to Translation and Power (2002) Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler assert that translators “as much as creative writers and politicians, participate in the powerful acts that create knowledge and shape culture” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). In this sense, in Sefarad both the translator and the creative writer meet. The fact that some of the books containing the iconic characters’ testimonies were not translated into Spanish implied an obvious lack of knowledge of vital testimonies that has shaped postwar Europe. Thus, the Spanish author’s decision to insert and translate passages from the previously mentioned testimonies accounts for a strong desire to create knowledge both as a creative writer and as a translator. If we take into consideration, for instance, the passages taken from Victor Klemperer’s I will Bear Witness. 1933–1941. A Diary of the Nazi Years (1999), we can appreciate a clear illustration of Muñoz Molina’s masterly use of historical reference and empathetic imagination. In “Quien espera,” a gallery of “iconic characters” weaves through this chapter, which includes Victor Klemperer himself, Margarete Buber-Neumann, Eugenia Ginzburg, Jean Améry, and even fictional characters such as Josef K. from Kafka’s Der Prozess. In the following passage we can appreciate the narrative technique deployed by the author: 14“Something persists that has been inside you for as long as you can remember [. . .] it is the marrow of what you are [. . .] You are uprootedness and foreignness, not being completely in any one place [. . .]” (Muñoz Moina 2003, 295). El jueves 30 de marzo de 1933 el profesor Victor Klemperer, de Dresde, anota en su diario que ha visto en el escaparate de una tienda de juguetes un balón de goma infantil con una gran esvástica. Ya no puedo librarme de la sensación de disgusto y vergüenza. Y nadie se mueve; todo el mundo tiembla, se esconde. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 247)15 The journal entry corresponds to March 30, 1933. In fact, the sentence that we encounter at the end of that journal entry— that is, “In a toy shop a children’s ball with the swastika” (Klemperer 1999, 10)—occurs unexpectedly, as a juxtaposed image with no apparent connection with the rest of the paragraph.16 Thus, Muñoz Molina is clearly retelling what he has read in the diary, after which he introduces in italics his own translation of a passage extracted from the English translation of Klemperer’s diaries. Hence, Muñoz Molina sets a boundary between real testimonies and literary recreation. Yet, it should be noticed that the passage in italics does not correspond to the same day Klemperer saw the child’s ball with the swastika (that is, March 30) but to May 17 of the same year. This narrative device—which we can appreciate in other iconic testimonies throughout the novel—has significant implications from the point of view of translation, since it reveals a concept of translation that Tymoczko and Gentzler have described as “not simply an act of faithful reproduction but, rather, a deliberate and conscious act of selection [and] assemblage” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). In other words, Muñoz Molina’s choice constitutes a conscious act of juxtaposing his own empathetic retelling of the journal with real testimonies extracted from it (that is, “I can no longer get rid of the feeling of disgust and shame. And no one stirs; everyone trembles, keeps out of sight” (Klemperer 1999, 7) (“Ich kann das Gefühl des 15 “On Thursday, March 30, 1933, Professor Victor Klemperer, of Dresden, notes in his diary that in a toy-shop window he saw a child’s balloon with a large swastika. I can no longer rid myself of the disgust and shame. Yet no one makes a move; everyone trembles, hides” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 47). 16 We provide in this footnote the English translation of Victor Klemperer’s diaries and the original German: “Yesterday a wretched statement in the Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten—‘on your own account.’ They are 92.5 percent founded on Aryan capital, Herr Wollf, owner of the remaining 7.5 percent, has resigned as chief editor, one Jewish editor has been given leave of absence (poor Fentl!), the other ten are Aryans. Terrible!—In a toy shop a children’s ball with the swastika.” (Klemperer 1999, 10); „Gestern jämmerliche Erklärung der Dresdener NN ‚in eigener Sache’. Sie seien zu 92,5 Prozent auf arisches Kapital gestützt, Herr Wollf, Besitzer der übrigen 7,5 Prozent, lege Chefredaktion nieder, ein jüdischer Redakteur sei beurlaubt (armer Fentl!), die andern zehn seien Arier. Entsetzlich! – In einem Spielzeugladen ein Kinderball mit Hakenkreuz” (Klemperer, 1995: 15–16). Ekels und der Scham nicht mehr loswerden. Und niemand rührt sich; alles zittert, verkriecht sich.” [Klemperer 1995, 12]). In “Quien espera” we encounter a web of testimonies or voices that are intertwined throughout this chapter, including Buber-Neumann’s, Ginzburg’s, and Klemperer’s. In the last paragraph of this chapter the testimonies of both Klemperer and Buber-Neumann come together. In a masterly juxtaposition of voices and testimonies, the oscillating narrator concludes this chapter in the following manner: Llegaron una mañana muy temprano, del 19 de Julio, y al comprobar que esta vez sí que venían de verdad por ella [Margarete] no sintió pánico, sino más bien alivio [. . .]. El 12 de julio el profesor Klemperer recuerda en su diario a algunos amigos que se marcharon de Alemania, que han encontrado trabajo en Estados Unidos o en Inglaterra. Pero cómo irse sin nada, él, un viejo, y su mujer una enferma [. . .]. Nosotros nos hemos quedado aquí, en la vergüenza y la penuria, como enterrados vivos, enterrados hasta el cuello, esperando día tras día las últimas paletadas. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 267)17 The responsibility that translation may have in creating knowledge has been previously mentioned. I agree with Tymoczko and Genztler when they affirm that “translation [. . .] actively participates in the construction of knowledge [. . .] and that the act of translation is itself very much involved in the creation of [it]” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). Leaving aside the enormous literary value of a novel like Sefarad, I would affirm that this novel is also an example of how a fictional work can participate in that construction of knowledge through an empathetic imagination. Conclusion Throughout this article I have tried to analyze the manner in which Muñoz Molina juxtaposes in Sefarad the shared European and Spanish memory of the twentieth century via a multidirectional memory approach to fiction. In this sense, I would affirm that Michael Rothberg’s approach helps explain the narrative mechanisms underlying Sefarad. In other words, Rothberg’s 17 “They came one morning very early, on July 19, and when she realized that they had finally come for her, [Margarete] felt only a kind of relief [. . .]. On July 12, Professor Klemperer refers in his diary to some friends who left Germany and found work in the United States or England. But how do you leave when you don’t have anything? He, an old man with a sick wife [. . .]. We have stayed here, in shame and penury, as if buried alive, buried up to our necks, waiting day after day for the last spadefuls of dirt” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 60). dynamic multidirectional model accounts effectively for the interaction of different historical memories which we can appreciate in Sefarad (Rothberg 2009, 3). Muñoz Molina thus translates into fiction previously isolated memories and presents a map of all possible exiles in an unprecedented manner in recent Spanish literature. In this sense, I would state that one of Muñoz Molina’s greatest achievements is the manner in which he carries out a translation of experience into a fictional text. There are multiple instances of that translation of experiences into Sefarad, such as the iconic characters’ testimonies. In addition to this, I would like to point out that empathetic polyacroasis contributes to a great extent to this effective translation of experience. Thus, I believe that the presence of polyacroasis in Sefarad enhances that empathetic translation and transmission of memory, since it allows both a plural interpretation and a powerful interaction among the different “voices” that dwell in the novel, and it also increases the readers’ empathetic response. In my opinion, translating multidirectional memory into fiction becomes more effective when empathetic polyacroasis takes place. Needless to say, this “hybridized narrative rooted in imagination and reference” (Herzberger 2004, 86) clearly contributes and participates in the construction of knowledge. Finally, I would like to conclude this essay with an excerpt from Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad that, to a great extent, may function as a concise summary of the argument I have presented: No eres una sola persona y no tienes una sola historia, y ni tu cara ni tu oficio ni las demás circunstancias de tu vida pasada o presente permanecen invariables. El pasado se mueve y los espejos son imprevisibles. (Muñoz Molina 2013, 596)18 18“You are not an isolated person and do not have an isolated story, and neither your face nor your profession nor the other circumstances of your past or present life are cast in stone. The past shifts and reforms, and mirrors are unpredictable” (Muñoz Molina 2003, 288). References Albaladejo, Tomás. 1998. “Polyacroasis in Rhetorical Discourse.” The Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies/La Revue Canadienne d’Études Rhétoriques 9: 155–167. ———. 2009. “La poliacroasis en la representación literaria: Un componente de la retórica cultural.” Castilla. Estudios de Literatura 0: 1–26. PDF available at http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/12153. Améry, Jean. 1997. Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag. Baer, Alejandro. 2011. “The Voids of Sepharad: The memory of the Holocaust in Spain.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12 (1): 95– 120. doi:10.1080/14636204.2011/556879. Buber-Neumann, Margarete. [1947] 1997. Als Gefangene bei Stalin und Hitler. Eine Welt im Dunkel. Berlin: Ullstein Buchverlage. Demaria, Cristina. 2006. Semiotica e memoria. Analisi del post-conflitto. Roma: Carocci. Demaria, Cristina, and Colin Wright. 2006. Post-Conflict Cultures. Rituals of Representation. London: Zoilus Press. Frye, Northrop. 1976. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Gilmour, Nicola. 2011. “The Afterlife of Traumatic Memories: The Workings and Uses of Empathy in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad.” Bulletin of Spanish Studies: Hispanic Studies and Researches on Spain, Portugal and Latin America 88 (6): 839–862. doi:10.1080/14753820.2011.603491. Ginzburg, Eugenia Semyonovna. 1967. Journey into the Whirlwind. Translated by Paul Stevenson and Max Hayward. London: Harcourt. Herzberger, David K. 2004. “Representing the Holocaust: Story and Experience in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad.” Romance Quarterly 51 (2): 85–96. doi:10.3200/RQTR.51.2.85-96. Hristova, Marije. 2011. “Memoria prestada. El Holocausto en la novela española contemporánea: Los casos de Sefarad de Muñoz Molina y El Comprador de aniversarios de García Ortega.” MA thesis, University of Amsterdam. PDF available at http://dare.uva.nl/document/342563. Hristova-Dijkstra, Marije J., and Janneke Adema. 2010. “The exile condition. Space–time dissociation in historical experience. A reading of Sefarad.” Krisis, 1: 62–76. Klemperer, Victor. 1995. “Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten.” Tagebücher 1933–1941. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag. ———. 1999. I Will Bear Witness. 1933–1941. A Diary of the Nazi Years. Translated by Martin Chalmers. New York: The Modern Library. Muñoz Molina, Antonio. 2003. Sepharad. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. London: Harcourt. ———. 2007. Travesías. Edited by Jorge F. Hernández. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ———. 2013. Sefarad. Edited by Pablo Valdivia. Madrid: Cátedra. Nergaard, Siri. 2006. “Translating the Other: Journalism in Post-Conflict Cultures.” In Cristina Demaria and Colin Wright 2006, 189–207. Rothberg, Michael. 2009. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002. Translation and Power. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Valdivia, Pablo. 2012. “Poliacroasis, memoria e identidad en la articulación de los discursos de poder: el caso de Sefarad de Antonio Muñoz Molina.” In Retórica y política. Los discursos de la construcción de la sociedad, edited by Emilio del Río Sanz, María del Carmen Ruiz de la Cierva, and Tomás Albaladejo, 591–604. Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. ———. 2013. Introduction to Muñoz Molina 2013. obtained his BA in English Philology and his PhD from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is currently lecturer in Contemporary Literature, English Literature, and English at the Universidad CEU San Pablo, Madrid, and member of the research group C [P y R] (Communication, poetics and rhetoric) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is currently a member of the METAPHORA project and has been a member of a previous research project on Cultural Rhetoric. His research interests include comparative literature, rhetoric, and literary translation.

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Abstract: Holocaust survivor testimonies are frequently read, explored, and interpreted in English translation—that is, beyond their original linguistic, temporal, and cultural points of telling. And yet only meager attention has been paid to the epistemological and ethical implications of translation as a mode of re-mediating Holocaust memory. Significant questions remain regarding the potentialities of translation, both positive and negative, for shaping the way in which readers come to know about, and respond to, the lived experiences of the survivors. Specifically, this article hopes to encourage more sustained and critical thinking about the decisive and moral role of the translator as a secondary witness, “one who listens to the testimony with empathy and helps to record, store and transmit it” (Assmann 2006, 9). The article presents a case study of two acts of secondary witnessing which re-mediate the experiences of French female deportees into English: Barbara Mellor’s translation of Agnès Humbert’s (1946) Notre guerre, published in 2008 as Résistance, and Margaret S. Summers’s translation of Micheline Maurel’s (1957) Un camp très ordinaire, published in 1958 as An Ordinary Camp. Attention will be paid to how the translators have listened to and re-mediated the experiences of the survivors for a new readership, while the sociocultural contexts of and influences on these acts of secondary witnessing will also be considered. Introduction Translating the written memory of an individual into another language and culture entails a twofold act of perpetuation; first, the lived experiences of that individual are recorded in an additional repository and are then carried beyond the immediate borders of the original telling. Yet, in order that this perpetuation might be realized through translation, the particular threads of memory which constitute the original narrative— whether in the form of autobiography, memoir, diary or testimony—are necessarily reworked by the hands of another, by a translator who, in most instances, has no direct connection with the remembered events or emotions.1 The warp and weft of the initial act of memory may subsequently emerge intact, preserved by translation to bear enduring and accurate witness to the life of the individual; alternatively, it may not withstand the process, becoming distorted in its appearance, texture or purpose once reconstructed in another setting. This article sets out to identify and critically examine the role of the translator in the transmission of individual memory within the specific context of survivor accounts of the Holocaust. In this respect, any exploration of how the translator re-mediates life in the camps must be fully mindful of the unique representational, epistemological and ethical complexities that can beset attempts to tell and retell those stories of suffering and survival. Many Holocaust narratives are marked by a tension between the (communicative, commemorative, and often cathartic) need to commit lived experience to writing and the aridity of words whose capacity to tell withers before the sheer horror of the events they venture to describe. The complexities of representation may be compounded further by the contingencies of memory, which can fade but also sharpen with the passing of time.2 In turn, the translator of the Holocaust narrative is potentially brought into an encounter with a text that is, deliberately or otherwise, halting, uneven; a text that may attempt to lay bare some or all of the concentrationary universe, and in so doing, charge itself with a particular moral burden to remember, to understand, or indeed to resist any such understanding. How the translator 1 A notable exception to this distance between the one who remembers and the one who translates can, of course, be found in the phenomenon of self-translation. The conflation of these two positions necessarily raises an alternative set of questions to the ones I address here. 2 Contrary to the antinarrative stance adopted by literary theorists such as Cathy Caruth (1996), scientific studies have shown that traumatic experiences are recoverable and representable, as opposed to repressed and unspeakable. As is noted by Beverley R. King in 21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook, “Overwhelmingly, the research supports the trauma superiority argument—memories for stressful experiences are not easily forgotten, especially the central details of the events” (2009, 452). For further criticism of Caruth, see Ruth Leys (2000), and Wulf Kansteiner and Harald Weilnböck (2008). responds to such complexities will be considered in reference to the concept of the secondary witness, 3 defined by Geoffrey Hartman as someone who “provides a witness for the witness, [and] actively receives words that reflect the darkness of the event” (1998, 48). It is precisely the nature and extent of the translator’s act of receiving that will be considered in the case study below, always heedful of what Colin Davis terms the “insidious dangers inherent in secondary witnessing” (2011, 20) which threaten to belie the experiences, pain and otherness of the Holocaust survivor. For the manner in which the translator serves as secondary witness will ultimately determine whether the target language reader has a window onto past events that is as broad or narrow, as transparent or opaque, as whole or fragmented, as the one originally offered by the survivor. The present case study centers on two remarkable French testimonies of life in and liberation from the Nazi labor camps for women. Agnès Humbert’s Notre guerre: Journal de Résistance 1940–1945 was published in the immediate aftermath of World War II in 1946; it begins with the art historian’s diary entries which record her early involvement in the French Resistance movement and then proceeds to a retrospective account of her arrest and internment in the Parisian prisons of Cherche-Midi, La Santé, and Fresnes, her subsequent deportation to the German forced labor camps of Krefeld- Anrath, Hövelhof and Schwelm, and her eventual liberation from the town of Wanfried. Micheline Maurel, a literary scholar, was also arrested for Resistance activities, and her testimony, Un camp très ordinaire, appeared in 1957. In her work, Maurel documents her experiences of daily life and hardship in the Neubrandenburg labor camp, a satellite of the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, as well as her difficult return home following liberation. These accounts will be brought into relief with their English translations— respectively, Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France translated by Barbara Mellor (2008) and Ravensbrück by Margaret S. Summers (1958)4—as a means of establishing how these translators have served as witnesses to the survivors, while 3 This present study follows on from my 2013 work in which I also draw on secondary witnessing to scrutinize the English translation of Robert Antelme’s (1947) L’espèce humaine. 4 Page references will here be given to the UK edition published in 1958 by Digit Books, an imprint of Brown Watson. See reference list for an overview of all available UK and US editions. also recognizing that the translator is not the sole agent responsible for the way in which these individual memories have been transmitted. The decision to explore these two particular female survivor accounts has been made in light Margaret-Anne Hutton’s observation that “French women deported to Nazi concentration and death camps […] have, as yet, received little to no critical attention” (2005, 2), in Holocaust studies or elsewhere. With the exception perhaps of Charlotte Delbo, analytical focus has tended to fall on male memories and narratives of life in the camps; this case study can thus be read as an attempt to bring two marginalized, eclipsed voices of female survivors further to the fore. In more general terms, the article can also be seen as a contribution towards a burgeoning body of work by scholars who situate themselves at the intersection between Translation Studies and Holocaust Studies in order to better understand how the linguistic and cultural dynamics of translation have shaped the transmission and reception of Holocaust writing. Susan Suleiman observes in 1996 that “[w ]hile students of Holocaust literature are keenly aware of problems of language and representation, they have paid surprisingly little attention to a problem one might call representing—or remembering, or memorializing—the Holocaust in translation” (1996, 640). Almost a decade later, and that much needed critical attention is beginning to emerge in revelatory studies, underpinned by comparative textual and cultural analyses across a range of language pairs and genres. Of particular note is the work of Jean Boase-Beier who approaches the poetry of Paul Celan from the dual and ethically engaged position of researcher and translator; she argues (2014) that reading a Holocaust poem for translation entails a more penetrating, exacting encounter with the silences, ambiguities, and tensions of the original and maintains (2011) that these potent features must be retained in the translation where they might be perceived and interpreted by the new reader. Conversely, Peter Davies adopts a decisively descriptive approach to the translations of Borowski (2008), Wiesel (2011), and Höß (2014) to frame textual and paratextual decisions in terms of the status and function of Holocaust testimony in the target culture, and in reference to target language reader expectations. A recent special edition of Translation and Literature (2014) on “Holocaust Testimony and Translation,” edited by Davies, further signals the upsurge in interest in questions of how, why and to what effect Holocaust writing travels in translation. In addition to Boase-Beier’s (2014) work mentioned above, specific cases in point are Sue Vice’s (2014) examination of how reading false Holocaust testimonies in translation can lay bare their constructedness, as well as Angela Kershaw’s (2014) exploration of how translation can restrict and release the complex network of intertextual references in French Holocaust fiction. Also of interest is Kershaw’s (2013) detailed examination on how translated Holocaust fiction is marketed and received within Britain’s literary landscape. More broadly, Bella Brodzki (2007) understands translation as a trope for the textual reconstruction and transmission of memory, dedicating a chapter of Can These Bones Live to the connections between memorializing, mourning, and translation in the writing of Jorge Semprùn. These studies unarguably serve to provide a more detailed and nuanced picture of the various ways in which translation functions as a mode of reinscribing and imparting Holocaust memory. In turn, this article endeavors to illustrate the strategies on which the mediation and reception of the two translated French testimonies are premised, supplementing thus the existing body of work in an empirical sense and proposing the figure of the secondary witness as a framework for better understanding the responsibility of the translator of first hand Holocaust accounts. Secondary witnessing in translation The notion of secondary witnessing can be traced back to the establishment of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies for which over 4,400 eye-witness accounts were recorded on videotape. One of the co-founders of the project, psychoanalyst Dori Laub, has reflected critically on his role as an interviewer, or “the immediate receiver of these testimonies” (1991, 76). He frames his position in relation to the survivor as “a companion on the eerie journey of the testimony. As an interviewer, I am present as someone who actually participates in the reliving and reexperiencing of the event” (1991, 76). Such companionship and participation is a decisive factor in the very elicitation of the testimony; the interviewer bears witness to the witness and, in so doing, becomes an auxiliary to the telling of the story, a secondary witness. Accordingly, an ethical onus is placed on the secondary witness; as Thomas Trezise puts it: The general lesson Laub draws from his intervention is that the listener actively contributes, for better or for worse, to the construction of testimonial narrative, that the receiving is analogous to the giving of testimony insofar as it involves a process of selection and omission, attention and inattention, highlighting and overshadowing, for which the listener remains responsible. (2013, 19) The translator of the Holocaust testimony can likewise be placed in this position of receiving and responsibility. Although the dialogic immediacy that characterizes the relationship between the survivor–witness and interviewer–secondary witness on tape is, in many cases, no longer tenable in the context of translation,5 it is nevertheless the case that the translator is a present and operative force in the bringing forth of the testimony in another language, as well as in its journey to another time and place. It is the translator who first participates in shaping the contours of the account, and only then can its content be repackaged and transmitted to a subsequent, broader audience in the target culture. The role of any secondary witness is a demanding and a complex one which entreats the listener to hear affectively and exactingly: “The listener has to feel the victim’s victories, defeats and silences, know them from within, so that they can assume the form of testimony” (Laub 1992, 58). At the same time, the secondary witness is called to be mindful of this attempt to feel and know the survivor, so as to preclude any collapse of the distinction between the two subject positions. Hartman expresses the dilemma of the secondary (or what he terms ‘intellectual’) witness as follows: “Every identification approaches over-identification and leads to a personifying and then appropriation of the identity of others. The distance between the self and other is violated and the possibility of 5 The retranslation of Wiesel’s La nuit by his wife in 2006 is a rare example of proximity between survivor and translator. intellectual witness aborted” (1998, 4). In order to avert such a failure, secondary witnessing must be predicated instead on the core value of empathy, an empathy which pertains in all contexts of the act. In the case of the historian as secondary witness, Dominick LaCapra insists on an ethically desirable form of empathy that “involves not full identification but what might be termed empathic unsettlement in the face of traumatic limit events” (2001, 102). Likewise, memory studies scholars Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer contend that the secondary witness “must allow the testimony to move, haunt and endanger her; she must allow it to inhabit her, without appropriating or owning it” (2010, 402). As I have argued elsewhere (Deane-Cox 2013), this empathic mode of bearing witness to the witness must also extend to the context of translation. However, the risk of crossing the threshold from empathy into over-identification is stronger here still given the appropriative thrust of translation and the subjective filter of the translator who may “feed [their] own beliefs, knowledge, attitudes and so on into [their] processing of texts, so that any translation will, to some extent, reflect the translator’s own mental and cultural outlook” (Hatim and Mason 1990, 11). If the translator of the Holocaust testimony is to serve as a secondary witness, as “the blank screen on which the event comes to be inscribed for the first time” (Laub 1992, 57), here in a new linguistic, cultural and temporal setting, then he or she must strive to engage empathically with that telling and to respect the distance that separates him or herself from the survivor. Otherwise, the testi- mony is at danger of being overwritten by the assumptions and the excesses (hearing too much) or insufficiencies (hearing too little or inaccurately) of the translator, at which point the testimony will cease to function as such. However, participation in the communicative exchange is not restricted to the witness and the secondary witness alone, for the account that emerges from this encounter can also be heard by additional audiences and used to different ends. Although Laub does not address this point explicitly in his work, Trezise sees there a “suggest[ion] that the reception of the Holocaust survivor testimony requires not only attending to the voices of witnesses while remaining aware of one’s own, but also attending, with equal self-awareness, to the voices of other listeners” (2013, 9). And within the paradigm of the translator as secondary witness, those other listeners are the translation readers as well as other interested parties such as literary agents, publishers and editors, their presence and needs positioning the translator, once again, in that familiar continuum bounded by source and target concerns. Or, as Francis Jones writes, “the call to the primary other (the source-writer or source-culture) must be tempered by a constant awareness of ‘the other other’” (2004, 723). Referring here to his experiences of translating literary texts against the backdrop of the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, Jones clearly foregrounds the dual obligation of the translator whose loyalty towards the source text writer is in ever-present negotiation with the differentiated social, ethical, ideological, aesthetic, economic etc. goals of these “other others.” In this respect, the loyalty of the translator as secondary witness can never be wholly and exclusively be ascribed to the Holocaust survivor; there are no unique circumstances which might allow the translator of any published target text to stand outside the communicative context in which he or she operates. Such a position is doubtless implausible. But the impossibility of absolute loyalty does not exclude the very real possibility of privileging the original survivor’s account, of listening attentively despite, or even in the face of, the demands of other parties. For the translator is never an impartial mediator, situated squarely between source and target values; to think otherwise, according to Maria Tymozcko, leads to “the evisceration of the agency of the translator as a committed, engaged and responsible figure” (2007, 7). Indeed, the translator as secondary witness who purposely decides that their first and foremost obligation is to the survivor becomes the very embodiment of a translator as an ethically motivated agent. At the same time, this agency functions to dispel the similarly restrictive idea that translators are irrevocably beholden to the norms and expectations of the target culture. Of course, there may be implications for translation decisions that fall outside of established conventions and values; non- publication, censorship and poor sales are amongst the most obvious. But there is also a danger in overemphasizing the influence exerted by the target culture norms in the translation process. Siobhan Brownlie (2007, 155–157) has argued that adopting a broad normative approach has its blind spots since the specific motivations behind the decision to translate can vary from one text to the next, translation strategies may fluctuate within a given text, and there is often no neat concurrence between distinct norms and distinct time periods given the potential of norms to coexist, reappear or be challenged at any moment. In other words, the engaged translator will necessarily take the wider cultural context into consideration, but will proceed in accordance with their own agenda, be that in line with or in opposition to supposed prevailing norms. In her work Disappearing Traces: Holocaust Testimo- nials, Ethics and Aesthetics, Dorota Glowacka (2012) also gestures towards translation as an ethically charged act of bearing witness, where translation is understood to function on various levels in Holocaust testimonial writing: the original witness translates the self from past to present and often across multilingual contexts, while subsequent interlingual translations are framed in Levinasian terms as “a response to the summons from another language, the language of the other” (2012, 94). Glowacka also proceeds from the premise that the events of the Holocaust exist in the realm of the unspeakable, so that any act of witnessing will be suffused with communicative loss. Nevertheless, Walter Benjamin’s concept of “pure language” is proposed as restorative mode of telling; specifically, Glowacka suggests that the call of the other can be answered across Babelian disunities of language by means of translation that initiates “linguistic complementation” (Benjamin 2000, 21), namely the blending and synthesis of source and target languages that culminates in pure language. For Glowacka, a translation that responds ethically to the other is one that draws on multiple linguistic repertoires in order to transmit and ensure the survival of the testimony; only then can it transcend the limitations of the monolingual utterance. However, while this view of translation certainly calls attention to the responsibility of the interlingual translator in the witnessing process, numerous tensions arise if pure language is pressed into the service of concrete textual communication. First, the concept of pure language is an abstract one whose end goal is the elevation of language itself to an always distant point where language “no longer means or expresses anything but is […] that which is meant in all languages” (Benjamin 2000, 22). It is a matter of form alone, and its realization through translation “ultimately serves the purpose of expressing the innermost relationship of languages to one another” (2000, 17). Conversely, the translation of content is considered by Benjamin to be a redundant task: “any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information—hence, something inessential” (2000, 15). On the one hand, this conceptualization fits with discourses of unspeakability and trauma—the very act of telling, the manner in which it is told, is more important than what is told. But on the other, it is difficult to reconcile this stance with the demands of secondary witnessing: how will the referential function of a testimony endure if the task of the translator is to invariably defer meanings? And how will the relationship between the original and secondary witness be sustained if precedence is given to the relationship between languages? James E. Young cautions against an exclusive emphasis on poetics in Holocaust narratives: “By seeming to emphasize the ways we know the Holocaust to the apparent exclusion of the realities themselves, critics threaten to make the mere form of study their content as well” (1988, 3). This warning is particularly pertinent in the context of pure language which would seem to offer all but a restricted, abstruse mode of secondary witnessing; a mode that neglects the facts (as understood by the survivors) of existence and suffering, and one that certainly eschews over-identifi- cation, but does so by promoting the linguistic over and above the human. When we move from the abstract to the concrete to consider Benjamin’s proposal of literal translation strategies as a means of approaching pure language, obstacles to secondary witnessing are still discernible. According to Glowacka, Benjamin’s literalness will instigate a process whereby “native words are transformed from an inscription of belonging into the mark of strangeness” (2012, 99), and the translated testimony reader is forcefully confronted with and called to respond to the (multi)linguistic and experiential alterity of the other. The claim that translation, as a signal of difference, “can potentially stand guard against linguistic ethnonationalism, remaining vigilant against the sedimentation of words into tools of oppression, exclusion and discrimination” (2012, 99) strongly echoes Lawrence Venuti’s claim that foreignization “can be a form of resistance against ethnocentrism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism” (1995, 20). But, although foreignizing translation can be revelatory and responsive to the needs of the other, it can also conceal under the weight of its impenetrability: as Tymoczko questions, “how do we distinguish resistant translations from translations that are unreadable?” (2000, 37). The danger here is that the reader finds nothing on which to hinge their reading and response, thereby rendering translation if not ineffectual as a mode of address, then at least diminished in what Glowacka regards as its “potential to create communities of speakers” (2012, 101). So, while Glowacka is right to insist on the ethical responsibility of the translator to preserve and transmit survivor testimonies, neither pure language nor its textualization as literal translation are perhaps the most enduring bridges across the divide between the other and the other other. Instead, the translator who serves as an ethically committed secondary witness is one who listens astutely and empathically to the survivor’s story, giving primacy to its preservation and not to any lofty ideas of pure language or the assumed demands of a target culture, all the while aware that some concessions must be made in the name of accessibility. Admittedly, though, discussions of the secondary witness have predominantly remained notional and detached from empirical practice. The following case studies will therefore direct attention towards more applied considerations of secondary witnessing in order to explore the implications of actual textual translation decisions, while also attempting to discern the extent to which pressure has been exerted by external factors. Given the ethical dimension of secondary witnessing, the comparisons between source and target testimonies will be openly evaluative. In this sense, my analytical stance is informed by Phil Goodwin who has challenged the displacement of ethical questions in translation by technical labels such as “free” or “literal,” “foreignizing” or “domesticating”; one of his aims is “to remind us that translation always takes place within a human context” (2010, 23) and, consequently, that it is “almost wilfully absurd to view the translation question in these circumstances as a purely technical one” (2010, 24). By consciously moving beyond the realm of objective description, the question of translation as secondary witnessing can thus be fully foregrounded as an ethical one. The stakes are high; the translator has a clear responsibility towards the Holocaust survivor, and, whether they have a conscious awareness of this obligation or not, the ways in which the translator (dis)continues the original act of witnessing merit a critical and a vigilant approach. Humbert and Maurel: translated experiences How have the translators of Humbert and Maurel engaged with the survivors’ stories and how have their translation decisions impacted on the process of secondary witnessing? Before turning to the analysis itself, it is worth briefly underscoring a basic premise of this study, namely that, although written accounts of the Holocaust may have been borne of an onerous struggle with language, such accounts should not be placed under the sign of the ineffable. This is not to deny the extremity of the events, but rather to acknowledge the efforts that witnesses have made to put their lived experiences into words. Accordingly, both content and form are fundamental to the transmission of survivor memory; neither can be omitted from the analytical approach. First, while there may be some slippage between lived experiences and their verbal representations, this should not undermine the potential of words to tell or to record. As Pascaline Lefort argues, “the existence of testimonies shows that the camp survivors [. . .] have successfully dealt with the unspeakable, moved beyond its limitations” (2012, 585, my translation), while Zoë Waxman likewise affirms that “[l]anguage may not be adequate to convey the horrors of the Holocaust, but this does not mean that nothing can be said” (2006, 175). In short, saying something is understood as the counterpoint to ineffability. Secondly, the form of that saying is also central to renouncing silence. Although Young’s (1988, 3) previously discussed warning against an exclusive focus on form is to be heeded, it would be equally restrictive to dismiss the revelatory function of poetics in Holocaust accounts, since, as Margaret-Anne Hutton contends, “such literary and rhetorical traits can be seen to function as aids to communication” (2005, 69). So, if the form and content of words have been simultaneously charged with the task of communication by the original witness, then the secondary witness is compelled to uphold and preserve those referential and aesthetic dimensions. The examples below will thus consider how and to what effect the translators have responded to the communicative efforts of Humbert and Maurel. On irony One of the most striking narrative features of the testimonies of both Maurel and Humbert is the way in which they draw on irony, verging on dark humor, in order to record their physical experiences and to signal their resistant stances in the face of such suffering. Referring to its use in Holocaust testimonies, Hutton has noted that “irony, as a non-literal mode, requires the reader to decode the unspoken message. When and if these conditions are met, a powerful bond based on what remains unsaid is created, and communication is intensified” (2005, 84). But for the reader of the translated testimony, this potential bond already hinges on an act of decoding, or hearing the unsaid, as carried out by the translator. Critically, if the translator does not pay sufficient heed to irony, then the voice of the survivor and the adverse conditions of which they speak risk being submerged in translation, which would mark a collapse of secondary witnessing. Maurel’s account is, from time to time, accentuated by litotic observations that are caustically delivered in a single sentence. Indeed, a good number of these have been heard and reinscribed in the English versions by her translator, Summers. Accordingly, where Maurel downplays her brutal treatment at the hands of the guards by remarking that “Il est apparu très vite que j’avais une tête à claques” (1957, 49), this sardonic tone is preserved in the translation as “It soon became apparent that my head invited blows” (1958, 39). And where Maurel declares that “C’est à cause de [Frau Schuppe] en grande partie que les Françaises mouraient si bien” (1957, 87), the mordant inflection is paralleled in English, where the reader learns that “It was mainly because of her that the French were dying in such satisfactory numbers” (1958, 71). By preserving Maurel’s irony, Summers offers the translation readers an insight into both the daily threat of punishment and death in the camps, as well as the survivor’s defiance in the face of such hardship. But certain restrictions seem to have been placed on the transfer of irony that is self-deprecating or particularly sensitive. In the first instance, Maurel, reflecting on her physical and emotional dishevelment, comments that “Nous devions être si ridicules à voir [We must have been such a ridiculous sight]” (1957, 81–82);6 in contrast, the translation lessens the derision in its more neutral estimation that “we must have presented an incongruous sight” (1958, 66). Secondly, Maurel is scathing in her critique of the unthinking way in which people responded to her return to France. The question most frequently posed to the survivor was whether she had been raped, leading her to react as follows: “Finalement, je regrettais d’avoir évité cela. J’avais manqué par ma faute une partie de l’aventure, et cela décevait le public. Heureusement que je pouvais au moins raconter le viol des autres [I came to regret having avoided that. Through fault of my own, I had missed out on a part of the adventure, and that disappointed the public. Fortunately, I could at least tell them about the rape of others]” (1957, 185). Although Summers retains the ironic sense of regret expressed by Maurel, a few telling attenuations of the full force of the irony occur in the translation. The survivor’s wry self-blame is first limited by the shift from the original active construction of “having avoided” rape to a much more passive state in which she “regretted having been spared this” (1958, 154, italics mine). Secondly, a tentative adverb is added to the passage: “Seemingly, by my own fault, I had missed one part of the adventure” (1958, 154, italics mine) which detracts once again from the sardonic notion that she is guilty by deliberate omission. In addition, the discordantly positive “Fortunately” of the original is replaced by a concessive adverb in the statement that “However, I could at least tell them of the rape of others” (1958, 154), which has the potential to be read in a more straightforward manner. 6 All back translations in square brackets are mine and they serve two purposes: as normal, they allow non-French speaking readers access to the original, but they also demonstrate that a more attentive translation is possible. Perhaps these changes were motivated by a sense of probity on the part of the translator, but this lessening of Maurel’s irony effectively dampens a form of communication that the survivor relied on as both a means of communicating and of coping. Indeed, the cumulative effect of this strategy can be read in the Kirkus Review which describes the translation in the following terms: “More as a reminder, than as recrimination, this sensitive and softspoken memoir patterns the days spent over a period of two years in the concentration camp of Neubrandenburg” (n.d.). But the original is scathing, bold, outspoken. The review thus points to the potential of translation to fundamentally alter the tone of a given testimony. The piercing use of irony comes even further to the fore in Humbert’s writing, extending over entire passages. By way of illustration, Humbert describes the harmful and humiliating effects of working with acid in the rayon factory as follows: J’ai passé l’âge des costumes genre Folies-Bergère. L’acide brûle naturellement non pas seulement notre peau, mais il brûle aussi le tissu de notre uniforme. Chaque goutte fait un trou… plusieurs petits trous réunis en font un grand. […] Je fais voir à la gardienne que j’ai maintenant le sein gauche à l’air… elle a refusé de me faire donner une autre chemise, refusé une aiguillée de fil, refusé une épingle, il faudra que je travaille le sein à l’air ! [I’m past the age of wearing Folies-Bergère style costumes. Of course, the acid doesn’t just burn our skin, it burns the fabric of our uniform too. Each drop makes a hole… several small holes join up and make a large one. […] I let the female guard see that my left breast is hanging out now… she has refused to let me have another shirt, refused a needle and thread, refused a pin, I’ll just have to work with my breast hanging out!] (1946, 217) Although the translation starts off by capturing Humbert’s glib tone in the statement that “I really do believe I am too old for this Folies-Bergère lark” (2008, 161), the remainder of the episode is conveyed in a more dispassionate manner which conceals the original flippancy: The acid burns holes not only in our skin, but also, naturally, in our uniforms. Every drop makes a hole, and the little holes join up to make big holes. […] I have shown the wardress how my left breast is now on view. She has refused to let me have a new shirt, a needle and thread, or a pin, declaring that I’ll just have to work as I am. (2008, 161) The comparative reduction in irony stems first from the shift in register from the irreverent allusion to “le sein à l’air,” her breast hanging out, to the more factual statement that “my left breast is now on view.” Mellor’s translation also neglects to repeat the phrase at the end of the passage and to retain the exclamation mark, thereby eliding the dry humor and self- ridicule of the original interjection. Another significant alteration comes at the same point in the translation with the introduction of reported speech as signaled by the verb “declaring.” So, whereas the free indirect speech of the original echoes Humbert’s attempt to make light of her deplorable work conditions, the translation effectively takes the words from the survivor’s mouth and reattributes them to the female guard. This is a move that strips Humbert’s words of the power to resist her inhumane treatment at the hands of the one who now speaks in her place. Also suppressed in this passage is Humbert’s use of aposiopesis whereby the unfinished sentences silently, but deliberately, communicate the frustrating impossibility of her situation. The translation reader is thus no longer called on to sense the futility that lies in these discontinuities, which in turn detracts from Humbert’s ironic treatment of the scene. In point of fact, the use of irony is diminished elsewhere in the translation through the reduction in or omission of exclamation points and ellipsis; such is the case, for example, in Humbert’s account of an underwear inspection (1946, 180; 2008, 130) and the shared drinking bowl (1946, 184-5; 2008, 134). The examples above reveal that, in some instances at least, the irony of both Maurel and Humbert has been palpably conveyed to the translation reader. At the same time, however, where the tone of that irony is neutralized, misappropriated, or its typographic markers discarded, the reader will be left with less immediate and identifiable clues on which to base their interpretation. If the irony should cease to function as such, then the critical and unyielding voice of the survivor is also submerged by and in translation, marking thus a collapse of secondary witnessing. On narrative time Lawrence Langer draws a fundamental distinction between the linear movement of “chronological time” and the more oblique dynamics of “durational time” in Holocaust testimonies, where the latter “relentlessly stalks the memory of the witness, imprinting there moments immune to the ebb and flow of chronological time” (1995, 22). This durational past does make its haunting presence felt in the accounts of Maurel and Humbert, albeit in different ways, with both survivors slipping between and across temporal perspectives in their shifting use of tense. The translator as secondary witness is then called on to listen attentively to the subtleties and significances of how the past is retold in the present of the survivor. The passage in which Maurel recounts her arrival and processing at Ravensbrück is a revelatory example of how tense and aspect can serve to unsettle the narrative and point towards the abiding anguish of the survivor. It opens with alternating moves between narration in an imperfect tense that intimates the horrifyingly unending nature of the ordeal for the survivor and the use of the infinitive, an impersonal and timeless form that reverberates with the inhumanity and ubiquity of the guards’ orders. This sequence is followed by a sudden shift to the present tense, heavy with the weight of inescapable immediacy and dread, while the subsequent use of the perfect tense situates the survivor in the close aftermath of the event to convey a transitory moment of reprieve: Les choses se passaient vite derrière les portes. Déposer les valises, se déshabiller en vitesse; on vous arrachait les vêtements à mesure. Se coucher sur une table, où une femme vous maintenait pendant qu’une autre explorait du doigt tous vous orifices naturels. S’asseoir sur un tabouret pour être tondue. Une main fourrage dans mes cheveux. Je n’ai pas été tondue cette fois. [Things were happening quickly behind the doors. Put down the suitcases, quickly get undressed; your clothes were being snatched away as you went along. Lie on a table where a women was holding you down while another was exploring all your natural orifices with a finger. Sit on a stool to be shorn. A hand rummages through my hair. I have not been shorn this time.] (Maurel 1957: 18, emphasis mine) The translated narrative undergoes an aspectual reframe- ing that obscures the inescapable, interminable and durational thrust of the time to which these temporal manoeuvres attest in the original. Maurel’s arrival at the camp has been wholly recast by the translator in a simple past that dissembles the difficult relationship between the survivor and the lived experience: Things happened fast behind those doors: a moment to set the bags down, to undress quickly, hastened on by hands that reached out to tear the clothing off; a moment to lie on a table, where one woman held us down while another passed an exploring finger into all our natural orifices; a moment to sit on a stool to have our hair cut off. A hand rumpled my hair, but on this occasion I was not shorn. (1958, 13, emphasis mine) The elision of the present tense marks, above all, a breach of attentiveness on the part of the translator as it fails to herald what Oren Stier has termed “the palpable presence of the past […] [that] disrupts the space-time of the survivor” (2003, 87). But the use of the imperfect tense has also been passed over in the translation, leaving little indication that Maurel found herself suspended in the dreadful moments she described, while the replacement of the infinitive imperatives with the temporal phrase “a moment to” further masks the threatening persistence of the guards’ orders. Although objective details about Maurel’s arrival at the camp remain, the translation reader can no longer discern the more subjective painful blurring of temporal boundaries enacted by the survivor, and the appropriation of the narrative flow into one of chronological time therefore blunts the act of secondary witnessing. The use of the present tense in Holocaust writing is widely held to be a narrative marker of trauma. As Anne Whitehead explains, “This method of narration emphasizes the traumatic nature of the memories described, which are not so much remembered as re-experienced or relived” (2004, 35). However, an altogether different dynamic emerges from the writing of Humbert; her account begins with the diary entries made in the months prior to her arrest, and her ensuing experiences of imprisonment and deportation are also recounted in this immediate narrative style of the diarist. In his afterword to Mellor’s translation, Julien Blanc writes that Humbert “was consistent in using the present tense throughout” (2008: 275), but this statement is only partly true. On the one hand, the use of the present tense is undeniably frequent, signalling less the steely grip of durational time on the survivor, and more her own lucid control over chronological time. On the other hand, though, Humbert’s work does bear the traces of tense switching, from this dominant use of the present tense that speaks of resistance and strength to a sparing, but nevertheless compelling, use of the past tense that speaks too, in its own way, of defiance and escape. The following example is telling in its understated shift from the immediacy of the present to the completedness of the perfect tense, transitioning through free indirect speech back to the present in an episode that details the survivor’s increased suffering due to acid burns and her descent into the confines of the cellar where prisoners supposedly had the opportunity to convalesce. Humbert writes: Mes mains me font autant souffrir que les yeux ; j’ai connu, car j’étais seule à la cave, la signification de cette locution, « se taper la tête contre le mur » ; oui, j’ai tapé ma tête contre le mur, et puis je me suis reprise. [. . .] Pour mes mains, il faudrait des pansements humides, oui, mais il n’y avait pas d’eau… Alors, essayons autre chose. J’urine sur mes malheureuses mains, les chiffons qui me servent de pansements sont imprégnés de pipi… [My hands are making me suffer as much as my eyes; because I was alone in the cellar I’ve known the meaning of this saying, ‘to bang your head against the wall’; yes, I’ve banged my head against the wall, and then I’ve pulled myself together again. […] For my hands, some damp bandages would be needed, yes, but there was no water… So, let’s try something else. I urinate on my pitiful hands, the rags that serve me as bandages are soaked in pee. . .] (1946, 252, emphasis mine) Here, the slippage into the use of the past perfect tense might be read as an attempt on the part of the survivor to contain her most unnerving memory of the event, marking it off as one concluded, isolated incident before she finds the determination once more to take charge of her situation. If durational time is indeed pursuing Humbert, she turns its trap on itself to restrict and defy its reach, distancing herself temporally and emotionally from this horrific moment. The return to the present tense indicates thus a return to resistance, a return that is further paralleled in Humbert’s flippant lexical choice and the dry humor of her ellipsis. These fleeting, yet important, variations in narrative time are indiscernible in the translation, where the episode is retold consistently in the present tense: My hands are as agonizing as my eyes; finding myself alone in the cellar, I understand the true significance of the phrase “banging your head against a brick wall.” Yes, I bang my head against the wall. Then I pull myself together. […] What I need for my hands is damp dressings, but there is no water. So let’s try something else. I urinate on my wretched hands, soaking the rags that serve as dressings. (2008, 190, emphasis mine). The translator does not appear to have heard the undertones of defiance in Humbert’s singular step into the past; or, this move may have been ignored in a misled endeavor to unify the temporal aspect of the narrative. The result stands as a warning against the potential dangers of inattention and appropriation in secondary witnessing; the lack of aspectual contrast mitigates the force of Humbert’s renewed refusal to give up, while the omission of the ellipsis and self-deprecating tone once again hides the survivor’s tenacity in the face of suffering. On language For many prisoners, experience of the Nazi camps was also marked by a confrontation with and assimilation of the language of their German oppressors, but also the Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, to name but the predominant tongues, of their fellow prisoners. The result of this linguistic conflation was the emergence of a “Lagersprache,” a vernacular particular to the camps that was necessary for communication between the prisoners themselves, as well as between the guards and the prisoners. In her testimony, Humbert remarks that, rather than speak fluent German, “Je ne parle que ce charabia international, cet espéranto étrange que vingt million de déportés ont dû apprendre [I speak only this international gobbledygook, this strange esperanto that twenty million deportess have had to learn]” (1946, 296). Her narrative is interspersed with individual German words that resounded throughout her internment and served to shape her experience. Mellor retains, in large part, the echo of these discordant and often terrifying lexical items; by way of illustration, the English language reader is introduced to the concept of the “kommando” (2008, 115), to the “little coshes, known here as ‘gummi Knüppel’” (2008, 128, italics in the original), to the “Spinnerei, or rayon mill” (2008, 147, italics in the original) and to the markings, “G=Gefangene: convict” (2008, 148, italics in the original) on the prisoners’ work uniforms. Nevertheless, there are a few occasions on which the lexical specificity of the camps is subsumed into standard modes of expression by Mellor. First, Humbert’s observation that the food in the Ziegenhain prison is “acceptable, mais knap [sic]” (1946, 286, italics in the original), is simply remediated as “tolerable but scarce” (2008, 219), without any attempt to retain the German term. Consequently, the translation silences the linguistic hybridity and alterity of Humbert’s “strange Esperanto,” while simultaneously obscuring the misspelling (German: knapp) which attests to the survivor’s adequate but imperfect use of a German idiom, undoubtedly acquired as a result of constant food privations. In addition, the prisoners would often create new turns of phrase, or rework existing ones, to convey the extreme conditions of their existence. Such is the case when Humbert and her fellow inmates adapt an idiom to capture the caustic effects of working in the rayon factory: “Selon notre expression « mes yeux coulaient dans ma bouche »” [According to our expression, “my eyes were running in my mouth”] (1946, 245). The translation omits reference to the singularity of the expression and also undoes its distinctiveness, reverting instead to the recognizable idiom of “eyes streaming” (2008, 184). The reader is at once disallowed access to the extent of the suffering and the process of linguistic inventiveness that characterized life in the camps. Language too plays a prominent role in the testimony of Maurel which bears the traces of the German, Polish and Russian with which she came into contact. Summers’ transla- tion, in turn, demonstrates a keen sensitivity to these markers of otherness, preserving a vast array of German orders (Raus!; Schnell!; Aufstehen!), insults (Schweinehund; Schmutzstück), and the nomenclature that designates the reality of the camps (Revier; Verfügbar; Strafstehen; Kretze). Snatches of Russian and Polish are also to be heard in the translation, while verses of French poetry and song are retained in their original form and then followed by their interpretation in English. The preservation strategy is an effective one, serving to provide a distant reverberation of the Babelian disquiet that prevailed in the camps. It is only on the rare occasion that the non-translation is discontinued, that the real force of appropriation comes to the fore. Notably, this occurs when the German command “Achtung!” (1957, 50, italics in the original) is articulated in the translation as “Atten-shun!” (1958, 40). Instead of a German imperative, an order now rings out that suggests the diction of a stereotypical British sergeant major in an act of appropriation that closes the reader off from a distinguishing verbal feature of the camps. Of further linguistic significance is the process whereby Maurel and her companions “Frenchify” some of the camp vocabulary: “Nous avons transformé Kopftuch en « coiffe- tout », Schüssel en « jusselle », Nachtschicht en « narchiste », Schmutzstück en « schmoustique ». Et les brutes en uniforme qui nous surveillaient, les Aufseherinnen était pour nous les « officerines »” [We transformed Kopftuch/headscarf into “coiffe-tout,” Schüssel/bowl into “jusselle,” Nachtschicht/ nightshift into “narchiste,” Schmutzstück/piece of dirt into “schmoustique.” And the brutes in uniform who guarded us, the Aufseherinnen/female overseers were for us the “officerines”] (1957, 15, italics in the original). This assimilation of German words into a French pronunciation resonates with Reiter’s reflection that “The highest priority for concentration camp prisoners was to lessen the alien character of their experience. They were helped in this if they could name new things with their existing vocabulary and thus include them in the horizon of the familiar” (2000, 99). However, the significance of this use of language as survival has been overlooked by Summers who, in her translator’s preface, begins by explaining the etymology and pronunciation of “coiffe-tout,” “schmoustique,” and “officerine,” but then goes on to undermine the prevalence and dismiss the importance of the remaining terms, claiming: “Certain other words, like Schüssel, a bowl or basin, pronounced jusselle by the French, Nachtschicht, nightshift, which became narchiste, occur only once or twice in the French text and have been omitted in this translation for simplicity’s sake, though they might have added local colour” (1958, 10). This approach to the survivor’s own appropriation of the German words attests to a further act of appropriation on the part of the translator, one that fails to heed the importance of the re-naming process. For these words lend more than a touch of “local colour” to the depiction of life in the camps; they represent a strategy of survival and of resistance. Evidently, Summers has made the decision to privilege simplicity over complexity in order to facilitate a more fluid reading experience in English. In so doing, though, Summers also closes the reader off from the entangled linguistic landscape of the camps and from Maurel’s coping mechanism amidst the unfamiliar. At this point, the translation strategy stands as a barrier to secondary witnessing. On accuracy Survivor testimonies are generally not held to be reliable sources of fact given the reconstructive fallibility of memory and the alleged representational failings of words. As Aleida Assman has noted, “The survivors as witness do not, as a rule, add to our knowledge of factual history; their testimonies have, in fact, often proved inaccurate” (2006, 263). But this does not preclude the possibility that, at any moment in the telling, survivors can fully and precisely convey the kind of empirical, objective information valued by historians.7 Although it may reasonably be presumed that this latter type of information is more readily discernible and less problematic for the translator as secondary witness, the following example from Summers’ translation of Maurel’s testimony would suggest otherwise. At the beginning of her account, Maurel records that: Le convoi dont je faisais partie […] a été immatriculé à Ravensbrück sous les numéros 22.000. J’étais le numéro 22.410. Au bout d’un mois de quarantaine, le convoi des 22.000 a été envoyé à Neubrandebourg [The convey I was part of […] had been registered in Ravensbrück in the 7 For a discussion of how historians have rejected personal testimony on the basis of its supposed inaccuracies, see Laub 1992, 59–63. 22,000s. I was number 22,410. After a month in quarantine, the convoy of the 22,000s was sent to Neubrandenburg]” (1957, 13). As prisoners entered the concentration and work camps, they were assigned a matriculation number; for Maurel’s particular French convoy, registration began at the number 22,000 and her own number was 22,410. However, it becomes clear that Summers has misinterpreted this numerical information as in the English version we read that the convoy was “registered and given numbers. I was number 22,410. At the end of a month of quarantine, the 22,000-odd were sent to Neubrandenburg” (1958, 8, emphasis mine). Here, the number that assigns identity to the group—that is, the “convoy of the 22,000s”—has been misattributed by Summers to the size of the group. Nor is this erroneous tally an isolated occurrence, for the translator then reworks Maurel’s observations in Chapter Four in line with her own reckonings. Consequently, where Maurel documents that “En automne 1943 le camp de Neubrandebourg contenait environ 2.000 femmes [In the autumn of 1943 the Neubrandenburg camp contained around 2,000 women]” (1957, 38), that “le convoi des 22.000 était pourtant bien mélangé [the convoy of the 20,000s was nevertheless well mixed]” in terms of political and religious beliefs (ibid., 41) and that “nous étions 2.000 sur le terrain [there were 2,000 of us on the parade ground]” (ibid., 46), Summers purports that “the camp at Neubrandenburg contained approximately 22,000 women” (1958, 30), the French “numbered 2,000” (ibid., 32) and the camp was “22,000 strong on the parade ground” (ibid., 37). Whether the reversal of the numbers stems from a misplaced attempt on the part of the translator to “correct” an inferred inaccuracy can itself only be surmised. But it does seem as though Summers was not fully aware of the dehumanizing Nazi practice of replacing prisoner names with numbers. Nor does Summers appear to have an understanding of the camp classification system of colored markings. Following liberation, Maurel has her friend remake “mon numéro et mon triangle rouge [my number and my red triangle]” (1957: 171) in order to avoid being mistaken for a German; these items are stripped of their specificity and their personal resonance for Maurel in the translation as “a triangle and some numerals” (1958: 143). The implications of such an inattentive treatment of the serial numbers and statistics are such that, not only does Summers obscure the imposed identity of the convoy, but the capacity of the labor camp is also inflated well beyond its actual dimensions. In line with Maurel, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos places the number of female prisoners in Neubrandenburg at “almost 2,000 at the end of February 1944” (Strebel 2009, 1215); the translation thus runs the risk of misinforming its readership, and of giving ammunition to the Holocaust deniers who “are quick to seize upon errors and inaccuracies in witness accounts” (Hutton 2005, 33). Regrettably, the errors and inaccuracies in this case are all those of the translator; worse, they have made their way into both reviews and scholarship, as a result of which the misinformation becomes more broadly disseminated. In 1959, the Catholic Herald printed a review of Ravensbrück in which it is noted that at Neubrandenburg “some 22,000 women, including 2,000 French, were engaged in munition works” (1959, 3). The Kirkus Review similarly goes on to record that “Neubrandenburg numbered some 22,000 women” (n.d.) on the basis of the translation, while the entry for Maurel in The Jewish Holocaust: An Annotated Guide to Books in English also states that “Over 22,000 women were sent to Neubrandenburg during the war” (1995, 192). Of even more significance is Rochelle G. Saidel’s (2004) work, The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Drawing explicitly on the English translation of Maurel’s account, Saidel challenges the statistics of another scholar as follows: “Morrison cites Maurel that there were two thousand women in the camp in late 1943, but she wrote there were twenty-two thousand women,” and she then refers the reader to An Ordinary Camp (the title under which the US edition was published) “regarding this discrepancy” (ibid., 250n. 12). Of course the unfortunate irony here is that the real discrepancy is to be found in the translation, not the original. In reference to Holocaust scholarship, Kuhiwczak notes that “large quantities of primary source material have been translated into English, and many conclusions have been drawn from texts read only in translation” (2007, 62). The above is a clear example of how translation can substantially (in both senses of the word) alter this interpretation of the camps that is presented to the translation receiver. And yet, in the face of such distortion, it is also important to bear in mind that translation has the potential to retransmit the accuracy and precision with which life in the camps has been reported in the original testimony. Such is the case in Mellor’s translation of Humbert’s account; although the survivor focuses less on the quantitative dimensions of the various camps to which she is sent, there is sustained evidence of a high degree of concordance between the details presented by the primary and secondary witnesses. Take for example the exactitude with which the classification system at Krefeld has been explained in the translation: “The Russian girls have a label sewn on their clothes, a little rectangle of blue material with the word ‘Ost’ in white” while the Polish women wear a “yellow lozenge with a dark-blue ‘P’” (2008, 132, italics in the original). Similarly, the complex mechanical process Humbert was forced to learn in the rayon factory has been recorded with careful adherence to the original telling, to reveal the torturous work of the spinner who, amongst other tasks, “grasps the filament in her left hand and, holding it between her index and middle fingers, takes it on to the glass wheel, follows it through and pulls it towards the funnel slightly” (2008, 153). There does appear to be one isolated instance in which Mellor has misheard the dynamics of life in the camps. The bartering (and theft) of commodities was widespread amongst prisoners, and Humbert recounts that “Mon amie Martha […] me promet, contre deux tartines, de me ravoir ma défroque [My friend Martha […] promises, in return for two slices of bread, to get my old rag back for me]” (1946, 204, italics mine). However, it would seem that Mellor has heard “entre” as opposed to “contre,” and thus reworks the situation into one where Martha “promises me between two slices of bread that she will get my old rag back” (2008, 150). Although evidence of the theft remains in the translation, one of the common and vital practices that shaped the (often and necessarily unscrupulous) relationship between prisoners has been obscured on the basis of a prepositional slip. Nevertheless, Mellor’s translation rigorously attends to the cruel physical realities of the labor camps as experienced by Humbert, thereby attesting to the re-presentational contingencies of interlingual secondary witnessing. Memory mediation in context It goes without saying that the translator is not the only figure involved in the transmission of the survivor’s account; when a translation appears, its packaging and intended audience are all shaped, to some degree, by context of production. By this token, the readership (the “other others”) that the translator as secondary witness reaches and their response to the testimony will be in large part be determined by the publisher, and not least by the ways in which the account is reframed by paratextual material. Although it is difficult to reconstruct a comprehensive account of all the editorial and contextual factors that have influenced the translations of Summers and Mellor, and therefore their reception, it is nevertheless possible to retrace some of the wider sociocultural and economic backdrop against which they appeared and offer some suggestions as to how the process of secondary witnessing is affected under such circumstances. Despite the parallels between the original testimonies of Humbert and Maurel in terms of referential content and style, the moment of publication and the paratextual presentation of the English translations differ widely. Whereas the translation of Maurel’s account is separated from its source text by just one year (i.e. 1957 to 1958), Humbert’s work does not appear in English until some sixty years after its publication in France (i.e. 1946 to 2008). This discrepancy may in part be explained by the dynamics of both the source and target cultures, and in particular by changes in the prevailing attitudes towards survivor accounts. To begin with Humbert’s Notre guerre, its appearance in France in 1946 came at a moment when the literary field was becoming (over-)saturated with testimonial writing from recently returned deportees. According to Damien Mannarion, the accounts which appear between 1944 and 1951 are not simply motivated by a desire to tell: “in this period when [the survivors] say “remember,” they are really addressing their contemporaries and not future generations, […] they want to denounce those responsible and see them condemned” (1998, 20, my translation). Given both the volume of published accounts and the contextual immediacy of their goals (acknowledgment of and justice for their sufferings), Humbert’s source text may well have been rendered invisible to British publishers or translators alike. Neither was there an expansive audience for any such translation in the target audience at that time. This is not to suggest that British readers were closed to accounts from the Nazi camps; on the contrary, the problem, as identified by David Cesarani, was one of a market flooded by very raw, disturbing writing, as a consequence of which readership began to dwindle: “Reading these memoirs and testimonies it is easy to understand why, by the end of the 1940s, the public turned away” (2012, 20). And so source and target conditions contrived to obscure Humbert’s work. But in France, a recovery of her writing was instigated by the publishing house Tallandier in 2004 when they issued a re- edition of Notre guerre, thereby introducing the survivor to a new, broader audience. The text’s journey was succinctly described by Daniel Rondeau, a journalist for L’Express, as follows: “out of sight for years, often quoted by historians, here is Notre guerre once again” (2004, n.p.). However, there seems to be no direct link between the appearance of the new French edition and the introduction of Humbert to English readers in translation, for this second recovery came about only when Mellor happened across the original 1946 edition on French ebay (Mellor, 2008, np.) and initiated the translation process herself. Likewise, the English version of Maurel’s Un camp très ordinaire appeared as a direct result of the translator. In this case, though, the link was of a more personal nature since Summers and Maurel shared a mutual acquaintance. According to a reviewer in The Vassar Chronicle: Mrs. Margaret Summers of the French Department has just completed a translation of AN ORDINARY CAMP by Micheline Maurel. […] Mrs. Summers became interested in this factual account of the author’s life in a German concentration camp through Mlle. Louisiene [Lucienne] Idoine, formerly of the Vassar French Department. Mlle. Idoine met Mlle. Maurel, the author of the original version at the German concentration camp of Ravenbruck [sic]. […] Mrs. Summers decided to undertake the translation of Mlle. Maurel’s book, for she wanted people to know about these German camps. (1958, 3) The relatively quick appearance of the target text can thus be explained through the biographical circumstances of the translator, as well as her desire to raise awareness of Nazi atrocities. For even though the translation was published more than a ten years after the liberation of the camps, Anglo- American audiences would still not have been familiar then with the full scale and horror of the events we now know as the Holocaust.8 As Andy Pearce has argued, “We cannot speak of ‘Holocaust consciousness’ in the opening postwar decade or so no simply because the substantive concept of ‘the Holocaust’ did not yet exist, but because […] there remained considerable ignorance, ambiguity and variance” (2014, 12–13). Indeed, this rather patchy understanding is likely to have extended to Summers herself and may go some way to explaining some of her more problematic translation decisions, especially the treatment of the Lagersprache and matriculation numbers as discussed above. Events in the source culture may also have had a bearing on the appearance of Summers’ translation, for the prominence of Un camp très ordinaire was greatly enhanced by the involvement of François Mauriac who helped to secure its publication in 1957.9 Interest in survivor testimonies was on the wane in France at this time, and Mauriac felt a duty to remember “an abomination that the world has determined to forgot” (1957, 9, my translation). His presence as a preface writer inevitably lent weight and authority to the source text, and so, while Summers may have shared Mauriac’s ideological agenda, the additional symbolic and potential economic capital generated by his name would also have been appealing to Anglo-American publishers. Both Mellor and Summers then played integral roles in bringing the testimonies of Humbert and Maurel respectively to an English-speaking readership. But target culture publishers also made an undeniable contribution to this process of transmission, and a close examination of 8 The Eichmann trial is, at this point, still some years off. See Annette Wieviorka (2006) for a discussion of how the trial came to be a global watershed moment in Holocaust witnessing. 9 A year later, Mauriac would also help to bring about the publication of Elie Wiesel’s La nuit. editorial paratext can reveal some of their underlying motivations and agendas. What is instantly remarkable about Bloomsbury’s publication of Humbert’s account is the use of a modified title. Rather than adopt a literal translation of the original—that is, “Our War: Diary of Resistance 1940–1945,” the publisher has instead opted for Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France. On the one hand, this alteration can perhaps be explained by the reticence, first, to retain a possessive marker that would jar in a new cultural setting, and secondly, to present the work as a diary when only parts of the work can be claimed as such. But on the other hand, the revised title introduces some misconstruals of its own; for the account is not restricted in scope to Humbert’s time in an occupied France, but rather, the greatest proportion of the work deals with her experiences as a deportee. Indeed, this discrepancy has been noted by historian Simon Kitson who remarks in his review of the translation that “the English title is slightly misleading. Whilst the author’s spirit of resistance is present throughout, almost two-thirds of the book is set in Nazi Germany” (2008, n.p.). Furthermore, the cover graphics which show two lovers on the banks of the Seine, with a barbed-wire barricade in the foreground, also accentuates an occupied Paris that figures only in the beginning of the memoir. It may well be the case that cynical ploys of marketing lie behind this repositioning of focus; it is perhaps no coincidence that the cover image in many respects mirrors that of Suite Française, the highly successful novel written by Holocaust victim Irène Némirovsky and published in English translation by Chatto and Windus in 2006. Likewise, the revised subtitle, “Memoirs of Occupied France” also suggests a thematic correlation with the latter. Rather than present the work on its own terms, the publisher may have skewed its title in line with market forces. However, within the covers of the translation, the reader is afforded an abundance of supporting editorial and allographic paratextual material, including a preface by writer William Boyd, photographic illustrations, an afterword by French historian Julien Leblanc (who provided the introduction to the French 2004 re-edition of the work), historical documents on the Resistance movement, and a bibliography for further reading. In contrast to, or perhaps as compensation for, the title of the work, this material ensures that the interested reader has the opportunity to arrive at a more informed understanding of Humbert’s experiences, her character and her writing style. The first UK edition of Maurel’s Un camp très ordinaire was published in 1958 by Digit Books (an imprint of Brown Watson publishers) under the tile Ravensbrück, leaving the Catholic Herald reviewer unable to answer the “mystery why it should have been misleadingly re-christened” (1959, 3). One possible reason may be that Ravensbrück was becoming more recognizable to Anglo-American readers as part of the Nazi apparatus. For example, in 1954 Lord Russell published his book The Scourge of the Swastika which “enjoyed immense commercial success” (Pearce 2014, 16) and contained details of Ravensbrück and sketches of the camp drawn by former inmate Violette Lecoq, meaning that knowledge of its deadly function was expanding. The book cover also makes the prominent claim that the work is “As Real as THE DIARY of ANNE FRANK…” (1958, emphasis in the original), thereby suggesting that the publishers were tapping into an existing market demand for Holocaust writing, especially given the bestselling success of the latter’s translation in 1952. But other factors suggest that interest in the work was being generated not along the lines of understanding, but of sensationalism. At the top of the cover is the quote from a Sunday Times reviewer that this is “a coarse, savage book.” Below this appears the bold and fallacious depiction of a voluptuous, perfectly coiffed, red-lipped prisoner who bears more than a passing resemblance to Vivian Leigh, gripping a barbed-wire fence, and dressed in a well-tailored, low-cut khaki dress. For Maurel’s work has found its way on to the list of a publisher who caters for an audience that enjoys tales of derring-do such as Jungle Pilot, Against the Gestapo and Conscript. Interestingly, writer Ken Worpole recalls his own experiences of Ravensbrück in his work on popular literature in Britain, placing it on a list of nineteen WWII-related titles (mostly written by men) that “were sold in millions and read in even larger numbers” (1983, 50). The popularity of these books appears to have been enormous, with Worpole claiming that “they were the staple reading diet of myself and my school peers, and the sales figures also suggest that they were the staple reading diet of the adult male British reading public, and, possibly, of a significant portion of the female reading public” (1983, 50–51). But Worpole also sounds a strong note of concern about the way in which the Digit Books edition has been visually presented to its readers, defining it “as part of the pornography of sadism” (1983, 64). There can be no doubt the cover sets out to titillate, not educate; it sells a sexualized image of the survivor, rather than depict the arduous, unrelenting conditions of her captivity. Worse still is the US edition issued by Belmont in 1958 whose cover page depicts a distressed, yet appealing, blond behind whom stands a menacing SS figure, whip in hand. The original title has also been eschewed in favor of The Slave, while the cover carries an extract from Maurel’s text (but wrongly attributed to Mauriac) that asks “Were you raped? Were you beaten? Were you tortured?” and in so doing, overtly fetishizes the testimony. Unquestionably, these two publishers are extreme in their misappropriation; other editions released in the US by Simon and Schuster (1958) under the title An Ordinary Camp and in the UK by Anthony Blond (1958) as Ravensbrück are more muted in their cover design, opting instead for a plain barbed-wire motif. Nevertheless, both Digit Books and Belmont serve as an example of how publishers are positioned as initial gatekeepers to the survivor’s story, attracting a particular type of reader seeking action or cheap thrills. If Mauriac was troubled about forgetting in the source culture in the 1950s, there are parallel concerns to be raised in the target culture about the dubious ways in which the Holocaust was being remembered then. The last issue to be addressed in reference to the framing of the target texts is that of the translatorial paratext. 10 In Résistance, Mellor has provided a “Translator’s Acknowl- edgements” section in which she thanks those who helped in the process and alludes to her reasons for undertaking the translation of the original: “Surely it deserved to be more widely known? Surely it should be made available in an English 10I use this term as a means of supplementing Genette’s (1987) paradigm of authorial, editorial, and allographic paratext in order to carve out a more visible and definite space for the translator. See also Deane-Cox 2014, 27–29. translation?” (2008, vi). There are also extensive “Translator’s Notes” (2008, 325–357) at the back of the work which provide detailed explanations of references in the text to people, places and events. As discussed above, Summers also establishes her presence around the text by means of the “Translator’s Note” which focuses on the use of Lagersprache and Maurel’s Frenchification of certain words (1958, 10–11). So, although the translatorial paratext is a clear signal to the reader that they are reading a text in translation, neither translator provides any sustained or penetrating reflection on the challenges and possibilities they may have confronted during their engagement with the source text. I would like to argue that the paratext offers a space in which the translator can make explicit their role as secondary witness, in contrast to the text itself where “the task of the listener is to be unobtrusively present” (Laub 1992, 71). Accordingly, the position of the translator as secondary witness can be mapped once more on to that of the interviewer for the Fortunoff project. Hartman observes that throughout the recording process, “the interviewers are almost completely out of sight [and] seem not to intrude into the testimony, even as they continue to direct it” (Young 1988, 166). In the same way as the interviewers are visible on the margins of the screen, so too can the translator be visible on the margins of the text, whether in a preface, in footnotes or any other form of translatorial paratext. This peripheral material can thus function as a record of how the translator has interacted with the original witness, how they have elicited and facilitated the transmission of a testimony from one setting to another, what obstacles they might have encountered, and how they regard their own ethical responsibility. Trezise has noted that, in the video testimonies, “the audible and occasionally visible presence of the interviewer(s) lends to the dialogical relation of witnessing a concreteness far removed from what may seem, in written testimony, to be only a disembodied interaction of pronouns” (2013, 34). The translator as secondary witness can thus add a concrete dimension to the transmission process by acknowl- edging their own role as listener to and perpetuator of the original act of witness. In so doing, the community of receivers will be more informed, more alert to any potential barriers to communication and more conscious of the survivor behind the pronouns. Conclusion: Remembering Forwards Translation, as a mode of remembering forwards, is not an unshakable one. Despite resisting a more perfidious and total lapse of memory, the above inquiry has shown that translation equally has the potential to distort, amongst other aspects, the factual, linguistic and tonal qualities encoded in the original telling, while paratextual material can also function as a site of appropriation and transformation. The extent to which a translator listens closely to the original telling may be the result of numerous factors: over-identification with the survivor, the onset of secondary trauma that leads to a distancing or a numbing of the translator, or, more prosaically, the temporal and editorial constraints imposed by publishers. In turn, the listening realized by the translator has the capacity to shape the response of the reader to the events of the past. In other words, the manner in which the reader positions him or herself on an ethical and epistemological level in relation to the Holocaust, as well as to the specific struggles of the survivors, will hinge on the strength and integrity of the bond established between the original and secondary witness. It has also become evident that the ties of that bond hold more securely in some parts of a translation than in others; within the boundaries of a given text, translation can serve either as an empathic re-telling or as a trespass. Granted, this article has given more space to what, following Antoine Berman (2000), could be termed a “negative analytic” of translation, the emphasis here being on the forces that deform the survivor’s account. Peter Davies has warned against such a focus on the negative in reference to Holocaust translations, claiming that “What is missing from the discussion of translation is a sense of the far-reaching achievement [of translators]. If we move beyond melancholy reflections on loss, we are able to shed a much fuller light on the role that translation and translators have played” (2014, 166–167). However, the reasoning behind my negative approach is twofold. First, the wider empirical evidence that emerged from my comparative analyses had a discouraging tendency to point in this direction, particularly in the Summers translation; the examples discussed above are a small, but representative sample of this trend. Secondly, the study should in no way be understood as a personal attack against the translators, but rather, as a means of accentuating the very real transgressive potential of translation as a form of secondary witnessing. By flagging up the lapses in secondary witnessing in these texts and underlining the translation strategies from which they stemmed, it becomes possible to inform future Holocaust translation practice and to prevent such breaks in transmission from reoccurring elsewhere. It may well be the case that the all-hearing, non- appropriating figure of the secondary witness is an impossible ideal, but this does not mean that it is not one worth striving for. Speaking more broadly about the readers of Holocaust narratives, Colin Davis points out that “the best we can do may be to try to attend as honourably as possible to the traces of that which remains foreign to us” (2011, 40). Similarly, Francis Jones has proposed some basic guidelines for the translator working in sensitive circumstances, namely “a principle of maximum awareness of ethical implications together with one of least harm” (2004, 725). And so the translator as secondary witness is one who undertakes to be attentive and self-reflexive, and who weighs the better part of translation decisions in favor of the survivor. Although some of these endeavors will inevitably fall short of their mark, the crucial step is in the trying. It has often been noted in recent times that the need to document Holocaust testimonies is growing as the survivors themselves diminish in number. As these accounts continue to be committed to paper or audiovisual media, or are recovered from the past, so too does the potential increase for the communicative force of translation be brought consciously and effectively into the service of the original witness and the perpetuation of his or her memory. References “An Ordinary Camp.” Review of Ravensbrück, by Micheline Maurel, translated by Margaret M. Summers. Kirkus Reviews. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/micheline-maurel/an- ordinary-camp/. Assmann, Aleida. 2006. “History, Memory, and the Genre of Testimony.” Poetics Today 27(2): 261–273. “Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. How Much We Must Learn!” 1959. Review of Ravensbrück, by Micheline Maurel, translated by Margaret M. Summers. Catholic Herald, April 3. 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Humbert, Agnès. 1946/2004. Notre guerre: Journal de Résistance 1940- 1945. Paris: Tallandier. ———. 2008. Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France. Translated by Barbara Mellor. London: Bloomsbury. Hutton, Margaret-Anne. 2005. Testimony from the Nazi Camps: French women’s voices. London & New York: Routledge. Jones, Francis. 2004. “Ethics, Aesthetics and Décision: Literary Translating in the Wars of the Yogoslav Succession.” Meta: journal des traducteurs/ Meta: Translators’ Journal 49 (4): 711–728. Kansteiner, Wulf and Harald Weilnböck. 2008. “Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma or How I Learned to Love the Suffering of Others without the Help of Psychotherapy.” In Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning, 229–240. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kershaw, Angela. 2014. “Complexity and unpredictability in cultural flows: two French Holocaust novels in English translation.” Translation Studies 7(1): 34–49. ———. 2014. “Intertextuality and Translation in Three Recent French Holocaust Novels.” Translation and Literature 23: 185–196. King, Beverley R. 2009. “Repressed and recovered memory.” In 21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook, edited by Stephen Davis and William Buskist, 450–460. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Kitson, Simon. 2008. “Agnès Humbert’s Wartime Diary ‘Résistance.’” The New York Sun, September 24. http://www.nysun.com/arts/agnes- humberts-wartime-diary-resistance/86444/. Kuhiwczak, Piotr. 2007. “Holocaust Writing and the Limits of Influence.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 43 (2): 161-172. LaCapra, Dominick. 2001. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Langer, Lawrence. 1995. Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. 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Translated by Margaret M. Summers. London: Anthony Blond. ———. 1958. Ravensbrück. Translated by Margaret M. Summers. London: Digit Books. ———. 1958. The Slave. Translated by Margaret M. Summers. New York: Belmont Books. Mauriac, François. 1957. Preface to Un camp très ordinaire, by Micheline Maurel. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Mellor, Barbara. 2008. “Bold defiance in Nazi Paris.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7634000/7634154.stm. “M. Summers Translates French Book Describing Life in Concentration Camps.” 1958. The Vassar Chronicle, December 13. http://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu/cgi- bin/vassar?a=d&d=vcchro19581213-01.2.19. Pearce, Andy. 2014. Holocaust Consciousness in Contemporary Britain. London: Routledge. Reiter, Andrea. 2000. Narrating the Holocaust. Translated by Patrick Camiller. London & New York: Continuum. Rondeau, Daniel. 2004. “Nous étions des enfants.” Review of Notre guerre by Agnès Humbert. L’Express, December 6. http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/notre-guerre-souvenirs-de- resistance_820118.html. Saidel, Rochelle G. 2004. The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. Stier, Oren Baruch. 2003. Committed to Memory: Cultural Mediations of the Holocaust. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Strebel, Bernhard. 2009. “Neubrandenburg.” Translated by Stephen Pallavicini. In The United States Holocaust Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945, Volume I, edited by Geoffrey P. Megargee, 1215–1216. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Suleiman, Susan Rubin. 1996. “Monuments in a Foreign Tongue: On Reading Holocaust Memoirs by Emigrants.” Poetics Today 17(4): 639–657. Trezise, Thomas. 2013. Witnessing Witnessing: On the Reception of Holocaust Survivor Testimony. New York: Fordham University Press. Tymoczko, Maria. 2000. “Translation and Political Engagement: Activism, Social Change and the Role of Translation in Geopolitical Shifts.” The Translator 6(1): 23-47. ———. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Waxman, Zoë. 2006. Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whitehead, Anne. 2004. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wieviorka, Annette. 2006. The Era of the Witness, translated by Jared Stark. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Worpole, Ken. 1983. Dockers and Detectives. London: Verso Editions. Young, James, E. 1988. Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. joined the University of Strathclyde as a lecturer in translation and interpreting in 2016, having previously held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, where she also completed her PhD in 2011. Her research is anchored in the field of Translation Studies, but currently intersects with Memory Studies, Holocaust Studies, and Museum Studies. She is particularly interested in the translation of French individual and collective memories of occupation and deportation during World War II. She is author of the monograph Retranslation: Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation (2014) and a member of the IATIS Regional Workshops Committee.

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Abstract: This article explores how memory—the central issue of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977)—has induced a specific type of writing that makes its translation a more challenging task in terms of stylistic, lexical, and syntactical choices. Tayo, the main character, is haunted by painful memories of his traumatic war experience, powerful nightmares and daytime visions blending seamlessly into the vacuity of his present life on the reservation. However, memory is also a healing force when it means going back to the traditional Indian way and adapting it to the broken present. Silko navigates between storytelling and storywriting, weaving a circular vision of time into the linear format of the novel and bridging the gap between her Indian ancestry and her white academic education. Translating Ceremony raises many interesting issues, three of which are discussed here: the treatment of intermingling narratives whose chronology the readers have to reconstruct for themselves, the network of echoes and repetitions that structure the novel, and the description of the Indian landscape. The article finally asserts that translation contributes to the circulation of memory and is a positive force ensuring the survival of texts written to resist acculturation. Introduction Ceremony is a landmark publication in the advent of Native American literature. Published in 1977 by Leslie Marion Silko, it received much critical acclaim and soon became a commercial success and was translated intoseveral foreign language (Norwegian, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Dutch). It is often part of the selection of Native American novels on university syllabi next to House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1968) and The Death of Jim Loney by James Welch (1979). Those are the titles readers remember as they have become the “memory” of Native American literary Renaissance. Whether they should be seen in terms of “ethnic minority fiction” or as part of mainstream American fiction is subject to debate. For instance, Joseph Bruchac states that the “‘mainstream’ in America is being turned back by a tide of multiculturalism” (Bruchac 1994, xviii). According to Robert N. Nelson, Native American novels have distinct features that set them apart: their authors are “Native American” (like the protagonists), the settings “include Indian reservations,” they allude to, or widely incorporate, “tribal traditions” 1 (Nelson 1993, 3). As a consequence some of their content is perceived as being difficult to grasp for the readers who are not “tribally literate” (to use Nelson’s word), those who do not share the memory of the tribal heritage. Memory is an essential dimension to Native American fiction and to Ceremony. According to Robert Dale Parker, Native American Literature was “invented” by “Indian writers,” drawing on both “Indian and literary traditions” (Parker 2003, 1). In trying to keep tribal culture alive, Native American writers have explored memory in different ways. Memory is what is left of all that has been destroyed and eradicated by colonization, industrialization, and forced assimilation. It is the main force enabling Native Americans to resist acculturation. Cultural memory was traditi- onally transmitted through storytelling, an endangered activity in a world ruled by the written word, where communities and families have been increasingly scattered across the whole 1 The choice of the most appropriate word to designate the people from Native American tribes is still highly controversial. The issue has not yet been settled, which explains what may seem like confusion in most essays and books about Native American art and fiction. Christina Berry writes in her article published on the All Things Cherokee website: “So what is it? Indian? American Indian? Native American? First Americans? First People? We all hear different terms but no one can seem to agree on what to call us” (Berry, 2013). Although the word “Native American” seems more neutral, many Native Americans object to it as it is seen as a creation by the Federal government aiming at erasing the sufferings of the Native tribes and making the colonial past more acceptable. The actor and political activist Russell Means declares: “I am an American Indian, not a Native American! I abhor the term Native American. It is a generic government term used to describe all the indigenous prisoners of the United States” (Means, 1996). Silko uses both the word “Indian” and “Native American.” In this article the word “Native American” has been kept to refer to the ethnic origin of the people involved but the word “Indian” has been preferred to indicate the cultural connotations as in “the Indian way” or “Indian memory” since it is closer to the ideas developed by Silko. country. Native American writers therefore invented a new type of storytelling that can survive and thrive in their new environment, translating traditional memory and storytelling into novels. Those novels are hybrid forms, close enough to the template of the Western novel to be recognized and understood by all while being innovative enough to cater for values and notions radically alien to Western culture. However, Indian memory is also a traumatic memory and offers many common points with other works and narratives problematizing memory such as writings by holocaust survivors and by victims of intense trauma (see Brodski 2007). Writing is not only a means of transmitting memory and struggling against oblivion, but it also transforms the unbearable memory of the trauma—which lies on the side of death and destruction—into a resilient force that makes life possible. The memory of the horror beyond the scope of human understanding is translated into words in order to help the victims make sense of the events and reappropriate their lives. Through the case study of Ceremony, I will demonstrate how memory can be a haunting force of destruction as well as a healing type of energy. Memory is both the theme and the material chosen by Silko for her novel. Her literary approach is characterized by a specific type of writing that makes interlingual translation particularly challenging in terms of stylistic, lexical, and syntactic choices. The novel was translated into French by Michel Valmary, who later translated two other books—Archie Fire Lame Deer’s Gift of Power (Le cercle sacré) and James Welch’s Killing Custer (C’est un beau jour pour mourir). The translation was published in 1992 by Albin Michel in the Terre Indienne collection, which specializes in Native American fiction (director: Francis Geffard), and its French title was Cérémonie. After studying how memory is at the core of the themes and textual identity of Ceremony, I will focus on three points: 1) writing/translating the fluctuating and unstable time of memory through a limited choice of possible grammatical tenses; 2) the construction/destruction of echoes, memories, and correspon- dences; 3) the translation of words and names referring to the landscape that is central to Indian memory. Finally, I will examine the close relationship between writing and translating in the case of Indian memory and discuss whether the trans- lation of Native American fiction is possible/advisable/neces- sary. Memory as the Main Theme and Material of Ceremony The theme of memory is crucial to Ceremony. The protagonist, Tayo, is a Laguna Pueblo of mixed ancestry, a “half-breed”2 living on the reservation near Albuquerque in New Mexico. When the story begins, he is back from the Second World War. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or “battle fatigue” according to the white psychiatrists who have discharged him from the hospital, he is unable to resume his old life. He is haunted by memories of the war and overwhelmed by guilt as he feels responsible for all the disruption that took place when he was away: the death of his cousin who went to war with him, the death of his uncle Josiah, and finally the drought that he sees as retribution for his swearing at the rain in the prisoner camp in the Philippines: “The old people used to say that droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave”(Silko 1977, 46). These destructive memories disrupt his present life and make him mentally and physically ill as they invade his everyday life in the form of nightmares and daytime visions that leave him empty. His war memories are interspersed with his childhood memories as he is also trying to cope with his sense of alienation as a “half-breed” brought up by his aunt after his own mother left him. However the past, which is a source of suffering, is also the key to his recovery. Knowing that white medicine cannot save him, Grandma convinces him to visit a medicine man because “The only cure/I know/is a good ceremony” (Silko 1977, 3). Although the visits to Ku’oosh and then Old Betonie do not succeed immediately and the healing ceremony cannot be completed, Tayo gradually recovers his ancestral memory. He learns to understand the traditional signs and rites, becomes able to read the landscape around him again and to realign his life with a broader universal pattern of meaning. Thanks to his recovering the traditional cultural memory of his ancestors, Tayo can complete the ceremony by himself, adjust, and find his place back on the reservation. His 2Although “half-breed” may seem offensive, it is the word used by Silko to describe Tayo’s as well as her own ancestry (Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white). healing is symbolic of and preparatory to a more global change as rain returns to the region saving the crops and cattle. Tayo’s journey, out of his destructive memories, which are manifestations of evil and witchcraft and back to the healing memory of the Indian way, enables him to restore balance and harmony in the universe as thought can again circulate between the fifth world (the world inhabited by human beings) and the other worlds inhabited by spirits. Memory is at the core of Ceremony. The different encounters with the medicine men, the traditional one and Old Betonie, the modern one, with the women Tayo loves, all avatars of Tse’pina, the spirit of the mountain, are various memories of the same quest or the same healing ceremony. It is by remembering them and understanding their correspondences that Tayo progresses on his way to recovery and that the readers gradually understand the way the novel is structured and what it means. The novel functions like memory itself, giving birth to seemingly disconnected episodes that make sense when put together, reassembled and realigned. Moreover the conventional narrative structure of Tayo’s quest is framed by and intertwined with traditional stories and poems, memories of traditional Laguna storytelling, as if the real creator of the story was not Silko but Thought Woman. The book begins with the poem: Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought-Woman, is sitting in her room and whatever she thinks about appears [. . .] I’m telling you the story she is thinking. Those traditional passages draw on Silko’s personal memories of the stories she was told when a child on the reservation or memories she has revived from the collection of stories published in Franz Boas’s Keresan Texts (a transcription of traditional tales published in 1928, see Nelson 2001). There are altogether 28 “storytelling memories” (whose length varies from a few lines to four pages). Silko blends traditional Indian forms—based on circular patterns, repetitions and circulation from memory and myth to reality—into a novel, a genre favoring a linear conception of time, a sequential and historical development of the story, and a clear-cut distinction between past and present, memory, and reality. She thus creates her own language, one that can express memory. Moreover, the novel is a way for Silko to come to terms with her own mixed ancestry and her sense of alienation. She started writing Ceremony after having been away in Alaska for two years where she felt she had been exiled. The novel is a personal remembrance ceremony enabling Silko to weave the loose threads of her attachment to her Native ancestry and of her white academic education back into significance: “Writing a novel was a ceremony for me to stay sane” (Arnold 2000, 24). Memory and the Blurred Frontiers between Past and Present The treatment of diegetic time is quite unconventional in Ceremony, as noted by most critics and reviewers. Although analepsis is a common device in most conventional novels, time shifts are so frequent in Ceremony that they blur the frontier between the main narrative and the secondary narratives that are Tayo’s various memories and visions. The story shifts to and fro between the time of Tayo’s return to the reservation after he is back from the war, and various memories—childhood scenes, war episodes, and other times before he left for the war. Those shifts back in time are not systematically signaled as such— there are few dates, few accurate references to places which would help the readers to chronologically reorganize the diverse fragments constituting Tayo’s story. The fragmented narratives are the representations on paper of the disruptive forces released by Tayo’s memories and the readers must agree to getting lost in the succession of embedded stories going back in circles rather than following a straight time line from beginning to end. Like Tayo, the readers will understand later and what they remember will then make sense, as Night Swan (one of the female characters Tayo meets during his quest) tells him: “You don’t have to understand what is happening. But remember this day. You will recognize it later” (Silko 1977, 100). Only when the tense of the first verb of the analepsis is a pluperfect is the shift clearly indicated. Even then, the following verbs are in the simple past (also the prevailing tense of the main narrative), which creates ambiguity as to the exact point where the main narrative is resumed, as in the following example:3 “You see,” Josiah had said, with the sound of the water trickling out of the hose into the empty wooden barrel [. . .]. He pointed his chin at the springs [. . .]. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead [. . .]. Tayo knelt on the edge of the pool and let the dampness soak into the knees of his jeans. (Silko 1977, 45–46) Although it is quite clear that the first paragraph is a memory because of the use of the pluperfect and the situation (Josiah is dead by the time Tayo returns from the war), the status of the following paragraph (“Tayo knelt…”) is ambiguous, and the similarity of the setting misleads the readers into believing initially that it is part of the same memory sequence whereas the main narrative has been resumed. The translation into French reads thus: “Tu vois, lui avait dit Josiah par-dessus le bruit de l’eau qui dégoulinait du tuyau dans les tonneau de bois vide [. . .]. Du menton, il avait montré les sources [. . .]. Il avait enlevé son chapeau et essuyé son front [. . .]. Tayo s’agenouilla au bord du bassin sans se soucier de l’eau qui trempait les genoux de ses jeans. (Silko 1992, 55) The translator has made a grammatically safe choice. The shift from pluperfect to past, which is quite frequent in English fiction, has been neutralized through a more consistent use of a plus que parfait in French. The passé simple, used for the main narrative, is deemed inadequate as soon as the diegetic chronology is upset—a stylistic rule many, but not all, French novelists adhere to. That “safe” choice is not consistently applied. For other time shifts the passé simple is used for anterior actions but only after a series of plus que parfait has clearly delineated the time frame: He stood outside the train depot in Los Angeles and felt the sunshine; he saw the palm trees [. . .] he realized why he was here and he remembered Rocky and he started to cry. [. . .] 3 Words discussed in the ensuing analysis are given in bold in the quotes. The new doctor asked him if he had ever been visible and Tayo spoke to him softly and said that he was sorry but nobody was allowed to speak to an invisible one. (Silko 1977, 15) Devant la gare de Los Angeles, il avait senti la caresse du soleil; il avait vu les palmiers [. . .] il comprit pourquoi il était là, il se souvint de Rocky et il se mit à pleurer. [. . .] Quand le nouveau docteur lui avait demandé s’il avait jamais été visible, Tayo lui avait répondu d’une voix douce qu’il était désolé mais que personne n’avait le droit de parler à un être invisible. (Silko 1992, 23) Whereas the English original allows for more indeterminacy (the readers will not immediately understand that the first passage is the memory of a scene that took place just before Tayo’s return and that the second passage is another shift in time, neither the continuation of the preceding passage nor the resuming of the main narrative), the French readers are guided by the translator’s choice, which clarifies the order of the successive time sequences. Although choosing between imparfait, plus que parfait, passé simple, and passé composé to render a simple past is a controversial point, the passé simple—even if it is an obvious choice for a translator—may not be the most appropriate tense in the case of Ceremony. The use of the imparfait in some passages makes it possible to keep some referential indeterminacy as shown in that example where it is not clear if the second passage is still part of Tayo’s memory of the war or of the main narrative: Rocky had reasoned it out with him; […] Tayo nodded, slapped at the insects mechanically [. . .]. He had to keep busy; he had to keep moving so that the sinews connected behind his eyes did not slip loose and spin his eyes to the interior of his skull where the scenes waited for him. (Silko 1977, 8–9) Rocky s’était efforcé de le ramener à la raison ; [. . .] Tayo avait acquiescé; d’un geste machinal de la main, il avait écrasé quelques insectes [. . .]. Il fallait qu’il s’occupe ; il fallait qu’il reste actif pour que les muscles qui se rejoignent à l’arrière de ses yeux ne se relâchent pas, les faisant ainsi pivoter vers l’intérieur du crâne, là où toutes ces scènes l’attendaient. (Silko 1992, 16–17) Even if it is not conventional to use the imparfait for single past actions, that tense might have the potential to accommodate Silko’s literary treatment of memory, as some French writers have done to give extra depth to their past narratives, J. M. G. Le Clézio, for instance (see Lepage 2008). Alternatively, using a passé composé instead of a passé simple as the prevailing tense for both the main narrative and the memories would have been a way to signal the shift from conventional fiction writing and would have insisted on the connection with oral tradition. Grammatical constraints and the translator’s wish to conform to the more conventional writing norms do not explain all the occurrences of plus que parfait in the French text. They illustrate the translator’s symptomatic wish to guide his readers, to help them through the maze of the original novel, as in the following example where a whole sentence has been added: They unloaded the cows one by one, looking them over carefully. (Silko 1977, 77) Quand Tayo eut ouvert le grand portail du couloir d’entrée du corral, Robert ouvrit la porte de la bétaillère. Ils firent sortir les vaches une par une, en les inspectant attentivement. (Silko 1992, 88) The time of the action as well as the identity of the characters have been made explicit in French. However, reducing ambiguity and reordering Tayo’s memories imposes a Eurocentric vision on a hybrid text. In fact, it brings more confusion to the readers as it prevents them from being aware of the blurred frontiers between past and present and between memory and reality, essential to the understanding of the novel. Indeed Ceremony reintroduces in the linear development of the novel the memory of a more ancient time, the Indian vision of time, which is circular, cyclical, always moving but not going directly from one point to another: The Pueblo people and the indigenous people of the Americas see time as round, not as a long linear string. If time is round, if time is an ocean, then something that happened 500 years ago may be quite immediate and real, whereas something inconsequential that happened an hour ago could be far away. Think of time as an ocean always moving. (Arnold 2000, 149) Memory as Repetitions, Echoes, and Resonances Repetitions and echoes are the backbone of the writing in Ceremony, and the coherent structure they create counter- balances the confusion brought about by Silko’s fluctuating treatment of diegetic time. Repetitions work at the level of sentences and paragraphs but also at the higher level of the whole novel. In sentences, repetitions give rhythm to the narrative and endow it with a typically oral dimension. The following passage illustrates how repetitions structure the sentences and help the readers/listeners keep track of the important notions: He could get no rest as long as the memories were tangled with the present, tangled up like colored threads from old Grandma’s wicker sewing basket when he was a child [. . .]. He could feel it inside his skull—the tension of little threads being pulled and how it was with tangled things, things tied together, and as he tried to pull them apart and rewind them into their places, they snagged and tangled even more. So Tayo had to sweat through those nights when thoughts became entangled; he had to sweat to think of something that wasn’t unraveled or tied in knots to the past (Silko 1977, 6–7) Il ne pourrait trouver le repos tant que les souvenirs et le présent s’enchevêtreraient comme les fils de couleur dans le panier à couture de Grand-mère : [. . .] Sous son crâne, c’est cela qu’il sentait, la tension des fils minces que l’on tirait, et les choses emmêlées, attachées ensemble, qui, lorsqu’il essayait de les démêler et de les rembobiner, chacune à sa place, s’accrochaient et s’emmêlaient encore davantage. C’est ainsi que Tayo devait passer de longues nuits en sueur quand ses pensées s’embrouillaient; il devait faire d’énormes efforts pour penser à quelque chose dont le fil ne soit pas défait ou attaché au passé par des nœuds inextricables (Silko 1992, 14–15) The translator has reduced the number of repetitions by erasing some occurrences (the two occurrences of tangled have been reduced to one in the first sentence) and by resorting to synonyms (s’enchevêtrer, emmêlées, s’emmêler, s’embrouiller for tangled; en sueur and faire d’énormes efforts for sweat). The destruction is not systematic, however. For instance, the translator manages to keep the repetition of comfort and comfortable (a word difficult to translate into French) by using bien and bien-être which work on both material and moral levels: We know these hills, and we are comfortable here.” There was something about the way the old man said the word “comfortable.” It had a different meaning—not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land and the peace of being with these hills. (Silko 1977, 117) Nous connaissons ces collines, et nous y sommes bien. » Il y avait quelque chose de spécial dans la façon dont le vieil homme avait dit le mot « bien ». Il prenait un sens différent : ce n’était pas le bien-être que procuraient les grandes maisons, une nourriture riche ou même des rues propres, mais le bien-être né du fait d’être à l’unisson de la terre, la paix ressentie à se trouver dans ces collines. (Silko 1992, 129–130) At the macro level of the whole novel, repetitions give meaning to the various interconnected episodes. Repetitions of words create a textual memory that enables the readers to interpret the story correctly, exactly like Tayo who will gradually learn to recognize the pattern underlying what he goes through. For instance, when Tayo walks to the toilets in a bar (Silko 1977, 56), the dirty wet floor mentally takes him back to his ordeal in the jungle (Silko 1977, 11). The shift from a real situation to a memory is textually signified by the repetition of the same phrase—“It was soaking through his boots/it soaked into their boots”—in the two passages. In the translation, although the readers will understand the situation, there is no textual link between the two scenes but only a semantic link as two different phrases are used: “qui pénétrait dans ses bottes” (Silko 1992, 66)/“s’infiltrait dans les chaussures” (Silko 1992, 19). Many passages echo each other as if the various episodes and the various characters were diverse avatars of the same event, Tayo’s encounter with the spirit of the mountain and his becoming whole again. Repeated words form a network of key words whose occurrences weave a significant textual material connecting and reuniting what first seems disconnected. Through their reiteration the readers can recognize the resemblance and understand that time and storytelling are cyclical as Old Grandma concludes: “It seems like I already heard these stories before . . . only thing is, the names sound different” (Silko 1977, 260). The network of recurring words organizes the novel around key themes such as dampness and dryness, circles and whirls, weaving and scattering. In the translation, the structure is less obvious because of lexical variety. For instance, the word scatter which is central to Tayo’s broken psyche is translated by two different verbs, disséminer and disperser, as well as by a whole range of words according to the cotext: l’entouraient (Silko 1992, 117), franchirent le sommet (Silko 1992, 195), faire voler (Silko 1992, 231), laisser derrière (Silko 1992, 250), s’effriter (Silko 1992, 214), parmi (Silko 1992, 168), and s’égaillèrent (Silko 1992, 243). The important word scatter has virtually disappeared from the French translation, made invisible by the translator’s decision not to maintain its repetition. The destruction of repetitions is not systematic, how- ever, as the recurrences of some words are maintained. For instance whorls (of flesh, of skin), which appears in the morbid episodes dealing with witchcraft, is systematically translated by volute, making it possible for the French readers to link the various scenes together and to establish the connection with the poems relating the invasion of the evil spirit: “il se peignit le corps/les volutes de chair” (the poem about Pa’caya’nyi who tricks people into witchcraft, Silko 1992, 56), “D’autres défirent des paquets en peau/pleins d’objets répugnants:/des silex sombres, des cendres de hogans brûlés/où reposaient les morts,/Des volutes de peau” (the poem about a witchcraft competition during which white people are invented and turned loose to destroy the Indian world, Silko 1992, 147), “Pinkie lui maintint la jambe, et Leroy trancha la volute de chair sous le gros orteil de Harley” (the torture scene in which witchcraft attempts to engulf Tayo’s life and the world in general, Silko 1992, 271). By reducing the number of repetitions, the translator brings considerable changes to the material texture of Silko’s novel of textual memory. His motivations may be an adherence to French stylistic norms that still consider repetition to be inelegant despite its use by great writers. He thus imposes his own view, his own cultural memory on the original text and destroys its inner rhythm and its signifiance (to use Meschonnic’s (1999) word). Repetitions are essential to Silko’s endeavor to write a text which reads as a memory of the oral tradition of storytelling and deliberately blurs the frontier between genres (tales, songs, poems, and novels), between storytelling and story-writing, between Indian traditions and Western culture: “So I play with the page and things that you could do on the page, and repetitions. When you have an audience, when you’re telling a story and people are listening, there’s repetition of crucial points” (Arnold 2000, 71). Systematicity is essential to maintain the way lexical networks function. Each repetition is important. As Berman states when he studies how the deforming tendencies transform a text, each word must be chosen carefully and the use of synonyms is deceptive. Words have their own lives, their own textual bodies from which they derive their power: “The words of the story poured out of his mouth as if they had substance, pebbles and stone extending to hold the corporal up” (Silko 1977, 12). Silko’s writing is like weaving: the intricate patterns suffer no mistakes, no holes. Storytelling and story-writing is a sacred act, a ceremony in which each word has its part to play. Memory and the Landscape The landscape is the central character of Ceremony. As stated in Place and Vision, in which Nelson dedicates a whole chapter to the landscape of Ceremony, the geophysical landscapes “serve not only as the ‘settings’ of these [Native American] fictions but also as principal ‘characters’ in them” (Nelson 1993, 9). It is only after being reunited with the landscape that Tayo can recover his vital energy. The landscape is the place where Indian memory lies, the landscape is Indian memory: “We are the land. [. . .] More than remembered, the earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth” (Paula Gunn Allen in Nelson 1993, 1). Describing and naming the landscape is therefore a delicate part of the ceremony of writing. Locations and directions are given with accuracy. The words connected to the landscape are the names of the places, the words describing those places as well as the names of the plants, animals, and spirits inhabiting the land. All those names recreate the landscape of the American Southwest where the Laguna Pueblo reservation is located and they bear the memory of its history. The original Indian names have been largely replaced by English names or by Spanish names, the languages of the enemy, to use Gloria Bird’s phrase in Reinventing the Enemy’s Language (Harjo and Bird 1997), that is to say the languages of the settlers: “But the fifth world had become entangled with European names: the names of the rivers, the hills, the names of the animals and plants—all of creation suddenly had two names: an Indian name and a white name” (Silko 1977, 68). The Pueblo names are still there, though, in the names of the characters of the traditional stories and the names of the spirits inhabiting the land. They stand out in the English text as their morphology is quite different from that of the European names and display a characteristic apostrophe: Tse-pi’na orTs’eh, K’ou’ko, Ck’o’yo, A’moo’ooh, Ku’oosh. . . The Pueblo names have been used in the translation without any change as if they had resisted one more displacement. Most Spanish names are maintained too: mesa, arroyo, Casa Blanca . . . with the exception of burro (âne, bourricot). It is the English names that are problematic for the translation into French. When they are kept, which is the case of many place-names, they stand out as memories or traces of the original English text, whereas in the original they blend seamlessly into the main narrative in English. In Cérémonie, place-names such as Wake Island, Dixie Tavern, Purple Heart, or Prairie Dog Hill remind the readers of the European settlers’ imprint on the American landscape but also suggest that the “entanglement” with English names is only a passing stage in the history of the landscape. The names and languages may change, but the landscape and its ancient memory will remain unchanged. The English language, which dominates the text of Ceremony, is pushed back to the margin through translation. The names of plants and animals are translated into French and raise many difficulties. Most English names are both simple and precise. As they are based on a simple generic word (grass, tree, weed, hill. . . ), names such as wild rose bush, salt bushes, snakeweed, rabbit brush, foothills create a realistically complex environment (Silko has drawn on her accurate knowledge of the Southwest landscape). The geographically- literate readers will recognize it. However, those who are unfamiliar with such settings will not be lost and will manage to find their way among grass, trees, weeds, and hills. In French, the translator has to negotiate between two options. He can favor the exact translation which is very often a scientific term unknown to most readers: Salt bushes/atriplex, arroche; snakeweed/bistorte, gramma grass/ bouteloue. . . Alternatively, he may opt for a literal translation that will be understood but may not refer to an actual plant or animal. The few cases when literal translations correspond to the reality of the environment (rock sage/sauge de rocher, bee-wee plants/l’herbe-aux- abeilles, rabbit weed/herbe-aux-lapins. . . ) are not enough to compensate for the different vision of the world the numerous scientific names produce. Moreover, the scientific words in French do not allow the correspondence between geography and myth. The words of the landscape in Ceremony are meaningful and contribute to weave a consistent memory of the universe that reinforces the links between the human world and the spirits. When Tayo meets the mountain lion (puma in French), he also meets the hunter spirit, the companion of Tse’pina, the mountain spirit. When he meets Tse, she is sitting next to a moonflower plant (marguerite dorée) that indicates the feminine power she represents. Tse is a woman and a spirit and the earth, as this passage underlines: “He dreamed he made love with her. He felt the warm sand on his toes and knees; he felt her body, and it was as warm as the sand, and he couldn’t feel where her body ended and the sand began” (Silko 1977, 222). It echoes Josiah’s comment: “This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone” (Silko 1977, 45). Once Tayo acknowledges he is sand and stone like the sandstone cliffs around him, he can be whole again. In the translation, the link connecting sand (sable), stone (pierre), and sandstone (grès) is severed. The landscape in Cérémonie is therefore more scientific and more obscure than in the original; it does not work as the main representation and memory of the harmony of the Indian way. It is not the “living text” mentioned by Nelson, which can be read by the readers. Memory and Translation as Transformation Beyond the linguistic and stylistic difficulties the translator has to face when translating a narrative of memory such as Ceremony, broader questions must be addressed. Is it possible or even legitimate to translate memory in the case of Native American fiction? Can Indian memory, which is so deeply rooted in the ancient languages and in the local environment, survive when uprooted and transferred into a culturally and linguistically alien environment? Silko has already provided part of the answer. Drawing on Indian memory to write her novel, she has opened up a new frontier and contributed to the invention and development of the Native American novel, essentially transgenre and multilingual. She is the one who has translated—that is to say, transformed and rewritten—the oral traditional stories: “I write them down because I like seeing how I can translate this sort of feeling or flavor or sense of a story that’s told and heard onto the page” (Arnold 2000, 71). Therefore, translating Ceremony into another language is doing a second-hand translation in which the main choices have already been made: the degree of multilingualism, of obscurity to which the readers—and more particularly the “tribally illiterate” ones—will be submitted. The inherent tension between the source and target languages, between what we understand and what we do not, between what the translator chooses to reveal and what he/she leaves unexplained is already present in the original. Even the reception of her work and the issue of the target reader has been addressed, as Silko is aware that her readership falls into two categories—Native Americans (who know a lot about Indian memory) and non-Natives (whom she does not want to alienate). For her, making Indian memory accessible to all through her translation is a political choice: “I’m political, but I’m political in my stories. That’s different. I think the work should be accessible and that’s always the challenge and task of the teller—to make accessible perceptions that the people need” (Arnold 2000, 26). Translators have always been suspected of betrayal and Silko is no exception. Being of mixed ancestry, born on the reservation but educated outside it, she is the perfect go-between and a highly suspicious one. Paula Gunn Allen criticized her for giving away tribal secrets which should only be known by Native people, as Nelson reminds us: “In fact, a few years ago another Laguna writer, Paula Gunn Allen, criticized Silko for using some of this oral traditional material, contending that by including a clan story in her novel Ceremony Silko has violated local conventions regarding proper dissemination of such stories” (Nelson 2001). For Silko, translating and rewriting Indian memory is not a betrayal but, on the contrary, a way to redeem Native traditions. Those must not be kept as museum artifacts which are the dead collectible pieces recorded and translated by ethnologists such as Boas, but they must be given the possibility to carry on as living entities. Memory pines for transmission as a way out of oblivion and eradication. Through her translation, Silko reminds the American readers of the Native American heritage of their country and promotes it as a living force in today’s world. Interlingual translation goes one step further in the same direction. Translating Indian memory strengthens it as it will be kept in the minds of more and more readers across the world, and in turn they will pass it on. It will then be safe from destruction, as when kept in the belly of the storyteller (Silko 1977, 2). Paradoxical though it may seem, translating Indian memory is a form of repatriation as it takes it back to its original purpose, helping the people understand and live in harmony. In a globalized world, the people may just mean people in general: “Something in writing Ceremony that I had to discover for myself was indeed that the old stories still have in their deepest level a content that can give the individual a possibility to understand” (Arnold 2000, 147). On a more practical level, the translation and transmission of memory may increase people’s awareness and support of the Native cause and give more visibility to the Indian alternative to the materialistic “American way of life” taking over the world. Silko is aware of the potential impact of Native memory across languages and nations: “In other words, we feel that we get cultural, intellectual, spiritual support from all the people outside the United States. [. . .] There are no isolated people, there is truly now a global village and it matters” (Arnold 2000, 151). The teller/writer is one link in the long chain of the circulation of memory, and the translator another one. The important point is to keep the transmission going even if it means changes on the way. Changes are not always for the worse. In the case of Indian memory, the displacement brought about by the interlingual translation opens up new possibilities. In the French translation, the stories may thrive better in a new medium, freed from the English language (the linguistic memory of the trauma of colonization). Memory itself is not a fixed form. It is based on repetitions and differences, like translation—two notions at the core of Deleuze’s early philosophical thought and analyzed at length in Différence et Répétition in link with the power of language: “La répétition est la puissance du langage” (“Repetition is the power of language”—translation mine—Deleuze 1968, 373). The memory of an event is a repetition of the event, both similar to and different from it. Each time the memory comes back it is slightly modified, too, as repetitions are never identical. The same relationship links the text and its translations, which are the memory of the text. They are not equivalents but repetitions of the original, different but not necessarily less valuable, less trustworthy, or less authentic. The transformation process at the core of memory and translation is a regenerative power that keeps life going. The old stories, like the old healing ceremonies, must be adapted to their new environment—be it linguistic or cultural—the way Betonie has managed to devise a new ceremony to cure Tayo of his modern disease. Translation and memory are two modes of survival (“‘survival’ as a cultural practice and symbolic action, and above all as a process that extends life” (Brodzki 2007, 5)) and revival, a way to share the gift of the healing force or the burden of the trauma. Conclusion Memory as the main theme and material of Ceremony has shaped the novel’s language. It is based on correspondences and resonances that can evoke the chaos of traumatic memory and of witchcraft but that also symbolize the redeeming force of the Indian way whose ceremonies can restore harmony. The specificity of Silko’s writing requires attentive translating strategies that enable the transmission of its textual and poetic density. The memory of the text is particularly threatened when the translator yields to some of the deforming tendencies defined by Berman in his chapter “L’analytique de la traduction et la systématique de la déformation” (Berman 1985, 65–82), and more particularly clarification (thus replacing cyclical time with linear time), the destruction of rhythm (the rhythm of oral tradition), and the loss of meaningful networks which equate writing with healing ceremonies. Like all poetical texts, Ceremony challenges easy solutions. Those texts need transformation rather than stereotyped equivalences. To translate them is to listen to the text and its resonances, to its signifiance rather than concentrate on its superficial narrative meaning. Translators will then be able to draw on that intimate memory of the text to rewrite it in an act of sharing and transformation, not a move of appropriation. Narratives of memory ask for translation more than anything else as transformation and circulation are their essence. Like the Indian stories they have “a life of their own” (Arnold 2000, 72) whose natural development is translation. Translators are similar to Betonie, the modern healer. “But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies [. . .] things which don’t shift and grow are dead things” (Silko 1977, 126). Translators, as life-givers of those narratives, have the responsibility of choosing carefully and creatively so that reading the translated text will be a renewed ceremony that revives the power of the original and transmits its memory. References Allen, Paula Gunn, ed. 1996. Song of the Turtle: American Indian literature, 1974–1994. New York: Ballantine Books. Arnold, Ellen L., ed. 2000. Conversations with Leslie Marmon Silko. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Berman, Antoine. 1985. Les Tours de Babel: Essais sur la traduction. Mauvezin: Trans-Europ-Repress. Berry, Christina. 2013. “What’s in a Name? Indians and Political Correctness.” All Things Cherokee website. Accessed November 20, 2013: http://www.allthingscherokee.com/articles_culture_events_070101.html. Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bruchac, Joseph, ed. 1994. Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers’ Festival. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1968. Différence et répétition. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Harjo, Joy, and Gloria Bird, eds. 1997. Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America. New York: W. W. Norton. Lepage, Pierre. 2008. “Le Clézio et l’oubli de l’Afrique.” Le Monde des Livres, September 9. Accessed November 20, 2013. http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2008/10/09/le-clezio-et-l-oubli-de- l-afrique_1105152_3260.html. Means, Russell. 1996. “I am an Indian American, not a Native American!” Accessed November 20, 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20010208120908/http://www.peaknet.net/~ aardvark/means.html. Meschonnic, Henri. 1999. Poétique du traduire. Lagrasse: Verdier. Momaday, N. Scott. [1968] 2010. House Made of Dawn. New York: HarperCollins. Nelson, Robert M. 1993. Place and Vision: The Function of Landscape in Native American Fiction. New York: Peter Lang. ———. 2001. “Rewriting Ethnography: the Embedded Texts in Leslie Silko’s Ceremony.” In Telling the Stories: Essays on American Indian Literatures and Cultures, edited by Elizabeth Hoffman Nelson and Malcolm Nelson, 47–58. New York: Peter Lang. PDF available at https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~rnelson/ethnography.html Parker, Robert Dale. 2003. The Invention of Native American Fiction. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Silko, Leslie Marmon. 1977. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books. ———. 1992. Cérémonie. Translated by Michel Valmary. Paris: Albin Michel. ———. 1997. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today. New York: Simon & Schuster. Welch, James. [1979] 2008. The Death of Jim Loney. London: Penguin Classics. Wright, Anne, ed. 1986. The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright. Saint Paul MN: Graywolf. is senior lecturer in Translation Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris 3. Her research concentrates on the interaction between form and meaning, on the translation of the voice, and the syntactic organization as well as normalizing effect at play in the translation process. She has either edited or coedited Palimpsestes 18 (Traduire l’intertextualité, 2006), Palimpsestes 24 (Le réel en traduction: greffage, traces, mémoire, 2011), and Translating the Voices of Theory (2015). She is also interested in intersemiotic forms of translation and Native American voices.

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Abstract: Over the course of the last five years my research has led me to conclude that the literary representation of a trauma is not the immediate step after the historical event and that there are other, intervening layers in between. First is the occurrence of the historical event. What then follows is the translation of that event in the minds of the survivors—that is, in their memory and interpretation of the event. Then, memory becomes the subject of oral history. This oral history enters the minds of the writers of memoir and fiction, where it becomes a literary translation. Finally, the filmmaker, if such a story makes it to this step, translates the text in order to render her interpretation of it as film. If we acknowledge that translation involves interpretation, then what exists here are different layers of translation. The aim of the paper is to analyze the different effects that each medium (literature, translation, cinema) may have on the experience of its readers and audience—what that medium is trying to cultivate, the limitations of each, and how all of them in different ways bring greater attention to the historical phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide. Introduction Thinking about the contribution of literature to raising awareness about the Armenian Genocide, I have asked myself whether literature is the immediate step after the historical event. My research has led me to think that it is not. In this paper, I will propose the following schema to chart the development in Genocide awareness from the historical event to its interpretation within an act of artistic representation. First is the occurrence of the historical event. What then follows is the translation of that even in the minds of the survivors—that is, in their memory and interpretation of the event. Memory then becomes the subject of oral history, and this oral history enters the minds of the writers of memoir and fiction, where it becomes a literary translation. Finally, the filmmaker, if such a story makes it to this step, translates the text in order to render his or her interpretation of it as film. In effect, we have here different layers of translation upon translation—to use memoirist Günter Grass’s term, with this theory we are “peeling the onion” (Grass 2008). With a focus on the renowned Italian–Armenian novelist Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narrative La masseria delle allodole (2004; English translation Skylark Farm, Arslan 2006), I’ll first discuss the literary genre as an instrument that brings greater attention to the historical memory of the Armenian Genocide. Then the power of translation related to the Genocide as an instrument of cultural, historical, and linguistic interaction will be both explored and problematized. For example, why has this particular book been chosen for translation into sixteen languages?1 In what ways have these translations contributed to the awareness of the Genocide in their given countries? Exploring the impacts these translations have had in their given countries, there will also be an examination of readers’ reactions following their respective publications in various languages by presenting interviews with some of the translators. Finally, I will focus on the theme of the Armenian Genocide in cinema and will deal with the dramatized version of the Genocide narrative La masseria delle allodole by the Italian directors the Taviani brothers (Taviani and Taviani 2007).2 The Armenian Genocide in Literature In every trauma, in every situation, there are always at least two sides, two prevalent stories, and the power dynamics are strong. On the one hand, the side that “successfully” commits Genocide usually determines the way its history is written (or not written), as is the case of the Armenian Genocide, which is varied and has been contested for many years. Then there is the side of the 1 So far, the book has been translated into Dutch, English (four editions), Eastern Armenian (two editions), Finnish, French, German (two editions), Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Western Armenian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish. 2 The present study springs directly from my experience in translating Armenian Genocide narratives and from the outcomes of the course I taught at California State University, Fresno— Armenian Genocide and Translation while being the 10th Henry S. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at CSUF. people who have suffered the overwhelming trauma. This side, especially when silenced by the perpetrator, attempts to record any history of the event, albeit painful, and often, as we look over these testimonies, it is clear that any proper investigation or analysis of this traumatic event should be undertaken by someone with psychoanalytic and linguistic skills. One of the consequences of the Armenian Genocide was the dispersal of those who survived into a global Diaspora. Traumatized and impoverished, involuntary exiles and immigrants in a new land, they struggled to survive. Part of their survival strategy was to write what they had experienced and witnessed. Survivor stories emerged painfully and with great difficulty. The obstacles were many: a fragmented, traumatized community with far too few resources. The challenges they faced included the fact that they were either forced to write in a language that few in their new lands understood or that they had to struggle to describe the indescribable in a foreign tongue. Despite all the trauma and difficulties, the immigrants decided to put pen to paper to document that which the world needs to better know and comprehend. Even though the potential audience and publishers were greatly limited, these important survivor memoirs emerged, often in isolation, in small print runs and sometimes as unpublished manuscripts. They emerged in a variety of locales and conditions that characterized the global Diaspora. These Diaspora fragments disseminate Armenian culture and seeds across differing landscapes. In so doing, the Armenian identity has evolved and become more diverse and complex and has contributed to an emerging multiculturalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The survivor memoirs provided and continue to constitute an invaluable research tool not only for researchers but also for Genocide fiction writers, who take their insights from those stories and, in thousands of literary flavors, offer the reader the historical dimension of the Armenian Genocide. It is true that it is not possible to penetrate the world of the Armenian Genocide without reading the history. However, as Rubina Peroomian asserts (Peroomian 2012, 7), documents, statistics, and data do not provide the whole story. On the other hand, the extremely important memoirs and eye witness accounts alone often cannot express the unthinkable horror of the Genocide as the blockages and psychological borders can impede the author’s revealing the whole trauma. Hence the importance of historical fiction, which, by fusing historical fact and creative writing, can provide access to a larger readership in terms of global impact. An example of this phenomenon, with a particular symbolic and powerful radiation and with a priority function of meaning, is the Italian–Armenian novelist Antonia Arslan’s Genocide novel La masseria delle allodole (Arslan 2004). Antonia Arslan, who was born and grew up in Italy and was professor of modern and contemporary Italian literature at the University of Padua, has published on Italian popular fiction and Italian women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, her most recent publications have focused on her Armenian heritage. Her first approach to her Armenian heritage was, surprisingly, through translation. With the help of two Armenians (as she doesn’t know Armenian) she has translated/edited two volumes by Daniel Varujan, one of the most significant Armenian poets of the twentieth century, into Italian: Il canto del pane (Varujan 1992) and Mari di grano (Varujan 1995).3 Here is Antonia Arslan’s testimony about her translation: Poetry functions in an immediate and unexpected way. I discovered Daniel Varujan, his strength and his grace, when reading some of his poems in Italian and the entire The Song of Bread in French, translated by Vahé Godel. So it was that I concentrated on the text of his last work, which completely fascinated me. I already had a lot of experience translating poetry—from French, English and German—but my work with Varujan was a great adventure, also because of my collaboration with two young and enthusiastic scholars, C. H. Megighian and A. H. Siraky. The Italian edition of The Song of Bread (Varujan 1992) became the seventh one, and it enjoyed much success within the Italian secondary schools. I further translated other pieces of Varujan’s poetry; I published twenty of them in the volume Seas of Wheat (Varujan 1995) and the others in magazines. I also want to remind us that he was a great poet, one of the major ones since the beginning of the 1900s, equal to no one, but less known because he wrote in a minority language. (Haroutyunian 2012a) Translating Varujan’s poetry became part of the process of 3 In 1915 at the age of thirty-one, Daniel Varujan was on the verge of becoming an internationally renowned poet but he was brutally murdered by the government of the Young Turks, like other Armenian poets such as Siamanto, Grigor Zohrab, and so on. discovery of her own Armenian identity.4 It brought her to the unknown path of her lost ancestry and the birth of her first novel, the best-seller Skylark Farm, in which, drawing on the history of her own ancestors, she tells of the attempts of the members of an Armenian family caught up in the Armenian Genocide to escape to Italy and join a relative who had been living there for forty years. This book won many prestigious awards in Italy and worldwide.5 Skylark Farm belongs to a genre that mixes autobiography and biography, history and fiction, documentary and memory. First of all, Arslan introduces her fifty-three-year- old grandfather Yerwant, an important physician living in his adopted Italian hometown of Padua in the months leading up to the Second World War. [H]is mother, Iskuhi, the little princess, died at nineteen giving birth to him. My great-grandfather then remarried an “evil stepmother,” who bore him many other children; my grandfather couldn’t stand her, and so, at the age of thirteen, he requested and was granted permission to leave the little city and go to Venice, to study at Moorat-Raphael, the boarding school for Armenian children. (Arslan 2006, 17) Yerwant never again returned home. Now, after forty years, he hopes to reunite with his brother Sempad, a successful pharmacist, who continued living in his little city in Anatolia. In 1915, Yerwant enters his fiftieth year, and he is satisfied—and alone. . . “I am now a citizen of Italy; the Ottomans can’t touch me any more,” he thinks. (Arslan 2006, 45) But World War I begins, and the ruling Young Turk party closes the border and when Italy enters the war on May 24, 1915, Yerwant’s dream vanishes. He will never be able to return to his country of origin in his red Isotta Fraschini, the doors of which were encrusted with the silver coat of arms that featured an intertwined Y and A, standing for Yerwant Arslanian. He will 4 She then went on to edit different works on the Armenian Genocide, including Hushèr: la memoria. Voci italiane di sopravvissuti armeni (Arslan, Pisanello, and Ohanian 2001); she has worked with Boghos Levon Zekiyan on the Italian version of Gérard Dédéyan’s Histoire du peuple arménien (Dédéyan 2002) and Vahakn Dadrian’s Storia del genocidio armeno (Dadrian 2003); and translated Claude Mutafian’s brief history of the Armenian genocide from the French (Mutafian 2001). 5 Arslan’s more recent publications include Il libro di Mush (2012), which is an account of the largest extant Armenian manuscript that was preserved in two halves by two separate women, each of whom took one half when escaping the city of Mush during the Armenian Genocide; Il rumore delle perle di legno (2015); and Lettera a una ragazza in Turchia (2016). never see his family again as they will be exterminated almost entirely by the Young Turks. From that moment on for Yerwant the distant Fatherland remained forever remote, and when his children got older Yerwant even changed their names. Antonia Arslan talks about a contradiction in the behavior of her grandfather: at first he did not want to deny his ancestry, and gave his children four Armenian names each—Yetward, Erwand, Armenak, and Vardan; Khayel, Anton, Aram, and Maryam—but later tried to erase their origin: “And in 1924, he will petition the Italian government to allow him to legally remove from his surname that embarrassing three- letter suffix, -ian, that exposes so plainly his Armenian origin” (Arslan 2006, 160). During the deportation, the women performed a crucial role not only by bravely making sacrifices to protect the children, but by persistently working to preserve memories of their land. These are a few stories, objects, and photographs, “relics or icons from a terrible shipwreck” (Arslan 2006, 19), and a few other items shipped from Sempad as a gift to his relatives in Italy. Thanks to this “act of memorial transmission,” the author can now see and touch objects and images belonging to her Armenian family and therefore be reunited with its indefinite past (Alù 2009, 369). Here, as readers, we are made witness to familiar historical narratives—perhaps we share similar ones, perhaps we’ve read firsthand accounts in books. But what happens when a historical event penetrates literature? First of all, the literary genre is a powerful medium that is able to bring the historical phenomenon to the attention of the masses. By reconstructing her family history in the novel, Arslan is merging both historical research and imagination culled from collective memory; she also becomes the protector of her familial memory and historical archive. Taking an input from Bella Brodzki’s idea that “[c]ulture’s necessarily overarching orientation toward the future only obtains by sharing its past” (Brodzki 2007, 113), I conducted an experiment on collective memory and testimony in an assignment I gave to my students at Fresno State. I set an assignment in which they were called to write the story of their ancestor’s survival. Most of them said to me, “I know something about my great grandparents, but I’m missing a lot of details. What should I do?” This is exactly what I was hoping for, and advised them to fill in the gaps with their imaginations and to take advantage of their parents and grandparents and ask them questions. As evidenced by Brodzki, “[t]hinking both psychoanalytically and historically also means that while we harbor the dream of plentitude, we always begin with a gap” (Brodzki 2007, 113). For their assignment, some of my students contacted their relatives living in other countries to inquire about their grandparents and, as the students shared some amazing stories in class.6 This assignment contributed to raising their personal awareness of their ancestors’ voyages towards refuge. Antonia Arslan has done the same in filling in the gaps of an unknown past. In the meantime the geography, the places, and the itineraries that she describes in her novel reveal not only significant moments of family history but also its inclusion in a determinate social space and national history (Alù 2009, 364).7 This is important because it gives the historical part to “historical fiction.” For yet another class assignment, based on the concept of Rushdie’s “translated man,” students worked together to write the names of the native cities and villages of their ancestors, as well as the places through which they passed on their long journeys of migration before arriving in the United States.8 We also included in the map the languages they had learnt along the way. This initial exercise helped the students to visualize, re-realize, and appreciate both their ancestors’ geographical passages and the students’ indelible connection to them. Further, the act of writing it on the board—taking pen in hand—implicated them as the bearers and continuers of their ancestral memories. I have always been obsessively diligent throughout my academic career to erase whatever is on the board after any given lesson. However, what 6 Some of these stories have already been published in the Hye Sharzhoom newspaper (Fresno 2013, 35/1, 2). 7 In her article, Alù refers to Anne Muxel who in her Individu et mémoire familiale explains how rediscovering familiar places and spaces can help us to recover a biographical path as well as the origin, progress, and decline of a social, individual, and collective destiny (Muxel 1996, 47). 8 In his book of essays Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie asserts that “Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained” (Rushdie 1992, 17). was created on the board that day was an interwoven tapestry of names, places, times, and languages that neither my students nor myself even dared to erase. The memory seemed at once too fresh and validated yet again. So, we decided to leave it as it was. I took a picture before the next instructor could “erase our ancestors,” preserving this image at least through another medium—if not the word, the image. We were all excited and surprised to discover that among all our ancestors, they collectively spoke sixteen languages including Armenian, English, Arabic, French, Turkish, Spanish, Vai, Pele, Fula, Russian, German, Romanian, Bulgarian, Latin, Greek, and Kurdish. In the same way, Antonia Arslan’s undertaking the mission of retelling the story continues the voyage of her ancestors. In one of her numerous public lectures Antonia said: “The idea of my past was bothering me for years, so one morning I decided to write: ‘Zio Sempad è solo una leggenda, per noi: ma una leggenda su cui abbiamo tutti pianto.’”9 This is the very first sentence of the novel, and Antonia once told me that, while many passages of the book have undergone editing, that sentence remained unchanged. What is interesting is that Antonia never mentions the name of her grandfather’s birthplace, calling it “little city.” “No one, patient reader, ever went back to the little city,” finishes Antonia Arslan in her book (Arslan 2006, 268). She does this intentionally— firstly because this is a novel and not a memoir and secondly because she doesn’t want to personify but rather render the idea more globally and not to give the reader the impression that the Armenians were persecuted in that specific place. I’d like to share the last classroom example from my California State University experience, which dealt with the question of the story’s transmission. By using their part of the genealogical tapestry I spoke of before, each student illustrated the geographic and linguistic journeys of their ancestors. I asked the students, as an extension, to report their family history to one partner in the classroom. It was then the task of the partner to re- reflect the story and report it. After a series of retellings, the students eventually had to report these stories back to the class, 9 Uncle Sempad is only a legend, for us—but a legend that has made us all cry (Arslan 2006, 17). thus directly engaging in the process of transmission and translation. Our aim was to internalize the process of a story’s transmission and to show how feelings, details, chronology, and so forth are translated as they pass from one person to another. Thus, the story, especially the oral tale, is a shared substance between interlocutors, and simply does not exist without both the teller and the listener, the writer and the reader. So when we return to consider the gravity of Arslan’s work in the telling of the Armenian Genocide from a very personal perspective, we come to the realization that, by sharing her own family history, we also become a responsible player of that story as readers. In this case, we are both called upon to consider and remember the Genocide and are also invited to enter its discourse. To consider Arslan’s work on such a global scale, then, is of tantamount importance. Through the pen of the writer Antonia Arslan, the Armenian Genocide is thus carried beyond its historical limits, slipping from the desks of historians and entering the minds and imaginations of ordinary people. Of course, when a historical event becomes literature it is enriched with new shades and colors. New heroes are born who are given names and are assigned identities. Families are born belonging to one nationality or to another who are placed in this or that social class. This is where literary fiction comes into play. And she weaves the plot. Through a love story, a common conversation in the home, or between neighbors, and through a description of a relationship between two individuals of two different nationalities (such as the Armenian and Turkish) or minorities (Armenians and Greeks), Antonia Arslan introduces the historical dimension to the story. A sentence from the prologue that was also used for the blurb on the book cover reads: My aunt always used to say: When I’ve finally had it with you, when you get too mean, I’m leaving. I’ll go stay with Arussiag in Beirut, with Uncle Zareh in Aleppo, with Philip and Mildred in Boston, with my sister Nevart in Fresno, with Ani in NY, or even with Cousin Michel in Copacabana—him last, though, because he married an Assyrian. (Arslan 2006, 5) With this sentence, the author introduces the complex phenomenon of the Armenian Diaspora created by the Armenian Genocide. When a non-Armenian reader, completely ignorant of not only the essence but also the existence of the Armenian Genocide, buys the book for its literary value, while reading this sentence, asks herself: How can a single person, Antonia’s aunt, have so many relatives around the world? The answer will come on reading the book. Before writing her Genocide narrative, Antonia Arslan consulted many history books. But the plot also came to her through saved photographs. As Daniel Sherman has it: “Sight is the only sense powerful enough to bridge the gap between those who hold a memory rooted in bodily experience and those who, lacking such experience, nonetheless seek to share the memory” (Sherman 1999, 14). Thus the picture becomes a complicated form of self- portrait that reveals the ego of the writer that is necessarily relational and at the same time fragmentary. Similarly, descriptions of group photographs in Skylark Farm are used by Antonia Arslan to recover the bonds with her dispersed Armenian relatives (Alù 2009, 373): Arussiag, Henriette, and Nubar, two girls and a little boy dressed as a girl. Along with Nevart they are the numb survivors who will, after escaping Aleppo, come to the West. These children now look out at me from a snapshot taken in Aleppo in 1916, one year after their rescue, just before they embarked for Italy: their grave, childish eyes are turned mysteriously inward, opaque and glacial, having accepted—after too many unanswered questions—the blind selection that has allowed them to survive. They are wearing decent orphan clothes, but they seem dressed in uniforms of rags, and at a quick glance the eye sees prison stripes. Their dark Eastern eyes, with their thick brows tracing a single line across their foreheads, repeat four times, wordlessly, the fear of a future that will be inexorable and the hidden nucleus of a secret guilt. (Arslan 2006, 23) Transforming and translating the protagonists of the pictures into the characters of the book, Antonia is linking herself through a bridge towards her ancestors: But it will be Zareh the skeptic, the European, who will save the family legacy, the children, and the photographs: the four little malnourished bodies curled together like dying birds, their small skulls all eyes, and the precious packet of family portraits, sewn up along with Gregory of Narek’s prayer book inside a velvet rag and passed from hand to hand from the dying to the survivors. Parched, dried skeletons—memorials of a life that had been cordial and boisterous, with plenty of water, plenty of hospitality and mirth. (Arslan 2006, 29) These images, along with a few objects protected by the women during the massacre and deportation, become relics of which the author becomes the possessor through the acts of postmemory. In addition, the images included or only described in Skylark Farm, along with the text, are the subject of memory and commemoration as well as collective pain, the lieux de mémoire that stop time, block forgetfulness, immortalize death and materialize the immaterial (Alù 2009; Nora 1989). In her 2007 book Can These Bones Live, Bella Brodzki directs her attention to processes of intergenerational transmission, conceived as acts of translation, to how the value of memory or remembrance as an instrument of historical consciousness is inscribed in a culture [. . .] What connects and divides two generations and their respective cultural narratives, where are the borderlines of a life and text, what are the ways in which processes of translation perform as well as disrupt the work of cultural memory? (Brodzki 2007, 111– 112). In the case of Antonia Arslan, the intergenerational transmission took place through her beloved grandfather who entrusted her with the task of retelling his trauma and memories for a country that no longer exists, for the columns of deportees, for a family dying beneath a poisonous sun, for the unmarked graves along the dusty roads and paths of Anatolia; and for everything that disappeared with them, everything alive and fragrant, exhausted and joyous, painful and consoling: the country’s soul. (Arslan 2006, 40) The Armenian Genocide in Translation When we talk about Genocide and translation in a global sense, we inevitably enter a discourse about memory. Let’s think for a moment of the psychological state of the trauma victim: they are pained, they block things out, sometimes repress the memories that are too painful. The Armenian Genocide survivors’ silence was also due to the fact that they were over-protective of their children considering them a representation of survival and treating them as substitutes for the relatives who perished and communities that had been wiped out. Thus with the aim to ensure their protection, the parents often refused to share the trauma with the second generation.10 Genocide trauma is translated by the very person who experienced it by the memory they retain of the event. What about when a trauma is translated into artistic literature? Are we obliged to then preoccupy ourselves with less important “factual” matters—was it really fifty days that the woman walked through the desert, or thirty? Historical fiction is a genre that fuses a historical fact with creative writing. Thus, as a fiction, we are ultimately obliged as readers to be less preoccupied with the precision of less important facts, but rather occupy ourselves with the rendering of feeling and narrative form within a historical space. And it is in this moment of not being preoccupied with the fact or fiction of memoir, biography, or a historical text that we are able to immerse ourselves in the heart of the matter. How do we feel about this situation? How can we relate to it? How do we interpret it ourselves? Certainly a lot of truth also comes out through creative writing and not only through memoir or biography or other forms of factual writing where the blockages and psychological borders stop the author from revealing the whole trauma. *** Every book has its birth story, and analogously every 10 While exploring the impact of World War II on the second-generation Armenian–American identity, Aftandilian (2009) noticed that the war brought the memory of the Armenian Genocide to the forefront within Armenian–American families, as survivors of the Genocide had to send their sons off to war. Aftandilian interviewed World War II Armenian–American veterans and found that the topic of returning home was more emotional than the topic of their combat experience. His research on the children of survivors found that many children were named after the murdered relatives. These children felt special, because an obligation was placed on them, directly or indirectly, to bear the hopes and aspirations of the survivors not only for the family, but also for the Armenian people as a whole. One of my students at California State University, A. Pilavian, wrote in her final paper: “I never really knew the details about how my family began or how much they sacrificed to live a better life. I used to get angry with my family when they wouldn’t tell me things that I wanted to know from their past experiences. What I came to realize is that when people don’t speak of something tragic that has happened in their life, it actually eats at them more. The reason they feel that it’s better to keep quiet is so that they don’t disrupt the peace in their life that they finally have now.” translation has its birth story. Most of the translations of Antonia Arslan’s Skylark Farm have been executed according to the standard ways when a publisher decides to commission a book’s translation. However, there is something immediately striking about the book’s Hungarian edition. The Hungarian translation was published in Romania, and not in Hungary (Arslan 2008). Here is the explanation given by the book dealer Kinga Kali: As you perhaps know Hungary still does not recognize the Armenian Genocide—and there is not much knowledge about it in the Hungarian book publishing. The publishers I contacted simply did not respond to my proposal—to publish the Hungarian translation of Skylark Farm. I had the idea to go to Mentor, a Hungarian publishing house in Transylvania, Romania. I also offered a complete plan for advertising the book in Hungary. They accepted the proposal. Mentor publishers in Romania took all the risks in dealing with a theme intentionally kept from public view in Hungary. This is why Antonia was able to go and give her book tour in both Hungary and Romania. The circulation of Antonia’s Genocide novel, thanks to its Hungarian translation, among common Hungarians is extremely important because Hungary has yet to recognize the Armenian Genocide.11 After the publication of Skylark Farm in Romania, the book dealer together with the publishing house managed to organize several book presentations in Budapest and in a few Transylvanian towns in Romania with a Hungarian majority. While I was in Budapest for a conference, I met the dealer and asked her about the impact of the translation and its contribution to raising awareness in Hungary. She replied that The majority of the people I gave the book [to] as a present and [who] 11 Hungary was the country where, in 2004, Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant of the Azerbaijani army, used an axe to hack the twenty-six-year-old Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan to death in his sleep. Both were participating in an English language training course within the framework of the NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace initiative in Budapest. Ramil Safarov was imprisoned in Budapest for the murder until he was extradited to Azerbaijan in 2012. To the shock of many, Azerbaijan promoted him and made a hero of the murderer. In reaction, Armenia formally suspended ties with Hungary. shared it with their friends said that by reading it for the first time, they were able to understand what the Armenian Genocide meant. They usually had knowledge about the Jewish Holocaust, but not about the Armenian one—at least, the younger generation did not know anything about it. The mother of a friend of mine was revolted, and cried, “why are people in Hungary not informed about all of this, and why is this not included in the history classes at the school?” Here we see a Hungarian girl dreaming of bringing knowledge to her people about the historical event of the Armenian Genocide, by translating the Genocide narrative Skylark Farm: When I met Antonia Arslan in 2004 during her book presentation, I decided to let my Hungarian nation learn about this book, and my dream came true within four years. In June 2008, the book was released and presented for the very first time at the Budapest Book Fest. Narrative and translation therefore once more prove themselves valid tools in the raising of awareness about the historical event. Later I had the chance to contact Kinga Júlia Király, the Hungarian translator of the novel. Antonia Arslan’s Skylark Farm was the most shocking translation I’ve ever made, she said. When I got the book from Italy and I started reading it for the first time, I couldn’t even imagine that such a horrible national destiny does exist. After reading one fourth of the novel I had to buy a new armchair, which I still call my “Skylarkfarmchair”: I needed a new position, a new posture for my body in order not to be absorbed by the novel, not to read as a whatsoever fiction, but keep my awareness till the end of it. As I have Armenian origins, too, since my family came to Transylvania in the seventeenth century, the novel had awakened in me, somewhere deep inside, a never felt receptivity toward suffering and misery. And I struggled for good amidst with my shamefacedness which [incapacitated] me in my translation. How should I translate those terrifying events, bring the best close to the reader, what Sempad’s family had endured? How should I repaint the “Armenian blood- flowers” on the walls (Arslan 2006, 118)? Am I allowed to do such things? Is this reasserting, recommitting a Genocide? It was much more than [a] matter of ethics or aesthetics. More than literature, as well. I still remember the deep impact which Nevart’s death in the thunderbolt made on me (Arslan 2006, 175). When I had to read a sequence from the book for the first time in front of an audience, I [chose] Nevart’s death. But I could not do it. I felt such discomposure, such sorrow, such mourning, that I started to cry. That was too much for me as translating is an intimate act while sharing Genocide, in fact, [. . .] is a reaction. I owe this translation a brand new life, since I became wide open for suffering. Skylark farm – in a sacred sense – had made my life. Further, I also interviewed Hillary Creek, who translated into English a section of Antonia Arslan’s second novel A Road to Smyrna, which has now been entirely translated into Armenian (Arslan 2012): I am a historian (economic and social), she said, with a special interest in the Middle East from 1890 on, as my research has in some part been on petroleum politics in the area. As a social historian I am obviously interested in the life of ordinary people and find a rich source in the literature, drama, art, and music of the period. I researched [the] bare facts, chronological history of the time, movements, and main characters, before starting translating. But I was born into postwar London when the city was in large part rubble, rationing didn’t stop till I was six. The war was still very close, my mother (a teacher) had spent the Blitz finding and taking care of young kids who escaped from evacuations and returned to find nothing. So I had her memories. Then I have many friends who have had to flee from political persecutions and I have long been interested and involved in human rights questions. So if anything it was not one event, but rather a combination of first, second and third hand tales and memories that were my points of reference. Now, some of my personal thoughts about the Genocide novel as an Armenian experience and the Armenian translator of Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narratives. In 2004, when I read Skylark Farm all in one sitting, I could not imagine that three years later I would have the honor of being the Armenian translator of this best-seller. It all began in the fall of 2005, when a Festival of Friendship between Armenia and Italy was organized in Yerevan and there were many events held both on academic (conferences, round tables) and popular (Italian opera or cinema evenings) topics. At that time I was in Armenia participating in a conference at the Academy of Sciences with a paper on Dante’s Armenian translations (Haroutyunian 2006, 2012b). Of course, among the events, I could not miss the presentation of Skylark Farm, which had just been published in Italy and was already proving to be very successful. At the event, the author and the directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani were supposed to be there to present the book and forthcoming film. Antonia suggested that I translate the three most moving episodes of the book so they could be read at the presentation. It was after this that Antonia asked me about going forward with the translation. But the deadlines were very precise. The Armenian translation had to be ready for the release of the film by the Taviani Brothers. There was very little time, and the responsibility was huge. The heroes of the story were talking to me, just as Antonia says in her acknowledgments: I must first thank those who spoke to me: Sempad and Shushanig, Ismene and Isaac, Nazim the beggar, and Yerwant, with his neat Pirandello goatee. And then Azniv and Veron, the great aunts I never knew; funny, tiny Henriette, who spoiled me; Zareh and Rupen, my legendary great uncles. I thank my audacious, whimsical mother, who raised me unleniently; Khayel, my serious, sly father, who worried about everything; my uncle Yetwart, and my cousins Yerwant, Ermanno, and Teresa; my little brother Carlo . . . (Arslan 2006, 271) I was too emotionally involved in the story. I was feeling a kind of duty to make their story available to Armenians. I often skipped lunch. I was so immersed in the book and its characters that I was almost ashamed to take a break to eat while they were walking along the dusty roads of Anatolia, hungry and exhausted, destroyed by deportation. It seemed that they were beckoning me to tell their story because they desperately wanted to be heard. When I go to the episode that tells of the horrific massacre at the Farm, I was completely blocked as it was too hard to switch off emotionally and think about the word order of the sentence or make a choice of adjectives when the plot was describing the murder of the little boys in front of their mother: Garo lies placidly with his handsome smile, holding his little hands over his open belly. Leslie, scurrying on all fours, tries to hide beneath the sideboard sparkling with crystal, but he’s dragged out by his feet and flung against the wall, where his small round head smashes like a ripe coconut, spraying blood and brain across the delicate floral design. Thus are flowers born from the blood of the Armenian Calvary. (Arslan 2006, 118) After a while, emotionally drained, I decided to skip those passages and return to them once I’d completed the book. I finally managed to keep my promise, finishing the book before the screening of the film, which took place July 10, 2007, at the opening of the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan (Arslan 2007). In the translation I have maintained the foreign expressions in Turkish, French, and English used by the author in the Italian text, because it was worth reviving those expressive nuances in Armenian, especially taking into account that these terms not only precisely characterized the cultural environment of that generation during the Genocide, but were also a part of the characters’ everyday lives. So I precisely preserved foreign words in transliteration, inserting notes to facilitate comprehension and reading. From Text to Reel: Cinematic Translation of Arslan’s Skylark Farm to the Taviani brothers’ film The Lark Farm There is always the matter of fidelity of the film to the novel, generally expressed as a function of adequacy and acceptability, whereby the former is more or less what we mean by equivalence, and the latter is more or less what we mean by audience believability. For example, many readers usually watch movies based on the books they’ve read and end up being disappointed. Why? Because so many parts of the story are cut out. So we as readers look for mistakes and sometimes disregard whether the movie was well directed, produced, and so on. I think we should never compare them, but rather consider them separately. When a book is translated into a movie, questions inevitably arise. One of the first is to ask about the film genre (documentary, drama, historical narrative, etc.) that the filmmaker has chosen since each film genre creates a different kind of viewing experience for the audience. The famous Italian film directors and screenwriters the Taviani brothers’ Lark Farm is based on a historical novel, so the goal is to awaken curiosity, interest, even engagement in a historical event; the limitations and strengths of a film translation are evident in the selection of passages from the novel, the filmic treatment of those passages, the omission of passages, and so on. The Taviani brothers announced right away that the film would be “liberally” based on Skylark Farm—that is, the plot would be relatively the same but the directors had the right to change things or make additions, and in fact they editorialized and accessorized the film and inserted fictional material in the movie such as love interests and so on. This is quite normal because, even if it originates in a novel, the filmmaker translates her or his perception/translation of the fiction into film. This reflection leads into the relationship of the source (novel) and the target (film) and opens up such questions as what other source modeling material is evident in the film. In fact, the Tavianis have not only cut episodes from the novel but they have also added some. There is an episode in the film that recalls a passage from another Genocide narrative by Alice Tachdjian, Pietre sul cuore (Stones on the heart), published in Italy in 2003. In the book there is a scene where two women are forced to dispose of the child by suffocating him between them as they sit back to back (Tachdjian 2003): We were terrorized by the Turks’ cruelty, writes Tachdjian in her memoir. We understood that they were trying to annihilate us all, but before they found joy in killing the children in front of their mothers, who were going mad throwing themselves from the cliffs. The Turks were opening the wombs of pregnant women with yatağan, they were stabbing children and then drowning [them] in the rivers. They even took [the] clothes from the dead, to resell them afterwards. [. . .] Our two-month-old baby was crying because he was hungry, there was no milk in Hripsimé’s breasts, the grass that she ate on the streets caused terrible stomachache for the child. However the poor creature [was] destined to die of hunger, diarrhea, or by the sword. To avoid being discovered by his cries, our mother and sister suffocated the baby in the middle of their backs, one against the other, without looking at him. He [was] extinguished like a candle . . .12 When the Taviani brothers asked Antonia Arslan to dramatize Skylark Farm, there was also much interest from 12 Tachdjian’s book hasn’t been translated into English yet. We translated this piece of a memoir as a class assignment during my Armenian Genocide course at Fresno State as I wanted my students to experience what Genocide translation meant. Since the memoir was in Italian, the process of translation took place with me providing the initial translation into English, and then working collectively with the students. Hollywood in acquiring the movie rights. But Arslan was aware that in the past the several attempts to produce a Hollywood film about the Armenian Genocide were blocked. She knew that prominent directors and actors throughout the decades had attempted to produce a film based on Franz Werfel’s novel Forty Days of Musa Dagh, but without success.13 Antonia Arslan therefore agreed to the Taviani brothers’ suggestion. The film is a Spanish coproduction and the Spanish actress Paz Vega is a central character in the movie. Even the Spanish translation of the movie Skylark Farm is entitled El Destino di Nunik as she interprets Nunik’s role.14 In fact when the film had just come out some Armenians were concerned by the fact that the filmmaker had inserted a double love story for Nunik with two Turkish officers played by two actors, the Italian actor Alessandro Preziosi and the German Moritz Bleibtreu. In her novel Antonia has only one love story. A change I dislike in the film is Nunik’s second romance with a Turkish soldier, one who is helping lead a caravan of Armenian women to their death in Syria, wrote one of my students at California State University Fresno in his final paper. I feel like Nunik must have a very deep case of Stockholm Syndrome, as she seems to only fall in love with Turkish soldiers. Besides catering to fans of romance movies I can’t understand why this change was made. It almost seems to pander to a Turkish audience by showing a sympathetic Turkish participant in the Genocide, who we’re meant to feel sorry for because he doesn’t really want to be there. Was he added to make any Turk watching feel less guilty? Obviously, the Turkish audience for this movie would be small if not nonexistent, so the addition of this character is puzzling. The two characters are both serving the same purpose as a sympathetic perpetrator and love interest, so it would make a lot more sense to merge them together, from a storytelling perspective. As it is the second Turkish soldier is redundant at best, and raises a lot of unfortunate implications.15 During the “film vs novel” discussion with cinema critic Dr. Artsvi Bakhchinyan from Armenia, he confessed: 13 According to Variety magazine, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh has become “the most on- again and off-again motion picture production in Hollywood history” (Torosyan 2012). 14 This character is Azniv in the book, and unlike the film is not a central character in the volume. 15 An excerpt from the final paper by Suren Oganessian. Like from any artistic display of the Armenian Genocide, Armenians had great expectations from the Tavianis’ film, and as a general rule these expectations were unjustified. Of course, we should be grateful to the great masters of cinema for being able to bring the pain of our people to the public at large, which was not sufficiently informed of the history of this tragedy. However, in my humble opinion as a film critic, the extremely classical shape, style, and language in which the story was presented was at least half a century late. The same cannot be said about the book. The presented motivations for the film as a tragedy remain almost undiscovered. According to the film, one perceives the false notion that those motivations were purely economic. From historical and psychological points of view, the behavior of the main heroine of the film is not characteristic of an Armenian woman at the beginning of the twentieth century and gives the wrong idea that the Armenian women, like Nunik, were throwing themselves into the arms of the Turks. In fact, the opposite occurred. The fictional part of the film suffers due to the dialogues that are not characteristic of everyday home speech. Perhaps the film’s small budget caused some “artistisms” inappropriate to present-day cinematography (for example, in the deportation scene, the clothes the deportees are wearing are not convincing). From my perspective, the film works especially well for an audience with little or no knowledge about the Armenian Genocide. By contrast, Armenians, more aware of the Genocide, have more mixed sensations, either of gratitude towards the filmmakers or of disappointment due to the dubious accuracy of some aspects, as we saw above. A completely unaware person however would begin to learn about the historical phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide. The filmmakers managed to put together an excellent cast. They stated in one of their interviews that the actors were not only involved professionally but also emotionally. According to the directors, after watching the whole film for the first time the Turkish-born Greek–Jewish actor Tchéky Karyo burst into tears and when he calmed down he said that he had not only watched the tragedy that they had played, but he had also seen his Jewish uncle and grandfather. So in the imagination of the actor Karyo the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust all of a sudden were superimposed.16 16 Il genocidio dimenticato: intervista ai Fratelli Taviani [Parte 1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pnyzq4kROA. When we ask about the effect of a film, we are dealing with the rhetorical and artistic purposes of the film—that is, we are probing into the film’s skopos or purpose with regard to the audience. A novel would have similar artistic and rhetorical purposes, but executed along different lines since the experience of reading a novel is stretched out over several hours if not days while the experience of viewing a film is usually contained in under two hours. And this is a very important point as movies usually reach an even larger audience, and sometimes viewing a massacre with your own eyes might prove more powerful than reading about it. The grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of film create meaning in their own right but also invite the viewers to make meaning out of the viewing experience. Film has the potential to be an excellent tool in raising awareness about a historical event in less than two hours to an audience of hundreds of thousands.17 When in 2006 the Taviani brothers were shooting the film, their intention was to raise awareness about the Armenian Genocide and show the world the need to stop such crimes against humanity from reoccurring. Their desire also was to see their movie circulating in the schools. Today their goal has been fulfilled as the film is shown in many Italian schools mainly to eighth-graders who are learning about World War I and students doing their last year of high school. This film has two major advantages: it stimulates reflection on a story known only by a few, in part because few film makers have brought this Genocide onto the screens before. Secondly, this film shows that good and evil are not at all on one side or the other. Conclusion In his Les Lieux de Mémoire, Nora asserts that In fact, memory has never known more than two forms of legitimacy: historical and literary. These have run parallel to each other but until now always separately. At present, the boundary between the two is blurring; following closely upon the successive deaths of memory–history and memory–fiction, a new kind of history has been born, which owes its 17For audiovisual translation, among others see Zatlin 2005; Díaz-Cintas 2009; Cronin 2009; and the collection of essays by Agost, Orero, and di Giovanni 2012. prestige and legitimacy to the new relation it maintains to the past [. . .] History has become the deep reference of a period that has been wrenched from its depths, a realistic novel in a period in which there are no real novels. Memory has been promoted to the center of history: such is the spectacular bereavement of literature. (Nora 1989, 24) In the novel, by reconstructing her family history Arslan is merging both historical research and the imagination from a collective memory. Historical research and imagination that have both been brought together by a collective memory are very important even independently, and the merging of them all is quite fascinating, especially with regards to the collective. And the consequence of the novel is a sort of catharsis for Arslan and her family as she becomes both receptacle and protector. Here we can also call into question the very genre of art and literature, depending on the author’s intention. For example, “art for art’s sake” or art for a social cause, or testimony for catharsis. Literature and testimony are different, and then there is the literature of testimony, which is another genre altogether. Why is the “literature of testimony” an actual genre? And, further, even if it is not exactly Arslan’s testimony but a retelling of a retelling, Arslan’s text is a literature of testimony. Collecting personal and public memories affords coherence and integrity to interrupted stories that have been fragmented or compromised by loss, dislocation, and division. In our case, the journey into Arslan’s family’s past transcends the silence and fills the gaps in a personal history. Family history, personal history, and national history are, in fact, interrelated and at times one. Finally, in Skylark Farm, through the research of original documents and acts of postmemory, the author unites her present to the lost world of her family, and in this way strengthens her roots and anchors her identity. With the memory what is past returns to be actual. The memory is not only an act of remembering, but it can become a living entity, can become a vibrant emotion. Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narrative with its thirty-six reprints in Italy alone, where the Armenian community only has 2,000 members, has sold over 500,000 copies to an Italian readership for the most part previously unaware of the Armenian Genocide. However, it is through the power of translation into fifteen languages that Skylark Farm has surpassed the borders of Italy, taking the knowledge of the Armenian Genocide throughout the globe and thereby contributing to its “afterlife”—to use the word of Walter Benjamin (Benjamin 1999)—as well as its cinematic rendering to a global audience. References Aftandilian, Gregory (2009), “World War II as an Enhancer of Armenian- American Second Generation Identity,” JSAS 18:2, 33–54. Agost, Rosa, Pilar Orero, and Elena di Giovanni. 2012. Multidisciplinarity in Audiovisual Translation. Alicante: University of Alicante Press. Alù, Giorgia. 2009. “Sulle tracce del passato: memoria e frammentazione familiare in Vita di Melania Mazzucco e La masseria delle allodole di Antonia Arslan.” In Tempo e memoria nella lingua e nella letteratura italiana. Vol. III: Narrativa del Novecento e degli anni Duemila, edited by Bastiaensen et al., 363–374. Brussels: Associazione Internazionale Professori d’Italiano. Arslan, Antonia. 2004. La masseria delle allodole. Milan: Rizzoli. ———. 2006. Skylark Farm. Translated by Geoffrey Brock. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ———. 2007. Artuytneri agarake (Skylark Farm). Second edition 2012. Edited by Sahak Partev. Translated by Sona Haroutyunian. Yerevan: Sahak Partev. ———. 2008. Pacsirtavár. Translated by Kinga Júlia Király. Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureș: Mentor Kiadó. ———. 2009. La strada di Smirne. Milan: Rizzoli. ———. 2012. Il libro di Mush. Milan: Skira. ———. (2015). Il rumore delle perle di legno. Milan: Rizzoli. ———. (2016). Lettera a una ragazza in Turchia. Milan: Rizzoli. Arslan, Antonia, Laura Pisanello, and Avedis Ohanian. 2001. Hushèr: la memoria. Voci italiane di sopravvissuti armeni. Milan: Guerini e Associati. Benjamin, Walter. 1999. “The Task of Translator: An introduction to the translation of Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens.” Translated by Harry Zohn. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti. New York: Routledge. Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cronin, Michael. 2009. Translation goes to the Movies. Abingdon: Routledge. Dadrian, Vahakn N. 2003. Storia del genocidio armeno. Conflitti nazionali dai Balcani al Caucaso. Edited by Antonia Arsland and Boghos Levon Zekiyan and translated by Alessandra Flores d’Arcais. Milan: Guerini e Associati. Dédéyan, Gérard, ed. 2002. Soria degli armeni. Edited by Antonia Arslan and Boghos Levon Zekiyan. Milan: Guerini e Associati. Original French edition Histoire du peuple arménien. Edited by Gérard Dédéyan. Toulouse: Éditions Privat, 1982. Díaz-Cintas, Jorge. (2009). New Trends in Audiovisual Translation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Grass, Günter. 2008. Peeling the Onion. Translated by Michael Henry Heim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Haroutyunian, Sona. 2006. “La Commedia dantesca in armeno.” In IX Rassegna armenisti italiani, 20–26. Venice: Padus-Araxes. Accessed February 16, 2017. PDF available at http://www.24grammata.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/Armenisti-Italiani-24grammata.com_.pdf. ———. 2012a. “Interview with world famous novelist Antonia Arslan.” PDF available at book platform: your gateway to book culture in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. Accessed February 16, 2017. http://www.bookplatform.org/images/activities/417/docs/interviewantoniaar slanen.pdf. ———. 2012b. “‘The Homer of Modern Times’: The Reception and Translation of Dante in the Armenian World.” In Like doves summoned by desire: Dante’s New Life in 20th Century Literature and Cinema. Essays in memory of Amilcare Iannucci, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Gianluca Rizzo, 89–109. New York: Agincourt Press. Accessed February 16, 2017. https://www.academia.edu/18710985/_The_Homer_of_Modern_Times_the _Reception_and_Translation_of_Dante_in_the_Armenian_World. Nora, Pierre. 1989. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations (26), special issue Memory and Counter-Memory, 7–24. doi:10.2307/2928520. Muxel, Anne. 1996. Individu et mémoire familiale. Paris: Nathan. Mutafian, Claude. 2001. Metz Yeghérn: Breve storia del genocidio degli armeni. Translated and edited by Antonia Arslan. Milan: Guerini e Associati. Peroomian, Rubina. 2012. The Armenian Genocide in Literature: Perceptions of Those Who Lived through the Years of Calamity. Yerevan: The Armenian Genocide Museum–Institute. Rushdie, Salman. 1992. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. London: Vintage Books. Sherman, Daniel J. 1999. The Construction of Memory in Interwar France. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Tachdjian, Alice. 2003. Pietre sul cuore. Milan: Sperling & Kupfer Editori. Taviani, Paolo, and Vittorio Taviani, directors. 2007. La masseria delle allodole. Released in English as The Lark Farm (2007). Ager 3, France 2 cinéma, Flach Film et al. Torosyan, Lilly. 2012. “New Documentary on ‘The Forty Days of Musa Dagh’ and Hollywood.” The Armenian Weekly, October 5. Accessed February 16, 2017. www.armenianweekly.com/2012/10/05/new-documentary-on-the- forty-days-of-musa-dagh-and-hollywood/. Varujan, Daniel. 1992. Il canto del pane. Translated by Antonia Arslan. Milan: Guerrini e Associati. ———. 1995. Mari di grano e altre poesie armene. Translated by Antonia Arslan. Paoline. Zatlin, Phyllis. 2005. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. teaches Armenian language and literature at the Università degli Studi di Venezia—Ca’ Foscari (Venice, Italy). She received her first PhD in philology and translation (Yerevan State University) and her second in linguistics (Università degli Studi di Venezia—Ca’ Foscari). She has been visiting professor at the Nida School of Translation Studies, Yerevan State University, California State University Fresno, and City University of New York. She has authored many scholarly papers and translated books, including Antonia Arslan’s bestsellers. In her recent monograph The Theme of the Armenian Genocide in the Italian Literature she metaphorically analyses Genocide literature as “translation of trauma.”

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15536

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Siri Nergaard: Marianne, I would like to start by asking you to introduce yourself, to tell us how you started to work on memory, and how you developed the idea of postmemory. Marianne Hirsch: I was very late coming to questions of memory. I really started to think about it in the late 1980s which was, I guess, the beginning of Memory Studies and Holocaust Studies, when it became a field of inquiry. But actually, thinking back, my Master’s thesis in 1970 was already on memory. It was a thesis in Comparative Literature and it was on Nabokov’s Lolita and Musil’s novella Tonka, and it was, in each case, about the protagonist’s memory of a lost love. So it is in some ways an old topic, and also a much newer and different one, though it did not concern me for a very long time, because I was actually interested in the new. The new novel, the new wave, postmodernism and the beginnings of second-wave feminism, and the issue about how to remake the world: the past was very far from my consciousness for over a decade. If someone had told me in the ’70s that I would be working on memory, and particularly my family history and the history of my parents during the Second World War, I would have said, “who’s interested in that?” and “why would I be interested in that?” When I did come to the study of memory, I think that it was actually through my work in feminism which was very much about analyzing, contesting, critiquing the ethos of family, of traditional family structures. I wrote a book on mothers and daughters in literature that then led me to genealogies: the story of genealogies that of course also leads to memory. This trajectory is not just about my own formation, it’s really about my generation where actually, strangely, a number of people working in feminism and women’s literature and feminist theory ended up working on issues of memory. I see a lot of threads of continuity between these fields and how we all suddenly, it seemed, moved from one interest to another. Not that we left behind the questions of gender. On the contrary, they’re still infused in the work. It’s a work that has a similar commitment to tell untold stories, to ensure that stories of suffering and catastrophe aren’t forgotten—those kinds of commitments. So, this is how I see the relationship. Cristina Demaria: I have a very similar itinerary. This is also how I started moving toward memory. Marianne Hirsch: . . . How do you explain the continuities? Cristina Demaria: . . . In a very similar way to the one you said: to give voice to untold stories, or narratives that can be told differently. And as you said before, in the 1970s the tendency of critical theory was oriented towards the new and the future. Nowadays memory is often seen in connection to the future; memory of course is written in the present to rewrite the past, but also for a future. So, the very role of memory has changed very much, but to me its connection to gender studies is still very important. I remember that the first essay I read of yours is the one on Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah and the women. Marianne Hirsch: . . . that’s really the beginning of my getting involved in that field, that was the very beginning. . . Cristina Demaria: Do you agree with those who say that the concept of memory became important as a category in order to bring history and materiality back into theory? Marianne Hirsch: Yes, I agree though it may not be the only explanation. In fact, materiality and bodies didn’t really disappear: to say that deconstruction was completely antimaterial is not really true. But I think people saw it as the linguistic turn and, so, saw that not only materiality was missing but also history, in a sense. So, then we had the new historicism that was also about material objects, and memory studies kind of grew up around the same time. I think that there are many other reasons for the appeal of memory, one of them, the attractiveness of the interdisciplinarity of this field, that anthropologists, sociologists, historians, philosophers, and psychoanalysts, literary and visual culture theorists could actually work together. That didn’t really happen for me in any other context as vibrantly as around questions about memory. Siri Nergaard: And also translation studies, later on, can be, in many ways, connected to memory. Bella Brodzki, with her book has demonstrated how strongly connected these two themes are. In regards to this interdisciplinary connection I would like you to develop what you just told us about your starting your research on memory through Shoah, a film in which you noticed the absence of women, but where the women were translators. Marianne Hirsch: Exactly, Shoah shows a particular relation to the Holocaust, which was a very central site of the development of memory studies. Shoah really shows how central translation is to the whole, I mean, first of all to the experience of the Holocaust and its aftermath, and then to the representation and the study of it. Many films wouldn’t do it that way, but because Lanzmann decided to take time to show the process of translation and to foreground it, I think he points to something that’s actually very much a part of the field, which is that, a lot of people who lived through that historical moment, may not have had a primary language but lived their daily lives, at home, in the ghettos and camps, and in the aftermath, in and through translation. You asked me earlier, “what's your first language?” and I said “German,” but neither my parents nor I lived in a German- speaking country, except for one year in Vienna, so we were always minority speakers of a language that we claimed as ours, but that was actually denied us as Jews. So, it’s a very complicated relationship to a first language, but many survivors of the Holocaust, may not have had a first language at all. Many people were young and they might have grown up speaking Yiddish in school and then Polish on the street, they were deported to a camp where they learned German, and later they ended up in a DP camp in Italy, and in the end they went to Israel or the United States. When you listen to or watch their testimonies, they are most often speaking a “foreign” language. What is the status of those testimonies? In the study of memory, testimony, and witness in the first person is really important, but the witness’s relation to the language she speaks is very often mediated by the multilingualism in which she lived and lives. Siri Nergaard: Yes, and when you then have the person to whom the memory is transmitted, the generation of postmemory, further languages are involved. As you told us, you spoke German with your mother, but the language you are writing in is English, so you are really translating these memories again, for I don’t know, the third, fourth, or fifth time. Marianne Hirsch: Well, you know, it’s very complicated and, I’m always wondering, what am I doing to these stories, to their authenticity. The book that Leo Spitzer and I wrote on the community that my family grew up in, Czernowitz, Ghosts of Home, was based on a lot of interviews, a lot of readings and documents and literature as well, but a lot of interviews. We interviewed people in German, we interviewed them in English, we interviewed them in Romanian, you know, whatever they wanted to speak. But the book is in English, so most of the quotes we used had not only to be edited but also translated. We also used my father’s memoir quite extensively. He wanted to write it in English because he wanted to write it for his grandsons. His English was a language acquired very late in life, and the experiences he wrote about were in German and Romanian. So, his words are already a process of translation, of multiple translations. I think these language issues are at the core of memory studies. Siri Nergaard: There is also the time of translation in the metaphorical and literal way. Marianne Hirsch: It is time, but it’s also the mediation of the translator, especially significant if the translator is the child of the person and wants to hear certain things, then it’s more than just a professional translation, right? There’s a kind of investment that’s part of what I talk about as postmemory; the personal investments and the desires, and the curiosities of the second generation. Then, you get the parents’ words but you have to translate them; how do you trust that your investments aren’t somehow also structuring the translation? Siri Nergaard: As I see it from a translation point of view again, what you are telling here about the transmission and mediation of a memory, through language, the personal involvement by the translator, her investments, are assuming in a way what I see as the core aspects of what translation is about. In the translation of the other’s memory you can find a kind of archetype of what translation really is. Translation always implies change because of personal and cultural investments giving memory a new nature, a new identity of that memory since you have put it into another context and another language. Marianne Hirsch: Yes, I think that’s true. And then, of course, a lot of these stories are diaspora stories with memories of migration and refugeehood that are inherent as well. There, of course, you have multiple translations, cultural translations, and linguistic [translations] as well. Siri Nergaard: Could you tell us how you define and how you developed this concept that has been so helpful and fruitful for us—the concept of postmemory? Cristina Demaria: And together with that, let us include the question Bella Brodzki wanted to ask you: Have there been applications or appropriations—translations into new and different contexts—of your very generative term “postmemory” that have surprised or perhaps even enlightened you in ways you hadn’t anticipated or envisioned? Marianne Hirsch: Well, it started as a very personal need for a term, not just for me but also for a number of colleagues who met at feminist conferences in the 1980s. Informally, at lunch or breakfast we started talking about our family history and then it turned out that we had similar family histories, and similar symptoms and syndromes that came from them. It was the moment when important texts like Art Spielgeman’s Maus and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, monuments about memory were starting to come out. We realized that we are the inheritors of these histories but we hadn’t really thought about what that meant. For me it was really reading Maus and thinking about it and talking to people like Bella, who had actually gone through similar family experiences. We all felt like our parents’ memories of their youth were overshadowing our own memories of our childhoods. It was a really powerful sensation that demanded a term that was like memory but it wasn’t actually memory. So, that’s where the idea actually came from, so it was quite personal and it was rooted in this history of inherited histories. But of course this is part of a much larger story. Just yesterday, we had a discussion with the filmmaker Laurent Bécue- Renard who made the film Of Men and War, based on interviews with traumatized veterans of the Iraq War in a treatment program in California. He said that the reason he made this film, and his previous film about Bosnian widows called Tired of War, is because he felt like he needed to understand his own grandparents. His two grandfathers fought in the First World War; he never met them, but he wanted to understand how these very young men went into trench warfare, came back, started a family of which he is the product. The widows, wives, grandmothers whom he met lived with an unspoken history. As he said, “aren’t we all the inheritors of the wars of the twentieth century?” If this is postmemory, it is so in the sense not even of stories, it’s really about the affects and the behaviors and the kinds of. . . Cristina Demaria: As you said, “products.” Marianne Hirsch: . . . Yes, the products, it’s really in the DNA that we have inherited, we are all the products of that. We all live with those legacies. Laurent Bécue-Renard is trying to understand how that shapes masculinity and femininity and the culture, and how these histories are transmitted even if they’re not really told. And that really kind of subsumed what I wanted to do with that term. It was fascinating that he’s third generation and he didn’t talk about his parents in France during the Second World War, but about his grandfathers. When he was interviewing the veterans of Iraq who were, probably, twenty years younger than he is, it was as their grandson, in a sense. This is something I didn’t quite understand in the beginning—that the temporal implications [. . .] are so complex that history stops being linear and is somehow simultaneous rather than genealogical. So, something else I learned is that although I never saw postmemory as a strictly biological, biographical, or familial structure, for some the literal connections are supremely important. I saw it more as a generational structure and I think that memory is always mediated through stories, through narratives, through images, through media. Even when it’s within the family, it’s still mediated. So, I was always very insistent on that, but then people who are children or grandchildren of survivors or actors within certain histories, wanted to preserve a special place for that literal relationship. In my book on postmemory, I tried to make space for them by distinguishing between familial and affiliative postmemory. At first it surprised me that people felt very protective of that space which is a position I’m not always that sympathetic to, because it feels like identity politics to me, or some sort of authenticity that I’ve always been suspicious of. The other thing that happened in the time that I’ve been working on postmemory is that a lot of interesting work in queer theory that complicates linearity, linear histories emerged. A critique that complicates the idea of genealogy and that looks at alternative kinds of family structures. And so I felt like my work was, in some ways, already doing that, even though it looked like it was about family, it wasn’t really, it was about a contestation about a kind of traditional family structure. Those are things that surprised me because I felt like there were some conversations that I didn’t quite realize I would be in but, I ended up in. Cristina Demaria: I was thinking of this very idea of affiliation and the ways in which different forms of commemoration of post dictatorship have developed in Latin America, very much linked memory is preserved, as in the movements of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo: the bearer of a certain memory is legitimized as such through a family connection. But there is a tendency now in Argentinean Memory Studies to go towards a more affiliative idea of memory and postmemory, since the very idea of family in a Latin culture can be also very much of a problem; it can be very traditional and has been used to support the dictatorship: God, the traditional family, and the country. . . Marianne Hirsch: Well it’s fascinating in Argentina because of course, that’s where family have DNA tests actually, so that a very literal, biological definition of identity has a political impact unlike many other places. Each context has its own politics and I think that’s what’s so interesting about working transnationally as you do and as I have. It is actually, if I can say it in more metaphorical terms, the untranslatabilities between these contexts: in any other context, if you wanted to do a DNA test to find out if you’re really the daughter of this person who’s already handed down to you all of these histories, you might think that that was a kind of identity politics, but, in Argentina it’s actually really important, because the people raising you could be the perpetrators of the crimes against your biological parents. Cristina Demaria: In the same context there are different layers. This idea of limiting the “property” of memory to the biological family, and to the associations of direct victims had stopped the more affiliative and cultural ways of elaborating the past. But now it is changing. I would like to move to your work within Women Creating Change, where there are scholars but also artists and performers. How do you work together, do you translate? And what happens when you go to a place like Istanbul, as you recently did, where you confront, different cultures, a very particular past and a troubled present. . . Marianne Hirsch: The larger project is called Women Creating Change but the working group within that that some of us have started, is called Women Mobilizing Memory and it really has to do with what you said before: how can memory be mobilized for to the idea of family transmission. Think of Argentina and how change in the future? Rather than being weighted down by a past that you can never get over. The trauma paradigm that came out of this wonderfully rich theoretical work of the 1990s is very much about keeping the wounds open and understanding the unspeakability of certain crimes, the kind of crushing of the human and of language through acts of persecution and genocide and the destruction of a culture. That’s been a very powerful paradigm in the study of memory. Our thought in working more comparatively and transnationally was to look at whether the practices of memory look the same in different places. One of the key questions is how can memory become activist and how can it become more future-oriented? How can the past be transmitted, how can we make sure that certain histories aren’t forgotten… Cristina Demaria: Not just to be “preserved,” but as living memories… Marianne Hirsch: Right, and not for monumentalization in some kind of a museum, but for change. That’s where the feminist angle is coming in. To do that work, we really thought it would be interesting not just to have an interdisciplinary academic group but to work together with practictioners—artists, activists, curators, museologists. . . and to see what kind of collaboration would emerge from that. We are working together with the Hemispheric Institute on Performance and Politics: Performance Studies is already the field that takes the kind of embodied nature of memory very much into account. In those conferences, in the Encuentros of the Hemispheric Institute, we’ve had working groups in which we talked about mobilizing memory, but we also always talked about embodiment. It’s really interesting to have academic conversations in a room with artists, dancers, theater practitioners, visual artists, and scholars. Now, I think that question about embodiment and how memory functions in the body is a very different question for a dancer than it is for an academic like me who’s going to write about it. That’s also a process of translation when you think about it, it’s really understanding the multidimensionality of knowledge. When we have visual artists in the group, they’re translating our ideas into a visual work and I feel that we could use that work to think with. As literary critics we do that anyway with the texts that we read, but the multiple texts are very interesting. And, then, you have the embodied practices of memory, like the walk of the mothers on Thursdays in Buenos Aires, or the walk of the Saturday Mothers in Istanbul; similar strategies, very different kind of impact, politically different moments in the histories of these mothers–activists. These practices are a kind of performance, and its cultural impact then becomes a way through which ideas about memory and memory practices can be developed. I find these multidimensional conversations really helpful. So far, we’ve worked in a triangular structure with Chile, Turkey, and the US but people in the group may be working on other sites as well, so it’s more about the conceptual connections than just about the sites. Often we think we understand something and we really don’t. So I think, in terms of translation, one of the things we decided from the very beginning is that we should just assume that we don’t understand. We shouldn’t just assume that things can be easily translated. For example, when the group was in Chile, we went to the Museo de la Memoria, which is a museum commemorating the coup against Allende and the crimes of the dictatorship of Pinochet. The narrative of the museum starts on September 11, 1973—that is, the day of the Golpe. Where’s the background? How are people supposed to understand how this happened? Isn’t there a prehistory? To us from the US, it seemed flawed as a museological choice. But our Chilean partners responded, “here in Chile, when you talk about the background, that's the right-wing thing to do,” because the right said the reason Allende was toppled was because he was failing, and there were strikes because of his bad government. . . The progressive history starts on the day and its aftermath. This is the kind of untranslatability that I think is at the core of this kind of work which I don’t even want to call comparative work anymore, because it implies that you can compare things, so I’m trying to talk about “connective” histories; we provide the connections but often, they’re not easily connectable. We have to start with, “maybe we don't understand,” rather than walking into a situation assuming you know how it should be done, because it’s different in different contexts. Siri Nergaard: It’s very interesting what you are saying about untranslatability and that you don’t want to use the comparative concept. . . Marianne: I mean, I was in comparative literature so you can imagine it’s not so easy for me to say that. . . Siri Nergaard: I understand. I am saying this also because recently there has been a sort of shift in translation studies towards a stronger attention towards untranslatability, an aspect that has been somehow neglected. We have been so focused on translatability, and recognizing it everywhere, that we have almost forgotten that untranslatability exists. Untranslatables exist: as you said, sometimes universes are uncomparable because they are untranslatable, but we can create the connections. Marianne Hirsch: In the conference that we had in Turkey, which was about mobilizing memory for change, there was a really interesting talk by the anthropologist Leyla Nezi who interviewed Kurdish youth and Turkish young people, about the relationship between the two cultures. She said, “in these interviews, nobody meets anybody else,” because for the Turkish young people, the important moments of their lives are ahead of them, but for the Kurdish young people, the important things have already happened for them in the losses that preceded their birth. They live in the same country, but they’re not in the same time zone. I think that’s a really interesting idea of the nonmeeting. How might their lost past be turned toward the future as well? What will make these histories translatable to each other? What kinds of solidarity might be forged between them? And what can we learn from each other’s experiences of memory and activism? These are some of the questions that I’ve been thinking about and translation is at their core. Thank you for giving me a chance to think with you about this. Cristina Demaria and Siri Nergaard: Thank you very much. writes about the transmission of memories of violence across generations, combining feminist theory with memory studies in a global perspective. Her recent books include The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (2012); Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory (2010), coauthored with Leo Spitzer; and Rites of Return: Diaspora Poetics and the Politics of Memory (2011), coedited with Nancy K. Miller. Hirsch is the William Peterfield Trent Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at Columbia University. She is one of the founders of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Social Difference. She is a former President of the Modern Language Association of America and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15747

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Introduction Sherry Simon This special issue explores eight spaces of translation—geographical sites, urban spaces, and architectural structures—whose cultural meanings are shaped through language interactions and transfer. Each study confirms the idea that places are created through itineraries and narratives, wanderings and stories, which evolve over time. Situated in the complex cityscapes of Itae- won, Lagos, Lviv, Montreal, Talinn, Renaissance Florence, Marseille, and the historically rich interzone of Gibraltar, these places illustrate the formative powers of translation in defining sensory experience and memory. The idea of space and place receives diverse interpretations in these essays—contributing to a field of inquiry which is rapidly evolving. Space is not understood as a simple container where translation takes place, but rather as a site where production and interpretation are intermingled, where translations occur and where identity is reinterpreted. Spaces are indicators of regimes of translation, of the forces that converge to allow or impede the transfer of languages and memories. From the architectural structure of a san- itary station to the dialogue between Gibraltar and Tangier, from the pages of novels to bronze statues, from multilingual markets to the studies where scholars are bent over treatises on Kabbalistic thought—these diverse spaces explode the notion of the “where” of translation. *** In her reading of the Sanitary Station of Marseille, Simona Bonelli uses the lens of translation and memory to evoke a place of multiple pasts— linked to the history of Marseille in its function as a place of migration and passage. Originally designed as a medical checkpoint, a place for screening mi- grants, then long abandoned, it has now become a museum which neverthe- less maintains traces of its previous functions. Citing Barthes, Bonelli shows that architectural spaces can be read as chapters of a complex text, continually retranslated. Following the Station in its transformations over the years, she defines it as a palimpsest representing “a place of exile, of displacement, a metaphorical place that contains a plurality of meanings, errant trajectories, isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 11 and that lends itself to multiple interpretations.” Initially born as a “boundary area” because of its function of containment and delimitation, the Sanitary Station has eventually “swollen,” through a series of metamorphoses, into a threshold—a place caught up in a tension of the present. This passage from boundary to threshold is enabled by a history of translation. *** Hunam Yun’s textured analysis of the district of Itaewon, in Seoul, South Korea, emphasizes the rich history of twists and turns that has marked this zone. This is a history which is not, however, apparent in the capsule “translations” found in tourist guides. As an area which has seen a strong mil- itary presence across the centuries, most recently for stationing the Japanese army during the colonial period and subsequently the American army, as a place now attracting many migrants, and also as a place strongly associated with sexuality and sex workers, Itaewon has been the site of cultural amalga- mation and conflict. As Yun shows, the various translations of the name of Itaewon itself—foreigners’ village, village for being pregnant with a foreign- er’s child, village for pear trees—show that the city as a “a culture-generator” (Lotman) cannot be translated into one fixed image. Itaewon has been a place for travelers and trading, a space of trauma caused by the conflictual history of Korea, a foreigners’ village, a foreign land within the country, a colonized space, a space of freedom and resistance, a window onto Western culture, a space for cultural translation . . . Yun contrasts the selective translations and commodifications of the city with the richness of its reality and history. As a culture-generator, a city deserves a more adequate translation. *** Elena Murphy draws a portrait of the multilingual city of Lagos through readings of Nigerian authors who portray the different sounds and accents of one of Nigeria’s most diverse and vibrant cities. The multilingual texts of Sefi Atta, a leading voice in what has come to be known as “The Third Generation of Nigerian Writers,” replicate the language negotiations of the city. Languages such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, as well as Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin, flow through Atta’s novels, just as they flow through the city. Particularly interesting is the diversity of cultural forms and spaces which express this plurality—types of music such as afrobeat or highlife music, dance, film, as well as the spaces of Lagos’s streets and markets. Translation is present in varied forms, aiding in the creation of new hybrid linguistic forms and new semantic associations, typical features of interaction in urban areas. 12 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 The Straits of Gibraltar, with its twin cities of Gibraltar and Tang- ier, stand as emblematic spaces of translation—but also as spaces whose hy- bridities force a rethinking of translation itself. To negotiate across hybrid spaces is to concentrate on the border experience as generating a powerful political vision, working against binaries, against inside and outside. In such zones, translation is a foundational activity, an activity of cultural creation. África Vidal and Juan Jesús Zaro provide a portrait of the Strait of Gibraltar as a natural border between two continents (Africa and Europe), between two countries (Morocco and Spain), and between two cities (Gibraltar, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, and Ceuta, a Spanish city with its own statute of autonomous government), and offer nuanced descriptions of the cultural histories of those spaces as they have been in interaction with one another. Governed as one territory by the Romans and also during the eight centuries of Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the Straits then be- come an indication of division across empires. The waters of the Strait carry “a layered text of narratives of belonging and exclusion.” Anastasiya Lyubas reads the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv as a space comprised of buildings, communities, maps, memories, and languages spo- ken, written, and read—a tactile, textile, and textual fabric. The “real” city, she argues, cannot be experienced without linguistic mediation. Inviting the read- er to stroll the city, stopping at monuments and buildings, consulting a map drawn by authors Igor Klekh, Yuri Andrukhovych, and Natalka Sniadanko, she gives the widest meaning to translation as a key to the multifaceted ele- ments which define city life. The city, thus, becomes a construct of individual and collective readings. The essay includes references to the events of 2013– 2014 in Ukraine that have problematized even further unresolved issues of identity, politics of memory, and belonging. With an eye attentive to shifts in the role of language in the city, Lyubas shows how the aural dimensions of the spoken languages of yesterday have become visual places, traces. Yesterday’s commerce has become trade in cultural meanings and in competing claims to the city. The city’s architecture, its history, literary scene, and projections of the future are read as a “text” offering insights into urban experience and the ways it is mediated and interpreted. *** Ceri Morgan’s reading of Montreal focuses on two novels from the 1960s which challenge orthodox versions of the language situation in the city. In Yvette Naubert’s La Dormeuse éveillée (1965) and Claire Mondat’s Poupée (1963), active and passive linguistic translations become signposts for a par- ticular kind of modernity, dramatizing embodied everyday translation prac- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 13 tices occurring in places of work, leisure, and consumption, like the café and department store. The texts are striking for their choice of settings and their sometimes seemingly relaxed mediation of French and English interactions at a time when many examples of le roman montréalais are highlighting clash- es between these. They prefigure, in fact, many of the everyday interactions between French and English in contemporary Montreal. As such, they offer important pointers as to the possibilities of negotiating differences. Gender is highlighted in the analysis, the body of the protagonist navigating between past and present gender conventions and mappings of Montreal’s majority languages, as well as across the very different histories of the protagonists (the French-Canadian maid, the family of Holocaust survivors). Translation be- comes a way of being in the world, of overcoming trauma. In many respects, Naubert’s and Mondat’s protagonists can be seen as “languagers”—that is, “people [. . .] who engage with the world-in-action, who move in the world in a way that allows the risk of stepping out of one’s habitual ways of speak- ing and attempt to develop different, more relational ways of interacting with the people and phenomena that one encounters in everyday life” (Phipps 2011, 365). Translation facilitates a mobility associated with feminine asser- tion; translation allows escapes from, or challenges to, the social constraints of the past. Naubert’s and Mondat’s heroines inhabit a kind of messy middle in their employing of the “tactics” as “always [. . .] partial, provisional and broken” (Phipps 2011, 375). Moving inside and outside the city, they embody a translation practice beyond representation and vital to a “relational” being in the world. *** Federico Bellentani considers the case of the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Talinn as a practice of cultural reinvention. Here translation takes on its medieval spatial meaning as the physical transfer of a sacred body. This paper proposed an analysis of the marginalization, the removal, and the relo- cation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. Employing the vocabulary of semi- otics, looking at monument as text, Bellentani argues that the removal cannot be interpreted through the clashing interpretations of Ethnic-Estonians and Russian speakers. Rather, the Bronze Soldier embodied an array of multifacet- ed interpretations and the process of its relocation elicited different emotional reactions. Its relocation two kilometers outside the center of the city had both spatial and ideological implications: it was an official attempt to displace its meanings toward a peripheral area of both Tallinn and Estonian culture as such—that is, to translate them into the context of contemporary European Estonia. 14 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 The final essay by Laurent Lamy tells the fascinating story of a transla- tional movement whose center was Renaissance Florence. The paradigm shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe, he argues, was in part possible be- cause of the combination of mystical and rational thought which emerged in the early Renaissance—largely through the translations of one Flavius Mithri- dates, born Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada (ca. 1445–1489), a colorful figure who was a Jewish convert to Christianity. From 1485 to 1487, he labored by the side of Pico della Mirandola, translating Kabbalistic literature. The col- laboration between the two scholars was one of the most fertile translation ventures in the history of ideas in the West; it provided the European intellec- tual elite with a reservoir of ideas and symbolic patterns that found resonance in provinces of thought “located many leagues from their country of origin.” The introduction of Persian and Chaldean solar theologies, and the concept of a plurality of worlds presented through the various perspectives offered by cosmological speculations of the Jewish Kabbalah, had a large impact on the evolving ideas of the intellectual elite of the Quattrocento. The translation of a critical mass of Kabbalistic and Arabian astronomical treatises—the begin- nings of which far exceeded the translations produced under the enlightened caliphate of Bagdad between the ninth and twelfth centuries—established, in a very short time span, a fertile interplay between sapiential traditions of an- cient times and embryonic ideas of modern science. Florence was, for several decades, the epicenter of this heightened activity around translation, which opened up a fault line that shook the geocentric status quo. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 15

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translation

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15748

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Marseilles’ Sanitary Station: morphologies of displacement between memory and desire Simona Elena Bonelli [email protected] <Abstract> The former “Sanitary Station” of Marseille was built in 1948 by the architect Fernand Pouillon, its history closely linked to the history of the Phocaean city. The main entry and departure point for travelers and immigrants arriving by the sea, it was aban- doned for forty years and was almost destroyed in 2009. In 2013, it was transformed into the museum Regards de Provence, but still keeps the memory of its past: the “steam room” (part of this quarantine internment system) is a permanent installation and is part of a section called “Memories of the Sanitary Station.” Migrants from all over the world arriving in Marseille were “displaced” here to go through disinfection, screening, and a vaccination process in a bid to fight the city’s ever-present threat of epidemics. This was therefore a multilingual context, but also a place in which bodies were forced to undergo a transformation. Somehow, these people, like a text under the eyes of a translator, were carefully examined before being allowed access to a new space, a new context. The building itself is a palimpsest, made of different phases of transforma- tion: from Sanitary station to a place occupied by squatters to a museum. What makes the Sanitary Station an emblematic city space is the fact that the different “layers” of its transformations are all present—none has been cancelled. An urban structure that is at the same time—as Derrida puts it—translatable and untranslatable: “Un texte ne vit que s’il survit, et il ne sur-vit que s’il est à la fois traductible et intraduisible.” “La città non dice il suo passato, lo contiene come le linee d’una mano, scritto negli spigoli delle vie, nelle griglie delle finestre, negli scorrimano delle scale, nelle antenne dei para- fulmini, nelle aste delle bandiere, ogni segmento rigato a sua volta di graffi, seghettature, intagli, svirgole.” (Calvino, 1979, 18)1 In Invisible Cities, Marco Polo and Kublai Khan talk about the impossibility of defining what a city is and what it is not. Cities are the product of multiple and unpredictable interactions rather than the result of a rational plan. Urban space is read and interpreted by Italo Calvino as a place constantly crossed by fluctuations and rhythms. In one of the sections called “Cities and memory,” Marco Polo describes the city of Zaira that, he tells the Emperor, consists of 1 “The city [...] does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls” (Calvino 1997, 9). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 17 “relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past” (Calvino 1994, 9). The urban landscape is made of time and space, and, like texts, cities are made of signs that we can read and interpret. In this article I would like to read the past of an emblematic building, the Sanitary Station, “like the lines of a hand” of Marseille, trying to decipher its patterns, its trans- formations, its symbolic function inside the city. The former “Sanitary Station” of Marseille (figure 1) was built in 1948 by the architect Fernand Pouillon, and the history of this place is closely linked to that of the Phocaean city. Main entry and departure point for trav- ellers and immigrants arriving by the sea, it was abandoned for forty years and was almost destroyed in 2009. In 2013 it was completely transformed into the museum Regards de Provence, but it still keeps the memory of its past: the “salle des étuves” (the steam room, part of the quarantine internment system) (figure 1) is a permanent installation and is part of a section called “Memories of the Sanitary Station.” If the concept of memory recalls something that is buried in the past, what makes this building an exemplary space is the fact that all the different phases of its transformations are still there—they have not been canceled.2 The city of Marseille is not new to epidemics. The Mediterranean sea has always been a source of life and prosperity, but also of death: through the centuries, the population of Marseille has been devastated by plague and pes- tilence, and in the sixteenth century the first sanitation board was established, whose members inspected all incoming ships, cargoes, crew, and passengers. The worst plague outbreak in the history of Marseille occurred in 1720, when the merchant ship Grand Saint-Antoine brought pestilence-carrying rats and fleas into the Vieux Port. It was the “Great Plague of Marseille,” the epidemics that Antonin Artaud evokes in his Le Théâtre et son double (1964) to develop an analogy between theater and pestilence; the plague is a transforming force that purges the world of its violence and ugliness.3 Although this epidemic was considered the last outbreak of plague in France, at the beginning of the twentieth century small epidemics and sporadic cases were recorded in Mar- seille and Paris. 2 The book that retraces the several transformations from the Sanitary Station to the Museum Regards de Provence has the emblematic title of Métamorphoses (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013). 3 The streets of a plague-ridden city are blocked by mounds of unidentifiable corpses; at this point, Artaud writes, “[l]e théâtre comme la peste est une crise qui se dénoue par la mort ou par la guérison. Et la peste est un mal supérieur parce qu’elle est une crise complète après laquelle il ne reste rien que la mort ou qu’une extrême purification. De même le théâtre est un mal parce qu’il est l’équilibre suprême, qui ne s’acquiert pas sans destruction” (Artaud 1964, 25). 18 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 1. The former Sanitary Station of Marseille 2. The Salle des étuves After World War ii, there were fifteen million refugees, or “displaced people,” in Europe. Marseille organized the reception of thousands of immi- grants by creating a strategy of sanitary prophylaxis against plague, cholera, yellow fever, typhus fever, and smallpox. In 1948, the French architects An- dré Champollion, Fernand Pouillon, and René Egger were charged with the project of designing the Sanitary Station of Marseille. The main aim of their project was to create a place of disease prevention and control but, at the same time, to defy rigid spatial segregations and the exposure of individuals to a controlling centralized observation. For this reason they created a structure with several one-way corridors through which individuals could move in or- der to be washed and disinfected and undergo a medical examination (figure isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 19 3. Area for ablutions and disinfection 3). Everything was done to avoid any sense of humiliation to the passengers: wide, luminous spaces and above all a horizontal linearity that invested win- dows, objects, and at the same time the building’s structure created a place that evoked the atmosphere of a ship. These similarities between a ship and a place receiving potentially ill people suggests the Renaissance allegory of the “ship of fools” that, as Foucault explains, symbolizes an intermediate moment between the medieval exclusion of lepers outside the gates of the city and the exclusion of the mad within the social body (Foucault 1988). Every boat that arrived in Marseille found its uncanny “double” located on the threshold of the city, in a place that lies between the sea and the urban space, a liminal area that must be crossed if the individual wants to be considered healthy and, above all, inoffensive to the rest of the population. The threshold is an in-between state that separates two spaces of dif- ferent nature. As Walter Benjamin observed in his reflections on architecture: 20 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 The threshold is a zone. And in fact a zone of passage (Übergang). Transformation, passage, flux—all are contained in the word threshold. [. . .] We have become quite poor as far as threshold experiences go. Falling asleep is perhaps the only such ex- perience that has remained to us. (quoted in Sieburth, 19) But the notion of threshold has also fascinated Gérard Genette who, in the opening pages of Seuils, explains that “plus que d’une limite ou d’une frontière étanche, il s’agit ici d’un seuil ou—mot de Borges à propos d’une préface—d’un ‘vestibule’ qui offre à tout un chacun la possibilité d’entrer, ou de rebrousser chemin” (Genette 1987, 8).4 Philosophers like Wittgenstein and Benjamin have created several parallels between the forms of the city and the diverse forms of language, and semiotic studies invite us to read the city through its signifying forms. In his “Sémiologie et urbanisme,” Roland Barthes sees the city as a discourse, and this discourse, he writes, is truly a language: “Et nous retrouvons la vieille intuition de Victor Hugo: la ville est une écriture; celui qui se déplace dans la ville, c’est-à-dire l’usager de la ville (ce que nous sommes tous), est une sorte de lecteur qui, selon ses obligations et ses déplacements, prélève des fragments de l’énoncé pour les actualiser en secret” (Barthes 1985, 268).5 Architectural spaces can be read as chapters of a complex text—the city—made of streets, traffic, buildings, and so on that interact in a complex game of intertextuality. From this standpoint, the Sanitary Station is a multilingual context, a sort of Babel, but also a place in which the bodies of the immigrants had to undergo a transformation. Somehow these people, like a text in the eyes of a translator, were carefully examined before being allowed into a new space, a new context. A translation implies a movement, the concept of carrying something across. The English word derives from the Latin translatio, which itself comes from trans “across” and la-tio- “carrying”; the Italian language adds a cultural element to this image of movement with the use of the noun tradotta, which is a special train used for the transportation of military troops or deportees. By extension, in Italian it is possible to say that “l’assassino è stato tradotto in carcere” (“the murderer was taken, ‘translated’ to prison”). In his book The Pleasure of the Text, Barthes asks the question “Does the text have a human form, is it a figure, an anagram of the body?” (Barthes 1986, 16). We could ask ourselves whether the human body has 4 “More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a threshold or—a word Borg- es used apropos of a preface—a ‘vestibule’ that offers the possibility of either stepping inside or turning back” (Genette 1997, 1–2). 5 “And here we rediscover Victor Hugo’s old intuition: the city is writing. He who moves about the city, e.g., the user of the city (what we all are), is a kind of reader who, following his obliga- tions and his movements, appropriates fragments of the utterance in order to actualize them in secret” (Barthes 1986, 199). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 21 a textual status, that of a “readable” object of translation, whose position can be changed and relocated in a new context. The “transformation” of the refugees that arrived in Marseille took place in a building organized as a series of passageways that somehow evoke Benjamin’s arcades, although with some remarkable differ- ences. Sherry Simon writes that Benjamin uses the arcades as a cultural historian to represent an ambiguous urban space, neither inside nor outside, a passageway which is also a space of consumption, a new materialization of urban space. In the essay on translation, he uses the arcade to for- mulate a contrast between interpretive translation (which uses as its unit the “sentence” or the “proposition”) and literal translation (which proceeds word by word). The first, he says, produces a translation akin to a wall, the second a text which functions more like an arcade: ‘For if the sentence is the wall before the language of the original, literalness is the arcade.’ The glass roof allows light to flow through matter, just as the literally translat- ed text is a transparent surface which allows the light of the original to fall onto the new version, creating an interplay of surfaces. (Simon 2000, 75) I find this passage extremely interesting because it gives me the op- portunity to explore the relationship between the process of translation and the spaces of translation. Both in the Parisian arcade and in the Sanitary Sta- tion of Marseille, the presence of a glass construction is essential, but while in the arcade the glass roof has the aim of accentuating the transition zone between the outdoor world of the street and the interior space,6 in the Sanitary Station the lateral glass walls contribute to the brightness of the space but at the same time the concrete structure creates a screen to guarantee the privacy of those passing by. Benjamin sees the arcades as the entry point of the Parisian labyrinth, a place where the flâneur could dwell; the Sanitary Station is a one- way passage in which there is no time for dwelling: the “translation” of those who are already “dis-placed” people should be done quickly in order to obtain a transformed, clean version of their bodies. Like Genette, I would like to insist on the term “vestibule,” because, in addition to the concept of “thresh- old,” this word also conveys the idea of clothing if we accept the etymology from the Latin vestibulum, from vestis “garment” and -bulum, probably from the sense of “a place to dress.”7 When the immigrants arrived in the Sanitary Station, they were first of all asked to undress so that their clothes could be 6 Benjamin was attracted by the ambiguity of glass, by the transformative power of this building material through its architectural application: “It is not a coincidence that glass is so hard and smooth a material to which nothing can be fastened. It is also cold and sober. Things that are made of glass have no ‘aura.’ Glass is the enemy par excellence of secrecy. It is also the enemy of property” (quoted in Heynen 1999, 155). 7 Ovid, in his Fasti, links the term vestibulum to the Roman goddess of hearth and home Vesta. In any case, if the vestibule is now the place where outer clothing is put on or removed in leaving or entering a house, for the Romans it was the area in which they used to depose their clothes. 22 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 washed and disinfected; they then had to go through the communal showers that, thanks to a system of mobile partition walls, became individual show- ers. The city that has made “Savon de Marseille” its emblem distributed bars of soap and towels to the immigrants who, eventually, got back their clean clothes and could go upstairs for a medical examination. The Sanitary Station only remained active for a couple of years, un- til the World Health Organization coordinated a global vaccination program that made entities such as the station redundant. Before entering a country, people were supposed to show their vaccination cards; this was the beginning of preventive medicine. After having served as offices for the administrative clerks of the Direction du Contrôle Sanitaire aux Frontières, the Sanitary Sta- tion of Marseille was closed in 1971. A new chapter in this building’s life then began—that of refuge of squatters. The edifice that was used as an institution for disease prevention and control became a place of meetings and creativity for squatters and graffiti art- ists. The white aseptic walls of the Sanitary Station were filled with colorful po- ems, tags, and murals. Round images replaced the square tiles covering the walls, showers, and steam rooms. An ephemeral form of art violated the visual and ar- chitectural order and setting, breaking the rules of the space–time relationship. The body, the skin of the sanitary station was “scratched,”8 in the same way as the skin of the migrants was scratched to be immunized against smallpox. The squatters imposed a transformation on this building by “inoculating” the germs of a revolutionary art. In 2009, in order to protest against the permanent closing of the place, the squatters burned a car inside the building (figure 4), which was 4. Burned car in Sanitary Station 8 The term “graffiti” derives from the Italian word graffio, a “scratch” or “scribble”. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 23 nearly destroyed—fire as a sort of extreme catharsis that paved the way to the next transformation. The burned car is a trace, its cinders a rem(a)inder of something that is at the same time present and absent. In Feu la cendre, Derrida describes how one particular phrase, “il y a là cendre” (“cinders there are”), continually returned to him and insists on the importance of the trace: Si vous ne vous rappelez plus, c’est que l’incinération suit son cours et la consumation va de soi, la cendre même. Trace destinée, comme toute, à disparaître d’elle-même pour égarer la voie autant que pour rallumer une mémoire. La cendre est juste : parce que sans trace, justement elle trace plus qu’une autre, et comme l’autre trace. (Derrida 1984, 30)9 What remains from the destruction returns to the surface, to the skin; when the smoke dissipates, the incinerated place resurfaces. The evocation of haunting memories that reemerge from a fire is at the center of the artistic production of Claudio Parmiggiani, who in his work Delocazione (De-loca- tion) builds installations and sets them on fire, revealing the traces of the disappeared objects. This is what Didi-Huberman calls “une matière de l’ab- sence”—things disappear, but the memory of their presence still remains.10 The Regards de Provence foundation, in need of a permanent structure for its exhibitions in the city of Marseille, decided to rehabilitate this building and create a museum that collected artworks created in and about Provence. But before its permanent recuperation and conversion, before the ancient Sanitary Station was transformed into a Museum, a French photographer and installation artist was asked to fix an image in which the traces of the past could interact with the poetic metamorphoses that this place has experienced. Georges Rousse is an artist attracted by neglected and forgotten sites, by their solitude and emptiness; he takes his inspiration from the “wounds” suffered by an edifice to create an ephemeral “mise-en-scène” that he then immortalizes with photographs.11 One of the main characteristics of a photograph is its link with the referent, a sort 9 “If you no longer recall it, it is because the incineration follows its course and the consummation proceeds from itself, the cinder itself. Trace destined, like everything, to disappear from itself, as much in order to lose the way as to rekindle a memory. The cinder is exact: because without a trace it precisely traces more than an other, and as the other trace(s)” (Derrida 1991, 57). 10 In his book Génie du non-lieu, Georges Didi-Huberman explores the works of Parmiggiani. The Italian artist shows that fire does not cause the complete disappearance of an object, but, rather, it delocates it. The question of memory and survival therefore becomes essential: “Il se- rait donc abusive d’identifier l’œuvre de Parmiggiani à une simple nostalgie du passé (Delocazi- one est d’ailleurs plus proche d’Hiroshima que d’une reconstitution pompéienne). Cette œuvre vise plutôt un travail de la mémoire—une prise en considération de la survivance—qui a fait dire à l’artiste que ‘les veritables Antiques, c’est nous’” (Didi-Huberman 2001, 43). 11 His artistic intervention is multifaceted: “I call upon various methods of art: I am the designer of the project, the painter on-site, the architect by my interpretation of a given space and by the construction I organise there within, and finally the photographer who coordinates all these actions” (http://www.georgesrousse.com/english/news/rousse-speech.html). 24 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 of “reality effect” that makes the past reality of the object indubitable. In La Chambre claire, Barthes argues that the photographic referent is not the same as the referent of other systems of representation: whereas in painting the presence of the model is optional and in language the referents can be chimerical, in a photograph we cannot deny that the thing “has been there.”12 This significant aspect of referentiality seems to compensate for an inexplicable lack of images in relation to the activity of these spaces. In fact, neither the book Metamorphoses published by the Musée Regards de Provence (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013) nor the 45-minute documentary that, in the same Museum, explores the history of the plague in Marseille, immigration, and the building contain a single picture concerning the people who passed through the Sanitary Station, and there are only a few pictures of the areas and rooms from when it was active. Somehow, the artistic view of Georges Rousse is asked to capture, in single images, the sig- nificant past of these spaces, and he does so by insisting on the double liminality of the Sanitary Station: the instant captured by the photos of the French artist is not only that of a place that has represented for years the liminal area between the port and the city, but also that of a phase of an urban space that has gone through several transformations.13 The technique used by Rousse is that of anamorphosis; whereas trompe l’œil gives the illusion that a flat surface is three dimensional, his anamorphic images create the illusion that a three-dimensional area is flat (figures 5 and 6). Although it looks as if the geometric form has been digitally created, the illusion generated by these photographs is optical, and represents the outcome of several weeks of work so that the colorful geometric is only visible from a specific point of view. The anamorphic figure invites those who are watching it to move, to change their point of view, in order to bring into perfect focus the object of interpretation. Nevertheless, the installations created by Georges Rousse, once they are immortalized by the camera, do not ask the viewer to move, to change their perspective: his artwork is intended only for the lens, and not for an ob- server in the actual space. Rousse creates a “before” and “after” effect—first, the “deconstructed” red circle and then the perfectly round red circle reassembled by the camera. In doing so, he wanders in the rooms of the Sanitary Station with the eye of the photographer who is trying to find the right standpoint.14 12 Its essence is recorded in the formula “ça a été,” “that has been.” 13 In an interview about his installations at the future Musée Regards de Provence, Georges Rousse said that “[l]e port c’était la station sanitaire qui accueillait les immigrants mais c’est aussi le point de départ vers l’ailleurs. [. . .] Je voulais rendre compte de ce nouvel espace qui a perdu toute fonctionnalité et qui va disparaitre, cet entre-deux” (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013, 109) 14 “Je déambule dans les lieux avec l’œil du photographe pour repérer le bon point de vue jusqu’à l’image finale qui a besoin de l’appareil photographique comme outil de reproduction” (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013, 111). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 25 26 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 In these ephemeral installations that are immortalized only by the lens of a camera, the gaze of the artist leaves its place to another “gaze”: that of the Museum Regards de Provence, a museum that has slowly become a sort of palimpsest, made of its different phases of transformation. The permanent installation shows the old steam room and a documentary that retraces the history of this building, while the temporary exhibitions are housed in galler- ies on the ground and first floors. The several windows along both the front and the back walls of this long, horizontal building invite the observer to gaze outside, towards the port and the city. In the course of all its transformations, 5–6. the Sanitary Station has been “living on”; its trans-lation, its trans-positions Rousse, anamorphic have not destroyed it. Like a text, this building has survived only because, installation to paraphrase Derrida, it was at once translatable and untranslatable.15 This building outlives itself, is at the outskirts of its own living. Like Georges Rousse, Walter Benjamin was attracted by the decayed or abandoned spaces of the city; likewise, he was fascinated by “thresholds” and borders. He first visited Marseille in 1926, and then several times in 1928 and 1931. His last visit to the Phocaean city took place in 1940, shortly before his death. Marseille was for him like a book to be interpreted: In the early morning I drove through Marseilles to the station, and as I passed familiar places on my way, and then new, unfamiliar ones or others that I remembered only vaguely, the city became a book in my hands, into which I hurriedly glanced a few last times before it passed from my sight for who knows how long into a warehouse crate. (Benjamin 1999b, 447) Whereas Paris represents for Benjamin the ideal place to discover the traces of social meaning and the collective dreams of modernity, he finds Mar- seille hard to decipher, to the point where he once commented that no city so stubbornly resisted his efforts to depict it as did Marseille (Eiland 2014, 310). Benjamin sees each street as a vertiginous experience; for him the city-dweller should be “on the threshold of the metropolis as of the middle class” (Benja- min 2006, 40). Nevertheless, in his writings on hashish, and in particular in the text “Hashish in Marseilles,” he does not stay on the borders. Rather, he lets himself sink inside the “ventre of Marseilles”: 15 “Un texte ne vit que s’il sur-vit, et il ne sur-vit que s’il est à la fois traductible et intraduisible. [. . .] Totalement traductible, il disparaît comme texte, comme écriture, comme corps de langue. Totalement intraduisible, même à l’intérieur de ce qu’on croit être une langue, il meurt aussitôt. La traduction triomphante n’est donc ni la vie ni la mort du texte, seulement ou déjà sa survie. On en dira de même de ce que j’appelle écriture, marque, trace, etc. Ça ne vit ni ne meurt, ça survit. Et ça ne ‘commence’ que par la survie (testament, itérabilité, restance, crypte, détache- ment déstructurant par rapport à la rection ou direction ‘vivante’ d’un ‘auteur’ qui ne se noierait pas dans les parages de son texte)” (Derrida 1986, 147–149). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 27 I lay upon the bed, read and smoked. All the while opposite to me this glimpse of the ventre of Marseilles. (Now the images begin to take hold of me). The street that I’d so often seen is like an incision cut by a knife. (Benjamin 1978, 138) When, under the effect of hashish, Benjamin describes the streets of Marseille, he enters a surrealist dream world, made of strange sounds, images, and scents. His perception of what he sees in the streets—where he strolls to find a restaurant for dinner—is distorted, the dimensions of time and space are abolished.16 Unexpectedly, the words of a conversation in a little port bar sound to him like dialect: The people of Marseilles suddenly did not speak good enough French to me. They were stuck at the level of dialect. The phenomenon of alienation that may be involved in this, which Kraus has formulated in the fine dictum “The more closely you look at a word the more distantly it looks back” appears to extend to the optical. (Benjamin 1978, 144) Michel de Certeau writes that the city is a text, and that walking in a city has its own rhetoric: “Il y a une rhétorique de la marche. L’art de ‘tourn- er’ des phrases a pour équivalent un art de tourner des parcours. Comme le langage ordinaire, cet art implique et combine des styles et des usages” (De Certeau 2005, 15).17 Nevertheless, the legibility of a city changes; it is the per- spective of the viewer that defines the object of observation. When Benjamin quotes Kraus’s aphorism (“The closer one looks at a word, the further away it looks back”), he too evokes the importance of perspective. How should we read a city, its translation zones, its palimpsests? I would like to close this paper with another quote from Calvino’s Invisible Cities: In due modi si raggiunge Despina: per nave o per cammello. La città si presenta differente a chi viene da terra e a chi dal mare. [. . .] Ogni città riceve la sua forma dal deserto a cui si oppone; e così il cammelliere e il marinaio vedono Despina, città di confine tra due deserti. (Calvino 1994, 370)18 16 “Versailles, for one who has taken hashish, is not too large, nor eternity too long” (Benjamin 1978,138). 17 “There is a rhetoric of walking. The art of ‘turning’ phrases finds an equivalent in an art of composing a path. Like ordinary language, this art implies and combines styles and uses” (De Certeau 1984, 100). 18 “Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea. [. . .] Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts” (Calvino 1997, 17). 28 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Whereas the city of Zaira is part of a section devoted to memory, De- spina is a city of desire that opens paths and opportunities for visitors. There are multiple ways of seeing the same city, depending on which face of the city they see. Those who arrive at Despina have to shift their perspective, as if they were in front of an anamorphic image. By building the Sanitary Station, Mar- seille has tried to give itself a “face” from which the immigrants could see it, but France’s oldest city has not resisted the univocal direction imposed by this passage point: the Station operated for a few years, quickly transformed by artists who made this structure a place of exile, of displacement, a metaphori- cal place that contains a plurality of meanings and errant trajectories, and that lends itself to multiple interpretations. The story of those anonymous people who arrived in Marseille and whose body/corpus underwent a transformation in order to be admitted to a new context intertwines with the story of another migrant who, some years before, in 1940, had been trying to escape France for the United States: Walter Benjamin. He went from Paris to Marseille, which at that time was full of refu- gees, especially those from countries occupied by the German army. The philos- opher who used to be an extraordinary city dweller and who loved to get lost in the meanders of a city, found himself obliged to follow the route taken by many refugees. In Marseille he obtained a passport issued by the American Foreign Service, but when he discovered that the port was virtually closed he tried to cross the Spanish border by walking up into the mountains. He never managed to traverse the most important boundary of his life, however, and in Portbou he was refused entry into Spain. He was held in Portbou overnight and sent back to occupied France the next morning. The morphine Benjamin had brought with him from Marseille was strong enough to kill him. Hannah Arendt wrote about her dear friend and the Kafkian situation in which he found his death: A few weeks later the embargo on visas was lifted again. One day earlier Benjamin would have got through without any trouble; one day later the people in Marseille would have known that for the time being it was impossible to pass through Spain. Only on that particular day was the catastrophe possible. (Arendt 1990, 24) Benjamin died in a liminal space, in a liminal time; a bitter twist of fate for the philosopher who has taught us the important difference between “boundary” and “threshold”: “The threshold must be carefully distinguished from the boundary. A Schwell <threshold> is a zone. Transformation, passage, wave action are in the word schwellen, swell, and etymology ought not to over- look these senses” (Benjamin 1999, 494). Following Benjamin’s fundamental distinction, we might suggest that the Sanitary Station was initially born as a “boundary area” because of its isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 29 function of containment and delimitation, and that it has eventually “swol- len,” with an extraordinary series of metamorphoses, into a threshold, a place caught up in a tension, an innovative space. The Regards de Provence muse- um is now a site of rewriting, a place that combines memory of its past and a gaze towards the future. It has not lost its “in-between position,” though, caught as it is between the ancient Cathedral and the new buildings (Mucem, Villa Mediterranée) designed by internationally renowned architects. A poten- tial space for hybridization. <References> Arendt, Hannah. 1999. “Walter Benjamin: 1892–1940.” In Walter Benjamin, Illumina- tions, edited by Hannah Arendt; translated by Harry Zorn. London: Pimlico. 7–60. Artaud, Antonin. 1964. “Le Théâtre et la peste.” In Le Théâtre et son double. Paris: Gallimard. 25–26. Barthes, Roland. 1973. Le Plaisir du texte. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. . 1973. The Pleasure of the Text. Translated by Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang. . 1980. La Chambre claire: note sur la photographie. Paris: Gallimard. . 1985. “Sémiologie et urbanisme.” In L’Aventure sémiologique. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. . 1986. “Semiology and the Urban.” In The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics. Edited by Mark Gottdiener and Alexandros Ph. Lagopou- los. New York: Columbia University Press. 87–98. Benjamin, Walter. 1978. “Hashish in Marseilles.” In Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. Edited by Peter Demetz. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Harcourt Brace. 137–145. . 1999a. The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin Mc- Laughlin. Cambridge (Mass.) and London (England): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. . 1999b. Selected Writings. Edited by Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. . 2006. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire. Edited by Mi- chael W. Jennings. Cambridge (Mass.) and London (England): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Calvino, Italo. 1979. Le città invisibili. Turin, Einaudi. . 1997. Invisible cities. Translated by William Weaver. London: Vintage Books. De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Ren- dall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. . 2005. “Rhétoriques combinatoires.” In L’invention du quotidien. Tome 1—Arts de faire [1980–1990]. Folio Essais. Paris: Gallimard. Derrida, Jacques. 1984. Feu la Cendre/Ciò che resta del fuoco. Translated by Stefa- no Agosti. Firenze: Sansoni. . 1986. “Survivre.” In Parages. Paris: Galilée. 109-203. . 1991. Cinders. Translated by Ned Lukacher. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 30 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2001. Génie du non-lieu. Air, poussière, empreinte, han- tise. Paris: Minuit. Eiland, Howard, and M. W. Jennings. 2014. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1988. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books. Genette, Gerard. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Seuil. . 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge (Mass.): Cambridge University Press. Translated by Jane E.Lewin. Heynen, Hilde. 1999. Architecture and Modernity. A Critique. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press. Muntaner, Bernard, and Thierry Durousseau. 2013. Métamorphoses. Station Sani- taire en Musée Regards de Provence. Marseille: Fondations Regards de Provence. Sieburth , Richard. “Benjamin the Scrivener.” in Benjamin: Philosophy, History, Aes- thetics. Ed. Gary Smith. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989. 13-37. Simon, Sherry. 2000. “The Paris Arcades, the Ponte Vecchio, and the Comma of Translation.” Translators’ Journal, vol. 45 (1): 73–79. <Simona Elena Bonelli> She is a translator and lives in Marseille. She studied English and French Literature (University of Siena, Italy) and received her MA and PhD in Critical and Cultural Theory from Car- diff University, UK. She has taught English Language and Literature at the Universities of Siena and Perugia (Italy). Bonelli has published Tito Andronico. Il testo come simulacro del corpo, and has edited Seg- ni particolari: l’immagine del viso, l’immaginario del nome proprio, both with Quattroventi, Urbino. Her books and essays cover topics relating to Elizabethan literature, philosophy, aesthetics, gender studies, and trans- lation theory. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 31

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Translation and Fragmented Cities: Focus on Itaewon, Seoul Hunam Yun [email protected] <Abstract> Cities are open texts. They are perpetually transformed by their dynamic relationship with history and with the people who live in them. They are “rearticulated, transformed from a singular structure into a multilateral palimpsest that can be ‘written’ up and over, again and again,” with time. Therefore, the boundaries of cities’ identities continuously expand with this dynamic movement. There can be no single, fixed, or com- plete description of a city, which is why cities require continuous translation. However, cities are commonly represented as a single, fixed, and complete image in the process of translation through selective appropriation, and people consume that image. This paper attempts to reveal the process and ideological bias in such selective appropriation with a focus on Itaewon, South Korea. Historically, Itaewon has always been a site of different cultural encounters reflecting the historical twists and turns of Korea. After the Japanese invasion of the country in 1592 and the Manchu war of 1636, Japanese and Chinese soldiers stayed in the area. Then, during the colonial period, the Japanese army was stationed there, and after liberation, the American army was quartered there. Now, Mus- lims are flocking to the area, and it is becoming a city of immigrants. Because of these dynamic historical moments, Itaewon has been the site of cultural amalgamation and conflict, always retaining traces of the past. However, the images of Itaewon created by tourist books are ahistorical and fixed; the city has been fragmented as a commodity to be consumed through selective appropriation, and its dynamic history has been erased. The most common of these images are those of shopping centers and the red light dis- trict, images that have been reinforced by reproduction throughout decades. This paper investigates the process of this fragmentation of Itaewon and its underlying ideology. introduction I was motivated to consider the aspects of a city’s translation (in terms of in- tersemiotic translation in which nonverbal text is transferred into verbal text) when I found the translation of Itaewon, an area located in the northern part of Seoul, South Korea. Shockingly, the words that caught my eye were “Red Light District.” Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, in its entry on Itaewon, highlighted only the Red Light District as a local attraction, as follows:1 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaewon (last accessed December, 2014). 32 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Contents 1. Local attractions 1.1 Red Light District 2. See also 3. Notes 4. External links With a brief explanation of the geographical location of Itaewon, Wikipedia introduces local attractions, focusing on the international dishes, hotels, shops, and clubs that tourists can enjoy: Many restaurants serving international dishes are found in this area […]. Major ho- tels such as The Grand Hyatt and local landmark The Hamilton Hotel can be found here as well as dozens of shops and services aimed at tourists. High quality leather products in Korea can be found […] as well as various types of traditional Korean souvenirs. […] Itaewon is one of the popular club congested area in Korea, […] Most of foreign people go to the clubs for clubbing and hooking up while they are staying in Korea.2 Then separate space was allocated to the introduction of the Red Light District under the same title: There is a portion of Itaewon known as “Hooker Hill” among GI’s of different allied nations stationed in South Korea. Although the stereotype of only American ser- vicemen frequenting this area is well-known, men from all other countries, including Middle-Eastern and African, are known to frequent this area as well. Furthermore, because South Korea is not widely socially accepting of homosexuals, there is an underground gay area within this district as well. The prominent image of Itaewon represented by Wikipedia is of a “retail” city—selling goods and bodies. An explanation of this followed: “This article is written like a travel guide rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. [. . .]” (July 2013). This explanation is very significant in that it suggests that a travel guide does not present full, complete, and thorough information, but rather is se- lective regarding the information it includes. This is quite appropriate since a travel guide should be light enough for travelers to carry. However, the problem with selective information—in other words selective translation—is the image the translation produces. This paper is concerned with this point. Translation has been frequently presented as an activity to create an image of others or of selves, in the case of Itaewon, for example, this includes “a nostalgic image of a lost past” about Japanese people (Fowler 1992), images of the East by the West in colonial contexts (Niranjana 1992), or a self-image 2 The article has since been altered, but there is no significant difference in its content. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 33 by a colonized people (Tymoczko 1999). The process involves “a deliberate and conscious act of selection, assemblage, structuration, and fabrication— and even, in some cases, of falsification, refusal of information, counterfeiting, and the creation of secret codes” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). However, little notice has been taken of translation as an activity to cre- ate images of cities and of the process this involves. French theologian Jacques Ellul states that the evolution of cities represents man’s fall from natural grace and the subsequent attempt to create a new, workable order (Kotkin 2005, xv). This may mean that cities are constructed and shaped through the dynamic rela- tionship with human beings, and they are formed, and transformed, by such re- peated attempts throughout the city’s history, keeping traces of every historical moment. That is, they are “rearticulated, transformed from a singular structure into a multilateral palimpsest that can be ‘written’ up and over, again and again” (Chambers 2012, 104) with time. Therefore, the boundaries of cities’ identities continuously expand with this dynamic movement. However, cities are commonly represented as a single and fixed image in the process of translation through selective appropriation, and people ac- cept and consume that image. In the history of translation studies, little atten- tion has been paid to these aspects of cities, that is, cities as a translated text. Cities are translated through special forms of communication, such as the environmental landscape, symbolic artifacts, local events, or other landmarks, and through verbal communication, such as cities’ names, slogans or statements. This paper attempts to reveal how verbal translation, especially for tourists, constructs an image of a city, with a focus on Itaewon. Itaewon has been a very particular and special space in Korean history. Unlike other areas of Seoul, which have a single ethic identity, Itaewon has been the space of expatriates. It has been a foreign and exotic land within Korea, a zone of con- tact where native and foreign cultures encounter each other, and a mediating channel though which foreign cultures are introduced. This paper first inves- tigates Itaewon as a site of cultural encounters and cultural translation against the background of Korean history, then it examines its translation in tourist books and the subsequent effects. itaewon as a site of cultural encounters and cultural translation When French historian Fernand Braudel stated, “A town is always a town, wherever it is located, in time as well as space” (Rybczynski 1995, 49), he must have been referring to the universality of the urban experience. As Kot- kin notes, the urban experience is universal “despite vast differences in race, 34 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 climate, and location” because “there is the visceral ‘feel’ of the city almost everywhere—the same quickening of pace on a busy street, an informal mar- ketplace, or a freeway interchange, the need to create notable places, the shar- ing of a unique civic identity” (2005, xv–vxi). The omnipresent visceral feel he refers to is created by the so called “non-places” found in almost every city. Non-places, a term coined by French anthropologist Marc Augé, refers to an- thropological spaces of transience that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as “places.” As Augé points out, supermodernity produces nonplaces, “meaning spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which, unlike in Baudelairean modernity, do not integrate the earlier places” (1995, 63). Nonplaces are temporary, ephemeral, fleeting spaces for passage, commu- nication, and consumption. Augé puts it thus: If place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place. [. . .] the same things apply to the non-place as to the place. It never exists in pure form; places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in it; the ‘millennial ruses’ of ‘the invention of the everyday’ and ‘the arts of doing,’ so subtly analysed by Michel de Certeau, can clear a path there and deploy their strategies. Places and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed. (Augé 1995, 63–64) Examples of nonplaces are air, rail, and motorway routes, aircraft, trains and road vehicles, airports and railway stations, hotel chains, leisure parks, large retail outlets, and the complex skein of cable and wireless net- works that mobilize extraterrestrial space for the purposes of a communication (Augé 1995). These nonplaces make urban scenes familiar and uniform, creating an illusion of universality in urban experiences. In extreme cases, those nonplaces may make urban experiences homogeneous so that they give the impression that “only the name of the airport changes” as described in the novel Invisible Cities by Italian writer Italo Calvino: If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I had taken off. The suburbs they drove me through were no different from the others, […] The downtown streets displayed goods, packages, signs that had not changed at all. […] You can resume your flight whenever you like, but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail. The world is covered by the sole Trude, which does not begin, nor end. Only the name of the airport changes. (Calvino 1972/1974, 128) However, despite “the universality of the urban experience,” each city has a unique and special “feel,” which gives city tourists a different experience. One of the factors that make each city unique and special is its ascent and decline throughout history, the process of which is “both rooted in history isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 35 and changed by it” (Kotkin 2005, 147), in other words, the characteristics of “places” in Augé’s term. Cities are not stagnant; they are reconfigured, re- shaped, and rearranged with political, economic, social, and cultural changes throughout history. Just as Lotman points out in his discussion on the symbolism of St. Petersburg, “The city is a mechanism, forever recreating its past” (Lotman 1990, 194–195): architectural ensembles, city rituals and ceremonies, the very plan of the city, the street names and thousands of other left-overs from past ages act as code programs constantly renewing the texts of the past. Lotman also says that “in this sense, the city, like culture, is a mechanism which with- stands time” (Lotman 1990, 195). So, as Simon’s Cities in Translation (2012) suggests, cities are “intersec- tions of memory,” and the streets of the cities keep those memories. Itaewon is such a city. Compared to other areas in Seoul, it is an area with a rapid pace of change, and it has various images: diversity, ambiguity, disorder, chaos, exoticism, foreign land within the country, and so on. Such dynamicity and images throughout the history of the place stem mainly from its geographical location, specifically, its location near Han River. As Lotman puts it, there are two ways in which a city as a demarcated space may relate to the earth which surrounds it—concentric and eccentric: Concentric structures tend towards enclosure, separation from their surroundings which are classed as hostile while eccentric structures tend towards openness and contacts with other cultures. [. . .] The concentric situation of the city in semiotic space is as a rule associated with the image of the city on the hill. [. . .] The eccentric city is situated “at the edge” of the cultural space: on the seashore, at the mouth of a river. (Lotman 1990, 191–192) The peculiar situation of Itaewon, due to its location near the Han River, imbued it with openness. Indeed, various meanings and different sto- ries about the origin of the name show such characteristics. Itaewon has three different names and meanings, using different Chinese characters—梨泰院, 李泰院, and 異胎院—which are embedded in its geographical position and Korean history. Firstly, Itaewon was initially a place for travelers and trading. During the Joseon Dynasty, one of four Hanyang (present Seoul) won (院)—a won was a kind of inn established for government officials and travelers by the govern- ment—was located there. So the place was named Itaewon. The won (院) in the name “Itaewon” meant “inn offering lodgings to travelers” (smg 1998, 83). As more people frequented the area, inns for foreign envoys and markets were formed (Jang 2000, 59). Another story claims that Itaewon (梨泰院), meaning “area for pear trees,” was so named because pear trees were grown there. 36 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Itaewon was also a space of trauma. It was the area for alienated wom- en, women who had to choose isolation from the society because, with the scar of foreign invasion on their body, they could not be accepted in Korean society. During the Seven-Year War (1592–1598) against the Korean dynasty of Joseon, a Japanese military supply base was established in the Unjongsa Buddhist nun temple near present-day Itaewon. It is said that the Japanese commander Katō Kiyomasa and his soldiers seized the temple, raped the nuns, and then stayed for some time. They subsequently burned the temple before they left. The Buddhist nuns, who had lost their home, moved to nearby Yunggyeong Mountain and lived there. Thus, the area was called Itaewon (異胎院), which means “village for being pregnant with a foreigner’s child” (No- mi Lee 2011, 242–243; Hoefer et al. 1981; Jun-gi Kim 2012). Itaewon was also the place where Korean women, who had been tak- en to China during the second Manchu invasion of Korea in 1636, returned and settled down (Chosun Daily 2011).3 In Joseon society, which had a tradi- tion of monogamy, those women were despised as hwanhyangnyeo (“women who returned”) and so they could not return to their home. Therefore, they went to live with the nuns (Heu-suk Han 2001, 59). According to another story, the name originated from Itain (異他人), which means foreigners, in reference to Japanese soldiers, who surren- dered and were naturalized during the Seven-Year War, forming a community there (Jun-gi Kim 2012). This link between Itaewon with marginalized people might have facilitated the formation of neighboring Haebangchon (literally, “liberation village”). Haebangchon was the area for displaced people after liberation from Japanese colonial rule, for north Korean refugees after the Korean War of 1950–1953, and then for farmers who had left their rural hometowns for cities during the process of industrialization. Geographically situated near Han River, Itaewon was considered strategically important in terms of transportation and military withdrawal. Thus, Itaewon has frequently been an area for foreign troops, having been a logistics base for the Mongolian Army during the late Goryeo Dynasty and a supply base for the Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 (Choi 2003, 23); it was also used by Chinese forces during the Im-O mili- 3 서울 속 외국 이태원 백서. 美軍거리서 다국적 거리로 (Itaewon White Paper: From the Street of the US Military Army to Multinational Street). Chosun Daily, Feb 21, 2011. http://boomup.chosun. com (accessed December, 2014). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 37 tary revolt of 1882–1884, was the location of the Japanese military headquarters during the colonial period of 1910–1945, and was used by the US forces after the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule (No-mi Lee 2011, 242–243; Shin 2008, 193; Seoul Development Institute 2001). The deployment of foreign troops transformed and rearranged the topography of Itaewon. During the 1920s, for instance, the public cemetery, which was located near the present-day Central Mosque, was transformed into the Japanese military headquarters. The cemetery was moved to the Miari district, and the body of Yu Gwan-sun, a patriotic martyr for independence from Japanese colonial rule, was lost in the process. However, the biggest changes to and deepest influence on Itaewon came with the deployment of the US forces. On September 9, 1945, the US forces came to be stationed in Itaewon when the US Army commanding of- ficer John Hodge received the surrender of all the Japanese forces in Korea south of the 38th parallel and took over the Japanese barracks and military facilities. The US Army Military Government was established and lasted from 1945 to 1948. However, with the Korean War in 1950, the US forces came back to be stationed in Itaewon, and the history of the US forces in Itaewon began. The English and Korean languages came to be used together; shops and bars emerged; and prostitutes, orphans, widows, and people from the provinces crowded around the US Army base hoping to scrape together a living from working on the base, selling goods to the soldiers, and so on. Military camp town clubs for American soldiers were opened, and Itaewon became a space where “American soldiers consumed Korean women sexually” (Hyeon-mee Kim 2005, 26). Thus, the so called “Hooker Hill” was formed. However, most of the women who worked at Hooker Hill were vic- tims of the Korean War. As the war had produced many orphans and widows, girls and women had to take responsibility for earning a living. They had to support not only themselves, but also their families. Some of them had to send money to their families in their hometown.4 Under the circumstances, given that they could not find proper jobs, they had to choose prostitution, becoming yang-gongju5 (a foreigner’s whore), as described in Yeong-su Oh’s novel of Anna’s Will (1963): 4 A girl risked her life to avoid the government’s control over prostitution and died because she could not make a living if she was caught. Hearing this news, sixty yang-gongju held a demon- stration against the control (Dong-A Ilbo Daily, October 27 1960, 3). 5 Yang in yang-gongju means Western, and gongju means a princess. Women who sold their bodies to Western men, especially American soldiers, were called yang-gongju. 38 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 She had no clothes to cover her body A brick looked like a chunk of meat to her. How could you expect a girl, who is starving, To be a lady, to be faithful? I was starved. A mature girl had no place to lay down her body. Is this sin? So I became a whore called Anna. (translation mine) (Oh 1963, 330) As foreign official residences were established in the 1960s, military accommodation was built in 1963, and when the 121st Evacuation Hospital of the US Army was moved to Itaewon from Bupyeong district, more than 10,000 people relocated there. During the 1970s, the area became a shopping district for cheap branded goods; there was a prosperous textile industry, and the area enjoyed the reputation of one of the most popular tourist attractions in Korea among foreign tourists in the 1980s when international events were held in Seoul. Thus, it was while the US forces were stationed there that Itaewon came to be known for its shopping area and for Hooker Hill. However, Itae- won cannot be reduced to only a shopping area and Hooker Hill. Itaewon was both a colonized space and a space of freedom and resistance. Politically, it was an Americanized colonial space (Lee and Jung 2010, 191), a colonized space (Choi 2003), or a deterritorialized space in that the authority of the nation–state was applied differently from how it was applied in other areas of the country (Eun-sil Kim 2004). Culturally, it was the space of freedom and resistance where Korean people could escape oppression under the Yushin regime in the 1970s and experience American culture (Eun-sil Kim 2004, 27; No-mi Lee 2011, 243). Indeed, Itaewon was the only route to American culture in Korean society: It was a place to experience Americanism as an object of desire for a generation familiar with afkn radio programs, with singers trained on the musical stages at US military bases, and with Hollywood movies (Choi 2003,102) because foreign travel remained restricted in Korea until 1989. These characteristics made the area a dynamic space where heteroge- neous cultural codes and different subjectivities (including colonized “others,” fragmented “youths,” and a decolonized “new generation”) were encountered, (re)constructed, (re)signified, and transformed at a specific historical stage (Lee and Jung 2010, 191). It was a place where subcultures, such as the culture of the US army in the 1950s–1960s, the Go-Go culture in the 1970s, disco cul- ture in the 1980s, and hip-hop culture around the 1990s, were circulated, and it took on a leading role in Korea’s popular music and subculture. The “clubs” which actively interacted with subcultures of different generations formed a site that led Korean popular music and subculture (see Lee and Jung 2010). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 39 Itaewon, where American soldiers were previously the most numer- ous of the foreign residents, has become more multinational since 1993, when the Korean government introduced an industrial trainee system for foreign- ers. Foreign workers from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Uzbekistan, and so on settled in Itaewon because the area was more open to foreigners and foreign cultures. Thus, foreigners could feel more comfortable and secure there. Many expatriates found solace in its accommodating nature and chose to set up their homes there. As various cultures, languages, and lifestyles mix together and various cultural activities commingle, the exterior landscape of the area is changing, and the space of the area is being rearranged, creating a unique and distinctive atmosphere. Through these dynamics, the area is becoming the cultural frontier zone where various cultures have become multinational and multilingual (Hy- eon-mee Kim 2005, 26). Itaewon is also a site of both conflict and solidarity as shown in the Muslim community in the area: “Though Arab Muslim traders have been known to make infrequent trading expeditions to Korea since the Silla dy- nasty, the teachings of Muhammad never made a real impact until 1950 when Turkish troops arrived to fight for UN forces” (Hoefer 1981). In 1960, the Korean Muslim Federation was founded with a Korean, Haji Sabri Suh, as its leader. However, the Islamic community was established due to the need to understand the Islamic world after the oil crisis of 1973 and 1974 (Lee and Jung 2011, 242). In February 1975, an Islamic Center was established in Itae- won, Seoul, and an adjoining Central Mosque—the largest such onion-domed structure in northeast Asia—was opened in 1976 (Hoefer 1981). The Seoul Central Mosque had been built with both Korean and Middle Eastern funds to serve the 3,000 followers of the Prophet in the nation (Hoefer 1981). The Central Mosque is therefore not only a place for religious belief but also a symbolic site which shows Koreans’ effort to understand the Islamic world (Lee and Jung 2011, 242–243). A larger Muslim community was formed in Itaewon in 2005 when an- ti-American sentiment spread after two Korean middle school girls were acciden- tally run over and killed by an American armored personnel carrier, and American soldiers assaulted some citizens. As American soldiers were subsequently banned from bars and clubs, the economic base of the area declined and workers in the entertainment business left the area for cheaper accommodation elsewhere. Thus, the Muslim community was formed around the Central Mosque. The Muslim community is bringing about changes to Itaewon. One of the most noticeable changes is the increased number of Halal food restau- rants and the reduced number of local butcher’s shops (Heu-su Yi et al. 2008, 40 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 1. Itaewon, street view 2. Itaewon, Muslim settlement area 68). Furthermore, because of the strong solidarity among Muslims, the com- munity is often regarded as a closed community by other Koreans (Lee and Jung 2011, 250). The Muslim settlement in Itaewon is a segmentation of urban space formed by the pluralism of race and Islamic culture. However, the space is isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 41 never homogeneous to the citizens and Muslims living in the Muslim settle- ment, and the place of residence is perceived according to different meanings. That is, the citizens living in Itaewon view the Muslims as those who threaten their lives and view foreigners as the cause of economic conflicts as well. How- ever, for those Muslims in the settlement, the citizens’ hostility toward them has given rise to a view of them as a strange and potential threat. The place of conflict and alienation is an inevitable part of the process of initiating a new cultural solidarity (see Lee and Jung 2011). Another feature of Itaewon is the coexistence of mutually exclusive activities in the same place: the Muslim community adjoins Gay Hill, which was formed in the late 1990s when gay bars moved there from Euljiro-Jongro (Jung-eun Kim et al. 2010). The position of Itaewon as a place of expatriates makes negotiation across different cultures with no shared history the very condition of civic coexistence. Now, Itaewon is producing a varied atmo- sphere and landscapes as multinational cultures are dynamically mixed to- gether. translation and representation of itaewon as a nonplace Tourist books have an important role to play in presenting an image of a city to the outside world because most tourists depend on the books for informa- tion about the city they will visit. They obtain information about the history, culture, shopping centers, or entertainment facilities in the city and they con- sume the city based on this information. Tourist books provide guidelines to give tourists information and instructions to help them know or understand the city. Itaewon has been one of the most popular tourist areas in Seoul among foreign tourists to the extent that it has been said that “[y]ou may not know Seoul, but you should know Itaewon” (Saccone 1994, 79). Indeed, for most foreigners the area has become synonymous with Seoul. This section investigates how Itaewon has been presented in tourist books during the past thirty years. For this purpose, tourist books in English from 1981 until 2010 were examined; however, as not many tourist books are available that discuss Itaewon, the sample was limited to seventeen books. Insight Guides: Korea (Hoefer et al.), which was published in Hong Kong in 1981, offers comparatively detailed information, focusing on the or- igin of the name and Muhammadanism in Korea. Regarding the name, it quotes Allen and Donard Clark, a father-and-son team of Seoul historians as saying, “Following the Japanese invasion of 1592–1598, the area now called 42 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Itaewon came to be called ‘Itaein’ or ‘Itaein dong’ meaning ‘Foreigners’ Vil- lage,’ because of the Japanese soldiers who were quartered on this site,” and “When the war was over, some of the soldiers settled down, married Korean girls, and spent the rest of their lives here.” Then “the tradition carries on, though most American soldiers take their Korean brides home, to ‘the world.’ as they call the U.S. of A.” (Hoefer et al. 1981). Regarding Muhammadanism, the book says the teachings of Mu- hammad never made a real impact until the arrival of Turkish troops in 1950, as mentioned previously, and it goes on to explain the foundation of the Ko- rean Muslim Federation in 1960 and the establishment of an Islamic Center in 1975 and, later, the adjoining Central Mosque (Hoefer et al. 1981). Visitors Guide: Seoul Korea, which was published by Seoul Metro- politan Government (smg) in 1998, introduces some of Itaewon’s histor- ical traces: [the] “won” of the name has meant an inn offering lodgings to travelers of the Cho- son Dynasty. In the middle of the 17th century, there was a concentrated village of naturalized Japanese. From 1906, a Japanese Military Post was stationed in the area until liberation from Japanese colonial rule, and now US Military Post including headquarters is located there. (SMG 1998, 83) However, Insight Guides: South Korea (Le Bas), which was published in London in 2007, introduces the history of Itaewon using a more poetic tone: but foreigners, not all of them Western, now occupy multi-story apartment buildings. [. . .] Imagine the astonished reactions of the Buddhist monks who, for some 500 years, kept a free hostel for travelers near here. What exists now, albeit breathtaking, may prove to be too developed for their tastes: the Grand Hyatt Hotel’s mirrored façade; and the twin minarets of the onion-domed mosque below, from which re- sounds the muezzin’s call to afternoon prayer. (Le Bas 2007, 135-139) The book then adds that centuries ago, Itaewon was used as a stop- over point for visitors to the capital, that Japanese troops were housed there during the Japanese Occupation, and that, after the Korean War, they were then replaced by American soldiers. Although the descriptions in the above three tourist books are not enough to show the dynamicity of Itaewon, they at least reveal the historicity of the area. However, other tourist books introduce Itaewon, focusing on it as place for con- sumerism and as a shopping area and entertainment district as follows: known as a part of the city that never sleeps. [. . .] a one-stop hub for foreign visitors, including shopping, tours, lodging and information services. It also offers many ven- ues in which to enjoy Korean and foreign cultures and cuisines. (kotra 2006, 249) now a growing mecca for bargain hunters. [. . .] It is lined on both sides with hundreds isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 43 of shops and arcades selling ready-made sports clothes [. . .] It is also an entertain- ment spot that boasts well over 200 restaurants, bars and clubs. (Suzanne Crowder Han 1989, 74) crowded with shops of all kinds from custom tailors to jewelers, from antiques deal- ers to clothiers. [. . .] In the evening Itaewon becomes a dynamic entertainment dis- trict packed with discos, nightclubs, bars, and karaokes of all sizes. (Saccone 1994, 79–80) the shopping paradise of diverse visitors from all parts of the world. (kowoc 2002, 63) Itaewon offers tailor-made and ready-made clothes [. . .] There is a spirited night life, too. (Chunsung Kim 2004, 90) it was one of the only places in the country in which you could buy “Western” items [. . .] While it remains a great place to shop for cheap tailored suits and shoes, Itae- won’s popularity also made it a byword for transactions of a more sexual nature – hostess bars sprung up all over the place. (Paxton 2008, 109) It’s a bastardized district that’s neither Korean nor Western, but a skewed yet intrigu- ing combination of both. Clothing, gifts . . . (Nilsen 2009, 44 and 92) a lively expat entertainment zone with bars and clubs aplenty, both gay and straight. Market stalls line the main street and the district comes to life in the evening. (Rob- inson and Zahorchak 2009, 55) Once a shady red-light district, it’s been cleaned up [. . .] You can still find ladies of the night walking down certain streets at night, but during the day, it’s a shopper’s paradise. (Cecilia Hai-Jin Lee 2010, 63) Translation of Itaewon in the above tourist books is no different from that in Wikipedia, as was pointed out in the introduction. Rather than being presented as a dynamic space where memories are imprinted, heterogeneous cultures mix together, and new cultures emerge, Itaewon is represented in these books as a large retail outlet for the selling and buying of goods, just like nonplaces, to use Augé’s term (1995, 63), which have no urban relations, history, or identity. The way Itaewon is translated is similar to the process of reification in that it presents fragmented information about the city in the process of com- modification for tourism, and thereby stops us understanding the totality of the city. According to Lukács (1971), under capitalism everything is reified as the result of a unified structure of consciousness—that is, seeing everything in a completely discrete way, where everything is separated and fragmented and taken out of the process to which it belongs. Lukács claims this is caused by the fact that everything is turned into a commodity under capitalism, which thus prevents us from seeing the totality of the place and the deeper processes that are going on. In a capitalist society, a city is presented as a commodity for the tour- ist industry, and its images are created, manipulated, or distorted in the pro- 44 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 cess of translation in order to create a profit. A city’s function as a place for entertainment and shopping is frequently emphasized in presenting the city because “the criteria of the successful tourist industry mainly puts priority on spending on entertainment and shopping” (Yi and Oh 1994, 21). Itaewon’s image is presented as a place for selling and entertaining; removed from its historicity, the image is fragmented. fragmented image, fragmented experience What does this fragmented image have to do with the city? The most direct influence may be the way the city is consumed by tourists. For example, the following recent reviews of the city by tourists6 show that the way they con- sume the city is closely related to the image presented in tourist books: Itaewon: Lots of Shopping. There are shops and a district for almost every imaginable type of product and some are open until very late at night […]. (October 20, 2002) Itaewon: Capital of Kitsch. [. . .] filling up with good restaurants and chain stores. You can find Nike outlets selling all manner of shoes and sports gear, Body Shops filled with makeup and luxurious bath products, and dozens of clothing stores and tailors specializing in Chinese silk dresses. (October 19, 2003) Itaewon: Cheap shops and street fashion. You can find bargains of any kind and a lot of the big clothing chains [. . .]. (January 28, 2004) Itaewon: Near military base. Itaewon does have some shops [. . .] Itaewon is located near a US military base, so don’t mind the soldiers in camouflage wandering around town. At night time, Itaewon transforms itself [. . .] One of the native Koreans told me that most Korean girls do not hang around in that area, afraid to be mistaken as a prostitute. (February 22, 2005) Itaewon is perhaps the most famous shopping area for foreigners in Korea. (January 13, 2006) Itaewon: Buying a Custom-Made Suit in Itaewon. (May 6, 2007) Itaewon: Very Touristy and Expensive, not a Sample of Korea. The Itaewon shopping area covers a 1.4 km in length [. . .] The area has a vibrant night life scene with many bars and nightclubs. (July 24, 2008) Itaewon: Special Tourism Shopping Zone of Seoul (April 4, 2011) 6 All citations are taken from http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/South_Korea/Soul_ tukpyolsi/Seoul-1058426/Shopping-Seoul-Itaewon-BR-1.html (accessed December, 2014), which is an interactive site aimed at sharing travel knowledge, which includes chat, forums, travelogues, photos, and maps. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 45 Although one reviewer describes Itaewon as an unexpected treasure trove, most of the reviews show that tourists’ experience of Itaewon is superfi- cial and fragmented, alienated from its memories and ongoing history just like the images of the city in the tourist books. They just experience Itaewon as a non-place where things are sold and bought. Considering the general purpose of tourist books, it can be said that the translation of Itaewon that is circulated and reproduced has directed tourists’ pattern of consuming the city. The city is, of course, a place where things are traded, but it is not only a place where things are traded. As Calvino’s Invisible Cities suggests, a city is an assemblage of memory, desire, signs, names, and other features. So what is traded is not only things but also memories, desires, signs, names, and other things, as shown by Invisible Cities’ Euphemia: You do not come to Euphemia only to buy and sell, but also because at night, by the fires all around the market, seated on sacks or barrels or stretched out on pile of car- pets, at each word that one man says—such as “wolf,” “sister,” “hidden treasure,” “battle,” “scabies,” “lovers”—the others tell, each one, his tale of wolves, sisters, treasures, sca- bies, lovers, battles. And you know that in the long journey ahead of you, when to keep awake against the camel’s swaying or the junk’s rocking, you start summoning up your memories one by one, your wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other battles, on your return from Euphemia, the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every equinox. (Calvino 1972/1974, 36–37) Itaewon is also a place that has its memories, desires, signs, and names, and is the place where those memories, desires, signs, and names are traded; thus it deserves to be known for various reasons, not just as a selling place. So the experience of the city could be more complex than simply trading things. The fragmented experience together with the reproduced image has produced a negative image about Itaewon, so that it loses its attraction as a tourist site. Furthermore, as neighboring commercial areas are created, Itae- won has also lost its merits as a shopping area. Realizing the risk, the gov- ernment designated the area a special tourism district in 1997 and decided to hold the Itaewon Global Village Festival twice a year in an attempt to revive Itaewon as a site of dynamic cultural exchanges. conclusion In the tourism industry, cities are rearranged according to the economic principles of commercialism in a capitalist society. Cities can be classified as a sacred city, a fashion city, a commercial city, and so on, and this clas- sification is translated spatially or verbally, creating a representative image of the city. 46 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 3. Different views of Itaewon Tourist books are one of the media where cities are verbally trans- lated. Itaewon has been verbally translated as a shopping and entertainment area in tourist books, and such a translated image has been consumed among tourists. However, this image has been fragmented, and so has been the expe- rience of tourists. The experience of cities may be more multiple and more multilateral than the one the tourist books can produce as shown in the description of the city of Irene in Invisible Cities: If you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes. For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene. (Calvino 1972/1974, 125) isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 47 4. Itaewon, historical view Therefore, cities cannot be fixed to a single image or translation. The various translations of the name of Itaewon itself—foreigners’ village, village for being pregnant with a foreigner’s child, village for pear trees—show that the area cannot be translated into one fixed image. The inherent and unique properties of Itaewon have been formed by the totality of geographical and historical moments. Itaewon has been a place for travelers and trading, a space of trauma caused by the conflictive history of Korea, a foreigners’ village, a foreign land within the country, a colonized space, a space of freedom and resistance, a deterritorialized zone, a window onto Western culture, a space of conflicts and solidarity, a space for cultural translation, and so on. The area has accumulated its memories throughout history while being repeatedly rewrit- ten, functioning as “a culture-generator.” Indeed, regarding cities as “culture-generators,” Lotman says: The city is a complex semiotic mechanism, a culture-generator, but it carries out this function only because it is a melting-pot of texts and codes, belonging to all kinds of languages and levels. The essential semiotic polyglottism of every city is what makes it so productive of semiotic encounters. The city, being the place where different national, social, and stylistic codes and texts confront each other, is the place of hybridization, recodings, semiotic translations, all of which makes it into a powerful generator of new information. (Lotman 1990, 194) Itaewon has been, to use Lotman’s words “the place of hybridization, recodings, semiotic translations” (Lotman 1990, 194). However, a selective translation of such a city in the tourist books has focused on the fragmented image in the process of the commodification of the city as a tourist site. This fragmented image has been reproduced during past decades, fixing the image to Itaewon and obstructing cognition of the totality or the whole nature of the 48 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 city. This way, translation may be damaging to cities especially when a dis- torted image obtains authority through reproduction. As a culture-generator, a city deserves its proper translation. <References> Augé, Marc. 1995. Non-places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermoder- nity. Translated by John Howe. London: Verso. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bewes, Timothy. 2002. Reification or the Anxiety of Late Capitalism. London: Verso. Calvino, Italo. 1972. Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver (1974). Florida: Har- court Brace & Company. Chambers, Iain. 2012. “The Translated City.” Translation 1: 101–106. Choi, Jong-il. 2003. 이태원에 나타난 아메리카나이제이션에 관한 연구 (A Study on “Amer- icanization” expressed in Itaewon space). Unpublished thesis. Seoul Nation- al University. Fowler, Edward. 1992. “Rendering Words, Traversing Cultures: On the Art and Politics of Translating Modern Japanese Fiction.” Journal of Japanese Studies 18: 1–44. Han, Heu-suk. 2001. 용산 속의 전쟁사와 군사문화 (War history and military culture within Yongsan). Seoul: Yongsan Cultural Council. Han, Suzanne Crowder. 1989. Seoul: a Pictorial Guidebook. Host of the ’86 Asian Games and ’88 Olympics. Seoul: Hollym. Hoefer, Hans, and et al. 1981. Insight Guides: Korea. Hong Kong: Apa Productions. Im, Myung Soo. 1981. Tour in Seoul. Seoul: Saenggaksa. Jang, Hak-jin. 2000. 이태원 상업가로 매력요소 분석에 관한 연구 (Analysis of merits of Itae- won as a commercial district). Unpublished thesis. Seoul National University. Kim, Chunsung. 2004. 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Spec- tator Guide10—Venue Cities in Korea. Seoul: KOWOC. Le Bas, Tom. 2007. Insight Guides: South Korea. 8th edition. London: Insight Guides. Lee, Cecilia Hae-Jin. 2010. Frommer’s South Korea. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Lee, Na-young, and Min-yoo Jung. 2010. “탈/식민성의 공간, 이태원과 한국의 대중음 악 – 이태원 ‘클럽’들의 형성과 변화과정을 중심으로 (1950–1991)” (History of popular music and (re)formation of ‘clubs’ at Post/Colonial Space, Itaewon in South Korea, 1950–1991).” Society and History 87: 191–229. Lee, No-mi. 2011. “국내 외국인 소수집단 거주지의 갈등과 연대 – 이태원 무슬림 거주지를 중 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 49 심으로” (A study on conflict and solidarity in foreign settlement—focused on Itaewon Muslim Settlement). Korean Culture Study 21(0): 237–263. Lotman, Yuri M. 1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Translated by Ann Shukman. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Lukács, Georg. 1971. History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nilsen, Robert. 2009. South Korea. Berkeley, CA: Avalon Travel. Niranjana, Tejaswini. 1992. Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkeley: University of California Press. Oh, Yeong-su. 1963. “Anna’s Will.” The Complete Works of Oh Yeong-su. Seoul: Hyundaeseogwan. 263–330. Paxton, Norbert. 2008. The Rough Guide to Korea. London: Rough Guides. Robinson, Martin, and Jason Zahorchak. 2009. Seoul. City Guide. London: Lonely Planet. Rybczynski, Witold. 1995. City Life: Urban Expectations in the New World. New York: Scribner’s. Saccone, Richard .1994. Travel Korea Your Way. New Jersey: Hollym. Seoul Development Institute. 2001. 이태원 장소 마케팅 전략연구 (Study on marketing strategies for Itaewon). Seoul: Seoul Development Institute. Shin, Ju-baek. 2007. “용산과 일본군 용산기지의 변화 (Changes of Yongsan and Japa- nese Military Base in Yongsan) (1884–1945).” Seoul Studies 29: 189–218. Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in Translation. London: Routledge. SMG (Seoul Metropolitan Government). 1998. Visitors Guide. Seoul Korea. Seoul: SMG. Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in a Postcolonial Context. Manchester: St. Je- rome. Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002. Translation and Power. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Yi. Heu-su, et al. 2008. “서울 이태원동 일대의 이슬람 타운화 과정에 관한 연구 (Study on the Process of Islamic Town Formation in Itaewon).” Korean Association of Islamic Studies Journal 18(2): 47-86. Yi, Hyeok-jin, and Ho-tak Oh. 1994. “관광산업으로서의 쇼핑상품에 관한 이론적 고찰 (Theoretical Approaches to Shopping Items as Tourism Industry).” Regional Development Journal 19: 21-52. <Hunam Yun> She is a translation scholar and translator. She first obtained her BA in English literature at Korea University, Seoul. After studying translation studies at Warwick University, UK, she obtained her MA and PhD in Translation Studies in 2000 and 2011 respectively. She has taught translation theory and practice for over fifteen years at Hongik University in Seoul and translated Walter Scott, Andersen, George MacDonald, and Beatrix Potter into Korean. Her main topics in- clude globalization and translation, literary translation, drama translation, translational norms, and screen translation and she authored Introduc- tion to Translation Theory and Practice. She now focuses on writing and translating while living in New York. 50 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451

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Of Translational Spaces and Multilingual Cities: Reading the Sounds of Lagos in Sefi Atta’s Swallows and Everything Good Will Come* Elena Rodríguez Murphy University of Salamanca, Spain [email protected] <Abstract> Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number of Nigerian au- thors who in their writing have centered on portraying the different sounds and accents of one of Nigeria’s most diverse and vibrant cities, Lagos. This article aims to analyze the way in which Sefi Atta, a leading voice in what has come to be known as “the third generation of Nigerian writers,” describes in her novels Swallow (2005) and Everything Good Will Come (2010) the manner in which some of Nigeria’s vernacular languages, such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, as well as Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin, permeate this incredibly plu- ral and multilingual city where varying ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups have been made to live together in the same translational space as a result of the colonial era. As Achille Mbembe (2010) has underlined, one of the main bequests of colonialism has been the unequal development of the different countries and regions of Africa. This situa- tion has led to an uneven distribution of people within multiple spaces. In this way, cities such as Lagos, Dakar, Accra, or Abidjan have actually become major metropolitan centers where interaction and negotiations among diverse peoples are commonplace and transcul- tural forms of different elements such as modes of dress, music, or language are constantly emerging. Without a doubt, translation is a main feature of coexistence in Lagos given its multilingual environment and the way in which various ethnic and linguistic communities share everyday life. “Language is part of the audible surface of the city.” (Cronin and Simon 2014, 120) in translation: reading the sounds of the city Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number of Nigerian au- thors who in their writing have centered on portraying the different sounds and accents of one of Nigeria’s most diverse and vibrant cities, Lagos. In this * This article is part of the research project entitled “Violencia simbólica y traducción: retos en la representación de identidades fragmentadas en la sociedad global” [Symbolic Violence and Translation: Challenges in the Representation of Fragmented Identities within the Global Soci- ety] (FFI2015-66516-P; MINECO/FEDER, UE), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 51 regard, as Toni Kan Onwordi has underlined in a brief description included on the cover of Sefi Atta’s second novel Swallow, “no contemporary Nigerian writer is better than Sefi Atta at evoking the smells, sounds and the sheer madness of this sprawling cosmopolitan city of Lagos.” Along with Chris Aba- ni, Helon Habila, Maik Nwosu, Jude Dibia, and Akin Adesokan, and other members of what has come to be known as “the third generation of Nigerian writers,” in her narrative Sefi Atta ably describes the way in which diverse peoples negotiate everyday life on the city’s populated streets. Although there are many ways in which one may try to understand the workings of urban reality, analyzing “the practice of everyday life” (see De Certeau 1984) in a postcolonial city such as Lagos through language and translation can offer new and interesting perspectives in various fields of study. Indeed, Atta’s novels Everything Good Will Come (2005) and Swallow (2010) provide the reader with a valuable linguistic experience of Lagos through the inclusion in her texts of the multilingual transactions that permeate the city. As Simon interestingly points out in her book Cities in Translation, Much of the abundant literature in recent decades has emphasized the visual aspects of urban life. And yet the audible surface of languages, each city’s signature blend of dialects and accents, is an equally crucial element of urban reality [. . .] “hearing” introduces the observer into layers of social, economic and cultural complexity. (Si- mon 2012, 1) Thus, reading in Atta’s fiction the sounds and diverse range of accents that characterize the city brings the reader closer to the complexity of its lin- guistic reality, in which translation appears as an indispensable tool which has gradually allowed for the emergence of what McLaughlin has termed “new urban language varieties”: The burgeoning growth of Africa’s cities that began during the latter part of the colo- nial period and continues with increasing momentum into the twenty-first century has given rise to a multiplicity of innovative and often transformative cultural practices that are associated primarily with urban life, not least of which is the emergence of new urban language varieties. (McLaughlin 2009, 1) Lagos is, without a doubt, a multilingual and multiethnic city that can actually be defined as “a translation space [where] the focus is not on mul- tiplicity but on interaction” (Simon 2012, 7). Therefore, given its multilingual environment and the way in which various ethnic and linguistic communities have come to share its everyday life, translation can clearly be considered one of the main features of activity in Lagos. In this way, beyond dichotomist un- derstandings, translation becomes an indispensable medium through which a common coexistence may, although not always successfully, be negotiated: 52 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Multilingual contexts put pressure on the traditional vocabulary of transfer and its concepts of source and destination. Communities which have had a longstanding re- lationship inhabit the same landscape and follow similar rhythms of daily life. Facing one another across the space of the city, they are not “foreign” and so translation can no longer be configured only as a link between a familiar and a foreign culture, be- tween a local original and a distant destination, between one monolingual community and another. [. . .] The Other remains within constant earshot. The shared understand- ings of this coexistence change the meaning of translation from a gesture of benev- olence to a process through which a common civility is negotiated. (Simon 2012, 7) lagos: a multilingual and multiethnic megacity In his book Sortir de la grande nuit (2010), Achille Mbembe recently under- lined the fact that one of the main bequests of colonialism has been the un- equal development of the different countries and regions of Africa. In fact, “[n]o major coastal cities existed in Western Africa before the colonial period. However, as a result of the mostly maritime-based logistics of colonialism, countries in the sub-region began an urbanization path strongly associated with the coast” (United Nations Human Settlements Programme [UN-Hab- itat] 2014, 99). This situation has gradually led to an uneven distribution of people within multiple spaces, hence cities like Lagos, Dakar, Accra, and Ab- idjan have actually become major metropolitan centers where interaction and negotiations are commonplace and transcultural forms of different elements such as modes of dress, music, or language are constantly emerging. It be- comes apparent, therefore, that in many African cities such as Lagos attaining even the minimum often requires complex styles of staying attuned to the shifting intersections of gestures, excitements, languages, anxieties, determinations and comportments enacted across markets, streets and other venues. The city is a field of affect where specific dispositions and attainments are contingent upon the ways actors’ bodies, histories and capacities are mobilized and enacted. (Simone 2007, 237) As Ato Quayson explains in regard to Oxford St., in the Ghanaian capital of Accra the streets in many African cities may be seen as archives, rather than just geographical locations, where it is possible to find “a rich and intricate relationship between tradition and modernity, religion and secularity as well as local and transnational circuits of images and ideas” (Quayson 2010, 72). Lagos is a burgeoning city, the largest in Nigeria (Falola and Genova 2009, 202), and, according to the figures published by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in its 2014 report The State of African Cities 2014. Re-imagining Sustainable Urban Transitions, it “has recent- ly joined the ranks of the world’s megacities” (2014, 17). Lagos has undoubt- edly been shaped by its history, not only as one of the most important ports isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 53 in West Africa from the eighteenth century onwards, but also as the federal capital of Nigeria (1914–1991). In this respect, although Abuja has been the federal capital of the country since 1991, Lagos, whose population is expected to rise to over eighteen million by 2025 (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 23–25), is now the center of one of the largest urban areas in Western Africa and continues to be a main hub in the southwestern region of Nigeria for the circulation of peoples as well as goods. Growing urbaniza- tion and rural–urban migration are responsible for the cultural heterogeneity of this major Western African city, which was at one point described “as an ancient city inhabited by the Awori and Ijebu people, both subgroups of the Yoruba” (Falola and Genova 2009, 202). Nevertheless, as a result of Nigeria’s national history, Lagos is currently populated by varying and distinct ethnic groups. Although there is still a Yoruba majority, it can be said that “Nigeria’s myriad ethnic and religious identities are found throughout the city’s neigh- borhoods, usually managing to coexist, though periodically sparking tensions” (Lewis 2009, 115). The artificial boundaries which were drawn when Nigeria was created by British administrators in 1914,1 have given rise to an incredibly heteroge- neous space both in ethnical and linguistic terms. As can be seen in the map below, there is an extremely wide range of ethnic groups which, as a conse- quence of colonialism, have come to inhabit the same nation; this has often provoked ethnic and religious tensions, the Biafran War (1967–1970) being a case in point: The Nigeria of today [...] is a relatively new creation, dating back to the early 20th century. Boundaries prior to that time included numerous chieftaincies and empires that expanded and contracted geographically without regard to modern Nigeria’s boundaries. For the early peoples of Nigeria, only geographic boundaries, such as the Sahara Desert or Atlantic Ocean, might have kept them in place. Western European powers competing for territory and political control in Africa during the late-19th cen- tury determined Nigeria’s boundaries to suit their needs. Much of Nigeria’s western, eastern, and northern borders are the results of rivalry and compromise by Euro- pean powers. As a result, ethnic groups and former kingdoms straddle boundaries. [...] Modern-day Nigeria is a conglomeration of hundreds of ethnic groups, spanning across different geographical zones. [...] To identify a single Nigerian culture is diffi- cult. (Falola and Genova 2009, xxx-xxxi) 1 The name ‘Nigeria’ is credited to the colonial editor of the Times of London, Flora Shaw, who later married the new entity’s governor, Lord Frederick Lugard. The name stuck. But the new name was not accompanied by any sense of national unity. [. . .] The British yoking together of so many different peoples into a huge state [. . .] shaped the future of about a fifth of Africa’s sub-Saharan population” (Campbell 2013, 2). 54 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 From a demographic point of view, within Nigeria the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbo, and the Yoruba can be considered to be the largest of the ethnic groups. According to Iyoha (2010, 169), around 29% of the population is Hausa-Fulani who live mainly in the northern regions in cities such as Kano, Sokoto, and Kaduna. The Yoruba, more or less 21%, are based primarily in the southwest of the country, in cities such as Ife-Ife, Lagos, and Ibadan. On the other hand, the Igbo, approximately 18% of the population, inhabit the areas situated in the southeast of Nigeria, for example in Port Harcourt, Owerri, and Enugu. These aforementioned groups can, however, be said to live all around the country. Other, numerically smaller ethnic groups include the Tiv, the Nupe, the Igala, and the Jukun in the Middle Belt region and the Ijaw, the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, the Ogoni, and the Ibibio in the Niger Delta. They have long been demanding greater political and economic representation within the national space, as Saro-Wiwa has pointed out on many occasions in regard to the Ogoni people: Colonialism is not a matter only of British, French, or European dominance over Af- ricans. In African society, there is and has always been colonial oppression. In my case, the Ogoni had never been conquered by their Igbo neighbors. But the fact of British colonialism brought both peoples together under a single administration for the first time. And when the British colonialists left, the numerically inferior Ogoni were consigned to the rule of the more numerous Igbos, who always won elections in the Region since ethnic loyalties and cultural habits were and continue to be strong throughout Nigeria. (Saro-Wiwa 1992, 155) Not only is Nigeria diverse in terms of its ethnicity, but it also boasts an enormous variety of languages and dialects—more than four hundred ac- cording to Garuba (2001, 11) and more than five hundred according to the isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 55 Ethnologue database (Simons and Fennig 2017). As Adekunle (1997) and Adeg- bija (2000, 2004) highlight, multilingualism is a common feature of many West African regions, and Nigeria can be said to be the country where the largest number of different languages is spoken. Together with English, which is used as an official language and is employed in diverse forms, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba have become the three major national languages.2 Moreover, a wide range of languages and dialects spoken by the different Nigerian ethnic groups is to be found: Apart from the indigenous languages, which are the mother tongues of Nigerians, there also exist non-indigenous languages. They include English, which has become a second language; Nigerian Pidgin (the language in Nigeria with probably the larg- est number of speakers), which derives from the contact between English and the indigenous languages; Classical Arabic, which is learnt by Muslims; and other for- eign languages such as French, German, and Russian, which are taken as academic subjects at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. (Igboanusi 2002, 13–14) Faced with this highly complex web of languages, many Nigerians have resorted to both English and Nigerian Pidgin (NP)3 as a way of favoring communication with each other: Originally mainly restricted to trade, Pidgin has spread to become the language of market places, sports, the army and police force, taxi drivers, playgrounds, university campuses, and generally of interethnic discourse in lower-class and informal con- texts. In recent decades it has therefore been utilized for mass communication—in advertising, political campaigning, government propaganda, announcements, and mass media, e.g. news broadcasts on the radio [. . .] It is labeled “the most widely spoken language in Nigeria” [. . .] Though the language still carries a strong stigma in the eyes of many educated Nigerians, many others have come to use it in informal conversations, also in banks, offices, and businesses, utilizing its ethnographic role as a code of friendliness and proximity. (Schneider 2007, 205–206) Nonetheless, it is interesting to take into consideration that whilst NP and the vernacular languages are normally used in informal and familiar conversations, administrative and educational matters are mainly dealt with in English: “For a great many speakers from different groups, English is [...] valued as a language of prestige, a sign of education, and a mark of modernity” 2 “The dominance of English in the Nigerian Constitution continued until 1979, when the Con- stitution that emerged under a military regime specifically provided for the use of the three major languages (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) in addition to English for proceedings in the Na- tional Assembly: ‘The business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English, and in Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made therefore (Section 51)’” (Bamgbose 1996, 358). 3 It is important to bear in mind that, as Igboanusi points out, “Nigerian English” (NE) and “Ni- gerian Pidgin” (NP) are considered to be different languages: “Nigerian Pidgin is different from Nigerian English (the variety of English used in Nigeria). However, the line between them is sometimes difficult to draw, particularly at the lexical level” (Igboanusi 2008, 78). 56 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 (Simpson 2008,194). According to different critics (Bamgbose 1971; Bamgbose 1996, 366; Igboanusi 2002; Gut 2004, 813), only a small percentage of the Ni- gerian population may understand or speak English, but, despite the fact that in recent years there have been repeated attempts to increase the importance of the vernacular languages, it continues to be used on a regular basis, espe- cially by the local elites: As ex-colonial people, Nigerians hold English in great awe. They so overrate English that literacy in English is considered the only mark of being an educated person. For example, for them science and technology are not within the reach of any person who cannot master the English language. Not surprisingly, therefore, the language, unlike any of the Nigerian mother tongues, is regarded as being politically neutral for adoption by the people. [. . .] Consequently, political expediency makes the English lan- guage the ready language for adoption for national literacy today. (Afolayan 2001, 83) Just as in other African countries, the increasing use of new technologies such as the Internet and cable TV among specific sectors of Nigerian society has resulted in a growing interest on the part of the younger generation in learning the English language. This situation has been skillfully described by the widely acclaimed Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who, on many occasions, has stated that English is no longer considered by some as a “foreign” language, but rather as a Nigerian language adapted to the Nigerian cultural context: I’d like to say something about English [...] which is simply that English is mine. Some- times we talk about English in Africa as if Africans have no agency, as if there is not a distinct form of English spoken in Anglophone African countries. I was educated in it; I spoke it at the same time as I spoke Igbo. My English-speaking is rooted in a Nigerian experience and not in a British or American or Australian one. I have taken ownership of English. (Adichie, quoted in Uzoamaka 2008, 2) The general trend encountered in multilingual communities consists in usage gradually determining the role each language has in particular domains, and Nigeria is no exception. Although English remains the most important language in education and matters pertaining to government and administration, the vernacu- lar languages—such as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo as well as NP—are used primarily in informal contexts. Taking these matters into consideration, it is important to underline the “diglossic,” or rather “poliglossic,” relations that, as Zabus (2007) and Bandia (2008) point out, have been established between the different languages that are employed in many of the countries in West Africa, including Nigeria:4 4 It is interesting to mention here that, according to Warren-Rothlin, in Nigeria digraphia is also a social reality which can result in social divisions (Warren-Rothlin 2012, 6–7). There also exist multiple orthographies and writing scripts within the country (ibid. 7). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 57 For our purposes, the sociolinguistic concept of diglossia needs to be expanded to include not only Ferguson’s genetically linked “high” and “low” varieties (to which he erroneously attributed scripturality and orality, respectively) but unrelated languages as well. Indeed, in a country like Ghana, Ewe is not a dialect of English and has a written literature of its own but, functionally, Ewe is to English what a dominated or subordinate language is to a dominant or superordinate language. [. . .] Also, the West African auxiliary languages resulting from languages in contact such as pidgins have a diglossic relation to the dominant European language that is similar to the more conventional relation between a prestige or power language and its regional dialect. Conversely, a statistically dominant language like Wolof in Senegal can be consid- ered as being hegemonic like French and would thus be in diglossia with a minor language like Ndût. (Zabus 2007, 14) In the case of the Nigerian linguistic landscape, English has gradually come to be accepted as the dominant language in some domains while specific forms of some of the vernacular languages such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba have been gaining ground in others. In many instances, however, these vernac- ular languages are in a diglossic situation in relation to the English language. Likewise, although it is now defined as “the most widely spoken language in Nigeria,” NP appears to be in a diglossic situation with respect to English. It is also important to bear in mind that the three major vernacular languages can be categorized as hegemonic vis-à-vis those considered as minor. Thus, faced with the linguistic variation characteristic of a territory like Nigeria, it may be said that, in Zabus’s own words, “[w]e can therefore advance the notions of ‘triglossia’ or even ‘polyglossia,’ and ‘intertwined diglossias’” (Zabus 2007, 14). The Nigerian cultural and linguistic situation that we have been describing, although very succinctly, is reflected in the city of Lagos where, as illustrated by the different examples that follow, diverse languages, and therefore translation, are used on a daily basis, not only in the ever-chang- ing “discourse ecologies” (Quayson 2010) that exist on its streets, but also in the conversational exchanges that take place in its crowded markets, “motor parks,” taxis or buses. In this regard, in their work both Adedun and Shodipe have underlined the fact that, although most people in Lagos use Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin in their daily interactions, Hausa, Igbo, and other vernacular languages together with English are also a common feature in this cosmopol- itan African city: The nature of Lagos, which accommodates various ethnic, and religious groups, ac- counts for the present state of its language repertoire. [. . .] Without any doubt, Lagos is a potpourri of different peoples and tribes and these have had a noticeable impact on the linguistic repertoire, language choice, and language shift in the area. (Adedun and Shodipe 2011, 131) 58 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 the sounds of lagos in swallow and everything good will come One of the main characteristics of Atta’s work, as mentioned previously, is the accuracy with which she manages to portray the city of Lagos and the wide range of sounds that fill its streets and buildings. Both in her first novel, Every- thing Good Will Come (EG in the citations, below), and in her second novel, Swallow (SW in the citations, below), in addition to other works, Atta de- scribes different parts of the city along with its diverse languages and accents: Our continent was a tower of Babel, Africans speaking colonial languages: French, English, Portuguese, and their own indigenous languages. Most house help in Lagos came from outside Lagos; from the provinces and from neighboring African coun- tries. If we didn’t share a language, we communicated in Pidgin English. (EG, 212) Sheri’s younger siblings greeted me as I walked across the cement square. “Hello, Sister Enitan.” “Long time no see.” “Barka de Sallah, Sister Enitan.” (EG, 247) Street hawkers sat behind wooden stalls in a small market . . . They were Fulani peo- ple from the North. The men wore white skull caps and the women wrapped chiffon scarves around their heads. [. . .] They talked loud in their language, and together they sounded like mourners ululating. (EG, 198) Baba came to collect his monthly salary [. . .] “Compliments of the season,” I said. “How are you?” I spoke to him in Yoruba, addressing him by the formal you, because he was an elder. He responded with the same formality because I was his employer. Yoruba is a lan- guage that doesn’t recognize gender—he the same as she, him the same as her—but respect is always important. (EG, 312). In her fiction, Atta includes many instances in which translation ap- pears as an indispensable tool and a necessary medium through which ev- eryday life may be negotiated in Lagos, a place where diverse peoples and languages have come to share a common space. For instance, when Enitan, the main character in Everything Good Will Come, is sent to Royal College in La- gos and encounters girls from varying ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, cul- tural and linguistic translation becomes indispensable on a day-to-day basis: I met Moslem girls [. . .] Catholic girls [. . .] Anglican girls, Methodist girls. One girl, San- gita, was Hindu [. . .] I learned also about women in my country, from Zaria, Katsina, Kaduna who decorated their skin with henna dye and lived in purdah [. . .] Uncle Alex had always said our country was not meant to be one. The British had drawn a circle on the map of West Africa and called it a country. Now I understood what he meant. The girls I met at Royal College [in Lagos] were so different. I could tell a girl’s ethnic- ity even before she opened her mouth. Hausa girls had softer hair because of their Arab heritage. Yoruba girls like me usually had heart-shaped faces and many Igbo girls were fair-skinned; we called them Igbo Yellow. We spoke English, but our native tongues were as different as French and Chinese. So, we mispronounced names and spoke English with different accents. Some Hausa girls could not “fronounce” the isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 59 letter P. Some Yoruba girls might call these girls “Ausas,” and eggs might be “heggs.” Then there was that business with the middle-belters who mixed up their L’s and R’s. (EG, 44–45) Moreover, when Enitan meets one of her neighbors, a Muslim girl named Sheri, they are each faced with both cultural and linguistic translation. Since they come from different ethnic communities and religious backgrounds, Enitan, who is Yoruba, and Sheri, a “half-caste” with Hausa roots, need to understand one another’s cultural and linguistic circumstances before they can become friends: [Sheri] was funny, and she was also rude, but that was probably because she had no home training. She yelled from our gates. “I’ll call you aburo, little sister, from now on. And I’ll beat you at ten-ten, wait and see.” (EG, 16) The woman in the photograph by [Sheri’s] bedside table was her grandmother. “Alha- ja,” Sheri said. “She’s beautiful.” [...] There were many Alhajas in Lagos. This one wasn’t the first woman to go on hajj to Mec- ca, but for women like her, who were powerful within their families and communities, the title became their name. [...] She pressed the picture to her chest and told me of her life in downtown Lagos. She lived in a house opposite her Alhaja’s fabric store. She went to a school where children didn’t care to speak English. After school, she helped Alhaja in her store and knew how to measure cloth. I listened, mindful that my life didn’t extend beyond Ikoyi Park. What would it be like to know downtown as Sheri did, haggle with customers, buy fried yams and roasted plantains from street hawkers, curse Area Boys and taxi cabs who drove too close to the curb. [...] Sheri was a Moslem and she didn’t know much about Christianity. [...] I asked why Moslems didn’t eat pork. “It’s a filthy beast,” she said, scratch- ing her hair. I told her about my own life. (EG, 33–34) As Enitan mentions in several parts of the novel, although Hausa resonates in the streets and markets of Lagos, without translation into other languages it is not always understood by the Yoruba majority or by people from other ethnic communities. That is why, in many cases, people from di- verse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds who live in the city translate their vernacular languages into Pidgin English or English: Our gate man unlocked the gates. His prayer beads hung from his wrist. I realized I must have disturbed his prayer. Soon it would be the Moslem fasting period, Rama- dan. “Sanu, madam,” he said. “Sanu, mallam,” I replied in the only Hausa I knew. (EG, 201) In my first year of marriage, there was a hawker who sat by the vigilante gates of our state. She was one of those Fulani people from the north. We never said a word to each other: I could understand her language no more than she could mine. (EG, 243) This situation is also underlined by another Nigerian writer, Buchi Emecheta, in her well-known novel The Joys of Motherhood: The early market sellers were making their way to the stalls in single file. [Nnu Ego] 60 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 in her haste almost knocked the poor man down [. . .] There followed a loud curse, and an unintelligible outpouring from the mouth of the beggar in his native Hausa language, which few people in Lagos understood. (Emecheta 1994, 9) In the colorful markets of Lagos and other African cities, peoples from varied ethnic and linguistic environments constantly mingle and in- teract. Markets, as Simone puts it, are “the site for incessant performance, for feigned connections and insider deals, for dissimulation of all kinds, for launching impressions and information, rumors and advice” (Simone 2008, 81). Hence, given the mélange of languages and cultures, “[t]he resulting con- fusion about what is really going on breeds its own makeshift interpreters, who pretend to have real skills of discernment and can steer customers to the best price, quality, or hidden deal” (Simone 2008, 81). In the extract below, taken from Everything Good Will Come, Enitan, who was brought up in Ikoyi, one of Lagos’s affluent neighborhoods,5 high- lights the fact that class differences are extremely important in the city and can greatly influence the way in which people talk to one another: Pierre, my present house boy, began to wash the vegetables [. . .] I needed Pierre to place the okras on the chopping board. “Ici,” I said pointing. “Over there, please.” Pierre raised a brow. “Là bas, madame?” “My friend,” I said. “You know exactly what I mean.” It was my fault for attempting to speak French to him. [. . .] “I beg, put am for there,” I said [in Nigerian Pidgin]. [. . .] The general help we called house boys or house girls. [. . .] They helped with daily chores in exchange for food, lodgings, and a stipend. Most were of working age, barely educated. [. . .] (EG, 212) In this particular situation, because Pierre, the house boy, comes from the neighboring Republic of Benin, Enitan tries to translate her orders into French. Nevertheless, in the end, she resorts to a translation into Pidgin En- glish, which, as stated earlier in the article, is the language normally used as the medium of communication among peoples who belong to different ethnic and linguistic groups in Lagos. On other occasions, however, depending on the educational level of the speakers and the specific context in which interaction takes place, when 5 According to Fourchard (2012a, 68), this comes as a direct result of the colonial era, when the city of Lagos was divided into a residential area reserved for Europeans (Ikoyi) and a commer- cial area in which Europeans lived, worked, traded, and interacted with Africans (Lagos Island). In this regard, Lagos, like other contemporary African cities, may be described as what Triulzi (2002, 81) refers to as “the ‘site of memory’ of colonisation, with its divisions (the colonial city was conceived and grew opposite to and separate from the native town), its visible remains (buildings, town plans, statues) and its obligatory ‘synthesis’ of tradition and modernity.” isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 61 people whose ethnicities differ speak with one another, they translate their vernacular languages into English, instead of Pidgin English: We [Rose and Tolani] always spoke in English because she couldn’t speak Yoruba and I couldn’t understand her own language, Ijaw. (SW, 8) Enitan and Tolani, the main protagonists of Everything Good and Swallow respectively, recount their stories in English yet, as Atta herself has pointed out (quoted in Rodríguez Murphy 2012, 107–108), it actually consists of a transcultural form of English (Rodríguez Murphy 2015b, 72), which is inscribed with Nigerian vernacular languages and expressions as well as with Nigerian cultural markers: “[Nigerian readers] tell me they enjoy seeing those kinds of Englishes in my work. They come up to me and say: ‘Oh, you really do know Nigeria, you really do know Lagos very well.’ They enjoy it” (Atta quoted in Rodríguez Murphy 2012, 108). In her work, Atta manages to reflect the different varieties of English used in Lagos. These varieties have come to be defined as NE, and now form part of the wide range of “World Englishes” (see Kachru 1992 and Kachru, Kachru, and Nelson 2006) or “New Englishes” (see Crystal 2003), in reference to local adaptations of the English language which suit specific cultural contexts. This can be seen in the following examples: Yellow Sheri’s afro was so fluffy, it moved as she talked [. . .] She had a spray of rashes and was so fair-skinned. People her color got called “Yellow Pawpaw” or “Yellow Banana” in school. (EG, 18) Peter Mukoro tapped my arm. “I was calling that lady, that yellow lady in the kitchen, but she ignored me. Tell her we need more rice. Please.” (EG, 125–126) I’d heard men say that women like Sheri didn’t age well: they wrinkled early like white women. It was the end of a narration that began when they first called her yellow banana, and not more sensible, I thought. (EG, 206) In diverse passages of Atta’s novels, we may observe that the word “yellow” has come to acquire a specific meaning in NE: “a NE way of describ- ing a fellow Black who is fairly light-skinned” (Igboanusi 2002, 303). Area boys “You won’t believe. We were having a peaceful protest, calling on the government to reconsider our demands, when we noticed a group in the crowd who did not belong to our union. [. . .] They were shouting insults and acting rowdy [. . .]” The people she was talking about had to be area boys. They waited for any protest so they could misbehave. (SW, 133) In this extract taken from Swallow, Atta uses the term “area boy,” a phrase now commonly heard in urban settings, which, in NE, makes reference to a job- 62 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 less young man who participates in criminal acts and is often involved in criminal activities. Such a term is one of many linguistic reflections of what, according to some critics (Fourchard 2012b, Lewis 2009), is now happening in the streets of the city where, for several decades, criminal activity has been on the increase. High-life music As he spoke, I fell asleep dreaming of him, an eleven-year-old boy with khaki shorts holding a rifle made of sticks, dancing to high-life music with his mother and learning how to drink palm-wine from his father’s calabash. (EG, 116-117) “High-life music,” sometimes referred to just as “highlife,” is a very well-known musical genre in the Western regions of Africa,6 “a brand of music style combining jazz and West African elements, popular in Nigeria and other West African countries. In BE, ‘high life’ denotes a style of life that involves spending a lot of money on entertainment, good food, expensive clothes, etc.” (Igboanusi 2002, 138). As Igboanusi remarks, it is important to take into con- sideration that there is a difference between the way the term is used in British English and the meaning it has come to acquire in Nigerian English. Not only “Highlife,” but also other types of transcultural Nigerian mu- sic such as apala or juju music are often mentioned in Atta’s novels. Along with language, another element that permeates daily life in Lagos and many Nigerian cities is music that, as in other countries on the African continent, has been adapted and translated to suit diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds: Through the fence we heard Akanni’s juju music. Sheri stuck her bottom out and began to wriggle. She dived lower and wormed up. (EG, 15) The street was narrow and juju music blared from a battered cassette player perched on a wooden stool. Street hawkers sat around selling boxes of sugar, bathing spong- es, tinned sardines, chewing sticks, cigarettes, and Bazooka Joe gum. (EG, 89) Lagos. The street on which we lived was named after a military governor. Our neigh- borhood smelled of burned beans and rotten egusi leaves. Juju and apala music, disco and reggae music jumped from the windows, and fluorescent blue cylinders lit up the entire place past midnight. (SW, 21) In her writing, Atta includes both NE and NP, and also the vernacu- lar languages with which she was brought up, Yoruba and Hausa. This helps situate the reader in Lagos’s translational spaces, where the sounds of different accents and languages share a common linguistic environment: 6 Although “highlife music” is a popular genre in West Africa, it is necessary to emphasize that each region has managed to maintain its own specificity: “Generally, as the music and its ac- companying highlife dance spread across West Africa, each region maintained its ethnic spec- ificity by composing songs in the local language, and some bands, especially the multinational ones, created compositions in English or pidgin English” (Ajayi-Soyinka 2008, 526). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 63 He pronounced his visions between chants that sounded like the Yoruba words for butterfly, dung beetle, and turkey: labalaba, yimiyimi, tolotolo. (EG, 10) Yoruba people believed in reincarnation. The Yoruba religion had a world for the living and another for spirits. There was a circle of life and other complex concepts regarding deity, royalty, and fate that I couldn’t fully understand. For anyone to understand the Yoruba cosmos was a challenge without the wisdom and guidance of a babalawo [. . .] (SW, 88) On the day of the Moslem festival, Id-el-fitr, I left home for the first time that month to break fast with the Bakares. [. . .] As I drove through their gates, I heard a ram bleat- ing in the back yard of the Bakare’s house. It had been tied to a mango tree for two weeks and would be slain for the Sallah feast. (EG, 245) “How’s your husband?” Mama Gani asked. Her gold tooth flashed. “He’s fine,” I said [. . .] “Still nothing about your father?” “Still nothing,” I said. She clapped her hands. “Insha Allah, nothing will happen to him, after the kindness he’s shown us.” (EG, 245) The multilingualism which is typical in Lagos makes communication based on translation and transculturation inevitable. The following dialogues from Everything Good Will Come and Swallow clearly illustrate this point: We heard a cry from the road. “Pupa! Yellow!” A taxi driver was leaning out of his window. [. . .] “Yes, you with the big yansh,” he shouted. Sheri spread her fingers at him. “Nothing good will come to you!” [. . .] “And you, Dudu,” the taxi driver said. Startled, I looked up. “Yes you with the black face. Where is your own yansh hiding?” I glared at him. “Nothing good will come to you.” He laughed with his tongue hanging out. “What, you’re turning up your nose at me? You’re not that pretty, either of you. Sharrap. Oh, sharrap both of you. You should feel happy that a man noticed you. If you’re not careful, I’ll sex you both.” Sheri and I turned our backs on him. (EG, 135-136) There was a strong smell of simmering palm oil in the flat. Rose was in the kitchen. [. . .] She laughed at my expression. “My sister,” she said. “You think say I no know how to cook or what?” “I’ve just seen Mrs. Durojaiye,” I said, shutting the door. “I saw her too.” “She says you visited her?” She clucked. “The woman done craze [. . .]” (SW, 135) On my way to the bus stop, I passed a group of women selling roasted corn under a breadfruit tree. [. . .] I heard two men discussing women. “Statuesque,” one of them said. “The first one is black and skinny, the second is yellow and fat. I can’t decide. I love them both. You think say I fit marry both of them?” (SW, 236) At the bus stop, an army officer with his stomach protruding over his belt parted the crowd to board a bus. “Single-file line,” he repeated and lifted his horsewhip to warn those who protested. [. . .] “Those who give orders,” I said in a voice loud enough for the others to hear. “Question them. You can’t just obey without thinking.” [. . .] “Oh, I hate people like this,” [a] woman said. “What is wrong with her? Move your 64 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 skinny self, sister.” [. . .] “Sister [. . .]. Move before I move you to one side, oh!” “Abi she’s deaf?” “Maybe she done craze.” “Sister, ‘dress oh!” “Yes, address yourself to the corner and continue to tanda for dat side with your body like bonga fish.” “Tss, keep shut. Don’t start another fight.” (SW, 188–189) Enitan’s and Tolani’s stories take place in a particular context which Atta succeeds in describing in great detail through a specific use of language that evokes, in the mind of the reader, the smells, images and languages which define the city of Lagos, where it is possible to come across interesting con- trasts and a wide range of lifestyles as well as “cultural inscriptions [. . .] seen in mottos and slogans on lorries, cars, pushcarts and other mobile surfaces that may be encountered on the street” (Quayson 2010, 73): Millions lived in Lagos [. . .] Most days it felt like a billion people walking down the labyrinth of petty and main streets: beggar men, secretaries, government contractors (thieves, some would say), Area Boys, street children [. . .] There was a constant din of cars, popping exhaust pipes, and engines, commuters scrambling for canary-yellow buses and private transport vans we called kabukabu and danfo. They bore bible epi- taphs: Lion of Judah, God Saves [. . .] There were countless billboards: Pepsi, Benson and Hedges, Daewoo, Indomie Instant Noodles, Drive Carefully, Fight Child Abuse [. . .] a taxi driver making lurid remarks; people cursing themselves well and good; All right-Sirs, our urban praise singers or borderline beggars, who hailed any person for money. Chief! Professor! Excellency! [. . .] My favourite time was early morning, before people encroached, when the air was cool and all I could hear was the call from Cen- tral Mosque: Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar. (EG, 98–99) In the different examples cited above, one can appreciate to what extent Atta accomplishes a very creative and engaging use of language in her novels. She skillfully manages to transmit the specific characteristics of the cultures that have come to constitute her identity;7 similarly she also succeeds in representing the diverse range of accents that define the city of Lagos as a translational space, where “[a]ccents, code-switching and translation are to be valued for the ways in which they draw attention to the complexities of difference, for the ways in which they interrupt the self-sufficiencies of ‘mono’ cultures” (Simon 2012, 1). 7 “I had an unusual upbringing [. . .] and was surrounded by people from other ethnic groups and religions. Many Nigerian writers I meet feel that they are Yoruba, Igbo or something else, but I actually feel Nigerian and it comes out in my writing. I write about people who don’t have any strong ethnic allegiance or people who are in mixed marriages. [. . .] What I have picked up is language from different parts of the world and it comes out in my writing. I have to be very careful when I am writing in the voices of people who have not had my experiences. My second novel, Swallow, is written in the voice of a Yoruba woman, for instance. I couldn’t use language I had picked up here or in England” (Atta as cited in Collins 2007, 7). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 65 conclusion As several critics (Bandia 2008, Bandia as cited in Rodríguez Murphy 2015a, Gyasi 1999, Mehrez 1992, Inggs and Meintjes 2009) have rightly emphasized, the high rate of multilingualism or “polilingualism” (Bandia 2008, 136–137, Bandia as cited in Rodríguez Murphy 2015a, 149) which characterizes many of the African postcolonies,8 including Nigeria, is of great importance for translation studies in this day and age. Without a doubt, taking into account the ever-growing transculturation and transnationalization of cultures in our present-day global world, multilingualism can be considered an increasingly relevant feature both in literature and society: As a corollary of colonization, the displacement and migration of peoples brought about changes that would challenge the notion of a national language and a homo- geneous culture paving the way for understanding language and culture from the point of view of a transnational experience. According to Bhabha, hybridity, a main characteristic of the postcolonial condition, disrupts the relation between national language and culture, and points to a culture of difference, of displacement of signifi- cation, of translation. (Bandia 2008, 139). In this regard, in many African cities new transcultural and hybrid forms of diverse elements are being created every day. Ranging from trans- cultural types of music (Osumare 2012), such as afrobeat or highlife music, to other transcultural phenomena, including the Azonto dance in Ghana (Jaka- na, 2012) and the Nollywood film industry, which is now a major influence in Lagos’s streets and markets (Haynes 2007, Fuentes-Luque 2017). In the specific case of language, and as we have seen in the examples quoted from Atta’s novels, the prominence of the multilingualism that permeates African cities in general, and the continuous emergence of new hybrid linguistic forms and new semantic associations, which are typical features of the discourse em- ployed in situations involving interaction in urban areas, are, and will contin- ue to be, compelling topics when analyzing issues related to translation and translatability in the twenty-first century. 8 Here “postcolony” (Mbembe 2010) refers to the postcolonial context which, according to Bandia, is part of the colonial space: “Colonial space is ‘the postcolony’ itself, but it is also that space where people with postcolonial experiences, people with postcolonial backgrounds, exist” (Bandia as cited in Rodríguez Murphy 2015a, 149). This “colonial space” should not be understood as a static entity, but rather as characterized by ongoing translation, translocation and transculturation. 66 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 <References> Adedun, Emmanuel and Mojisola Shodipe. 2011. “Yoruba-English bilingualism in cen- tral Lagos—Nigeria.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 23 (2): 121–132. Adegbija, Efurosibina E. 2000. “Language Attitudes in West Africa.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 141 (1): 75–100. . 2004. Multilingualism: A Nigerian Case Study. Trenton/Asmara: Africa World Press. Adekunle, Mobolaji. 1997. “English in Nigeria: Attitudes, Policy and Communicative Realities.” In New Englishes: A West African Perspective, edited by Ayo Bamgbose, Ayo Banjo, and Andrew Thomas, 57–86. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press. 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Triulzi, Alessandro. 2002 “African Cities, Historical Memory and Street Buzz.” In The Postcolonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons, edited by Iain Chambers and Lidia Curti, 78–91. London and New York: Routledge. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). 2014. The State of African Cities 2014. Re-imagining sustainable urban transitions. Nairobi: UN-Habitat. Uzoamaka, Ada. 2008. “Interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Creative Writing and Literary Activism.” http://www.iun.edu/~minaua/interviews/interview_ chimamanda_ngozi_adichie.pdf Warren-Rothlin, Andy. 2012. “Arabic script in modern Nigeria.” In Advances in Minority Language Research in Nigeria (vol. I), edited by Roger M. Blench and Stuart McGill, 105–121. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Zabus, Chantal. 2001. “Oil Boom, Oil Doom. Interview by Chantal Zabus.” Interview with Ken Saro-Wiwa, in No Condition is Permanent: Nigerian Writing and the Struggle for Democracy, edited by Holger G. Ehling and Claus-Peter Holste-von Mutius, 1–12. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. First pub- lished 1993 by Rodopi (Amsterdam and New York). . 2007. The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. <Elena Rodríguez Murphy> holds a PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Salamanca (Spain), where she works in the Depart- ment of Translation and Interpreting. Her research interests include Af- rican literatures, translation studies, and linguistics. She has published several articles and book chapters on these areas of study, including “An Interview with Sefi Atta” (published Research in African Literatures, 2012) and “An Interview with Professor Paul Bandia” (Perspectives, 2015). She is the author of Traducción y literatura africana: multilingüis- mo y transculturación en la narrativa nigeriana de expresión inglesa (Granada, 2015). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 69

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Translation and Asymmetrical Spaces, the Strait of Gibraltar as a Case in Point África Vidal and Juan Jesús Zaro University of Salamanca, Spain [email protected] University of Malaga, Spain [email protected] <Abstract> As a geographical location, defined by Paul Bowles as “the center of the uni- verse,” which separates continents—Europe in the North and Africa in the South—but also world views, cultures, religions, and languages, the Strait of Gibraltar was and remains an authentic translation space. At present, the metaphor of the separation that the Strait evokes incessantly continues to be valid every day, taking into account, for example, events such as the succesive waves of African immigrants who have been arriving on the European coasts for several years “illegally.” In addition to these tensions, there are cities located in the Strait, such as Tangier and Gibraltar, that are by themselves multilingual and multicul- tural places and therefore spaces of translation and conflict that deserve specific sections in this paper. While Tangier, during the second half of the twentieth century was a unique “interzone” characterized by cosmopolitanism and the coexistence of spaces and multiple and confronted texts, Gibraltar is now a territory reinvented as a result of its past, in which hybridity would be a fundamental part of its complex and young identity. introduction Spaces can be real and imagined. Spaces can tell stories and unfold histories. Spaces can be interrupted, appropriated, and transformed through artistic and literary practice. (hooks 1991, 152) Human beings access reality by means of translations, of provisional, rele- vant, interesting or interested versions of realities which are continually being contextualized, rectified, and translated. With the hermeneutic and ethical journeys of each individual, we come to realize that translating is an inevitable means of encountering the other. Not only of encountering the other, but also of coming face to face with immigration and national identities, the global and the local, the problem of marginal groups, difference, or encountering what we sometimes agree with and sometimes detest. And we come across all of these things because when we translate we invade spaces, we occupy alien, far-away spaces which overlap and clash. When we translate, we shape these spaces and walk over the tracks we find on the way; but, on occasion, when we move around in others’ spaces, our aim is also to rewrite them and translate them. Translating is shifting smells, flavors, or passions from places that are 70 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 not ours. Translation is movement, flow, and passage between spaces that are not, and should never be, unidirectional or closed. Our starting-point in this paper is that all cultural experience arises at the crossroads between language, topos, and identity, and that precisely the ex- perience of what is different is produced by the destabilization of these cross- roads (Robinson 1998, 24). Our point of departure, therefore, is that translat- ing, and more specifically translating spaces, is a very political activity which is certainly not neutral—it is the locus where the coexistence of heterogeneity becomes possible, and as a result space must always be under construction (Massey 2011, 9). As an example of this way of understanding translation, we aim to focus on the Strait of Gibraltar, with the cities of Tangier and Gibraltar at opposite sides of its coast. It is a fascinating area because it is the space that joins Africa and Europe, a space of cultural encounter that espouses the concept of hybridity, a hybridity distinct from syncretism, creolization, and métissage, which would suggest that the dynamics of cultural encounters give rise to new, long-lasting identities. On the contrary, these are spaces in which the hybrid is that space in construction just mentioned that problematizes binary oppositions since each is part of the construction of the other. Within this context, translating in these spaces means offering a culturally constructed version away from dualisms. The analysis of this space, which includes the Strait, Tangier, and Gi- braltar, will lead us to reflect on the fact that translating is today the condition of living of many cities with a double or triple history behind them. The study of these spaces will make clear that translation, far from being a benevolent act of hospitality toward a guest from another space, is a relentless transaction (Si- mon 2003, 77), a hybrid act which does not mean a new synthesis but a zone of negotiation, dissent, and exchange, a locus that short-circuits patterns of alterity in order to express the drift of contemporary identities (Simon 1999, 39–40). The Strait of Gibraltar, which is in turn a clash space between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, is the starting point of this essay; it is here that all stories—those that go to the North and those that remain in the South—begin and it is also the narrative constructions on the Strait that make this space such a complicated, multicultural space, because “places without stories are unthinkable” (Price 2004, xxi). In fact, the Strait of Gibraltar and the stories shaping it throughout the centuries make it a space of conflicts, silences, discontinuities, and exclu- sions that turn it into a place which is unstable and multilayered, never fin- ished, never determined, processual, porous (Price 2004, 5). Because although the Strait of Gibraltar is currently a natural border between two continents (Africa and Europe) and two countries (Morocco and Spain), and it is unique isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 71 in that it also has Gibraltar (an overseas territory of the United Kingdom), and Ceuta (a Spanish city with its own statute of autonomous government) on opposite sides of its shores, the truth is that, throughout history, both sides have been united longer than they have been separated. They were governed as one territory by the Romans and also during the eight centuries of Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, after the fall of the Kingdom of Granada, the two shores separated forever, a separation that was only occa- sionally interrupted during the time of the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco (1913–1956). Since 1956, when the kingdom of Morocco became independent, the two shores have once again become administratively, politically, and cul- turally independent. The waters of the Strait are, therefore, a palimpsest accumulating well-known stories and also, unfortunately, other stories we will never hear about because they were lost forever with the bodies that have sunk to the depths. The waters of the Strait are “a layered text of narratives of belonging and exclusion, always negotiated, always struggled over, never finished” (Price 2004, 7); they are the intermediate, imaginary zone between Africa and the West that every culture needs: “Somewhere every culture has an imaginary zone for what it excludes, and it is that zone we must try to remember today” (Cixous and Clément 1986, 6). And that imaginary zone is the line that joins the two “dual cities” (Simon 2012, 3 and following pages) we shall go on to examine in detail, Tangier and Gibraltar. Currently, communication between both sides of the Strait is in the form of fast or traditional ferries between Tarifa, Algeciras, and Gibraltar on the European side and Ceuta and Tangier in Africa. Crossings take between thirty and ninety minutes. Sometimes crossings cannot be made due to storms or strong winds, especially in winter. One of these ferries is called “the whale,” a carrier of unknown treasures which, with a curious symbolism reminding us of Captain Ahab’s quest to hunt down Moby Dick, is pursued by an old fish- erman from Tangier in the film Moroccan Chronicles (1999) by the Moroccan director Moumen Smihi. The journey between the two shores is made legally by almost three million people a year and illegally by more than ten thousand, who use their own means to get across in “pateras.” The Strait of Gibraltar is the only gateway into and out of the Mediterranean for all marine traffic. It is estimated that more than 82,000 ships cross it every year. As Alfred Chester points out in his short story “Glory Hole”: “The hills of Spain are there like civilized laughter across the narrow water; two ferries a day, or six, or ten— who can remember anymore? Spain is on the other, the inaccessible side of Styx” (Chester 1990, 221). The possibility of building a bridge or a tunnel between both shores 72 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 has often been discussed. From the technical viewpoint, the tunnel option would appear to be the most feasible, even though the depth of the water of the Strait would make it the deepest (and most expensive) tunnel in Europe. However, the existence of a tunnel or bridge across the Strait would be a huge improvement in traffic and mobility between both sides, something which, from a symbolic and political point of view, would not seem to be totally acceptable at this moment in time: the idea of a tunnel or bridge, ultimately a metaphor of union and communication between the two shores, clashes with other well-known metaphorical narratives about the Strait which focus more on the idea of battle and separation. One is the familiar mythological tale of the “columns,” identified fairly vaguely as the Rock of Gibraltar and Mount Hacho in Ceuta, which Hercules separated to open up a passage for the Atlantic Ocean. Another is the myth surrounding Julian, Count of Ceu- ta, a Visigoth governor of the city who is alleged to have facilitated entry of Muslim troops into the Spanish mainland in 711, enabling them to put an end to the Visigothic rule established after the fall of the Roman Empire. This act changed the history of Spain forever. It is said that Julian did this out of revenge after his daughter was raped in Toledo by Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king of Spain who would finally be defeated and killed by the invading army in the Battle of Guadalete. In this sense, the fact that it was a question of honor that caused the Muslim invasion of Spain has led to numerous interpre- tations. In his novel Reivindicación del conde don Julián (1970), Juan Goytisolo identifies with the main character more than one thousand years later in his desire to put an end to the essential, homogeneous, and nationalist–Catholic Spain of the Franco regime, in the same way that the Visigothic count had indirectly helped to put an end to Christian Spain and, ultimately, promote miscegenation and the fusion of races. We must not forget that the last sig- nificant act of war in the Strait took place in August 1936, when around eight thousand troops from the rebel Spanish army in Morocco were transported by sea to the Spanish mainland to join the rebel troops once the Civil War started. The history of the Strait, therefore, has been, and continues to be, a history of conflict involving the clash of two different civilizations, established on the two continents located on either side of this stretch of water, which also economically represent two very different zones—Europe on the north side and Africa on the south, which are profoundly asymmetrical in economic terms. It is, in this sense, perhaps the most unequal border in the whole world, and crossing the Strait was, and perhaps still is, travelling to another reality. This is how it was described by the Spanish traveller and spy Ali Bey when he said in 1814, on crossing from Tarifa to Tangier, that whoever crosses the isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 73 Strait goes “en tan breve espacio de tiempo a un mundo absolutamente nuevo, y sin la más remota semejanza con el que se acaba de dejar, se halla realmente como transportado a otro planeta” (Bey 2009, 147). Nowadays, the most vis- ible aspect of this conflict is that of illegal migrants, who, as we have pointed out above, use the Strait to enter Europe, and who in recent years consist mainly of people from sub-Saharan countries. This is why this intermediate space that is the sea is the space in movement that, although in the middle, is the space of the beginning and the end, the space of the in-between which necessarily has to be crossed by these fragmented lives. It is the only space in which, unfortunately, they will be full citizens. However, there are other conflicts in the area, including claims from other countries for territories they consider to have been illegally occupied for centuries. This is the case, above all, of Spain and Gibraltar, but also of Morocco and Ceuta. Exile, or immigration for political or ideological reasons, is also linked to the history of the Strait of Gibraltar. Many historical diasporas have traversed it, including, for example, the Jews (around 80,000) or the Moriscos (around 300,000) when they were expelled from Spain in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively, who abandoned Spain and crossed over to Africa. Some Spanish Jews settled in towns in the north of Morocco, where they lived for centuries with a largely Muslim population. Many migrated to Israel shortly after the new state was founded and now form part of the Sephardic community, one of the most visible and well-known communities of that country. The Spanish Moriscos who took refuge in Morocco, on the other hand, contributed their andalusí character to Moroccan culture and it is now one of its signs of identity. And not only that, but the space we will examine below is, as well as being a multicultural space, or perhaps precisely for that reason, a multilingual space. Four languages live side by side on both shores: Spanish on the Spanish side in Ceuta, in Gibraltar, and to a much lesser degree throughout North Morocco; English in Gibraltar; and French and Arabic in Morocco. The two most used languages, Spanish and Arabic, correspond to diatopical dialect forms, Andalusian Spanish in Spain and colloquial Moroccan Arabic or dāriŷa on the Moroccan coast of the Strait. The Andalusian variant is also used by the citizens of Gibraltar, which immediately makes them Andalusians for the rest of Spain when they speak Spanish, although they do in fact speak a hybrid variety called “llanito,” a kind of small-scale European Spanglish. Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, has a strong Berber substrate and influences from French and Spanish and is an identitarian dialect, far removed from modern standard Arabic and unintelligible to many Moroccans. Due to their own particular history, a number of coastal towns on the Strait, such as Tangier 74 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 for example, can be considered to be multilingual spaces where it is possible to be understood in three or four languages. Others, like Gibraltar, are clearly bilingual. Ceuta is similarly an interesting example, as it is also becoming a bilingual city due to the increasing Muslim population, to which we must likewise add a significant Hindu community which is completely bilingual in Spanish and Hindi. These multicultural and multilingual spaces will allow us to better understand the Strait’s coastal “dual cities”—to use Sherry Simon’s terminol- ogy—which we will examine below. tangier, a dual city The place [Tangier] was counterfeit, a waiting room between connections, a transition from one way of being to another… (Bowles 2006, 382). Tangier is not part of Morocco. It’s international. Paul Bowles interviewed by Abdelhak Elghandor (Elghandor 1994, 16) From the end of the 1940s until Moroccan independence in 1956, the city of Tangier, located to the extreme west of the African coast of the Strait of Gi- braltar, had a unique political status, that of being an “international zone.” But it was, at the same time, a multilayered space where many languages existed, and still do exist, at the same time, a space where translation was never a mere language transfer but a practice of writing that took place at the crossroads (Simon 2012, 8). Perched on the northern tip of Morocco with its eyes trained across the Strait of Gibraltar toward Spain, “Tangier certainly has long been at the crossroads, a point of intersection of various civilizations, notably African/ Islamic and European Christian” (Hibbard 2009, 1). This is why Tangier is a space that has always generated multiple discourses; it is a city that has always “spoken,” because it is a site of representation. However, the discourses it has generated have been different translations of reality, rewritings of a space that some, Westerners, exoticized, and others, Moroccans, understood differently, as a way of “writing back to the West” (Elkouche 2008, 1). Tangier was, on the one hand, a space of rich British expatriates and, on the other, the receiving space of many expatriates from Paris during the years between the World wars, artists and writers who sought in the “interna- tionalized” Tangier what the Lost Generation had searched for in the French capital a few years earlier, a space open to less conventional ways of life. The era during which both artists and writers lived in Tangier was especially rele- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 75 1. View of Tangier vant with regard to political and social change, because during these years the Maghreb moved on from being an area under European colonial control to one of postcolonial independence Halfway between nations, cultures, and languages, Tangier became an “interzone,” to use Burroughs’s word—that is, “a place of intermediacy and ambiguity, a place that remains outside standard narratives of nationhood and identity. It proved to be an expedient location for [writers] to sort out the multiple crises of identity, desire, and loss that motivated their writing” (Mul- lins 2002, 3). In this sense, we must not forget that, as Tangier’s legal situation allowed moral permissiveness with regard, for example, to sexuality and drugs 76 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain and was considered to be a mental illness in the United States, it was logical that this unorthodox space should attract many gay artists of the time, from Jean Genet to Robert Rauschenberg, William Burroughs and Paul Bowles (who lived in Tangier for over fifty years, from 1947 until his death in 1999). To these names we could add a long list of intellectuals who spent time in Tangier, such as Gertrude Stein, Francis Bacon, Djuna Barnes, Brion Gysin, Samuel Beckett, Alfred Chester, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Aaron Copeland, Juan Goytisolo, Ian Fleming, and many others. Because Tangier was the promised land of the bohemian Diaspora and refuge of many rich, eccentric Westerners (see Pulsifer 1992 and Walonen 2011) who sought ways of life that constituted an alternative to the orthodoxy of their countries of origin. This is something that, in spite of everything, the city is still proud of and still attracts a lot of tourists. A recent tourist brochure, Tangier in Morocco, published by the Mo- roccan National Tourist Office, states: “The streets of Tangier are teeming with artistic and literary memories. Countless painters, novelists, playwrights, poets, photographers, actors, filmmakers and couturiers from every nation under the sun have stayed here a while or made their home here, inspired and bewitched by the city’s magic” (Moroccan National Tourist Office n.d., 12). Truman Capote, in a 1950 article entitled “Tangier” (Capote 2013), reminds us of the radical heterogeneity and idiosyncrasies arising from this huge amount of freedom. Tangier was the space on the border between Eu- rope and Africa, between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity; a place where nationalities, cultures, and languages mixed to the point of promiscuity. In fact, in Morocco translation is still a means of survival today. Although the official language is Arabic, the economic and cultural life of the country has always been carried out in several languages. The educated classes speak and write standard Arabic and French, while the majority of people use varieties of Moroccan Arabic or Berber variants. In the north many people speak Span- ish and also English, particularly those involved in tourism and commerce. Therefore, “no single Moroccan language can universally speak to and for all Moroccans; rather, Moroccans must daily translate among themselves, or in the formation of literary narratives, both written and oral” (Sabil 2005, 176). It is no surprise, then, that this open locus, especially that of Tangier when it was an International Zone, should have been so attractive a place for writers whose lives and works were considered unorthodox in Western circles. Tangier was a space where for many years national structures and rigid codes of ethics were deconstructed and where confusion of all binary logic was favored. However, the spaces inhabited by Westerners in Tangier were gen- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 77 erally separate from those inhabited by Moroccans. We see this in the case of Bowles, whose descriptions of the spaces his characters are situated in speak of class, race, or cultural differences. Moreover, Bowles describes in many of his translations the horror of not having a place in space, in For Bread Alone by Choukri (2010), for example. The above-mentioned rich British expats created a series of separate places that reflected English ways of life, places of worship like St. Andrew’s Church, tea parties and lavish parties with film stars (Finlayson 1992, 271 and following pages), although it is also true that the density of the population and the physical and social distribution of the city led to inevitable contact between the communities. The center of Tangier had been designed initially for around 12,000 people and it remained un- changed when population numbers increased. So, the streets were always full of people, cultures, and religions as reflected in the pages of Burroughs’s The Naked Lunch or Bowles’s Let it Come Down. The narrow streets in the center showed multiplicity and the two main axes of the town, the Boulevard Pas- teur running from east to west, and the Rue du Statut running from north to south, crossed at Place de France, “a bustling roundabout ringed by popular cafés frequented by the diplomatic community and Moroccan nationalists” (Edwards 2005, 130). In Tangier, the European powers were initially the producers of spac- es, the power groups who designed, distributed, named, and built spaces and who also established the rules for the use of these spaces. This divided spatial- ity is typical, as Fanon reminds us in The Wretched of the Earth, of colonizing processes: “The first thing which the native learns is to stay in his place, and not to go beyond certain limits” (Fanon 1968, 52). The space of colonial order is always one of luxury, cleanliness, and entertainment; the other formed of wretched places, as we see, for example, in Choukri’s For Bread Alone. Without a doubt, for Bowles and many other writers and artists, Tang- ier was a “third space,” in Edward Soja’s sense of the term—that is, “the space where all places are capable of being seen from every angle, each standing clear; but also a secret and conjectured object, filled with illusions and allu- sions, a space that is common to all of us yet never able to be completely seen and understood” (Soja 1996, 56). Perhaps this is why Bowles never considered himself to be Tangierian but, rather, a vocational stateless person. In March 1992 he said in an interview, “I am not American and I am not Moroccan. I’m a visitor on earth. You have to be Muslim to really be accepted in Morocco, to be a part of it” (Choukri 2008, 304). Bowles was also against the Westernization of Moroccan spaces after independence—for him geography was a way of reading identity. Spaces were texts and the scenery was the reflection of his characters’ inner self, some- 78 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 thing the critics have discussed in detail (Pounds 1985; Olson 1986; Hassan 1995; Caponi 1998; Patteson 2003; Walonen 2011) and that he himself recognized in some of his travel writings such as Their Heads are Green and their Hands are Blue (1963), and in his novels and several interviews. Characters like Thami in Let it Come Down identify with the place and the space, but when they are taken somewhere else like New York many of his characters feel out of place. It was in his translations of oral texts by Moroccan narrators (Ahmed Yacoubi, Layachi Larbi, Abdeslam Boulaich, and Mohammed Mrabet, among others), howev- er, that he rewrites in that contact zone that is no good to imperialism, like many other postcolonial translations, but comes from within the Other(‘s) space, “involves a much looser notion of the text, interacts intensely with local forms of narrative and is a revigorating and positive global influence [. . .] a con- tinuous life-giving and creative process” (Simon and St-Pierre 2000, 10). After October 1956, when Tangier was no longer an International Zone (in 1961 it became part of Morocco), people came to suspect that “the good times, the high-living years for foreign residents with substantial assets in Tangi- er, might be ending” (Finlayson 1992, 75). In 1957 the British Post Office closed its offices; the Spanish Post Office did the same in 1958. In addition, many banks and companies closed and transferred their branches to other countries. The lux- ury goods shops on Boulevard Pascal were replaced by shops selling local crafts and clothing. But one of the most revealing details of the change was “a new edict banning the sale of liquor within a certain distance from a mosque” and another determining the places that stayed and those that did not: “There were a great many mosques, and a great many Spanish, Jewish and other foreign-owned bars. The mosques stayed open, the bars closed” (Finlayson 1992, 75). That is, the places that Lefebvre calls “representations of space” (1991, 33) closed, that experience of space referring to hegemonic ideological representations, to space constructed by professionals and technocrats (engineers, architects, urban plan- ners, geographers, etc.), a space where ideology, power, and knowledge are in- variably linked to representation. Besides, when it was no longer an International Zone, many Moroccans living in the country moved to Tangier, which changed the city space. The clean, luxurious Tangier of today is Muslim, the best areas be- long to citizens of countries in the Persian Gulf and to Moroccans who have made their fortune from drug-trafficking between Africa and Europe, traffick- ing in which the city is a crucial point (Walonen 2011, 127). The city and its population have evolved and so has their interaction with the first world, to such an extent that the essentialist vision of the Muslim population, which to- day reproaches the former foreign residents of the Tangier of the International Zone, might have changed. The foreign residents and tourists currently in isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 79 Tangier (many attracted by the literary past of the city) still mix with the local people, but probably in a different way to that of the foreign community of the Tangier of the 1940s and ‘50s. Despite this, it is curious that in the tourist brochure mentioned above, Tangier in Morocco, Tangier’s special character, compared to that of other Moroccan cities, is highlighted in the following words: “Today, the city still has its cosmopolitan side, with a wide variety of outside influences contributing to its cultural diversity and unique personali- ty” (Moroccan National Tourist Office n.d., 7). Or with these other puzzling words: “There is something altogether unique about the town, something impalpable, indefinable –a sense of freedom that hangs in the air like the scent of orange blossom” (Moroccan National Tourist Office n.d., 5). Tangier, with its linguistic and cultural contrasts and the social and classist inequalities reflected in its spaces, is therefore the living example that spaces are socially created entities, political constructions that reveal prejudices, asymmetries, and inequalities. But, in addition, the places are “practiced” spaces (De Certeau 1988, 117). De Certeau compares spatiality, place and narrative, and, for him, the narrative ends up “transforming places into spaces or spaces into places” (De Certeau 1988, 130). The writer and the translator take the reader by the hand when they describe an apartment, a street, a country, or a border. gibraltar, a translational city [...] dual cities have their origins in conquest, when a stronger language group comes to occupy or impinge upon a pre-existent language which may itself have displaced another before it. (Simon 2012, 3) The city of Gibraltar (Jebel-al-Tariq, or “the mountain of Tarik,” an Arab leader who led the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 ce), resting on its Rock, has been, as we all know, a British colony since the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1704 Gibraltar was occupied by an English fleet involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and included in the Spanish territories ruled by the Archduke Charles of Austria, one of the pretenders to the throne (the other was Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis xvi of France and legitimate heir according to the last will and testament of the last king of Spain, Charles II, who had died in 1700). However, the detachment that expelled the citizens from the city—they founded the town of San Roque, whence an irate stone lion stills looks threateningly over at the Rock—never left, not even when the war ended and Philip V was proclaimed King. One of the conditions of the famous Treaty of Utrecht (1713) was that Spain should recognize British sovereignty over the Rock of Gibraltar, the city, and the 80 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 port. The Treaty, which has never been revoked and is, therefore, still in force today, continues to be invoked by Spain today on the grounds that, among other things, the land occupied by Gibraltar Airport is in a neutral area that had never been signed over to the British and, therefore, was occupied illegally during the First World War. More than three hundred years of British sovereignty have made Gi- braltar a unique enclave. It is located on the southern tip of Andalusia and its only land border is with Spain. This Lilliputian territory is 5.8 square kilo- meters in size and has a population of almost 30,000 inhabitants, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world (4,290 inhabitants per square kilometer). As the original Spanish population of the city abandoned the Rock after the British occupation, it soon filled with immigrants from several places—Genoa, Portugal, India, Malta, Morocco, and Spain, among others—and also had a significant Jewish community, who had migrated to Gibraltar to “serve” the British troops and their families. As we have men- tioned above, the city is also practically bilingual, English is spoken, as well as “llanito” or a kind of Spanglish spoken on the Rock which the locals call “suichito” or “switch,” a hybrid language where code switching is constantly used. Many Gibraltarians also speak fluent Spanish with a marked Andalusian accent. Relations with Spain have never been easy. In Spain, whatever the ideology of the ruling party, Gibraltar is always considered to be a colonized territory which should be returned to Spain as it was taken by force in an act of war. Today most Gibraltarians think that the Treaty of Utrecht is obsolete, that history has shown that Gibraltar is a territory demographically, linguis- tically, and culturally different from Spain, and that the current autonomous status of the territory, approved by all its inhabitants, is proof of its democrat- ic nature. Although the United Nations declared in 1964 that Gibraltar should be “decolonized,” under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht it could never be an independent country—it could only be British or, should the latter abandon the territory, Spanish. At that time, the United Kingdom refused to enter into any kind of negotiation with Franco’s Spain, and the Spanish gov- ernment, in retaliation, closed the land border between Gibraltar and Spain, leaving Gibraltar isolated via land from 1969 to 1985. Recent attempts to set up negotiations to try to reach an agreement of British and Spanish cosovereignty of the territory have met the refusal of almost all the Gibraltarians. In any case, there is still a problem between Gibraltar and Spain which is visible, especially at the moment, in the “queues” of cars and people that have been forming at the Spanish border crossing every summer since 2013, when the Spanish government decided to periodically tighten the con- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 81 trol of vehicles and persons, which only adds to the active conflicts in the area of the Strait. In this case, however, it is a political conflict more than a social or cultural one, but it affects the daily life of people who live in the area and have become hostages, in a way, of decisions taken very far away for reasons they often do not understand. This “distance” from the centers of power can be seen in the references to the population of Gibraltar in the media. Therefore, while the Spanish government said these queues were “necessary” to stop smuggling, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, Fabián Picardo, denounced the “passivity” of the British government in this affair for fear of worsening relations with Spain (Ayllón 2014), and the Spanish workers on the Rock expressed their disagreement with the measures put into place by their own government (Romaguera 2013). This is, therefore, a deep-rooted problem with no easy solution. Gi- braltar is a prosperous place with a high standard of living—it is, in fact, the second most prosperous territory in the European Union, which is in stark contrast with the Spanish region surrounding it. The Campo de Gibraltar is a depressed area with a high level of unemployment and is still far behind other areas of Spain. But, this prosperity is due, above all, to the fact that it is a tax haven where companies and financial institutions pay hardly any taxes, which would explain the huge amount of investment and increasing number of com- panies registered on the Rock. From Spain it is argued that this prosperity is largely due to fiscal rules and regulations, which are very different to those in Spain and prevent investment, for example, reaching Campo de Gibraltar, the area around the Rock. The Gibraltarian stereotype as seen from Spain is that of a smuggler on a motorbike who takes advantage of his situation as an islander with respect to Spain to obtain economic benefits, but who, deep down, is just an Andalusian in denial. From the Gibraltarian point of view, Spaniards are considered to be provincial individuals anchored in the past who have never been able to understand that Gibraltar is not a part of Spain, that its population is more heterogeneous in comparison to that of Spain, and that it is so prosperous. Whatever the case, we cannot forget that currently more than seven thousand Spaniards work in Gibraltar and that many Gibral- tarians have invested large amounts of money in properties in Spain. This “insularity” or impermeability of Gibraltar, even though it is not an island as such, has led to it being a place of stability and freedom in contrast with the turbulent history of its neighbor. During the nineteenth century, the Rock was a refuge for Spanish exiles who had to abandon their country for political reasons and were making their way to the United Kingdom or other European countries. During the twentieth century the Rock, as a British terri- tory, maintained standards of religious freedom and tolerance which were un- 82 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 2. Views of Gibraltar known in Spain, especially during the Franco regime, and this would make it a more advanced society in all aspects. We cannot forget the famous wedding of John Lennon and Yoko Ono which took place in Gibraltar in 1969, a media event highlighting the “modernity” of the Rock, which was much closer to the “swinging London” of the 1960s than backward, conservative Spain. In any case, the closure of the border crossing in 1969 made communication between Gibraltar and Spain almost nonexistent. Today, Gibraltar (or “Gib” as it is known in Britain) could be any town on the southern coast of England, or perhaps the Channel Islands. There are typical references found in British territories, red telephone box- es, “bobbies” and the Union Jack, which continues to fly in many places. The supermarkets and shops belong to British groups—Marks and Spencer, BHS, Boots, Morrisons, and so on—and the pubs are authentic. However, this translation of a southern space to a northern one does not include all the codes or elements: in Gibraltar people drive on the right, as they do in Spain; the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the most “British” space in the whole area, is built in an oriental style with horseshoe arches over doors and windows; at the entrance to the city the Muslim fort, which could never be seen in an English town, is still standing strong; and the Andalusian accent of the inhabitants when they speak Spanish or “llanito” assimilates them to their neighbors in Campo de Gibraltar. There are two theories regarding the origin of the term “llanito,” both related to the clash between languages. Ac- cording to one theory, “llanito” was coined in Gibraltar in the early twentieth century by Andalusian workers who would hear Gibraltar mothers call their “yanitos” (the Spanish diminutive for Johnny—Johnnito) and began to call all Gibraltarians “yanis” (Johnnys), which led in turn to the current “llanitos” isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 83 or “yanitos.” The other theory is that the word derives from the large num- ber of “Giovannis,” or “Giannis” as they are familiarly called, in the large Genoese colony which settled on the Rock. The simultaneous use of Spanish and English can often be very amusing. Main Street, the commercial artery of the city, is also called the “Calle Reá,” and Gibraltar is “Gibrartá,” both in “llanito” and Andalusian Spanish. Manuel Leguineche (2002, 2) mentions his surprise when a Gibraltarian bobby replied “Zí, zeñó” to the question “Do you speak English?” This way of speaking is only the reflection of the coexistence of asym- metrical spaces where at least two cultures live side by side or occasionally clash. It is a way of speaking that, as Susan Bassnett states (in Simon 2012, n.p.), shows the fundamental importance of languages shaping cultural, geo- graphical, and historical space. In effect, the particular language used in Gi- braltar demonstrates the power of language to mark the urban landscape, to understand it, and how important it is to listen to cities (Simon 2012, xix and 1), especially these types of cities which are contact zones (see Pratt 1992), noisy streets of polyglot neighborhoods. These are very clear examples that language is an area of negotiation, a space where connections are created through rewritings and where ideas circulate, converge, and clash in the translational city, which imposes its own patterns of interaction and these emerge out of their spaces and their own narrative pasts (Simon 2012, 2). But in Gibraltar, as in Tangier or the Strait, languages share the same terrain but rarely participate in a peaceful and egali- tarian conversation. And there is some, albeit not a great deal of, Gibraltarian literature, written mostly in Spanish by authors like Héctor Licudi, Alberto Pizzarello, or Elio Cruz (see Yborra Aznar 2005). More recent writers, how- ever, write in both languages (Mario Arroyo, for example) or only in English. One of the most interesting current Gibraltarian authors is Trino Cruz, a poet who writes in Spanish, translates Moroccan poetry from Arabic, and defends the multiethnic and multilinguistic character of the territory. These and many other authors allow us to see that translation (or self-translation, depending on your point of view) “can no longer be configured only as a link between a familiar and a foreign culture, between a local original and a distant destination, between one monolingual community and another. [. . .] The Other remains within a constant earshot. The shared understandings of this coexistence change the meaning of translation from a gesture of benevolence to a process through which a common civility is negotiated” (Simon 2012, 7). As we have seen, given its history and the composition of its popu- lation, Gibraltar is now also a hybrid or “dual” city whose complex, young identity is based, above all, on the wishes of its population to maintain their 84 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 status as a British overseas territory and not be absorbed in any way by Spain in the long term. It is clear that the friendly relations between the two parties at the beginning of the twentieth century collapsed, probably permanently, when the border crossing was closed from 1969 until 1985, isolating the two peoples and provoking in Gibraltar both anti-Spanish feelings and a lack of proficiency in the Spanish language. Even so, certain data (Grocott and Stock- ey 2012, 125) show that the inhabitants of the Rock consider themselves to be more and more Gibraltarian and less British, although it is not clear what this feeling, whose signs of identity are still fairly vague yet real, consists of, the city now celebrates a “National Day” on September 10 to commemorate the date of the first referendum, held in 1967, to reject annexation to Spain; the red and white flag of Gibraltar can be seen more and more often flying over the territory, “llanito” is sometimes used in the local press instead of English, and the project to publish the first local paper Calpe Press is already under way. This nationalist feeling would only assimilate Gibraltar to tiny European nations such as Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino, which are historically much older. If this “national” sentiment were to become consol- idated, which does not appear to have happened yet, Gibraltar would be an example of a relatively new “heterogeneous,” hybrid, multilingual communi- ty, seeking to define its own identity, composed in turn of hybrid elements from different cultures. concluding remarks Living in different places means growing separate selves, learning other languages and ways of being, and looking at the world from different vantage points, without ever quite belonging to any of them. The state of being of a foreigner wherever I am has become second nature to me. It is a condition that sharpens the eye and the ear, that keeps awareness on its toes, and that takes nothing for granted. It means also that whatever I am, the ghosts of other places and other lives are hovering close. (Reid 1994, 3) The linguistic forms used in a space like Gibraltar cause us to reflect on how diffi- cult it can become to find or create equivalent idioms for local, nonstandard lan- guages, but in general everything mentioned above in relation to other spaces such as Tangier and the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar confirms that “the translator’s dilemmas are not to be found in dictionaries, but rather in an understanding of the way language is tied to local realities [. . .] and to changing identities” (Simon 1995, 10). This is why nowadays, in a global and transcultural society, translation is a transversal and interdisciplinary activity that has much to do with geography, while only a few years ago they were both considered to be fields of research far removed from each other (Bassnett 2011; Vidal 2012). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 85 By examining in this essay spaces such as Tangier and Gibraltar, cit- ies of ethnicities with shifting centers and peripheries, sites of transitory events, movements, memories, open spirals of heterogeneous collaborations and con- taminations, heterotopic, multiform and diasporic realities, spaces which un- dermine the presumed purity of thought (Chambers 1994, 93 and 95), we hope to have shown the need to access both space and translation in a different way, to have questioned what we understand today by space and why translation has forced us to very seriously analyze how ideology and power interfere in the creation of a space and a translation, what cultural contact points we have seen between peoples whose spaces become joined or clash in translations of those texts that define them in this way; what role is played by cartography of the plac- es understood as texts; and how this concept of knowledge is instrumentalized in asymmetrical and multidirectional contexts. From this point of view, translating in the hybrid spaces studied here, spaces like the Strait, Tangier, or Gibraltar that are sites of displacement, in- terference, and constructed and disputed historicities (Clifford 1997, 25), has shown itself to be a border experience able to produce powerful political vi- sion, the subversion of binarism which makes us wonder how translatable these places/metaphors of crossing are, how like and unlike diasporas. What does it take to define and defend a homeland? What are the political stakes in claiming a “home” in hooks’s (1991) sense? How are ethnic communities’ “insides” and “outsides” sustained, policed, subverted, crossed by historical subjects with different degrees of power (Clifford 1997, 36)? Considered from this state of things, translation is a foundational activity, an activity of cultural creation that takes into account the unstable and liminal identities it trans- forms and that partakes of the incompleteness of cultural belonging in spaces informed by estrangement, diversity, plurality, and already saturated with a logic of translation (Simon 1996, 152, 165, and 166) and dual cities may not serve only to impose an alien and oppressive presence but also to be part of a process of exchange which involves “an active chain of response, a vivifying interaction” (Simon and St-Pierre 2000, 10). This article is part of the research projects entitled “Violencia simbólica y traducción: retos en la representación de identidades fragmentadas en la sociedad global” (Symbolic violence and translation: challenges in the representation of fragmented identities within the global society) and “La traducción de clásicos en su aspecto editorial: una visión transatlántica” (Publishing strategies in the translation of classics: a transatlantic approach) (respectively FFI2015-66516-P and FFI2013-41743-P; MINECO/FEDER, UE) financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. 86 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 <References> Ayllón, Luis. 2014. “Picardo enfurece contra Cameron.” http://abcblogs.abc. es/luis-ayllon/public/post/picardo-enfurece-contra-cameron-16073. asp/ Bassnett, Susan. 2011. “From Cultural Turn to Transnational Turn, A Transnational Journey.” In Literature, Geography, Translation. Studies in World Writing, edited by Cecilia Alvstad, Stefan Helgesson, and David Watson, 67–80. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Bey, Ali. 2009. Viajes por Marruecos. Edited by Salvador Barberá Fraguas. Barcelona: Zeta. First published 1814. First English translation, revised and completed by Mrs. Helen Maria Williams, published 1816 under the title Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey between the Years 1803 and 1807 in Two Volumes for Longman, Rees, Orme, and Brown (Paternoster-Row, London). Bowles, Paul. 2006. Let It Come Down. New York: Harper. First published 1952 by Random House (New York). Caponi, Gena Dagel. 1998. Paul Bowles. New York: Twayne Publishers. Capote, Truman. 2013. “Tangier.” In Portraits and Observations, 63–72. New York: Random House. Chambers, Ian. 1994. Migrancy, Culture, Identity. London and New York: Routledge. Chester, Alfred. 1990. “Glory Hole: Nickel Views of the Infidel in Tangiers.” In Head of a Sad Angel. Stories 1953–1966, edited by Edward Field, 217–231. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press. Choukri, Mohamed. 2008. Paul Bowles, Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams in Tangier. London: Telegram. . 2010. For Bread Alone. Translated and introduced by Paul Bowles. London: Telegram. First published 1973 by Peter Owen (London). Clifford, James. 1997. Routes. Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Cixous, Hélène, and Catherine Clément. 1986. The Newly Born Woman. Trans- lated by Betsy Wing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. First published 1975 under title La Jeune née by Union Générale d’Éditions (Paris). De Certeau, Michel. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven F. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Edwards, Brian T. 2005. Morocco Bound. Disorienting America’s Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express. Durham and London: Duke Univer- sity Press. Elghandor, Abdelhak. 1994. “Atavism and Civilization, An Interview with Paul Bowles.” Ariel. A Review of International English Literature 25 (2): 7–30. Elkouche, Mohamed. 2008. “Space and Place, Tangier Speaks.” http://interac- tive-worlds.blogspot.com.es/2008/03/tangier-speaks.html. Fanon, Frantz. 1968. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press. Finlayson, Iain. 1992. Tangier. City of Dream. London: Harper Collins. Goytisolo, Juan. 1970. Reivindicación del conde don Julián. Barcelona: Seix Barral. Grocott, Chris, and Gareth Stockey. 2012. Gibraltar. A Modern Story. Cardiff: Univer- sity of Wales Press. Hassan, Ihab. 1995. “Paul Bowles, The Pilgrim as Prey.” In Rumors of Change, Essays of Five Decades, 3–16. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Hibbard, Allen. 2009. “Tangier at the Crossroads, Cross-cultural Encounters and Lit- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 87 erary Production.” In Writing Tangier, edited by Ralph M. Coury and R. Kevin Lacey, 1–12. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. hooks, bell. 1991. Yearning. Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nichol- son-Smith. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. First published 1974 under the title of La Production de l’espace by Éditions Anthropos (Paris). Leguineche, Manuel. 2002. Gibraltar. La roca en el zapato de España. Barcelona: Planeta. Massey, Doreen. 2011. For Space. London: Sage. First published 2005 by Sage (Lon- don). Moroccan National Tourist Office. N.d. Tangier in Morocco. Tourist brochure. N.p. Mullins, Greg A. 2002. Colonial Affairs, Bowles, Burroughs, and Chester Write Tangier. Madison: Wisconsin University Press. Olson, Steven E. 1986. “Alien Terrain, Paul Bowles Filial Landscapes.” Twentieth Cen- tury Literature 32 (3/4): 334–349. Patteson, Richard F. 2003. A World Outside: The Fiction of Paul Bowles. Austin: University of Texas Press. Pounds, Wayne. 1985. Paul Bowles: The Inner Geography. New York: Peter Lang. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation. London and New York: Routledge. Price, Patricia L. 2004. Dry Place. Landscapes of Belonging and Exclusion. Minneap- olis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Pulsifer, Gary ed. 1992. Paul Bowles by His Friends. London: Peter Owen. Reid, Alastair. 1994. An Alastair Reid Reader. Selected Prose and Poetry. Hanover and London: University Press of New England. Robinson, Douglas. 1998. Translation and Empire. Postcolonial Theories Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. Romaguera, Cándido. 2013. “Los trabajadores españoles en Gibraltar, en contra del dictamen sobre los controles.” http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2013/11/15/ andalucia/1384519777_182467.html. Sabil, Abdelkader. 2005. Translating/Rewriting the Other. A Study of Paul Bowles’ Translation of Moroccan Texts by Choukri, Mrabet and Charhadi. Saarbrück- en: Lambert Academic Publishing. Simon, Sherry ed. 1995. Culture in Transit. Translating the Literature of Quebec. Mon- tréal: Véhicule Press. . 1996. Gender in Translation. Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. London and New York: Routledge. . 2003. “Crossing Town, Montreal in Translation.” In Bilingual Games. Some Lit- erary Investigations, edited by Doris Sommer, 77–86. New York: Palgrave. . 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. London and New York: Routledge. Simon, Sherry, and Paul St-Pierre, eds. 2000. Changing the Terms. Translating in the Postcolonial Era. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Smihi, Moumen, dir. 1999. Moroccan Chronicles/Chroniques Marocaines/Waqa’i maghribia. 35mm, 70 minutes. Distributed by POM films (Montreuil). Soja, Edward W. 1996. Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell. Vidal, M. Carmen África. 2012. La traducción y los espacios: viajes, mapas, fronteras. Granada: Comares. Walonen, Michael K. 2011. Writing Tangier in the Postcolonial Transition. Space and Power in Expatriate and North African Literature. Surrey: Ashgate. 88 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Yborra Aznar, José Juan. 2005. “La frontera estéril. La literatura en español en Gi- braltar.” In El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes. <M. Carmen África Claramonte> is Professor of Translation at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Her research interests include trans- lation theory, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, contemporary art, and gender studies. She has published a number of books, anthologies, and essays on these issues, including Traducción, manipulación, des- construcción (Salamanca, 1995), El futuro de la traducción (Valencia, 1998), Translation/Power/Subversion (coedited with Román Álvarez, Clevedon, 1996), En los límites de la traducción (Granada, 2006), Tra- ducir entre culturas: diferencias, poderes, identidades (Frankfurt, 2007), Traducción y asimetría (Frankfurt, 2010), La traducción y los espacios: viajes, mapas, fronteras (Granada, 2013), ”Dile que le he escrito un blues.” Del texto como partitura a la partitura como traducción (Frank- furt, 2017), and La traducción y la(s) historia(s) (Comares, 2017). She is a practicing translator specializing in the fields of philosophy, literature, and contemporary art. <Juan Jesús Zaro> has been professor of translation studies at the University of Málaga since 2008. His research interests include trans- lation theory, history of translation, and literary translation. He obtained an MA from New York University, as a Fulbright student, and a PhD in English Literature from the University de Granada (1983). He has pub- lished a number of books, anthologies, and articles, including Manual de Traducción/A Manual of Translation (Madrid, 1998), Shakespeare y sus traductores (Bern, 2008), Traductores y traductores de literatura y ensayo (Granada, 2007), and Diez estudios sobre la traducción en la España del siglo xix (Granada, 2009). He is also a practicing translator and has translated, among other books, Charles Dickens’ Historia de dos ciudades (Cátedra, 2000); Samuel Butler’s El destino de la carne (Alba Editorial, 2001), Edith Wharton’s El arrecife (Alba Editorial, 2003), and Jane Austen’s Persuasión (Cátedra, 2004). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 89

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Introduction Sherry Simon This special issue explores eight spaces of translation—geographical sites, urban spaces, and architectural structures—whose cultural meanings are shaped through language interactions and transfer. Each study confirms the idea that places are created through itineraries and narratives, wanderings and stories, which evolve over time. Situated in the complex cityscapes of Itae- won, Lagos, Lviv, Montreal, Talinn, Renaissance Florence, Marseille, and the historically rich interzone of Gibraltar, these places illustrate the formative powers of translation in defining sensory experience and memory. The idea of space and place receives diverse interpretations in these essays—contributing to a field of inquiry which is rapidly evolving. Space is not understood as a simple container where translation takes place, but rather as a site where production and interpretation are intermingled, where translations occur and where identity is reinterpreted. Spaces are indicators of regimes of translation, of the forces that converge to allow or impede the transfer of languages and memories. From the architectural structure of a san- itary station to the dialogue between Gibraltar and Tangier, from the pages of novels to bronze statues, from multilingual markets to the studies where scholars are bent over treatises on Kabbalistic thought—these diverse spaces explode the notion of the “where” of translation. *** In her reading of the Sanitary Station of Marseille, Simona Bonelli uses the lens of translation and memory to evoke a place of multiple pasts— linked to the history of Marseille in its function as a place of migration and passage. Originally designed as a medical checkpoint, a place for screening mi- grants, then long abandoned, it has now become a museum which neverthe- less maintains traces of its previous functions. Citing Barthes, Bonelli shows that architectural spaces can be read as chapters of a complex text, continually retranslated. Following the Station in its transformations over the years, she defines it as a palimpsest representing “a place of exile, of displacement, a metaphorical place that contains a plurality of meanings, errant trajectories, isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 11 and that lends itself to multiple interpretations.” Initially born as a “boundary area” because of its function of containment and delimitation, the Sanitary Station has eventually “swollen,” through a series of metamorphoses, into a threshold—a place caught up in a tension of the present. This passage from boundary to threshold is enabled by a history of translation. *** Hunam Yun’s textured analysis of the district of Itaewon, in Seoul, South Korea, emphasizes the rich history of twists and turns that has marked this zone. This is a history which is not, however, apparent in the capsule “translations” found in tourist guides. As an area which has seen a strong mil- itary presence across the centuries, most recently for stationing the Japanese army during the colonial period and subsequently the American army, as a place now attracting many migrants, and also as a place strongly associated with sexuality and sex workers, Itaewon has been the site of cultural amalga- mation and conflict. As Yun shows, the various translations of the name of Itaewon itself—foreigners’ village, village for being pregnant with a foreign- er’s child, village for pear trees—show that the city as a “a culture-generator” (Lotman) cannot be translated into one fixed image. Itaewon has been a place for travelers and trading, a space of trauma caused by the conflictual history of Korea, a foreigners’ village, a foreign land within the country, a colonized space, a space of freedom and resistance, a window onto Western culture, a space for cultural translation . . . Yun contrasts the selective translations and commodifications of the city with the richness of its reality and history. As a culture-generator, a city deserves a more adequate translation. *** Elena Murphy draws a portrait of the multilingual city of Lagos through readings of Nigerian authors who portray the different sounds and accents of one of Nigeria’s most diverse and vibrant cities. The multilingual texts of Sefi Atta, a leading voice in what has come to be known as “The Third Generation of Nigerian Writers,” replicate the language negotiations of the city. Languages such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, as well as Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin, flow through Atta’s novels, just as they flow through the city. Particularly interesting is the diversity of cultural forms and spaces which express this plurality—types of music such as afrobeat or highlife music, dance, film, as well as the spaces of Lagos’s streets and markets. Translation is present in varied forms, aiding in the creation of new hybrid linguistic forms and new semantic associations, typical features of interaction in urban areas. 12 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 The Straits of Gibraltar, with its twin cities of Gibraltar and Tang- ier, stand as emblematic spaces of translation—but also as spaces whose hy- bridities force a rethinking of translation itself. To negotiate across hybrid spaces is to concentrate on the border experience as generating a powerful political vision, working against binaries, against inside and outside. In such zones, translation is a foundational activity, an activity of cultural creation. África Vidal and Juan Jesús Zaro provide a portrait of the Strait of Gibraltar as a natural border between two continents (Africa and Europe), between two countries (Morocco and Spain), and between two cities (Gibraltar, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, and Ceuta, a Spanish city with its own statute of autonomous government), and offer nuanced descriptions of the cultural histories of those spaces as they have been in interaction with one another. Governed as one territory by the Romans and also during the eight centuries of Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the Straits then be- come an indication of division across empires. The waters of the Strait carry “a layered text of narratives of belonging and exclusion.” Anastasiya Lyubas reads the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv as a space comprised of buildings, communities, maps, memories, and languages spo- ken, written, and read—a tactile, textile, and textual fabric. The “real” city, she argues, cannot be experienced without linguistic mediation. Inviting the read- er to stroll the city, stopping at monuments and buildings, consulting a map drawn by authors Igor Klekh, Yuri Andrukhovych, and Natalka Sniadanko, she gives the widest meaning to translation as a key to the multifaceted ele- ments which define city life. The city, thus, becomes a construct of individual and collective readings. The essay includes references to the events of 2013– 2014 in Ukraine that have problematized even further unresolved issues of identity, politics of memory, and belonging. With an eye attentive to shifts in the role of language in the city, Lyubas shows how the aural dimensions of the spoken languages of yesterday have become visual places, traces. Yesterday’s commerce has become trade in cultural meanings and in competing claims to the city. The city’s architecture, its history, literary scene, and projections of the future are read as a “text” offering insights into urban experience and the ways it is mediated and interpreted. *** Ceri Morgan’s reading of Montreal focuses on two novels from the 1960s which challenge orthodox versions of the language situation in the city. In Yvette Naubert’s La Dormeuse éveillée (1965) and Claire Mondat’s Poupée (1963), active and passive linguistic translations become signposts for a par- ticular kind of modernity, dramatizing embodied everyday translation prac- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 13 tices occurring in places of work, leisure, and consumption, like the café and department store. The texts are striking for their choice of settings and their sometimes seemingly relaxed mediation of French and English interactions at a time when many examples of le roman montréalais are highlighting clash- es between these. They prefigure, in fact, many of the everyday interactions between French and English in contemporary Montreal. As such, they offer important pointers as to the possibilities of negotiating differences. Gender is highlighted in the analysis, the body of the protagonist navigating between past and present gender conventions and mappings of Montreal’s majority languages, as well as across the very different histories of the protagonists (the French-Canadian maid, the family of Holocaust survivors). Translation be- comes a way of being in the world, of overcoming trauma. In many respects, Naubert’s and Mondat’s protagonists can be seen as “languagers”—that is, “people [. . .] who engage with the world-in-action, who move in the world in a way that allows the risk of stepping out of one’s habitual ways of speak- ing and attempt to develop different, more relational ways of interacting with the people and phenomena that one encounters in everyday life” (Phipps 2011, 365). Translation facilitates a mobility associated with feminine asser- tion; translation allows escapes from, or challenges to, the social constraints of the past. Naubert’s and Mondat’s heroines inhabit a kind of messy middle in their employing of the “tactics” as “always [. . .] partial, provisional and broken” (Phipps 2011, 375). Moving inside and outside the city, they embody a translation practice beyond representation and vital to a “relational” being in the world. *** Federico Bellentani considers the case of the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Talinn as a practice of cultural reinvention. Here translation takes on its medieval spatial meaning as the physical transfer of a sacred body. This paper proposed an analysis of the marginalization, the removal, and the relo- cation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. Employing the vocabulary of semi- otics, looking at monument as text, Bellentani argues that the removal cannot be interpreted through the clashing interpretations of Ethnic-Estonians and Russian speakers. Rather, the Bronze Soldier embodied an array of multifacet- ed interpretations and the process of its relocation elicited different emotional reactions. Its relocation two kilometers outside the center of the city had both spatial and ideological implications: it was an official attempt to displace its meanings toward a peripheral area of both Tallinn and Estonian culture as such—that is, to translate them into the context of contemporary European Estonia. 14 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 The final essay by Laurent Lamy tells the fascinating story of a transla- tional movement whose center was Renaissance Florence. The paradigm shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe, he argues, was in part possible be- cause of the combination of mystical and rational thought which emerged in the early Renaissance—largely through the translations of one Flavius Mithri- dates, born Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada (ca. 1445–1489), a colorful figure who was a Jewish convert to Christianity. From 1485 to 1487, he labored by the side of Pico della Mirandola, translating Kabbalistic literature. The col- laboration between the two scholars was one of the most fertile translation ventures in the history of ideas in the West; it provided the European intellec- tual elite with a reservoir of ideas and symbolic patterns that found resonance in provinces of thought “located many leagues from their country of origin.” The introduction of Persian and Chaldean solar theologies, and the concept of a plurality of worlds presented through the various perspectives offered by cosmological speculations of the Jewish Kabbalah, had a large impact on the evolving ideas of the intellectual elite of the Quattrocento. The translation of a critical mass of Kabbalistic and Arabian astronomical treatises—the begin- nings of which far exceeded the translations produced under the enlightened caliphate of Bagdad between the ninth and twelfth centuries—established, in a very short time span, a fertile interplay between sapiential traditions of an- cient times and embryonic ideas of modern science. Florence was, for several decades, the epicenter of this heightened activity around translation, which opened up a fault line that shook the geocentric status quo. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 15

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/15748

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Marseilles’ Sanitary Station: morphologies of displacement between memory and desire Simona Elena Bonelli [email protected] <Abstract> The former “Sanitary Station” of Marseille was built in 1948 by the architect Fernand Pouillon, its history closely linked to the history of the Phocaean city. The main entry and departure point for travelers and immigrants arriving by the sea, it was aban- doned for forty years and was almost destroyed in 2009. In 2013, it was transformed into the museum Regards de Provence, but still keeps the memory of its past: the “steam room” (part of this quarantine internment system) is a permanent installation and is part of a section called “Memories of the Sanitary Station.” Migrants from all over the world arriving in Marseille were “displaced” here to go through disinfection, screening, and a vaccination process in a bid to fight the city’s ever-present threat of epidemics. This was therefore a multilingual context, but also a place in which bodies were forced to undergo a transformation. Somehow, these people, like a text under the eyes of a translator, were carefully examined before being allowed access to a new space, a new context. The building itself is a palimpsest, made of different phases of transforma- tion: from Sanitary station to a place occupied by squatters to a museum. What makes the Sanitary Station an emblematic city space is the fact that the different “layers” of its transformations are all present—none has been cancelled. An urban structure that is at the same time—as Derrida puts it—translatable and untranslatable: “Un texte ne vit que s’il survit, et il ne sur-vit que s’il est à la fois traductible et intraduisible.” “La città non dice il suo passato, lo contiene come le linee d’una mano, scritto negli spigoli delle vie, nelle griglie delle finestre, negli scorrimano delle scale, nelle antenne dei para- fulmini, nelle aste delle bandiere, ogni segmento rigato a sua volta di graffi, seghettature, intagli, svirgole.” (Calvino, 1979, 18)1 In Invisible Cities, Marco Polo and Kublai Khan talk about the impossibility of defining what a city is and what it is not. Cities are the product of multiple and unpredictable interactions rather than the result of a rational plan. Urban space is read and interpreted by Italo Calvino as a place constantly crossed by fluctuations and rhythms. In one of the sections called “Cities and memory,” Marco Polo describes the city of Zaira that, he tells the Emperor, consists of 1 “The city [...] does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls” (Calvino 1997, 9). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 17 “relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past” (Calvino 1994, 9). The urban landscape is made of time and space, and, like texts, cities are made of signs that we can read and interpret. In this article I would like to read the past of an emblematic building, the Sanitary Station, “like the lines of a hand” of Marseille, trying to decipher its patterns, its trans- formations, its symbolic function inside the city. The former “Sanitary Station” of Marseille (figure 1) was built in 1948 by the architect Fernand Pouillon, and the history of this place is closely linked to that of the Phocaean city. Main entry and departure point for trav- ellers and immigrants arriving by the sea, it was abandoned for forty years and was almost destroyed in 2009. In 2013 it was completely transformed into the museum Regards de Provence, but it still keeps the memory of its past: the “salle des étuves” (the steam room, part of the quarantine internment system) (figure 1) is a permanent installation and is part of a section called “Memories of the Sanitary Station.” If the concept of memory recalls something that is buried in the past, what makes this building an exemplary space is the fact that all the different phases of its transformations are still there—they have not been canceled.2 The city of Marseille is not new to epidemics. The Mediterranean sea has always been a source of life and prosperity, but also of death: through the centuries, the population of Marseille has been devastated by plague and pes- tilence, and in the sixteenth century the first sanitation board was established, whose members inspected all incoming ships, cargoes, crew, and passengers. The worst plague outbreak in the history of Marseille occurred in 1720, when the merchant ship Grand Saint-Antoine brought pestilence-carrying rats and fleas into the Vieux Port. It was the “Great Plague of Marseille,” the epidemics that Antonin Artaud evokes in his Le Théâtre et son double (1964) to develop an analogy between theater and pestilence; the plague is a transforming force that purges the world of its violence and ugliness.3 Although this epidemic was considered the last outbreak of plague in France, at the beginning of the twentieth century small epidemics and sporadic cases were recorded in Mar- seille and Paris. 2 The book that retraces the several transformations from the Sanitary Station to the Museum Regards de Provence has the emblematic title of Métamorphoses (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013). 3 The streets of a plague-ridden city are blocked by mounds of unidentifiable corpses; at this point, Artaud writes, “[l]e théâtre comme la peste est une crise qui se dénoue par la mort ou par la guérison. Et la peste est un mal supérieur parce qu’elle est une crise complète après laquelle il ne reste rien que la mort ou qu’une extrême purification. De même le théâtre est un mal parce qu’il est l’équilibre suprême, qui ne s’acquiert pas sans destruction” (Artaud 1964, 25). 18 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 1. The former Sanitary Station of Marseille 2. The Salle des étuves After World War ii, there were fifteen million refugees, or “displaced people,” in Europe. Marseille organized the reception of thousands of immi- grants by creating a strategy of sanitary prophylaxis against plague, cholera, yellow fever, typhus fever, and smallpox. In 1948, the French architects An- dré Champollion, Fernand Pouillon, and René Egger were charged with the project of designing the Sanitary Station of Marseille. The main aim of their project was to create a place of disease prevention and control but, at the same time, to defy rigid spatial segregations and the exposure of individuals to a controlling centralized observation. For this reason they created a structure with several one-way corridors through which individuals could move in or- der to be washed and disinfected and undergo a medical examination (figure isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 19 3. Area for ablutions and disinfection 3). Everything was done to avoid any sense of humiliation to the passengers: wide, luminous spaces and above all a horizontal linearity that invested win- dows, objects, and at the same time the building’s structure created a place that evoked the atmosphere of a ship. These similarities between a ship and a place receiving potentially ill people suggests the Renaissance allegory of the “ship of fools” that, as Foucault explains, symbolizes an intermediate moment between the medieval exclusion of lepers outside the gates of the city and the exclusion of the mad within the social body (Foucault 1988). Every boat that arrived in Marseille found its uncanny “double” located on the threshold of the city, in a place that lies between the sea and the urban space, a liminal area that must be crossed if the individual wants to be considered healthy and, above all, inoffensive to the rest of the population. The threshold is an in-between state that separates two spaces of dif- ferent nature. As Walter Benjamin observed in his reflections on architecture: 20 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 The threshold is a zone. And in fact a zone of passage (Übergang). Transformation, passage, flux—all are contained in the word threshold. [. . .] We have become quite poor as far as threshold experiences go. Falling asleep is perhaps the only such ex- perience that has remained to us. (quoted in Sieburth, 19) But the notion of threshold has also fascinated Gérard Genette who, in the opening pages of Seuils, explains that “plus que d’une limite ou d’une frontière étanche, il s’agit ici d’un seuil ou—mot de Borges à propos d’une préface—d’un ‘vestibule’ qui offre à tout un chacun la possibilité d’entrer, ou de rebrousser chemin” (Genette 1987, 8).4 Philosophers like Wittgenstein and Benjamin have created several parallels between the forms of the city and the diverse forms of language, and semiotic studies invite us to read the city through its signifying forms. In his “Sémiologie et urbanisme,” Roland Barthes sees the city as a discourse, and this discourse, he writes, is truly a language: “Et nous retrouvons la vieille intuition de Victor Hugo: la ville est une écriture; celui qui se déplace dans la ville, c’est-à-dire l’usager de la ville (ce que nous sommes tous), est une sorte de lecteur qui, selon ses obligations et ses déplacements, prélève des fragments de l’énoncé pour les actualiser en secret” (Barthes 1985, 268).5 Architectural spaces can be read as chapters of a complex text—the city—made of streets, traffic, buildings, and so on that interact in a complex game of intertextuality. From this standpoint, the Sanitary Station is a multilingual context, a sort of Babel, but also a place in which the bodies of the immigrants had to undergo a transformation. Somehow these people, like a text in the eyes of a translator, were carefully examined before being allowed into a new space, a new context. A translation implies a movement, the concept of carrying something across. The English word derives from the Latin translatio, which itself comes from trans “across” and la-tio- “carrying”; the Italian language adds a cultural element to this image of movement with the use of the noun tradotta, which is a special train used for the transportation of military troops or deportees. By extension, in Italian it is possible to say that “l’assassino è stato tradotto in carcere” (“the murderer was taken, ‘translated’ to prison”). In his book The Pleasure of the Text, Barthes asks the question “Does the text have a human form, is it a figure, an anagram of the body?” (Barthes 1986, 16). We could ask ourselves whether the human body has 4 “More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a threshold or—a word Borg- es used apropos of a preface—a ‘vestibule’ that offers the possibility of either stepping inside or turning back” (Genette 1997, 1–2). 5 “And here we rediscover Victor Hugo’s old intuition: the city is writing. He who moves about the city, e.g., the user of the city (what we all are), is a kind of reader who, following his obliga- tions and his movements, appropriates fragments of the utterance in order to actualize them in secret” (Barthes 1986, 199). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 21 a textual status, that of a “readable” object of translation, whose position can be changed and relocated in a new context. The “transformation” of the refugees that arrived in Marseille took place in a building organized as a series of passageways that somehow evoke Benjamin’s arcades, although with some remarkable differ- ences. Sherry Simon writes that Benjamin uses the arcades as a cultural historian to represent an ambiguous urban space, neither inside nor outside, a passageway which is also a space of consumption, a new materialization of urban space. In the essay on translation, he uses the arcade to for- mulate a contrast between interpretive translation (which uses as its unit the “sentence” or the “proposition”) and literal translation (which proceeds word by word). The first, he says, produces a translation akin to a wall, the second a text which functions more like an arcade: ‘For if the sentence is the wall before the language of the original, literalness is the arcade.’ The glass roof allows light to flow through matter, just as the literally translat- ed text is a transparent surface which allows the light of the original to fall onto the new version, creating an interplay of surfaces. (Simon 2000, 75) I find this passage extremely interesting because it gives me the op- portunity to explore the relationship between the process of translation and the spaces of translation. Both in the Parisian arcade and in the Sanitary Sta- tion of Marseille, the presence of a glass construction is essential, but while in the arcade the glass roof has the aim of accentuating the transition zone between the outdoor world of the street and the interior space,6 in the Sanitary Station the lateral glass walls contribute to the brightness of the space but at the same time the concrete structure creates a screen to guarantee the privacy of those passing by. Benjamin sees the arcades as the entry point of the Parisian labyrinth, a place where the flâneur could dwell; the Sanitary Station is a one- way passage in which there is no time for dwelling: the “translation” of those who are already “dis-placed” people should be done quickly in order to obtain a transformed, clean version of their bodies. Like Genette, I would like to insist on the term “vestibule,” because, in addition to the concept of “thresh- old,” this word also conveys the idea of clothing if we accept the etymology from the Latin vestibulum, from vestis “garment” and -bulum, probably from the sense of “a place to dress.”7 When the immigrants arrived in the Sanitary Station, they were first of all asked to undress so that their clothes could be 6 Benjamin was attracted by the ambiguity of glass, by the transformative power of this building material through its architectural application: “It is not a coincidence that glass is so hard and smooth a material to which nothing can be fastened. It is also cold and sober. Things that are made of glass have no ‘aura.’ Glass is the enemy par excellence of secrecy. It is also the enemy of property” (quoted in Heynen 1999, 155). 7 Ovid, in his Fasti, links the term vestibulum to the Roman goddess of hearth and home Vesta. In any case, if the vestibule is now the place where outer clothing is put on or removed in leaving or entering a house, for the Romans it was the area in which they used to depose their clothes. 22 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 washed and disinfected; they then had to go through the communal showers that, thanks to a system of mobile partition walls, became individual show- ers. The city that has made “Savon de Marseille” its emblem distributed bars of soap and towels to the immigrants who, eventually, got back their clean clothes and could go upstairs for a medical examination. The Sanitary Station only remained active for a couple of years, un- til the World Health Organization coordinated a global vaccination program that made entities such as the station redundant. Before entering a country, people were supposed to show their vaccination cards; this was the beginning of preventive medicine. After having served as offices for the administrative clerks of the Direction du Contrôle Sanitaire aux Frontières, the Sanitary Sta- tion of Marseille was closed in 1971. A new chapter in this building’s life then began—that of refuge of squatters. The edifice that was used as an institution for disease prevention and control became a place of meetings and creativity for squatters and graffiti art- ists. The white aseptic walls of the Sanitary Station were filled with colorful po- ems, tags, and murals. Round images replaced the square tiles covering the walls, showers, and steam rooms. An ephemeral form of art violated the visual and ar- chitectural order and setting, breaking the rules of the space–time relationship. The body, the skin of the sanitary station was “scratched,”8 in the same way as the skin of the migrants was scratched to be immunized against smallpox. The squatters imposed a transformation on this building by “inoculating” the germs of a revolutionary art. In 2009, in order to protest against the permanent closing of the place, the squatters burned a car inside the building (figure 4), which was 4. Burned car in Sanitary Station 8 The term “graffiti” derives from the Italian word graffio, a “scratch” or “scribble”. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 23 nearly destroyed—fire as a sort of extreme catharsis that paved the way to the next transformation. The burned car is a trace, its cinders a rem(a)inder of something that is at the same time present and absent. In Feu la cendre, Derrida describes how one particular phrase, “il y a là cendre” (“cinders there are”), continually returned to him and insists on the importance of the trace: Si vous ne vous rappelez plus, c’est que l’incinération suit son cours et la consumation va de soi, la cendre même. Trace destinée, comme toute, à disparaître d’elle-même pour égarer la voie autant que pour rallumer une mémoire. La cendre est juste : parce que sans trace, justement elle trace plus qu’une autre, et comme l’autre trace. (Derrida 1984, 30)9 What remains from the destruction returns to the surface, to the skin; when the smoke dissipates, the incinerated place resurfaces. The evocation of haunting memories that reemerge from a fire is at the center of the artistic production of Claudio Parmiggiani, who in his work Delocazione (De-loca- tion) builds installations and sets them on fire, revealing the traces of the disappeared objects. This is what Didi-Huberman calls “une matière de l’ab- sence”—things disappear, but the memory of their presence still remains.10 The Regards de Provence foundation, in need of a permanent structure for its exhibitions in the city of Marseille, decided to rehabilitate this building and create a museum that collected artworks created in and about Provence. But before its permanent recuperation and conversion, before the ancient Sanitary Station was transformed into a Museum, a French photographer and installation artist was asked to fix an image in which the traces of the past could interact with the poetic metamorphoses that this place has experienced. Georges Rousse is an artist attracted by neglected and forgotten sites, by their solitude and emptiness; he takes his inspiration from the “wounds” suffered by an edifice to create an ephemeral “mise-en-scène” that he then immortalizes with photographs.11 One of the main characteristics of a photograph is its link with the referent, a sort 9 “If you no longer recall it, it is because the incineration follows its course and the consummation proceeds from itself, the cinder itself. Trace destined, like everything, to disappear from itself, as much in order to lose the way as to rekindle a memory. The cinder is exact: because without a trace it precisely traces more than an other, and as the other trace(s)” (Derrida 1991, 57). 10 In his book Génie du non-lieu, Georges Didi-Huberman explores the works of Parmiggiani. The Italian artist shows that fire does not cause the complete disappearance of an object, but, rather, it delocates it. The question of memory and survival therefore becomes essential: “Il se- rait donc abusive d’identifier l’œuvre de Parmiggiani à une simple nostalgie du passé (Delocazi- one est d’ailleurs plus proche d’Hiroshima que d’une reconstitution pompéienne). Cette œuvre vise plutôt un travail de la mémoire—une prise en considération de la survivance—qui a fait dire à l’artiste que ‘les veritables Antiques, c’est nous’” (Didi-Huberman 2001, 43). 11 His artistic intervention is multifaceted: “I call upon various methods of art: I am the designer of the project, the painter on-site, the architect by my interpretation of a given space and by the construction I organise there within, and finally the photographer who coordinates all these actions” (http://www.georgesrousse.com/english/news/rousse-speech.html). 24 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 of “reality effect” that makes the past reality of the object indubitable. In La Chambre claire, Barthes argues that the photographic referent is not the same as the referent of other systems of representation: whereas in painting the presence of the model is optional and in language the referents can be chimerical, in a photograph we cannot deny that the thing “has been there.”12 This significant aspect of referentiality seems to compensate for an inexplicable lack of images in relation to the activity of these spaces. In fact, neither the book Metamorphoses published by the Musée Regards de Provence (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013) nor the 45-minute documentary that, in the same Museum, explores the history of the plague in Marseille, immigration, and the building contain a single picture concerning the people who passed through the Sanitary Station, and there are only a few pictures of the areas and rooms from when it was active. Somehow, the artistic view of Georges Rousse is asked to capture, in single images, the sig- nificant past of these spaces, and he does so by insisting on the double liminality of the Sanitary Station: the instant captured by the photos of the French artist is not only that of a place that has represented for years the liminal area between the port and the city, but also that of a phase of an urban space that has gone through several transformations.13 The technique used by Rousse is that of anamorphosis; whereas trompe l’œil gives the illusion that a flat surface is three dimensional, his anamorphic images create the illusion that a three-dimensional area is flat (figures 5 and 6). Although it looks as if the geometric form has been digitally created, the illusion generated by these photographs is optical, and represents the outcome of several weeks of work so that the colorful geometric is only visible from a specific point of view. The anamorphic figure invites those who are watching it to move, to change their point of view, in order to bring into perfect focus the object of interpretation. Nevertheless, the installations created by Georges Rousse, once they are immortalized by the camera, do not ask the viewer to move, to change their perspective: his artwork is intended only for the lens, and not for an ob- server in the actual space. Rousse creates a “before” and “after” effect—first, the “deconstructed” red circle and then the perfectly round red circle reassembled by the camera. In doing so, he wanders in the rooms of the Sanitary Station with the eye of the photographer who is trying to find the right standpoint.14 12 Its essence is recorded in the formula “ça a été,” “that has been.” 13 In an interview about his installations at the future Musée Regards de Provence, Georges Rousse said that “[l]e port c’était la station sanitaire qui accueillait les immigrants mais c’est aussi le point de départ vers l’ailleurs. [. . .] Je voulais rendre compte de ce nouvel espace qui a perdu toute fonctionnalité et qui va disparaitre, cet entre-deux” (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013, 109) 14 “Je déambule dans les lieux avec l’œil du photographe pour repérer le bon point de vue jusqu’à l’image finale qui a besoin de l’appareil photographique comme outil de reproduction” (Muntaner and Durousseau 2013, 111). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 25 26 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 In these ephemeral installations that are immortalized only by the lens of a camera, the gaze of the artist leaves its place to another “gaze”: that of the Museum Regards de Provence, a museum that has slowly become a sort of palimpsest, made of its different phases of transformation. The permanent installation shows the old steam room and a documentary that retraces the history of this building, while the temporary exhibitions are housed in galler- ies on the ground and first floors. The several windows along both the front and the back walls of this long, horizontal building invite the observer to gaze outside, towards the port and the city. In the course of all its transformations, 5–6. the Sanitary Station has been “living on”; its trans-lation, its trans-positions Rousse, anamorphic have not destroyed it. Like a text, this building has survived only because, installation to paraphrase Derrida, it was at once translatable and untranslatable.15 This building outlives itself, is at the outskirts of its own living. Like Georges Rousse, Walter Benjamin was attracted by the decayed or abandoned spaces of the city; likewise, he was fascinated by “thresholds” and borders. He first visited Marseille in 1926, and then several times in 1928 and 1931. His last visit to the Phocaean city took place in 1940, shortly before his death. Marseille was for him like a book to be interpreted: In the early morning I drove through Marseilles to the station, and as I passed familiar places on my way, and then new, unfamiliar ones or others that I remembered only vaguely, the city became a book in my hands, into which I hurriedly glanced a few last times before it passed from my sight for who knows how long into a warehouse crate. (Benjamin 1999b, 447) Whereas Paris represents for Benjamin the ideal place to discover the traces of social meaning and the collective dreams of modernity, he finds Mar- seille hard to decipher, to the point where he once commented that no city so stubbornly resisted his efforts to depict it as did Marseille (Eiland 2014, 310). Benjamin sees each street as a vertiginous experience; for him the city-dweller should be “on the threshold of the metropolis as of the middle class” (Benja- min 2006, 40). Nevertheless, in his writings on hashish, and in particular in the text “Hashish in Marseilles,” he does not stay on the borders. Rather, he lets himself sink inside the “ventre of Marseilles”: 15 “Un texte ne vit que s’il sur-vit, et il ne sur-vit que s’il est à la fois traductible et intraduisible. [. . .] Totalement traductible, il disparaît comme texte, comme écriture, comme corps de langue. Totalement intraduisible, même à l’intérieur de ce qu’on croit être une langue, il meurt aussitôt. La traduction triomphante n’est donc ni la vie ni la mort du texte, seulement ou déjà sa survie. On en dira de même de ce que j’appelle écriture, marque, trace, etc. Ça ne vit ni ne meurt, ça survit. Et ça ne ‘commence’ que par la survie (testament, itérabilité, restance, crypte, détache- ment déstructurant par rapport à la rection ou direction ‘vivante’ d’un ‘auteur’ qui ne se noierait pas dans les parages de son texte)” (Derrida 1986, 147–149). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 27 I lay upon the bed, read and smoked. All the while opposite to me this glimpse of the ventre of Marseilles. (Now the images begin to take hold of me). The street that I’d so often seen is like an incision cut by a knife. (Benjamin 1978, 138) When, under the effect of hashish, Benjamin describes the streets of Marseille, he enters a surrealist dream world, made of strange sounds, images, and scents. His perception of what he sees in the streets—where he strolls to find a restaurant for dinner—is distorted, the dimensions of time and space are abolished.16 Unexpectedly, the words of a conversation in a little port bar sound to him like dialect: The people of Marseilles suddenly did not speak good enough French to me. They were stuck at the level of dialect. The phenomenon of alienation that may be involved in this, which Kraus has formulated in the fine dictum “The more closely you look at a word the more distantly it looks back” appears to extend to the optical. (Benjamin 1978, 144) Michel de Certeau writes that the city is a text, and that walking in a city has its own rhetoric: “Il y a une rhétorique de la marche. L’art de ‘tourn- er’ des phrases a pour équivalent un art de tourner des parcours. Comme le langage ordinaire, cet art implique et combine des styles et des usages” (De Certeau 2005, 15).17 Nevertheless, the legibility of a city changes; it is the per- spective of the viewer that defines the object of observation. When Benjamin quotes Kraus’s aphorism (“The closer one looks at a word, the further away it looks back”), he too evokes the importance of perspective. How should we read a city, its translation zones, its palimpsests? I would like to close this paper with another quote from Calvino’s Invisible Cities: In due modi si raggiunge Despina: per nave o per cammello. La città si presenta differente a chi viene da terra e a chi dal mare. [. . .] Ogni città riceve la sua forma dal deserto a cui si oppone; e così il cammelliere e il marinaio vedono Despina, città di confine tra due deserti. (Calvino 1994, 370)18 16 “Versailles, for one who has taken hashish, is not too large, nor eternity too long” (Benjamin 1978,138). 17 “There is a rhetoric of walking. The art of ‘turning’ phrases finds an equivalent in an art of composing a path. Like ordinary language, this art implies and combines styles and uses” (De Certeau 1984, 100). 18 “Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea. [. . .] Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts” (Calvino 1997, 17). 28 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Whereas the city of Zaira is part of a section devoted to memory, De- spina is a city of desire that opens paths and opportunities for visitors. There are multiple ways of seeing the same city, depending on which face of the city they see. Those who arrive at Despina have to shift their perspective, as if they were in front of an anamorphic image. By building the Sanitary Station, Mar- seille has tried to give itself a “face” from which the immigrants could see it, but France’s oldest city has not resisted the univocal direction imposed by this passage point: the Station operated for a few years, quickly transformed by artists who made this structure a place of exile, of displacement, a metaphori- cal place that contains a plurality of meanings and errant trajectories, and that lends itself to multiple interpretations. The story of those anonymous people who arrived in Marseille and whose body/corpus underwent a transformation in order to be admitted to a new context intertwines with the story of another migrant who, some years before, in 1940, had been trying to escape France for the United States: Walter Benjamin. He went from Paris to Marseille, which at that time was full of refu- gees, especially those from countries occupied by the German army. The philos- opher who used to be an extraordinary city dweller and who loved to get lost in the meanders of a city, found himself obliged to follow the route taken by many refugees. In Marseille he obtained a passport issued by the American Foreign Service, but when he discovered that the port was virtually closed he tried to cross the Spanish border by walking up into the mountains. He never managed to traverse the most important boundary of his life, however, and in Portbou he was refused entry into Spain. He was held in Portbou overnight and sent back to occupied France the next morning. The morphine Benjamin had brought with him from Marseille was strong enough to kill him. Hannah Arendt wrote about her dear friend and the Kafkian situation in which he found his death: A few weeks later the embargo on visas was lifted again. One day earlier Benjamin would have got through without any trouble; one day later the people in Marseille would have known that for the time being it was impossible to pass through Spain. Only on that particular day was the catastrophe possible. (Arendt 1990, 24) Benjamin died in a liminal space, in a liminal time; a bitter twist of fate for the philosopher who has taught us the important difference between “boundary” and “threshold”: “The threshold must be carefully distinguished from the boundary. A Schwell <threshold> is a zone. Transformation, passage, wave action are in the word schwellen, swell, and etymology ought not to over- look these senses” (Benjamin 1999, 494). Following Benjamin’s fundamental distinction, we might suggest that the Sanitary Station was initially born as a “boundary area” because of its isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 29 function of containment and delimitation, and that it has eventually “swol- len,” with an extraordinary series of metamorphoses, into a threshold, a place caught up in a tension, an innovative space. The Regards de Provence muse- um is now a site of rewriting, a place that combines memory of its past and a gaze towards the future. It has not lost its “in-between position,” though, caught as it is between the ancient Cathedral and the new buildings (Mucem, Villa Mediterranée) designed by internationally renowned architects. A poten- tial space for hybridization. <References> Arendt, Hannah. 1999. “Walter Benjamin: 1892–1940.” In Walter Benjamin, Illumina- tions, edited by Hannah Arendt; translated by Harry Zorn. London: Pimlico. 7–60. Artaud, Antonin. 1964. “Le Théâtre et la peste.” In Le Théâtre et son double. Paris: Gallimard. 25–26. Barthes, Roland. 1973. Le Plaisir du texte. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. . 1973. The Pleasure of the Text. Translated by Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang. . 1980. La Chambre claire: note sur la photographie. Paris: Gallimard. . 1985. “Sémiologie et urbanisme.” In L’Aventure sémiologique. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. . 1986. “Semiology and the Urban.” In The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics. Edited by Mark Gottdiener and Alexandros Ph. Lagopou- los. New York: Columbia University Press. 87–98. Benjamin, Walter. 1978. “Hashish in Marseilles.” In Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. Edited by Peter Demetz. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Harcourt Brace. 137–145. . 1999a. The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin Mc- Laughlin. Cambridge (Mass.) and London (England): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. . 1999b. Selected Writings. Edited by Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. . 2006. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire. Edited by Mi- chael W. Jennings. Cambridge (Mass.) and London (England): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Calvino, Italo. 1979. Le città invisibili. Turin, Einaudi. . 1997. Invisible cities. Translated by William Weaver. London: Vintage Books. De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Ren- dall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. . 2005. “Rhétoriques combinatoires.” In L’invention du quotidien. Tome 1—Arts de faire [1980–1990]. Folio Essais. Paris: Gallimard. Derrida, Jacques. 1984. Feu la Cendre/Ciò che resta del fuoco. Translated by Stefa- no Agosti. Firenze: Sansoni. . 1986. “Survivre.” In Parages. Paris: Galilée. 109-203. . 1991. Cinders. Translated by Ned Lukacher. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 30 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2001. Génie du non-lieu. Air, poussière, empreinte, han- tise. Paris: Minuit. Eiland, Howard, and M. W. Jennings. 2014. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1988. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books. Genette, Gerard. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Seuil. . 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge (Mass.): Cambridge University Press. Translated by Jane E.Lewin. Heynen, Hilde. 1999. Architecture and Modernity. A Critique. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press. Muntaner, Bernard, and Thierry Durousseau. 2013. Métamorphoses. Station Sani- taire en Musée Regards de Provence. Marseille: Fondations Regards de Provence. Sieburth , Richard. “Benjamin the Scrivener.” in Benjamin: Philosophy, History, Aes- thetics. Ed. Gary Smith. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989. 13-37. Simon, Sherry. 2000. “The Paris Arcades, the Ponte Vecchio, and the Comma of Translation.” Translators’ Journal, vol. 45 (1): 73–79. <Simona Elena Bonelli> She is a translator and lives in Marseille. She studied English and French Literature (University of Siena, Italy) and received her MA and PhD in Critical and Cultural Theory from Car- diff University, UK. She has taught English Language and Literature at the Universities of Siena and Perugia (Italy). Bonelli has published Tito Andronico. Il testo come simulacro del corpo, and has edited Seg- ni particolari: l’immagine del viso, l’immaginario del nome proprio, both with Quattroventi, Urbino. Her books and essays cover topics relating to Elizabethan literature, philosophy, aesthetics, gender studies, and trans- lation theory. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 31

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Translation and Fragmented Cities: Focus on Itaewon, Seoul Hunam Yun [email protected] <Abstract> Cities are open texts. They are perpetually transformed by their dynamic relationship with history and with the people who live in them. They are “rearticulated, transformed from a singular structure into a multilateral palimpsest that can be ‘written’ up and over, again and again,” with time. Therefore, the boundaries of cities’ identities continuously expand with this dynamic movement. There can be no single, fixed, or com- plete description of a city, which is why cities require continuous translation. However, cities are commonly represented as a single, fixed, and complete image in the process of translation through selective appropriation, and people consume that image. This paper attempts to reveal the process and ideological bias in such selective appropriation with a focus on Itaewon, South Korea. Historically, Itaewon has always been a site of different cultural encounters reflecting the historical twists and turns of Korea. After the Japanese invasion of the country in 1592 and the Manchu war of 1636, Japanese and Chinese soldiers stayed in the area. Then, during the colonial period, the Japanese army was stationed there, and after liberation, the American army was quartered there. Now, Mus- lims are flocking to the area, and it is becoming a city of immigrants. Because of these dynamic historical moments, Itaewon has been the site of cultural amalgamation and conflict, always retaining traces of the past. However, the images of Itaewon created by tourist books are ahistorical and fixed; the city has been fragmented as a commodity to be consumed through selective appropriation, and its dynamic history has been erased. The most common of these images are those of shopping centers and the red light dis- trict, images that have been reinforced by reproduction throughout decades. This paper investigates the process of this fragmentation of Itaewon and its underlying ideology. introduction I was motivated to consider the aspects of a city’s translation (in terms of in- tersemiotic translation in which nonverbal text is transferred into verbal text) when I found the translation of Itaewon, an area located in the northern part of Seoul, South Korea. Shockingly, the words that caught my eye were “Red Light District.” Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, in its entry on Itaewon, highlighted only the Red Light District as a local attraction, as follows:1 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaewon (last accessed December, 2014). 32 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Contents 1. Local attractions 1.1 Red Light District 2. See also 3. Notes 4. External links With a brief explanation of the geographical location of Itaewon, Wikipedia introduces local attractions, focusing on the international dishes, hotels, shops, and clubs that tourists can enjoy: Many restaurants serving international dishes are found in this area […]. Major ho- tels such as The Grand Hyatt and local landmark The Hamilton Hotel can be found here as well as dozens of shops and services aimed at tourists. High quality leather products in Korea can be found […] as well as various types of traditional Korean souvenirs. […] Itaewon is one of the popular club congested area in Korea, […] Most of foreign people go to the clubs for clubbing and hooking up while they are staying in Korea.2 Then separate space was allocated to the introduction of the Red Light District under the same title: There is a portion of Itaewon known as “Hooker Hill” among GI’s of different allied nations stationed in South Korea. Although the stereotype of only American ser- vicemen frequenting this area is well-known, men from all other countries, including Middle-Eastern and African, are known to frequent this area as well. Furthermore, because South Korea is not widely socially accepting of homosexuals, there is an underground gay area within this district as well. The prominent image of Itaewon represented by Wikipedia is of a “retail” city—selling goods and bodies. An explanation of this followed: “This article is written like a travel guide rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. [. . .]” (July 2013). This explanation is very significant in that it suggests that a travel guide does not present full, complete, and thorough information, but rather is se- lective regarding the information it includes. This is quite appropriate since a travel guide should be light enough for travelers to carry. However, the problem with selective information—in other words selective translation—is the image the translation produces. This paper is concerned with this point. Translation has been frequently presented as an activity to create an image of others or of selves, in the case of Itaewon, for example, this includes “a nostalgic image of a lost past” about Japanese people (Fowler 1992), images of the East by the West in colonial contexts (Niranjana 1992), or a self-image 2 The article has since been altered, but there is no significant difference in its content. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 33 by a colonized people (Tymoczko 1999). The process involves “a deliberate and conscious act of selection, assemblage, structuration, and fabrication— and even, in some cases, of falsification, refusal of information, counterfeiting, and the creation of secret codes” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xxi). However, little notice has been taken of translation as an activity to cre- ate images of cities and of the process this involves. French theologian Jacques Ellul states that the evolution of cities represents man’s fall from natural grace and the subsequent attempt to create a new, workable order (Kotkin 2005, xv). This may mean that cities are constructed and shaped through the dynamic rela- tionship with human beings, and they are formed, and transformed, by such re- peated attempts throughout the city’s history, keeping traces of every historical moment. That is, they are “rearticulated, transformed from a singular structure into a multilateral palimpsest that can be ‘written’ up and over, again and again” (Chambers 2012, 104) with time. Therefore, the boundaries of cities’ identities continuously expand with this dynamic movement. However, cities are commonly represented as a single and fixed image in the process of translation through selective appropriation, and people ac- cept and consume that image. In the history of translation studies, little atten- tion has been paid to these aspects of cities, that is, cities as a translated text. Cities are translated through special forms of communication, such as the environmental landscape, symbolic artifacts, local events, or other landmarks, and through verbal communication, such as cities’ names, slogans or statements. This paper attempts to reveal how verbal translation, especially for tourists, constructs an image of a city, with a focus on Itaewon. Itaewon has been a very particular and special space in Korean history. Unlike other areas of Seoul, which have a single ethic identity, Itaewon has been the space of expatriates. It has been a foreign and exotic land within Korea, a zone of con- tact where native and foreign cultures encounter each other, and a mediating channel though which foreign cultures are introduced. This paper first inves- tigates Itaewon as a site of cultural encounters and cultural translation against the background of Korean history, then it examines its translation in tourist books and the subsequent effects. itaewon as a site of cultural encounters and cultural translation When French historian Fernand Braudel stated, “A town is always a town, wherever it is located, in time as well as space” (Rybczynski 1995, 49), he must have been referring to the universality of the urban experience. As Kot- kin notes, the urban experience is universal “despite vast differences in race, 34 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 climate, and location” because “there is the visceral ‘feel’ of the city almost everywhere—the same quickening of pace on a busy street, an informal mar- ketplace, or a freeway interchange, the need to create notable places, the shar- ing of a unique civic identity” (2005, xv–vxi). The omnipresent visceral feel he refers to is created by the so called “non-places” found in almost every city. Non-places, a term coined by French anthropologist Marc Augé, refers to an- thropological spaces of transience that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as “places.” As Augé points out, supermodernity produces nonplaces, “meaning spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which, unlike in Baudelairean modernity, do not integrate the earlier places” (1995, 63). Nonplaces are temporary, ephemeral, fleeting spaces for passage, commu- nication, and consumption. Augé puts it thus: If place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place. [. . .] the same things apply to the non-place as to the place. It never exists in pure form; places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in it; the ‘millennial ruses’ of ‘the invention of the everyday’ and ‘the arts of doing,’ so subtly analysed by Michel de Certeau, can clear a path there and deploy their strategies. Places and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed. (Augé 1995, 63–64) Examples of nonplaces are air, rail, and motorway routes, aircraft, trains and road vehicles, airports and railway stations, hotel chains, leisure parks, large retail outlets, and the complex skein of cable and wireless net- works that mobilize extraterrestrial space for the purposes of a communication (Augé 1995). These nonplaces make urban scenes familiar and uniform, creating an illusion of universality in urban experiences. In extreme cases, those nonplaces may make urban experiences homogeneous so that they give the impression that “only the name of the airport changes” as described in the novel Invisible Cities by Italian writer Italo Calvino: If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I had taken off. The suburbs they drove me through were no different from the others, […] The downtown streets displayed goods, packages, signs that had not changed at all. […] You can resume your flight whenever you like, but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail. The world is covered by the sole Trude, which does not begin, nor end. Only the name of the airport changes. (Calvino 1972/1974, 128) However, despite “the universality of the urban experience,” each city has a unique and special “feel,” which gives city tourists a different experience. One of the factors that make each city unique and special is its ascent and decline throughout history, the process of which is “both rooted in history isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 35 and changed by it” (Kotkin 2005, 147), in other words, the characteristics of “places” in Augé’s term. Cities are not stagnant; they are reconfigured, re- shaped, and rearranged with political, economic, social, and cultural changes throughout history. Just as Lotman points out in his discussion on the symbolism of St. Petersburg, “The city is a mechanism, forever recreating its past” (Lotman 1990, 194–195): architectural ensembles, city rituals and ceremonies, the very plan of the city, the street names and thousands of other left-overs from past ages act as code programs constantly renewing the texts of the past. Lotman also says that “in this sense, the city, like culture, is a mechanism which with- stands time” (Lotman 1990, 195). So, as Simon’s Cities in Translation (2012) suggests, cities are “intersec- tions of memory,” and the streets of the cities keep those memories. Itaewon is such a city. Compared to other areas in Seoul, it is an area with a rapid pace of change, and it has various images: diversity, ambiguity, disorder, chaos, exoticism, foreign land within the country, and so on. Such dynamicity and images throughout the history of the place stem mainly from its geographical location, specifically, its location near Han River. As Lotman puts it, there are two ways in which a city as a demarcated space may relate to the earth which surrounds it—concentric and eccentric: Concentric structures tend towards enclosure, separation from their surroundings which are classed as hostile while eccentric structures tend towards openness and contacts with other cultures. [. . .] The concentric situation of the city in semiotic space is as a rule associated with the image of the city on the hill. [. . .] The eccentric city is situated “at the edge” of the cultural space: on the seashore, at the mouth of a river. (Lotman 1990, 191–192) The peculiar situation of Itaewon, due to its location near the Han River, imbued it with openness. Indeed, various meanings and different sto- ries about the origin of the name show such characteristics. Itaewon has three different names and meanings, using different Chinese characters—梨泰院, 李泰院, and 異胎院—which are embedded in its geographical position and Korean history. Firstly, Itaewon was initially a place for travelers and trading. During the Joseon Dynasty, one of four Hanyang (present Seoul) won (院)—a won was a kind of inn established for government officials and travelers by the govern- ment—was located there. So the place was named Itaewon. The won (院) in the name “Itaewon” meant “inn offering lodgings to travelers” (smg 1998, 83). As more people frequented the area, inns for foreign envoys and markets were formed (Jang 2000, 59). Another story claims that Itaewon (梨泰院), meaning “area for pear trees,” was so named because pear trees were grown there. 36 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Itaewon was also a space of trauma. It was the area for alienated wom- en, women who had to choose isolation from the society because, with the scar of foreign invasion on their body, they could not be accepted in Korean society. During the Seven-Year War (1592–1598) against the Korean dynasty of Joseon, a Japanese military supply base was established in the Unjongsa Buddhist nun temple near present-day Itaewon. It is said that the Japanese commander Katō Kiyomasa and his soldiers seized the temple, raped the nuns, and then stayed for some time. They subsequently burned the temple before they left. The Buddhist nuns, who had lost their home, moved to nearby Yunggyeong Mountain and lived there. Thus, the area was called Itaewon (異胎院), which means “village for being pregnant with a foreigner’s child” (No- mi Lee 2011, 242–243; Hoefer et al. 1981; Jun-gi Kim 2012). Itaewon was also the place where Korean women, who had been tak- en to China during the second Manchu invasion of Korea in 1636, returned and settled down (Chosun Daily 2011).3 In Joseon society, which had a tradi- tion of monogamy, those women were despised as hwanhyangnyeo (“women who returned”) and so they could not return to their home. Therefore, they went to live with the nuns (Heu-suk Han 2001, 59). According to another story, the name originated from Itain (異他人), which means foreigners, in reference to Japanese soldiers, who surren- dered and were naturalized during the Seven-Year War, forming a community there (Jun-gi Kim 2012). This link between Itaewon with marginalized people might have facilitated the formation of neighboring Haebangchon (literally, “liberation village”). Haebangchon was the area for displaced people after liberation from Japanese colonial rule, for north Korean refugees after the Korean War of 1950–1953, and then for farmers who had left their rural hometowns for cities during the process of industrialization. Geographically situated near Han River, Itaewon was considered strategically important in terms of transportation and military withdrawal. Thus, Itaewon has frequently been an area for foreign troops, having been a logistics base for the Mongolian Army during the late Goryeo Dynasty and a supply base for the Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 (Choi 2003, 23); it was also used by Chinese forces during the Im-O mili- 3 서울 속 외국 이태원 백서. 美軍거리서 다국적 거리로 (Itaewon White Paper: From the Street of the US Military Army to Multinational Street). Chosun Daily, Feb 21, 2011. http://boomup.chosun. com (accessed December, 2014). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 37 tary revolt of 1882–1884, was the location of the Japanese military headquarters during the colonial period of 1910–1945, and was used by the US forces after the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule (No-mi Lee 2011, 242–243; Shin 2008, 193; Seoul Development Institute 2001). The deployment of foreign troops transformed and rearranged the topography of Itaewon. During the 1920s, for instance, the public cemetery, which was located near the present-day Central Mosque, was transformed into the Japanese military headquarters. The cemetery was moved to the Miari district, and the body of Yu Gwan-sun, a patriotic martyr for independence from Japanese colonial rule, was lost in the process. However, the biggest changes to and deepest influence on Itaewon came with the deployment of the US forces. On September 9, 1945, the US forces came to be stationed in Itaewon when the US Army commanding of- ficer John Hodge received the surrender of all the Japanese forces in Korea south of the 38th parallel and took over the Japanese barracks and military facilities. The US Army Military Government was established and lasted from 1945 to 1948. However, with the Korean War in 1950, the US forces came back to be stationed in Itaewon, and the history of the US forces in Itaewon began. The English and Korean languages came to be used together; shops and bars emerged; and prostitutes, orphans, widows, and people from the provinces crowded around the US Army base hoping to scrape together a living from working on the base, selling goods to the soldiers, and so on. Military camp town clubs for American soldiers were opened, and Itaewon became a space where “American soldiers consumed Korean women sexually” (Hyeon-mee Kim 2005, 26). Thus, the so called “Hooker Hill” was formed. However, most of the women who worked at Hooker Hill were vic- tims of the Korean War. As the war had produced many orphans and widows, girls and women had to take responsibility for earning a living. They had to support not only themselves, but also their families. Some of them had to send money to their families in their hometown.4 Under the circumstances, given that they could not find proper jobs, they had to choose prostitution, becoming yang-gongju5 (a foreigner’s whore), as described in Yeong-su Oh’s novel of Anna’s Will (1963): 4 A girl risked her life to avoid the government’s control over prostitution and died because she could not make a living if she was caught. Hearing this news, sixty yang-gongju held a demon- stration against the control (Dong-A Ilbo Daily, October 27 1960, 3). 5 Yang in yang-gongju means Western, and gongju means a princess. Women who sold their bodies to Western men, especially American soldiers, were called yang-gongju. 38 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 She had no clothes to cover her body A brick looked like a chunk of meat to her. How could you expect a girl, who is starving, To be a lady, to be faithful? I was starved. A mature girl had no place to lay down her body. Is this sin? So I became a whore called Anna. (translation mine) (Oh 1963, 330) As foreign official residences were established in the 1960s, military accommodation was built in 1963, and when the 121st Evacuation Hospital of the US Army was moved to Itaewon from Bupyeong district, more than 10,000 people relocated there. During the 1970s, the area became a shopping district for cheap branded goods; there was a prosperous textile industry, and the area enjoyed the reputation of one of the most popular tourist attractions in Korea among foreign tourists in the 1980s when international events were held in Seoul. Thus, it was while the US forces were stationed there that Itaewon came to be known for its shopping area and for Hooker Hill. However, Itae- won cannot be reduced to only a shopping area and Hooker Hill. Itaewon was both a colonized space and a space of freedom and resistance. Politically, it was an Americanized colonial space (Lee and Jung 2010, 191), a colonized space (Choi 2003), or a deterritorialized space in that the authority of the nation–state was applied differently from how it was applied in other areas of the country (Eun-sil Kim 2004). Culturally, it was the space of freedom and resistance where Korean people could escape oppression under the Yushin regime in the 1970s and experience American culture (Eun-sil Kim 2004, 27; No-mi Lee 2011, 243). Indeed, Itaewon was the only route to American culture in Korean society: It was a place to experience Americanism as an object of desire for a generation familiar with afkn radio programs, with singers trained on the musical stages at US military bases, and with Hollywood movies (Choi 2003,102) because foreign travel remained restricted in Korea until 1989. These characteristics made the area a dynamic space where heteroge- neous cultural codes and different subjectivities (including colonized “others,” fragmented “youths,” and a decolonized “new generation”) were encountered, (re)constructed, (re)signified, and transformed at a specific historical stage (Lee and Jung 2010, 191). It was a place where subcultures, such as the culture of the US army in the 1950s–1960s, the Go-Go culture in the 1970s, disco cul- ture in the 1980s, and hip-hop culture around the 1990s, were circulated, and it took on a leading role in Korea’s popular music and subculture. The “clubs” which actively interacted with subcultures of different generations formed a site that led Korean popular music and subculture (see Lee and Jung 2010). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 39 Itaewon, where American soldiers were previously the most numer- ous of the foreign residents, has become more multinational since 1993, when the Korean government introduced an industrial trainee system for foreign- ers. Foreign workers from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Uzbekistan, and so on settled in Itaewon because the area was more open to foreigners and foreign cultures. Thus, foreigners could feel more comfortable and secure there. Many expatriates found solace in its accommodating nature and chose to set up their homes there. As various cultures, languages, and lifestyles mix together and various cultural activities commingle, the exterior landscape of the area is changing, and the space of the area is being rearranged, creating a unique and distinctive atmosphere. Through these dynamics, the area is becoming the cultural frontier zone where various cultures have become multinational and multilingual (Hy- eon-mee Kim 2005, 26). Itaewon is also a site of both conflict and solidarity as shown in the Muslim community in the area: “Though Arab Muslim traders have been known to make infrequent trading expeditions to Korea since the Silla dy- nasty, the teachings of Muhammad never made a real impact until 1950 when Turkish troops arrived to fight for UN forces” (Hoefer 1981). In 1960, the Korean Muslim Federation was founded with a Korean, Haji Sabri Suh, as its leader. However, the Islamic community was established due to the need to understand the Islamic world after the oil crisis of 1973 and 1974 (Lee and Jung 2011, 242). In February 1975, an Islamic Center was established in Itae- won, Seoul, and an adjoining Central Mosque—the largest such onion-domed structure in northeast Asia—was opened in 1976 (Hoefer 1981). The Seoul Central Mosque had been built with both Korean and Middle Eastern funds to serve the 3,000 followers of the Prophet in the nation (Hoefer 1981). The Central Mosque is therefore not only a place for religious belief but also a symbolic site which shows Koreans’ effort to understand the Islamic world (Lee and Jung 2011, 242–243). A larger Muslim community was formed in Itaewon in 2005 when an- ti-American sentiment spread after two Korean middle school girls were acciden- tally run over and killed by an American armored personnel carrier, and American soldiers assaulted some citizens. As American soldiers were subsequently banned from bars and clubs, the economic base of the area declined and workers in the entertainment business left the area for cheaper accommodation elsewhere. Thus, the Muslim community was formed around the Central Mosque. The Muslim community is bringing about changes to Itaewon. One of the most noticeable changes is the increased number of Halal food restau- rants and the reduced number of local butcher’s shops (Heu-su Yi et al. 2008, 40 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 1. Itaewon, street view 2. Itaewon, Muslim settlement area 68). Furthermore, because of the strong solidarity among Muslims, the com- munity is often regarded as a closed community by other Koreans (Lee and Jung 2011, 250). The Muslim settlement in Itaewon is a segmentation of urban space formed by the pluralism of race and Islamic culture. However, the space is isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 41 never homogeneous to the citizens and Muslims living in the Muslim settle- ment, and the place of residence is perceived according to different meanings. That is, the citizens living in Itaewon view the Muslims as those who threaten their lives and view foreigners as the cause of economic conflicts as well. How- ever, for those Muslims in the settlement, the citizens’ hostility toward them has given rise to a view of them as a strange and potential threat. The place of conflict and alienation is an inevitable part of the process of initiating a new cultural solidarity (see Lee and Jung 2011). Another feature of Itaewon is the coexistence of mutually exclusive activities in the same place: the Muslim community adjoins Gay Hill, which was formed in the late 1990s when gay bars moved there from Euljiro-Jongro (Jung-eun Kim et al. 2010). The position of Itaewon as a place of expatriates makes negotiation across different cultures with no shared history the very condition of civic coexistence. Now, Itaewon is producing a varied atmo- sphere and landscapes as multinational cultures are dynamically mixed to- gether. translation and representation of itaewon as a nonplace Tourist books have an important role to play in presenting an image of a city to the outside world because most tourists depend on the books for informa- tion about the city they will visit. They obtain information about the history, culture, shopping centers, or entertainment facilities in the city and they con- sume the city based on this information. Tourist books provide guidelines to give tourists information and instructions to help them know or understand the city. Itaewon has been one of the most popular tourist areas in Seoul among foreign tourists to the extent that it has been said that “[y]ou may not know Seoul, but you should know Itaewon” (Saccone 1994, 79). Indeed, for most foreigners the area has become synonymous with Seoul. This section investigates how Itaewon has been presented in tourist books during the past thirty years. For this purpose, tourist books in English from 1981 until 2010 were examined; however, as not many tourist books are available that discuss Itaewon, the sample was limited to seventeen books. Insight Guides: Korea (Hoefer et al.), which was published in Hong Kong in 1981, offers comparatively detailed information, focusing on the or- igin of the name and Muhammadanism in Korea. Regarding the name, it quotes Allen and Donard Clark, a father-and-son team of Seoul historians as saying, “Following the Japanese invasion of 1592–1598, the area now called 42 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Itaewon came to be called ‘Itaein’ or ‘Itaein dong’ meaning ‘Foreigners’ Vil- lage,’ because of the Japanese soldiers who were quartered on this site,” and “When the war was over, some of the soldiers settled down, married Korean girls, and spent the rest of their lives here.” Then “the tradition carries on, though most American soldiers take their Korean brides home, to ‘the world.’ as they call the U.S. of A.” (Hoefer et al. 1981). Regarding Muhammadanism, the book says the teachings of Mu- hammad never made a real impact until the arrival of Turkish troops in 1950, as mentioned previously, and it goes on to explain the foundation of the Ko- rean Muslim Federation in 1960 and the establishment of an Islamic Center in 1975 and, later, the adjoining Central Mosque (Hoefer et al. 1981). Visitors Guide: Seoul Korea, which was published by Seoul Metro- politan Government (smg) in 1998, introduces some of Itaewon’s histor- ical traces: [the] “won” of the name has meant an inn offering lodgings to travelers of the Cho- son Dynasty. In the middle of the 17th century, there was a concentrated village of naturalized Japanese. From 1906, a Japanese Military Post was stationed in the area until liberation from Japanese colonial rule, and now US Military Post including headquarters is located there. (SMG 1998, 83) However, Insight Guides: South Korea (Le Bas), which was published in London in 2007, introduces the history of Itaewon using a more poetic tone: but foreigners, not all of them Western, now occupy multi-story apartment buildings. [. . .] Imagine the astonished reactions of the Buddhist monks who, for some 500 years, kept a free hostel for travelers near here. What exists now, albeit breathtaking, may prove to be too developed for their tastes: the Grand Hyatt Hotel’s mirrored façade; and the twin minarets of the onion-domed mosque below, from which re- sounds the muezzin’s call to afternoon prayer. (Le Bas 2007, 135-139) The book then adds that centuries ago, Itaewon was used as a stop- over point for visitors to the capital, that Japanese troops were housed there during the Japanese Occupation, and that, after the Korean War, they were then replaced by American soldiers. Although the descriptions in the above three tourist books are not enough to show the dynamicity of Itaewon, they at least reveal the historicity of the area. However, other tourist books introduce Itaewon, focusing on it as place for con- sumerism and as a shopping area and entertainment district as follows: known as a part of the city that never sleeps. [. . .] a one-stop hub for foreign visitors, including shopping, tours, lodging and information services. It also offers many ven- ues in which to enjoy Korean and foreign cultures and cuisines. (kotra 2006, 249) now a growing mecca for bargain hunters. [. . .] It is lined on both sides with hundreds isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 43 of shops and arcades selling ready-made sports clothes [. . .] It is also an entertain- ment spot that boasts well over 200 restaurants, bars and clubs. (Suzanne Crowder Han 1989, 74) crowded with shops of all kinds from custom tailors to jewelers, from antiques deal- ers to clothiers. [. . .] In the evening Itaewon becomes a dynamic entertainment dis- trict packed with discos, nightclubs, bars, and karaokes of all sizes. (Saccone 1994, 79–80) the shopping paradise of diverse visitors from all parts of the world. (kowoc 2002, 63) Itaewon offers tailor-made and ready-made clothes [. . .] There is a spirited night life, too. (Chunsung Kim 2004, 90) it was one of the only places in the country in which you could buy “Western” items [. . .] While it remains a great place to shop for cheap tailored suits and shoes, Itae- won’s popularity also made it a byword for transactions of a more sexual nature – hostess bars sprung up all over the place. (Paxton 2008, 109) It’s a bastardized district that’s neither Korean nor Western, but a skewed yet intrigu- ing combination of both. Clothing, gifts . . . (Nilsen 2009, 44 and 92) a lively expat entertainment zone with bars and clubs aplenty, both gay and straight. Market stalls line the main street and the district comes to life in the evening. (Rob- inson and Zahorchak 2009, 55) Once a shady red-light district, it’s been cleaned up [. . .] You can still find ladies of the night walking down certain streets at night, but during the day, it’s a shopper’s paradise. (Cecilia Hai-Jin Lee 2010, 63) Translation of Itaewon in the above tourist books is no different from that in Wikipedia, as was pointed out in the introduction. Rather than being presented as a dynamic space where memories are imprinted, heterogeneous cultures mix together, and new cultures emerge, Itaewon is represented in these books as a large retail outlet for the selling and buying of goods, just like nonplaces, to use Augé’s term (1995, 63), which have no urban relations, history, or identity. The way Itaewon is translated is similar to the process of reification in that it presents fragmented information about the city in the process of com- modification for tourism, and thereby stops us understanding the totality of the city. According to Lukács (1971), under capitalism everything is reified as the result of a unified structure of consciousness—that is, seeing everything in a completely discrete way, where everything is separated and fragmented and taken out of the process to which it belongs. Lukács claims this is caused by the fact that everything is turned into a commodity under capitalism, which thus prevents us from seeing the totality of the place and the deeper processes that are going on. In a capitalist society, a city is presented as a commodity for the tour- ist industry, and its images are created, manipulated, or distorted in the pro- 44 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 cess of translation in order to create a profit. A city’s function as a place for entertainment and shopping is frequently emphasized in presenting the city because “the criteria of the successful tourist industry mainly puts priority on spending on entertainment and shopping” (Yi and Oh 1994, 21). Itaewon’s image is presented as a place for selling and entertaining; removed from its historicity, the image is fragmented. fragmented image, fragmented experience What does this fragmented image have to do with the city? The most direct influence may be the way the city is consumed by tourists. For example, the following recent reviews of the city by tourists6 show that the way they con- sume the city is closely related to the image presented in tourist books: Itaewon: Lots of Shopping. There are shops and a district for almost every imaginable type of product and some are open until very late at night […]. (October 20, 2002) Itaewon: Capital of Kitsch. [. . .] filling up with good restaurants and chain stores. You can find Nike outlets selling all manner of shoes and sports gear, Body Shops filled with makeup and luxurious bath products, and dozens of clothing stores and tailors specializing in Chinese silk dresses. (October 19, 2003) Itaewon: Cheap shops and street fashion. You can find bargains of any kind and a lot of the big clothing chains [. . .]. (January 28, 2004) Itaewon: Near military base. Itaewon does have some shops [. . .] Itaewon is located near a US military base, so don’t mind the soldiers in camouflage wandering around town. At night time, Itaewon transforms itself [. . .] One of the native Koreans told me that most Korean girls do not hang around in that area, afraid to be mistaken as a prostitute. (February 22, 2005) Itaewon is perhaps the most famous shopping area for foreigners in Korea. (January 13, 2006) Itaewon: Buying a Custom-Made Suit in Itaewon. (May 6, 2007) Itaewon: Very Touristy and Expensive, not a Sample of Korea. The Itaewon shopping area covers a 1.4 km in length [. . .] The area has a vibrant night life scene with many bars and nightclubs. (July 24, 2008) Itaewon: Special Tourism Shopping Zone of Seoul (April 4, 2011) 6 All citations are taken from http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/South_Korea/Soul_ tukpyolsi/Seoul-1058426/Shopping-Seoul-Itaewon-BR-1.html (accessed December, 2014), which is an interactive site aimed at sharing travel knowledge, which includes chat, forums, travelogues, photos, and maps. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 45 Although one reviewer describes Itaewon as an unexpected treasure trove, most of the reviews show that tourists’ experience of Itaewon is superfi- cial and fragmented, alienated from its memories and ongoing history just like the images of the city in the tourist books. They just experience Itaewon as a non-place where things are sold and bought. Considering the general purpose of tourist books, it can be said that the translation of Itaewon that is circulated and reproduced has directed tourists’ pattern of consuming the city. The city is, of course, a place where things are traded, but it is not only a place where things are traded. As Calvino’s Invisible Cities suggests, a city is an assemblage of memory, desire, signs, names, and other features. So what is traded is not only things but also memories, desires, signs, names, and other things, as shown by Invisible Cities’ Euphemia: You do not come to Euphemia only to buy and sell, but also because at night, by the fires all around the market, seated on sacks or barrels or stretched out on pile of car- pets, at each word that one man says—such as “wolf,” “sister,” “hidden treasure,” “battle,” “scabies,” “lovers”—the others tell, each one, his tale of wolves, sisters, treasures, sca- bies, lovers, battles. And you know that in the long journey ahead of you, when to keep awake against the camel’s swaying or the junk’s rocking, you start summoning up your memories one by one, your wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other battles, on your return from Euphemia, the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every equinox. (Calvino 1972/1974, 36–37) Itaewon is also a place that has its memories, desires, signs, and names, and is the place where those memories, desires, signs, and names are traded; thus it deserves to be known for various reasons, not just as a selling place. So the experience of the city could be more complex than simply trading things. The fragmented experience together with the reproduced image has produced a negative image about Itaewon, so that it loses its attraction as a tourist site. Furthermore, as neighboring commercial areas are created, Itae- won has also lost its merits as a shopping area. Realizing the risk, the gov- ernment designated the area a special tourism district in 1997 and decided to hold the Itaewon Global Village Festival twice a year in an attempt to revive Itaewon as a site of dynamic cultural exchanges. conclusion In the tourism industry, cities are rearranged according to the economic principles of commercialism in a capitalist society. Cities can be classified as a sacred city, a fashion city, a commercial city, and so on, and this clas- sification is translated spatially or verbally, creating a representative image of the city. 46 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 3. Different views of Itaewon Tourist books are one of the media where cities are verbally trans- lated. Itaewon has been verbally translated as a shopping and entertainment area in tourist books, and such a translated image has been consumed among tourists. However, this image has been fragmented, and so has been the expe- rience of tourists. The experience of cities may be more multiple and more multilateral than the one the tourist books can produce as shown in the description of the city of Irene in Invisible Cities: If you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes. For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene. (Calvino 1972/1974, 125) isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 47 4. Itaewon, historical view Therefore, cities cannot be fixed to a single image or translation. The various translations of the name of Itaewon itself—foreigners’ village, village for being pregnant with a foreigner’s child, village for pear trees—show that the area cannot be translated into one fixed image. The inherent and unique properties of Itaewon have been formed by the totality of geographical and historical moments. Itaewon has been a place for travelers and trading, a space of trauma caused by the conflictive history of Korea, a foreigners’ village, a foreign land within the country, a colonized space, a space of freedom and resistance, a deterritorialized zone, a window onto Western culture, a space of conflicts and solidarity, a space for cultural translation, and so on. The area has accumulated its memories throughout history while being repeatedly rewrit- ten, functioning as “a culture-generator.” Indeed, regarding cities as “culture-generators,” Lotman says: The city is a complex semiotic mechanism, a culture-generator, but it carries out this function only because it is a melting-pot of texts and codes, belonging to all kinds of languages and levels. The essential semiotic polyglottism of every city is what makes it so productive of semiotic encounters. The city, being the place where different national, social, and stylistic codes and texts confront each other, is the place of hybridization, recodings, semiotic translations, all of which makes it into a powerful generator of new information. (Lotman 1990, 194) Itaewon has been, to use Lotman’s words “the place of hybridization, recodings, semiotic translations” (Lotman 1990, 194). However, a selective translation of such a city in the tourist books has focused on the fragmented image in the process of the commodification of the city as a tourist site. This fragmented image has been reproduced during past decades, fixing the image to Itaewon and obstructing cognition of the totality or the whole nature of the 48 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 city. This way, translation may be damaging to cities especially when a dis- torted image obtains authority through reproduction. As a culture-generator, a city deserves its proper translation. <References> Augé, Marc. 1995. Non-places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermoder- nity. Translated by John Howe. London: Verso. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bewes, Timothy. 2002. Reification or the Anxiety of Late Capitalism. London: Verso. Calvino, Italo. 1972. Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver (1974). Florida: Har- court Brace & Company. Chambers, Iain. 2012. “The Translated City.” Translation 1: 101–106. Choi, Jong-il. 2003. 이태원에 나타난 아메리카나이제이션에 관한 연구 (A Study on “Amer- icanization” expressed in Itaewon space). Unpublished thesis. Seoul Nation- al University. Fowler, Edward. 1992. “Rendering Words, Traversing Cultures: On the Art and Politics of Translating Modern Japanese Fiction.” Journal of Japanese Studies 18: 1–44. Han, Heu-suk. 2001. 용산 속의 전쟁사와 군사문화 (War history and military culture within Yongsan). Seoul: Yongsan Cultural Council. Han, Suzanne Crowder. 1989. Seoul: a Pictorial Guidebook. Host of the ’86 Asian Games and ’88 Olympics. Seoul: Hollym. Hoefer, Hans, and et al. 1981. Insight Guides: Korea. Hong Kong: Apa Productions. Im, Myung Soo. 1981. Tour in Seoul. Seoul: Saenggaksa. Jang, Hak-jin. 2000. 이태원 상업가로 매력요소 분석에 관한 연구 (Analysis of merits of Itae- won as a commercial district). Unpublished thesis. Seoul National University. Kim, Chunsung. 2004. A Guide for Foreign Tourists about Korea. Seoul: HyunHakSa. Kim, Eun-sil. 2004. “지구화 시대 근대의 탈영토화된 공간으로서 이태원에 대한 민족지적 연구.” (Eth- nographic study on Itaewon as a modern deterritorialized space in the glo- balized age. In 변화하는 여성문화 움직이는 지구촌 (Changing women culture, moving global village), 13–60. Seoul: Pureun Sasangsa. Kim,Hyeon-mee.2005.글로벌 시대의 문화번역: 젠더, 인종, 계층의 경계를 넘어(Culturaltrans- lation in the global age: beyond gender, race, and class). Seoul: Another Culture. Kim, Jung-eun, et al. 2010. “이태원 경관 읽기 (Reading Itaewon Landscape).” Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture Journal 2010 (0): 141–145. Kim, Jun-gi. 2012. 이태원’, 한국민속문학사전 (The encyclopedia of Korean folk litera- ture). National Folk Museum of Korea. http://folkency.nfm.go.kr/munhak/ index.jsp (accessed December, 2014). Kotkin, Joel. 2005. The City. New York: Modern Library. kotra. 2006. Guide to Living in Korea. Seoul: KOTRA. kowoc (Korean Organizing Committee for the 2002 FIFA World Cup). 2002. Spec- tator Guide10—Venue Cities in Korea. Seoul: KOWOC. Le Bas, Tom. 2007. Insight Guides: South Korea. 8th edition. London: Insight Guides. Lee, Cecilia Hae-Jin. 2010. Frommer’s South Korea. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Lee, Na-young, and Min-yoo Jung. 2010. “탈/식민성의 공간, 이태원과 한국의 대중음 악 – 이태원 ‘클럽’들의 형성과 변화과정을 중심으로 (1950–1991)” (History of popular music and (re)formation of ‘clubs’ at Post/Colonial Space, Itaewon in South Korea, 1950–1991).” Society and History 87: 191–229. Lee, No-mi. 2011. “국내 외국인 소수집단 거주지의 갈등과 연대 – 이태원 무슬림 거주지를 중 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 49 심으로” (A study on conflict and solidarity in foreign settlement—focused on Itaewon Muslim Settlement). Korean Culture Study 21(0): 237–263. Lotman, Yuri M. 1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Translated by Ann Shukman. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Lukács, Georg. 1971. History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nilsen, Robert. 2009. South Korea. Berkeley, CA: Avalon Travel. Niranjana, Tejaswini. 1992. Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkeley: University of California Press. Oh, Yeong-su. 1963. “Anna’s Will.” The Complete Works of Oh Yeong-su. Seoul: Hyundaeseogwan. 263–330. Paxton, Norbert. 2008. The Rough Guide to Korea. London: Rough Guides. Robinson, Martin, and Jason Zahorchak. 2009. Seoul. City Guide. London: Lonely Planet. Rybczynski, Witold. 1995. City Life: Urban Expectations in the New World. New York: Scribner’s. Saccone, Richard .1994. Travel Korea Your Way. New Jersey: Hollym. Seoul Development Institute. 2001. 이태원 장소 마케팅 전략연구 (Study on marketing strategies for Itaewon). Seoul: Seoul Development Institute. Shin, Ju-baek. 2007. “용산과 일본군 용산기지의 변화 (Changes of Yongsan and Japa- nese Military Base in Yongsan) (1884–1945).” Seoul Studies 29: 189–218. Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in Translation. London: Routledge. SMG (Seoul Metropolitan Government). 1998. Visitors Guide. Seoul Korea. Seoul: SMG. Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in a Postcolonial Context. Manchester: St. Je- rome. Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002. Translation and Power. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Yi. Heu-su, et al. 2008. “서울 이태원동 일대의 이슬람 타운화 과정에 관한 연구 (Study on the Process of Islamic Town Formation in Itaewon).” Korean Association of Islamic Studies Journal 18(2): 47-86. Yi, Hyeok-jin, and Ho-tak Oh. 1994. “관광산업으로서의 쇼핑상품에 관한 이론적 고찰 (Theoretical Approaches to Shopping Items as Tourism Industry).” Regional Development Journal 19: 21-52. <Hunam Yun> She is a translation scholar and translator. She first obtained her BA in English literature at Korea University, Seoul. After studying translation studies at Warwick University, UK, she obtained her MA and PhD in Translation Studies in 2000 and 2011 respectively. She has taught translation theory and practice for over fifteen years at Hongik University in Seoul and translated Walter Scott, Andersen, George MacDonald, and Beatrix Potter into Korean. Her main topics in- clude globalization and translation, literary translation, drama translation, translational norms, and screen translation and she authored Introduc- tion to Translation Theory and Practice. She now focuses on writing and translating while living in New York. 50 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451

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Of Translational Spaces and Multilingual Cities: Reading the Sounds of Lagos in Sefi Atta’s Swallows and Everything Good Will Come* Elena Rodríguez Murphy University of Salamanca, Spain [email protected] <Abstract> Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number of Nigerian au- thors who in their writing have centered on portraying the different sounds and accents of one of Nigeria’s most diverse and vibrant cities, Lagos. This article aims to analyze the way in which Sefi Atta, a leading voice in what has come to be known as “the third generation of Nigerian writers,” describes in her novels Swallow (2005) and Everything Good Will Come (2010) the manner in which some of Nigeria’s vernacular languages, such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, as well as Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin, permeate this incredibly plu- ral and multilingual city where varying ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups have been made to live together in the same translational space as a result of the colonial era. As Achille Mbembe (2010) has underlined, one of the main bequests of colonialism has been the unequal development of the different countries and regions of Africa. This situa- tion has led to an uneven distribution of people within multiple spaces. In this way, cities such as Lagos, Dakar, Accra, or Abidjan have actually become major metropolitan centers where interaction and negotiations among diverse peoples are commonplace and transcul- tural forms of different elements such as modes of dress, music, or language are constantly emerging. Without a doubt, translation is a main feature of coexistence in Lagos given its multilingual environment and the way in which various ethnic and linguistic communities share everyday life. “Language is part of the audible surface of the city.” (Cronin and Simon 2014, 120) in translation: reading the sounds of the city Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number of Nigerian au- thors who in their writing have centered on portraying the different sounds and accents of one of Nigeria’s most diverse and vibrant cities, Lagos. In this * This article is part of the research project entitled “Violencia simbólica y traducción: retos en la representación de identidades fragmentadas en la sociedad global” [Symbolic Violence and Translation: Challenges in the Representation of Fragmented Identities within the Global Soci- ety] (FFI2015-66516-P; MINECO/FEDER, UE), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 51 regard, as Toni Kan Onwordi has underlined in a brief description included on the cover of Sefi Atta’s second novel Swallow, “no contemporary Nigerian writer is better than Sefi Atta at evoking the smells, sounds and the sheer madness of this sprawling cosmopolitan city of Lagos.” Along with Chris Aba- ni, Helon Habila, Maik Nwosu, Jude Dibia, and Akin Adesokan, and other members of what has come to be known as “the third generation of Nigerian writers,” in her narrative Sefi Atta ably describes the way in which diverse peoples negotiate everyday life on the city’s populated streets. Although there are many ways in which one may try to understand the workings of urban reality, analyzing “the practice of everyday life” (see De Certeau 1984) in a postcolonial city such as Lagos through language and translation can offer new and interesting perspectives in various fields of study. Indeed, Atta’s novels Everything Good Will Come (2005) and Swallow (2010) provide the reader with a valuable linguistic experience of Lagos through the inclusion in her texts of the multilingual transactions that permeate the city. As Simon interestingly points out in her book Cities in Translation, Much of the abundant literature in recent decades has emphasized the visual aspects of urban life. And yet the audible surface of languages, each city’s signature blend of dialects and accents, is an equally crucial element of urban reality [. . .] “hearing” introduces the observer into layers of social, economic and cultural complexity. (Si- mon 2012, 1) Thus, reading in Atta’s fiction the sounds and diverse range of accents that characterize the city brings the reader closer to the complexity of its lin- guistic reality, in which translation appears as an indispensable tool which has gradually allowed for the emergence of what McLaughlin has termed “new urban language varieties”: The burgeoning growth of Africa’s cities that began during the latter part of the colo- nial period and continues with increasing momentum into the twenty-first century has given rise to a multiplicity of innovative and often transformative cultural practices that are associated primarily with urban life, not least of which is the emergence of new urban language varieties. (McLaughlin 2009, 1) Lagos is, without a doubt, a multilingual and multiethnic city that can actually be defined as “a translation space [where] the focus is not on mul- tiplicity but on interaction” (Simon 2012, 7). Therefore, given its multilingual environment and the way in which various ethnic and linguistic communities have come to share its everyday life, translation can clearly be considered one of the main features of activity in Lagos. In this way, beyond dichotomist un- derstandings, translation becomes an indispensable medium through which a common coexistence may, although not always successfully, be negotiated: 52 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Multilingual contexts put pressure on the traditional vocabulary of transfer and its concepts of source and destination. Communities which have had a longstanding re- lationship inhabit the same landscape and follow similar rhythms of daily life. Facing one another across the space of the city, they are not “foreign” and so translation can no longer be configured only as a link between a familiar and a foreign culture, be- tween a local original and a distant destination, between one monolingual community and another. [. . .] The Other remains within constant earshot. The shared understand- ings of this coexistence change the meaning of translation from a gesture of benev- olence to a process through which a common civility is negotiated. (Simon 2012, 7) lagos: a multilingual and multiethnic megacity In his book Sortir de la grande nuit (2010), Achille Mbembe recently under- lined the fact that one of the main bequests of colonialism has been the un- equal development of the different countries and regions of Africa. In fact, “[n]o major coastal cities existed in Western Africa before the colonial period. However, as a result of the mostly maritime-based logistics of colonialism, countries in the sub-region began an urbanization path strongly associated with the coast” (United Nations Human Settlements Programme [UN-Hab- itat] 2014, 99). This situation has gradually led to an uneven distribution of people within multiple spaces, hence cities like Lagos, Dakar, Accra, and Ab- idjan have actually become major metropolitan centers where interaction and negotiations are commonplace and transcultural forms of different elements such as modes of dress, music, or language are constantly emerging. It be- comes apparent, therefore, that in many African cities such as Lagos attaining even the minimum often requires complex styles of staying attuned to the shifting intersections of gestures, excitements, languages, anxieties, determinations and comportments enacted across markets, streets and other venues. The city is a field of affect where specific dispositions and attainments are contingent upon the ways actors’ bodies, histories and capacities are mobilized and enacted. (Simone 2007, 237) As Ato Quayson explains in regard to Oxford St., in the Ghanaian capital of Accra the streets in many African cities may be seen as archives, rather than just geographical locations, where it is possible to find “a rich and intricate relationship between tradition and modernity, religion and secularity as well as local and transnational circuits of images and ideas” (Quayson 2010, 72). Lagos is a burgeoning city, the largest in Nigeria (Falola and Genova 2009, 202), and, according to the figures published by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in its 2014 report The State of African Cities 2014. Re-imagining Sustainable Urban Transitions, it “has recent- ly joined the ranks of the world’s megacities” (2014, 17). Lagos has undoubt- edly been shaped by its history, not only as one of the most important ports isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 53 in West Africa from the eighteenth century onwards, but also as the federal capital of Nigeria (1914–1991). In this respect, although Abuja has been the federal capital of the country since 1991, Lagos, whose population is expected to rise to over eighteen million by 2025 (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 23–25), is now the center of one of the largest urban areas in Western Africa and continues to be a main hub in the southwestern region of Nigeria for the circulation of peoples as well as goods. Growing urbaniza- tion and rural–urban migration are responsible for the cultural heterogeneity of this major Western African city, which was at one point described “as an ancient city inhabited by the Awori and Ijebu people, both subgroups of the Yoruba” (Falola and Genova 2009, 202). Nevertheless, as a result of Nigeria’s national history, Lagos is currently populated by varying and distinct ethnic groups. Although there is still a Yoruba majority, it can be said that “Nigeria’s myriad ethnic and religious identities are found throughout the city’s neigh- borhoods, usually managing to coexist, though periodically sparking tensions” (Lewis 2009, 115). The artificial boundaries which were drawn when Nigeria was created by British administrators in 1914,1 have given rise to an incredibly heteroge- neous space both in ethnical and linguistic terms. As can be seen in the map below, there is an extremely wide range of ethnic groups which, as a conse- quence of colonialism, have come to inhabit the same nation; this has often provoked ethnic and religious tensions, the Biafran War (1967–1970) being a case in point: The Nigeria of today [...] is a relatively new creation, dating back to the early 20th century. Boundaries prior to that time included numerous chieftaincies and empires that expanded and contracted geographically without regard to modern Nigeria’s boundaries. For the early peoples of Nigeria, only geographic boundaries, such as the Sahara Desert or Atlantic Ocean, might have kept them in place. Western European powers competing for territory and political control in Africa during the late-19th cen- tury determined Nigeria’s boundaries to suit their needs. Much of Nigeria’s western, eastern, and northern borders are the results of rivalry and compromise by Euro- pean powers. As a result, ethnic groups and former kingdoms straddle boundaries. [...] Modern-day Nigeria is a conglomeration of hundreds of ethnic groups, spanning across different geographical zones. [...] To identify a single Nigerian culture is diffi- cult. (Falola and Genova 2009, xxx-xxxi) 1 The name ‘Nigeria’ is credited to the colonial editor of the Times of London, Flora Shaw, who later married the new entity’s governor, Lord Frederick Lugard. The name stuck. But the new name was not accompanied by any sense of national unity. [. . .] The British yoking together of so many different peoples into a huge state [. . .] shaped the future of about a fifth of Africa’s sub-Saharan population” (Campbell 2013, 2). 54 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 From a demographic point of view, within Nigeria the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbo, and the Yoruba can be considered to be the largest of the ethnic groups. According to Iyoha (2010, 169), around 29% of the population is Hausa-Fulani who live mainly in the northern regions in cities such as Kano, Sokoto, and Kaduna. The Yoruba, more or less 21%, are based primarily in the southwest of the country, in cities such as Ife-Ife, Lagos, and Ibadan. On the other hand, the Igbo, approximately 18% of the population, inhabit the areas situated in the southeast of Nigeria, for example in Port Harcourt, Owerri, and Enugu. These aforementioned groups can, however, be said to live all around the country. Other, numerically smaller ethnic groups include the Tiv, the Nupe, the Igala, and the Jukun in the Middle Belt region and the Ijaw, the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, the Ogoni, and the Ibibio in the Niger Delta. They have long been demanding greater political and economic representation within the national space, as Saro-Wiwa has pointed out on many occasions in regard to the Ogoni people: Colonialism is not a matter only of British, French, or European dominance over Af- ricans. In African society, there is and has always been colonial oppression. In my case, the Ogoni had never been conquered by their Igbo neighbors. But the fact of British colonialism brought both peoples together under a single administration for the first time. And when the British colonialists left, the numerically inferior Ogoni were consigned to the rule of the more numerous Igbos, who always won elections in the Region since ethnic loyalties and cultural habits were and continue to be strong throughout Nigeria. (Saro-Wiwa 1992, 155) Not only is Nigeria diverse in terms of its ethnicity, but it also boasts an enormous variety of languages and dialects—more than four hundred ac- cording to Garuba (2001, 11) and more than five hundred according to the isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 55 Ethnologue database (Simons and Fennig 2017). As Adekunle (1997) and Adeg- bija (2000, 2004) highlight, multilingualism is a common feature of many West African regions, and Nigeria can be said to be the country where the largest number of different languages is spoken. Together with English, which is used as an official language and is employed in diverse forms, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba have become the three major national languages.2 Moreover, a wide range of languages and dialects spoken by the different Nigerian ethnic groups is to be found: Apart from the indigenous languages, which are the mother tongues of Nigerians, there also exist non-indigenous languages. They include English, which has become a second language; Nigerian Pidgin (the language in Nigeria with probably the larg- est number of speakers), which derives from the contact between English and the indigenous languages; Classical Arabic, which is learnt by Muslims; and other for- eign languages such as French, German, and Russian, which are taken as academic subjects at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. (Igboanusi 2002, 13–14) Faced with this highly complex web of languages, many Nigerians have resorted to both English and Nigerian Pidgin (NP)3 as a way of favoring communication with each other: Originally mainly restricted to trade, Pidgin has spread to become the language of market places, sports, the army and police force, taxi drivers, playgrounds, university campuses, and generally of interethnic discourse in lower-class and informal con- texts. In recent decades it has therefore been utilized for mass communication—in advertising, political campaigning, government propaganda, announcements, and mass media, e.g. news broadcasts on the radio [. . .] It is labeled “the most widely spoken language in Nigeria” [. . .] Though the language still carries a strong stigma in the eyes of many educated Nigerians, many others have come to use it in informal conversations, also in banks, offices, and businesses, utilizing its ethnographic role as a code of friendliness and proximity. (Schneider 2007, 205–206) Nonetheless, it is interesting to take into consideration that whilst NP and the vernacular languages are normally used in informal and familiar conversations, administrative and educational matters are mainly dealt with in English: “For a great many speakers from different groups, English is [...] valued as a language of prestige, a sign of education, and a mark of modernity” 2 “The dominance of English in the Nigerian Constitution continued until 1979, when the Con- stitution that emerged under a military regime specifically provided for the use of the three major languages (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) in addition to English for proceedings in the Na- tional Assembly: ‘The business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English, and in Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made therefore (Section 51)’” (Bamgbose 1996, 358). 3 It is important to bear in mind that, as Igboanusi points out, “Nigerian English” (NE) and “Ni- gerian Pidgin” (NP) are considered to be different languages: “Nigerian Pidgin is different from Nigerian English (the variety of English used in Nigeria). However, the line between them is sometimes difficult to draw, particularly at the lexical level” (Igboanusi 2008, 78). 56 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 (Simpson 2008,194). According to different critics (Bamgbose 1971; Bamgbose 1996, 366; Igboanusi 2002; Gut 2004, 813), only a small percentage of the Ni- gerian population may understand or speak English, but, despite the fact that in recent years there have been repeated attempts to increase the importance of the vernacular languages, it continues to be used on a regular basis, espe- cially by the local elites: As ex-colonial people, Nigerians hold English in great awe. They so overrate English that literacy in English is considered the only mark of being an educated person. For example, for them science and technology are not within the reach of any person who cannot master the English language. Not surprisingly, therefore, the language, unlike any of the Nigerian mother tongues, is regarded as being politically neutral for adoption by the people. [. . .] Consequently, political expediency makes the English lan- guage the ready language for adoption for national literacy today. (Afolayan 2001, 83) Just as in other African countries, the increasing use of new technologies such as the Internet and cable TV among specific sectors of Nigerian society has resulted in a growing interest on the part of the younger generation in learning the English language. This situation has been skillfully described by the widely acclaimed Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who, on many occasions, has stated that English is no longer considered by some as a “foreign” language, but rather as a Nigerian language adapted to the Nigerian cultural context: I’d like to say something about English [...] which is simply that English is mine. Some- times we talk about English in Africa as if Africans have no agency, as if there is not a distinct form of English spoken in Anglophone African countries. I was educated in it; I spoke it at the same time as I spoke Igbo. My English-speaking is rooted in a Nigerian experience and not in a British or American or Australian one. I have taken ownership of English. (Adichie, quoted in Uzoamaka 2008, 2) The general trend encountered in multilingual communities consists in usage gradually determining the role each language has in particular domains, and Nigeria is no exception. Although English remains the most important language in education and matters pertaining to government and administration, the vernacu- lar languages—such as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo as well as NP—are used primarily in informal contexts. Taking these matters into consideration, it is important to underline the “diglossic,” or rather “poliglossic,” relations that, as Zabus (2007) and Bandia (2008) point out, have been established between the different languages that are employed in many of the countries in West Africa, including Nigeria:4 4 It is interesting to mention here that, according to Warren-Rothlin, in Nigeria digraphia is also a social reality which can result in social divisions (Warren-Rothlin 2012, 6–7). There also exist multiple orthographies and writing scripts within the country (ibid. 7). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 57 For our purposes, the sociolinguistic concept of diglossia needs to be expanded to include not only Ferguson’s genetically linked “high” and “low” varieties (to which he erroneously attributed scripturality and orality, respectively) but unrelated languages as well. Indeed, in a country like Ghana, Ewe is not a dialect of English and has a written literature of its own but, functionally, Ewe is to English what a dominated or subordinate language is to a dominant or superordinate language. [. . .] Also, the West African auxiliary languages resulting from languages in contact such as pidgins have a diglossic relation to the dominant European language that is similar to the more conventional relation between a prestige or power language and its regional dialect. Conversely, a statistically dominant language like Wolof in Senegal can be consid- ered as being hegemonic like French and would thus be in diglossia with a minor language like Ndût. (Zabus 2007, 14) In the case of the Nigerian linguistic landscape, English has gradually come to be accepted as the dominant language in some domains while specific forms of some of the vernacular languages such as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba have been gaining ground in others. In many instances, however, these vernac- ular languages are in a diglossic situation in relation to the English language. Likewise, although it is now defined as “the most widely spoken language in Nigeria,” NP appears to be in a diglossic situation with respect to English. It is also important to bear in mind that the three major vernacular languages can be categorized as hegemonic vis-à-vis those considered as minor. Thus, faced with the linguistic variation characteristic of a territory like Nigeria, it may be said that, in Zabus’s own words, “[w]e can therefore advance the notions of ‘triglossia’ or even ‘polyglossia,’ and ‘intertwined diglossias’” (Zabus 2007, 14). The Nigerian cultural and linguistic situation that we have been describing, although very succinctly, is reflected in the city of Lagos where, as illustrated by the different examples that follow, diverse languages, and therefore translation, are used on a daily basis, not only in the ever-chang- ing “discourse ecologies” (Quayson 2010) that exist on its streets, but also in the conversational exchanges that take place in its crowded markets, “motor parks,” taxis or buses. In this regard, in their work both Adedun and Shodipe have underlined the fact that, although most people in Lagos use Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin in their daily interactions, Hausa, Igbo, and other vernacular languages together with English are also a common feature in this cosmopol- itan African city: The nature of Lagos, which accommodates various ethnic, and religious groups, ac- counts for the present state of its language repertoire. [. . .] Without any doubt, Lagos is a potpourri of different peoples and tribes and these have had a noticeable impact on the linguistic repertoire, language choice, and language shift in the area. (Adedun and Shodipe 2011, 131) 58 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 the sounds of lagos in swallow and everything good will come One of the main characteristics of Atta’s work, as mentioned previously, is the accuracy with which she manages to portray the city of Lagos and the wide range of sounds that fill its streets and buildings. Both in her first novel, Every- thing Good Will Come (EG in the citations, below), and in her second novel, Swallow (SW in the citations, below), in addition to other works, Atta de- scribes different parts of the city along with its diverse languages and accents: Our continent was a tower of Babel, Africans speaking colonial languages: French, English, Portuguese, and their own indigenous languages. Most house help in Lagos came from outside Lagos; from the provinces and from neighboring African coun- tries. If we didn’t share a language, we communicated in Pidgin English. (EG, 212) Sheri’s younger siblings greeted me as I walked across the cement square. “Hello, Sister Enitan.” “Long time no see.” “Barka de Sallah, Sister Enitan.” (EG, 247) Street hawkers sat behind wooden stalls in a small market . . . They were Fulani peo- ple from the North. The men wore white skull caps and the women wrapped chiffon scarves around their heads. [. . .] They talked loud in their language, and together they sounded like mourners ululating. (EG, 198) Baba came to collect his monthly salary [. . .] “Compliments of the season,” I said. “How are you?” I spoke to him in Yoruba, addressing him by the formal you, because he was an elder. He responded with the same formality because I was his employer. Yoruba is a lan- guage that doesn’t recognize gender—he the same as she, him the same as her—but respect is always important. (EG, 312). In her fiction, Atta includes many instances in which translation ap- pears as an indispensable tool and a necessary medium through which ev- eryday life may be negotiated in Lagos, a place where diverse peoples and languages have come to share a common space. For instance, when Enitan, the main character in Everything Good Will Come, is sent to Royal College in La- gos and encounters girls from varying ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, cul- tural and linguistic translation becomes indispensable on a day-to-day basis: I met Moslem girls [. . .] Catholic girls [. . .] Anglican girls, Methodist girls. One girl, San- gita, was Hindu [. . .] I learned also about women in my country, from Zaria, Katsina, Kaduna who decorated their skin with henna dye and lived in purdah [. . .] Uncle Alex had always said our country was not meant to be one. The British had drawn a circle on the map of West Africa and called it a country. Now I understood what he meant. The girls I met at Royal College [in Lagos] were so different. I could tell a girl’s ethnic- ity even before she opened her mouth. Hausa girls had softer hair because of their Arab heritage. Yoruba girls like me usually had heart-shaped faces and many Igbo girls were fair-skinned; we called them Igbo Yellow. We spoke English, but our native tongues were as different as French and Chinese. So, we mispronounced names and spoke English with different accents. Some Hausa girls could not “fronounce” the isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 59 letter P. Some Yoruba girls might call these girls “Ausas,” and eggs might be “heggs.” Then there was that business with the middle-belters who mixed up their L’s and R’s. (EG, 44–45) Moreover, when Enitan meets one of her neighbors, a Muslim girl named Sheri, they are each faced with both cultural and linguistic translation. Since they come from different ethnic communities and religious backgrounds, Enitan, who is Yoruba, and Sheri, a “half-caste” with Hausa roots, need to understand one another’s cultural and linguistic circumstances before they can become friends: [Sheri] was funny, and she was also rude, but that was probably because she had no home training. She yelled from our gates. “I’ll call you aburo, little sister, from now on. And I’ll beat you at ten-ten, wait and see.” (EG, 16) The woman in the photograph by [Sheri’s] bedside table was her grandmother. “Alha- ja,” Sheri said. “She’s beautiful.” [...] There were many Alhajas in Lagos. This one wasn’t the first woman to go on hajj to Mec- ca, but for women like her, who were powerful within their families and communities, the title became their name. [...] She pressed the picture to her chest and told me of her life in downtown Lagos. She lived in a house opposite her Alhaja’s fabric store. She went to a school where children didn’t care to speak English. After school, she helped Alhaja in her store and knew how to measure cloth. I listened, mindful that my life didn’t extend beyond Ikoyi Park. What would it be like to know downtown as Sheri did, haggle with customers, buy fried yams and roasted plantains from street hawkers, curse Area Boys and taxi cabs who drove too close to the curb. [...] Sheri was a Moslem and she didn’t know much about Christianity. [...] I asked why Moslems didn’t eat pork. “It’s a filthy beast,” she said, scratch- ing her hair. I told her about my own life. (EG, 33–34) As Enitan mentions in several parts of the novel, although Hausa resonates in the streets and markets of Lagos, without translation into other languages it is not always understood by the Yoruba majority or by people from other ethnic communities. That is why, in many cases, people from di- verse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds who live in the city translate their vernacular languages into Pidgin English or English: Our gate man unlocked the gates. His prayer beads hung from his wrist. I realized I must have disturbed his prayer. Soon it would be the Moslem fasting period, Rama- dan. “Sanu, madam,” he said. “Sanu, mallam,” I replied in the only Hausa I knew. (EG, 201) In my first year of marriage, there was a hawker who sat by the vigilante gates of our state. She was one of those Fulani people from the north. We never said a word to each other: I could understand her language no more than she could mine. (EG, 243) This situation is also underlined by another Nigerian writer, Buchi Emecheta, in her well-known novel The Joys of Motherhood: The early market sellers were making their way to the stalls in single file. [Nnu Ego] 60 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 in her haste almost knocked the poor man down [. . .] There followed a loud curse, and an unintelligible outpouring from the mouth of the beggar in his native Hausa language, which few people in Lagos understood. (Emecheta 1994, 9) In the colorful markets of Lagos and other African cities, peoples from varied ethnic and linguistic environments constantly mingle and in- teract. Markets, as Simone puts it, are “the site for incessant performance, for feigned connections and insider deals, for dissimulation of all kinds, for launching impressions and information, rumors and advice” (Simone 2008, 81). Hence, given the mélange of languages and cultures, “[t]he resulting con- fusion about what is really going on breeds its own makeshift interpreters, who pretend to have real skills of discernment and can steer customers to the best price, quality, or hidden deal” (Simone 2008, 81). In the extract below, taken from Everything Good Will Come, Enitan, who was brought up in Ikoyi, one of Lagos’s affluent neighborhoods,5 high- lights the fact that class differences are extremely important in the city and can greatly influence the way in which people talk to one another: Pierre, my present house boy, began to wash the vegetables [. . .] I needed Pierre to place the okras on the chopping board. “Ici,” I said pointing. “Over there, please.” Pierre raised a brow. “Là bas, madame?” “My friend,” I said. “You know exactly what I mean.” It was my fault for attempting to speak French to him. [. . .] “I beg, put am for there,” I said [in Nigerian Pidgin]. [. . .] The general help we called house boys or house girls. [. . .] They helped with daily chores in exchange for food, lodgings, and a stipend. Most were of working age, barely educated. [. . .] (EG, 212) In this particular situation, because Pierre, the house boy, comes from the neighboring Republic of Benin, Enitan tries to translate her orders into French. Nevertheless, in the end, she resorts to a translation into Pidgin En- glish, which, as stated earlier in the article, is the language normally used as the medium of communication among peoples who belong to different ethnic and linguistic groups in Lagos. On other occasions, however, depending on the educational level of the speakers and the specific context in which interaction takes place, when 5 According to Fourchard (2012a, 68), this comes as a direct result of the colonial era, when the city of Lagos was divided into a residential area reserved for Europeans (Ikoyi) and a commer- cial area in which Europeans lived, worked, traded, and interacted with Africans (Lagos Island). In this regard, Lagos, like other contemporary African cities, may be described as what Triulzi (2002, 81) refers to as “the ‘site of memory’ of colonisation, with its divisions (the colonial city was conceived and grew opposite to and separate from the native town), its visible remains (buildings, town plans, statues) and its obligatory ‘synthesis’ of tradition and modernity.” isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 61 people whose ethnicities differ speak with one another, they translate their vernacular languages into English, instead of Pidgin English: We [Rose and Tolani] always spoke in English because she couldn’t speak Yoruba and I couldn’t understand her own language, Ijaw. (SW, 8) Enitan and Tolani, the main protagonists of Everything Good and Swallow respectively, recount their stories in English yet, as Atta herself has pointed out (quoted in Rodríguez Murphy 2012, 107–108), it actually consists of a transcultural form of English (Rodríguez Murphy 2015b, 72), which is inscribed with Nigerian vernacular languages and expressions as well as with Nigerian cultural markers: “[Nigerian readers] tell me they enjoy seeing those kinds of Englishes in my work. They come up to me and say: ‘Oh, you really do know Nigeria, you really do know Lagos very well.’ They enjoy it” (Atta quoted in Rodríguez Murphy 2012, 108). In her work, Atta manages to reflect the different varieties of English used in Lagos. These varieties have come to be defined as NE, and now form part of the wide range of “World Englishes” (see Kachru 1992 and Kachru, Kachru, and Nelson 2006) or “New Englishes” (see Crystal 2003), in reference to local adaptations of the English language which suit specific cultural contexts. This can be seen in the following examples: Yellow Sheri’s afro was so fluffy, it moved as she talked [. . .] She had a spray of rashes and was so fair-skinned. People her color got called “Yellow Pawpaw” or “Yellow Banana” in school. (EG, 18) Peter Mukoro tapped my arm. “I was calling that lady, that yellow lady in the kitchen, but she ignored me. Tell her we need more rice. Please.” (EG, 125–126) I’d heard men say that women like Sheri didn’t age well: they wrinkled early like white women. It was the end of a narration that began when they first called her yellow banana, and not more sensible, I thought. (EG, 206) In diverse passages of Atta’s novels, we may observe that the word “yellow” has come to acquire a specific meaning in NE: “a NE way of describ- ing a fellow Black who is fairly light-skinned” (Igboanusi 2002, 303). Area boys “You won’t believe. We were having a peaceful protest, calling on the government to reconsider our demands, when we noticed a group in the crowd who did not belong to our union. [. . .] They were shouting insults and acting rowdy [. . .]” The people she was talking about had to be area boys. They waited for any protest so they could misbehave. (SW, 133) In this extract taken from Swallow, Atta uses the term “area boy,” a phrase now commonly heard in urban settings, which, in NE, makes reference to a job- 62 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 less young man who participates in criminal acts and is often involved in criminal activities. Such a term is one of many linguistic reflections of what, according to some critics (Fourchard 2012b, Lewis 2009), is now happening in the streets of the city where, for several decades, criminal activity has been on the increase. High-life music As he spoke, I fell asleep dreaming of him, an eleven-year-old boy with khaki shorts holding a rifle made of sticks, dancing to high-life music with his mother and learning how to drink palm-wine from his father’s calabash. (EG, 116-117) “High-life music,” sometimes referred to just as “highlife,” is a very well-known musical genre in the Western regions of Africa,6 “a brand of music style combining jazz and West African elements, popular in Nigeria and other West African countries. In BE, ‘high life’ denotes a style of life that involves spending a lot of money on entertainment, good food, expensive clothes, etc.” (Igboanusi 2002, 138). As Igboanusi remarks, it is important to take into con- sideration that there is a difference between the way the term is used in British English and the meaning it has come to acquire in Nigerian English. Not only “Highlife,” but also other types of transcultural Nigerian mu- sic such as apala or juju music are often mentioned in Atta’s novels. Along with language, another element that permeates daily life in Lagos and many Nigerian cities is music that, as in other countries on the African continent, has been adapted and translated to suit diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds: Through the fence we heard Akanni’s juju music. Sheri stuck her bottom out and began to wriggle. She dived lower and wormed up. (EG, 15) The street was narrow and juju music blared from a battered cassette player perched on a wooden stool. Street hawkers sat around selling boxes of sugar, bathing spong- es, tinned sardines, chewing sticks, cigarettes, and Bazooka Joe gum. (EG, 89) Lagos. The street on which we lived was named after a military governor. Our neigh- borhood smelled of burned beans and rotten egusi leaves. Juju and apala music, disco and reggae music jumped from the windows, and fluorescent blue cylinders lit up the entire place past midnight. (SW, 21) In her writing, Atta includes both NE and NP, and also the vernacu- lar languages with which she was brought up, Yoruba and Hausa. This helps situate the reader in Lagos’s translational spaces, where the sounds of different accents and languages share a common linguistic environment: 6 Although “highlife music” is a popular genre in West Africa, it is necessary to emphasize that each region has managed to maintain its own specificity: “Generally, as the music and its ac- companying highlife dance spread across West Africa, each region maintained its ethnic spec- ificity by composing songs in the local language, and some bands, especially the multinational ones, created compositions in English or pidgin English” (Ajayi-Soyinka 2008, 526). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 63 He pronounced his visions between chants that sounded like the Yoruba words for butterfly, dung beetle, and turkey: labalaba, yimiyimi, tolotolo. (EG, 10) Yoruba people believed in reincarnation. The Yoruba religion had a world for the living and another for spirits. There was a circle of life and other complex concepts regarding deity, royalty, and fate that I couldn’t fully understand. For anyone to understand the Yoruba cosmos was a challenge without the wisdom and guidance of a babalawo [. . .] (SW, 88) On the day of the Moslem festival, Id-el-fitr, I left home for the first time that month to break fast with the Bakares. [. . .] As I drove through their gates, I heard a ram bleat- ing in the back yard of the Bakare’s house. It had been tied to a mango tree for two weeks and would be slain for the Sallah feast. (EG, 245) “How’s your husband?” Mama Gani asked. Her gold tooth flashed. “He’s fine,” I said [. . .] “Still nothing about your father?” “Still nothing,” I said. She clapped her hands. “Insha Allah, nothing will happen to him, after the kindness he’s shown us.” (EG, 245) The multilingualism which is typical in Lagos makes communication based on translation and transculturation inevitable. The following dialogues from Everything Good Will Come and Swallow clearly illustrate this point: We heard a cry from the road. “Pupa! Yellow!” A taxi driver was leaning out of his window. [. . .] “Yes, you with the big yansh,” he shouted. Sheri spread her fingers at him. “Nothing good will come to you!” [. . .] “And you, Dudu,” the taxi driver said. Startled, I looked up. “Yes you with the black face. Where is your own yansh hiding?” I glared at him. “Nothing good will come to you.” He laughed with his tongue hanging out. “What, you’re turning up your nose at me? You’re not that pretty, either of you. Sharrap. Oh, sharrap both of you. You should feel happy that a man noticed you. If you’re not careful, I’ll sex you both.” Sheri and I turned our backs on him. (EG, 135-136) There was a strong smell of simmering palm oil in the flat. Rose was in the kitchen. [. . .] She laughed at my expression. “My sister,” she said. “You think say I no know how to cook or what?” “I’ve just seen Mrs. Durojaiye,” I said, shutting the door. “I saw her too.” “She says you visited her?” She clucked. “The woman done craze [. . .]” (SW, 135) On my way to the bus stop, I passed a group of women selling roasted corn under a breadfruit tree. [. . .] I heard two men discussing women. “Statuesque,” one of them said. “The first one is black and skinny, the second is yellow and fat. I can’t decide. I love them both. You think say I fit marry both of them?” (SW, 236) At the bus stop, an army officer with his stomach protruding over his belt parted the crowd to board a bus. “Single-file line,” he repeated and lifted his horsewhip to warn those who protested. [. . .] “Those who give orders,” I said in a voice loud enough for the others to hear. “Question them. You can’t just obey without thinking.” [. . .] “Oh, I hate people like this,” [a] woman said. “What is wrong with her? Move your 64 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 skinny self, sister.” [. . .] “Sister [. . .]. Move before I move you to one side, oh!” “Abi she’s deaf?” “Maybe she done craze.” “Sister, ‘dress oh!” “Yes, address yourself to the corner and continue to tanda for dat side with your body like bonga fish.” “Tss, keep shut. Don’t start another fight.” (SW, 188–189) Enitan’s and Tolani’s stories take place in a particular context which Atta succeeds in describing in great detail through a specific use of language that evokes, in the mind of the reader, the smells, images and languages which define the city of Lagos, where it is possible to come across interesting con- trasts and a wide range of lifestyles as well as “cultural inscriptions [. . .] seen in mottos and slogans on lorries, cars, pushcarts and other mobile surfaces that may be encountered on the street” (Quayson 2010, 73): Millions lived in Lagos [. . .] Most days it felt like a billion people walking down the labyrinth of petty and main streets: beggar men, secretaries, government contractors (thieves, some would say), Area Boys, street children [. . .] There was a constant din of cars, popping exhaust pipes, and engines, commuters scrambling for canary-yellow buses and private transport vans we called kabukabu and danfo. They bore bible epi- taphs: Lion of Judah, God Saves [. . .] There were countless billboards: Pepsi, Benson and Hedges, Daewoo, Indomie Instant Noodles, Drive Carefully, Fight Child Abuse [. . .] a taxi driver making lurid remarks; people cursing themselves well and good; All right-Sirs, our urban praise singers or borderline beggars, who hailed any person for money. Chief! Professor! Excellency! [. . .] My favourite time was early morning, before people encroached, when the air was cool and all I could hear was the call from Cen- tral Mosque: Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar. (EG, 98–99) In the different examples cited above, one can appreciate to what extent Atta accomplishes a very creative and engaging use of language in her novels. She skillfully manages to transmit the specific characteristics of the cultures that have come to constitute her identity;7 similarly she also succeeds in representing the diverse range of accents that define the city of Lagos as a translational space, where “[a]ccents, code-switching and translation are to be valued for the ways in which they draw attention to the complexities of difference, for the ways in which they interrupt the self-sufficiencies of ‘mono’ cultures” (Simon 2012, 1). 7 “I had an unusual upbringing [. . .] and was surrounded by people from other ethnic groups and religions. Many Nigerian writers I meet feel that they are Yoruba, Igbo or something else, but I actually feel Nigerian and it comes out in my writing. I write about people who don’t have any strong ethnic allegiance or people who are in mixed marriages. [. . .] What I have picked up is language from different parts of the world and it comes out in my writing. I have to be very careful when I am writing in the voices of people who have not had my experiences. My second novel, Swallow, is written in the voice of a Yoruba woman, for instance. I couldn’t use language I had picked up here or in England” (Atta as cited in Collins 2007, 7). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 65 conclusion As several critics (Bandia 2008, Bandia as cited in Rodríguez Murphy 2015a, Gyasi 1999, Mehrez 1992, Inggs and Meintjes 2009) have rightly emphasized, the high rate of multilingualism or “polilingualism” (Bandia 2008, 136–137, Bandia as cited in Rodríguez Murphy 2015a, 149) which characterizes many of the African postcolonies,8 including Nigeria, is of great importance for translation studies in this day and age. Without a doubt, taking into account the ever-growing transculturation and transnationalization of cultures in our present-day global world, multilingualism can be considered an increasingly relevant feature both in literature and society: As a corollary of colonization, the displacement and migration of peoples brought about changes that would challenge the notion of a national language and a homo- geneous culture paving the way for understanding language and culture from the point of view of a transnational experience. According to Bhabha, hybridity, a main characteristic of the postcolonial condition, disrupts the relation between national language and culture, and points to a culture of difference, of displacement of signifi- cation, of translation. (Bandia 2008, 139). In this regard, in many African cities new transcultural and hybrid forms of diverse elements are being created every day. Ranging from trans- cultural types of music (Osumare 2012), such as afrobeat or highlife music, to other transcultural phenomena, including the Azonto dance in Ghana (Jaka- na, 2012) and the Nollywood film industry, which is now a major influence in Lagos’s streets and markets (Haynes 2007, Fuentes-Luque 2017). In the specific case of language, and as we have seen in the examples quoted from Atta’s novels, the prominence of the multilingualism that permeates African cities in general, and the continuous emergence of new hybrid linguistic forms and new semantic associations, which are typical features of the discourse em- ployed in situations involving interaction in urban areas, are, and will contin- ue to be, compelling topics when analyzing issues related to translation and translatability in the twenty-first century. 8 Here “postcolony” (Mbembe 2010) refers to the postcolonial context which, according to Bandia, is part of the colonial space: “Colonial space is ‘the postcolony’ itself, but it is also that space where people with postcolonial experiences, people with postcolonial backgrounds, exist” (Bandia as cited in Rodríguez Murphy 2015a, 149). 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Mehrez, Samia. 1992. “Translation and the Postcolonial Experience: The Franco- phone North African Text.” In Rethinking Translation. Discourse, Subjectiv- ity, Ideology, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 120–138. London and New York: Routledge. Osumare, Halifu. 2012. The Hiplife in Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip-Hop. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Quayson, Ato. 2010. “Signs of the Times: Discourse Ecologies and Street Life on Oxford St., Accra.” City & Society 22 (1): 72–96. Rodríguez Murphy, Elena. 2012. “An Interview with Sefi Atta.” Research in African Literatures 43 (3): 106–114. . 2015a. “An Interview with Professor Paul Bandia.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 23 (1): 143–154 . 2015b. Traducción y literatura africana: multilingüismo y transculturación en la narrativa nigeriana de expresión inglesa (Translation and African litera- ture: multilingualism and transculturation in anglophone Nigerian writing). Granada: Comares. Saro-Wiwa, Ken. 1992. “The Language of African Literature: A Writer’s Testimony.” Research in African Literatures 23 (1): 153–157. Schneider, Edgar W. 2007. Postcolonial English. Varieties around the World. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press. 68 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2007. “Deep into the Night the City Calls as the Blacks Come Home to Roost.” Theory, Culture & Society 24 (7–8): 224–237. . 2008. “Some Reflections on Making Popular Culture in Urban Africa.” African Studies Review 51 (3): 75-89. Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2017. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com. Simpson, Andrew, ed. 2008. Language and National Identity in Africa. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Triulzi, Alessandro. 2002 “African Cities, Historical Memory and Street Buzz.” In The Postcolonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons, edited by Iain Chambers and Lidia Curti, 78–91. London and New York: Routledge. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). 2014. The State of African Cities 2014. Re-imagining sustainable urban transitions. Nairobi: UN-Habitat. Uzoamaka, Ada. 2008. “Interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Creative Writing and Literary Activism.” http://www.iun.edu/~minaua/interviews/interview_ chimamanda_ngozi_adichie.pdf Warren-Rothlin, Andy. 2012. “Arabic script in modern Nigeria.” In Advances in Minority Language Research in Nigeria (vol. I), edited by Roger M. Blench and Stuart McGill, 105–121. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Zabus, Chantal. 2001. “Oil Boom, Oil Doom. Interview by Chantal Zabus.” Interview with Ken Saro-Wiwa, in No Condition is Permanent: Nigerian Writing and the Struggle for Democracy, edited by Holger G. Ehling and Claus-Peter Holste-von Mutius, 1–12. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. First pub- lished 1993 by Rodopi (Amsterdam and New York). . 2007. The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. <Elena Rodríguez Murphy> holds a PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Salamanca (Spain), where she works in the Depart- ment of Translation and Interpreting. Her research interests include Af- rican literatures, translation studies, and linguistics. She has published several articles and book chapters on these areas of study, including “An Interview with Sefi Atta” (published Research in African Literatures, 2012) and “An Interview with Professor Paul Bandia” (Perspectives, 2015). She is the author of Traducción y literatura africana: multilingüis- mo y transculturación en la narrativa nigeriana de expresión inglesa (Granada, 2015). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 69

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Translation and Asymmetrical Spaces, the Strait of Gibraltar as a Case in Point África Vidal and Juan Jesús Zaro University of Salamanca, Spain [email protected] University of Malaga, Spain [email protected] <Abstract> As a geographical location, defined by Paul Bowles as “the center of the uni- verse,” which separates continents—Europe in the North and Africa in the South—but also world views, cultures, religions, and languages, the Strait of Gibraltar was and remains an authentic translation space. At present, the metaphor of the separation that the Strait evokes incessantly continues to be valid every day, taking into account, for example, events such as the succesive waves of African immigrants who have been arriving on the European coasts for several years “illegally.” In addition to these tensions, there are cities located in the Strait, such as Tangier and Gibraltar, that are by themselves multilingual and multicul- tural places and therefore spaces of translation and conflict that deserve specific sections in this paper. While Tangier, during the second half of the twentieth century was a unique “interzone” characterized by cosmopolitanism and the coexistence of spaces and multiple and confronted texts, Gibraltar is now a territory reinvented as a result of its past, in which hybridity would be a fundamental part of its complex and young identity. introduction Spaces can be real and imagined. Spaces can tell stories and unfold histories. Spaces can be interrupted, appropriated, and transformed through artistic and literary practice. (hooks 1991, 152) Human beings access reality by means of translations, of provisional, rele- vant, interesting or interested versions of realities which are continually being contextualized, rectified, and translated. With the hermeneutic and ethical journeys of each individual, we come to realize that translating is an inevitable means of encountering the other. Not only of encountering the other, but also of coming face to face with immigration and national identities, the global and the local, the problem of marginal groups, difference, or encountering what we sometimes agree with and sometimes detest. And we come across all of these things because when we translate we invade spaces, we occupy alien, far-away spaces which overlap and clash. When we translate, we shape these spaces and walk over the tracks we find on the way; but, on occasion, when we move around in others’ spaces, our aim is also to rewrite them and translate them. Translating is shifting smells, flavors, or passions from places that are 70 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 not ours. Translation is movement, flow, and passage between spaces that are not, and should never be, unidirectional or closed. Our starting-point in this paper is that all cultural experience arises at the crossroads between language, topos, and identity, and that precisely the ex- perience of what is different is produced by the destabilization of these cross- roads (Robinson 1998, 24). Our point of departure, therefore, is that translat- ing, and more specifically translating spaces, is a very political activity which is certainly not neutral—it is the locus where the coexistence of heterogeneity becomes possible, and as a result space must always be under construction (Massey 2011, 9). As an example of this way of understanding translation, we aim to focus on the Strait of Gibraltar, with the cities of Tangier and Gibraltar at opposite sides of its coast. It is a fascinating area because it is the space that joins Africa and Europe, a space of cultural encounter that espouses the concept of hybridity, a hybridity distinct from syncretism, creolization, and métissage, which would suggest that the dynamics of cultural encounters give rise to new, long-lasting identities. On the contrary, these are spaces in which the hybrid is that space in construction just mentioned that problematizes binary oppositions since each is part of the construction of the other. Within this context, translating in these spaces means offering a culturally constructed version away from dualisms. The analysis of this space, which includes the Strait, Tangier, and Gi- braltar, will lead us to reflect on the fact that translating is today the condition of living of many cities with a double or triple history behind them. The study of these spaces will make clear that translation, far from being a benevolent act of hospitality toward a guest from another space, is a relentless transaction (Si- mon 2003, 77), a hybrid act which does not mean a new synthesis but a zone of negotiation, dissent, and exchange, a locus that short-circuits patterns of alterity in order to express the drift of contemporary identities (Simon 1999, 39–40). The Strait of Gibraltar, which is in turn a clash space between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, is the starting point of this essay; it is here that all stories—those that go to the North and those that remain in the South—begin and it is also the narrative constructions on the Strait that make this space such a complicated, multicultural space, because “places without stories are unthinkable” (Price 2004, xxi). In fact, the Strait of Gibraltar and the stories shaping it throughout the centuries make it a space of conflicts, silences, discontinuities, and exclu- sions that turn it into a place which is unstable and multilayered, never fin- ished, never determined, processual, porous (Price 2004, 5). Because although the Strait of Gibraltar is currently a natural border between two continents (Africa and Europe) and two countries (Morocco and Spain), and it is unique isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 71 in that it also has Gibraltar (an overseas territory of the United Kingdom), and Ceuta (a Spanish city with its own statute of autonomous government) on opposite sides of its shores, the truth is that, throughout history, both sides have been united longer than they have been separated. They were governed as one territory by the Romans and also during the eight centuries of Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, after the fall of the Kingdom of Granada, the two shores separated forever, a separation that was only occa- sionally interrupted during the time of the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco (1913–1956). Since 1956, when the kingdom of Morocco became independent, the two shores have once again become administratively, politically, and cul- turally independent. The waters of the Strait are, therefore, a palimpsest accumulating well-known stories and also, unfortunately, other stories we will never hear about because they were lost forever with the bodies that have sunk to the depths. The waters of the Strait are “a layered text of narratives of belonging and exclusion, always negotiated, always struggled over, never finished” (Price 2004, 7); they are the intermediate, imaginary zone between Africa and the West that every culture needs: “Somewhere every culture has an imaginary zone for what it excludes, and it is that zone we must try to remember today” (Cixous and Clément 1986, 6). And that imaginary zone is the line that joins the two “dual cities” (Simon 2012, 3 and following pages) we shall go on to examine in detail, Tangier and Gibraltar. Currently, communication between both sides of the Strait is in the form of fast or traditional ferries between Tarifa, Algeciras, and Gibraltar on the European side and Ceuta and Tangier in Africa. Crossings take between thirty and ninety minutes. Sometimes crossings cannot be made due to storms or strong winds, especially in winter. One of these ferries is called “the whale,” a carrier of unknown treasures which, with a curious symbolism reminding us of Captain Ahab’s quest to hunt down Moby Dick, is pursued by an old fish- erman from Tangier in the film Moroccan Chronicles (1999) by the Moroccan director Moumen Smihi. The journey between the two shores is made legally by almost three million people a year and illegally by more than ten thousand, who use their own means to get across in “pateras.” The Strait of Gibraltar is the only gateway into and out of the Mediterranean for all marine traffic. It is estimated that more than 82,000 ships cross it every year. As Alfred Chester points out in his short story “Glory Hole”: “The hills of Spain are there like civilized laughter across the narrow water; two ferries a day, or six, or ten— who can remember anymore? Spain is on the other, the inaccessible side of Styx” (Chester 1990, 221). The possibility of building a bridge or a tunnel between both shores 72 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 has often been discussed. From the technical viewpoint, the tunnel option would appear to be the most feasible, even though the depth of the water of the Strait would make it the deepest (and most expensive) tunnel in Europe. However, the existence of a tunnel or bridge across the Strait would be a huge improvement in traffic and mobility between both sides, something which, from a symbolic and political point of view, would not seem to be totally acceptable at this moment in time: the idea of a tunnel or bridge, ultimately a metaphor of union and communication between the two shores, clashes with other well-known metaphorical narratives about the Strait which focus more on the idea of battle and separation. One is the familiar mythological tale of the “columns,” identified fairly vaguely as the Rock of Gibraltar and Mount Hacho in Ceuta, which Hercules separated to open up a passage for the Atlantic Ocean. Another is the myth surrounding Julian, Count of Ceu- ta, a Visigoth governor of the city who is alleged to have facilitated entry of Muslim troops into the Spanish mainland in 711, enabling them to put an end to the Visigothic rule established after the fall of the Roman Empire. This act changed the history of Spain forever. It is said that Julian did this out of revenge after his daughter was raped in Toledo by Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king of Spain who would finally be defeated and killed by the invading army in the Battle of Guadalete. In this sense, the fact that it was a question of honor that caused the Muslim invasion of Spain has led to numerous interpre- tations. In his novel Reivindicación del conde don Julián (1970), Juan Goytisolo identifies with the main character more than one thousand years later in his desire to put an end to the essential, homogeneous, and nationalist–Catholic Spain of the Franco regime, in the same way that the Visigothic count had indirectly helped to put an end to Christian Spain and, ultimately, promote miscegenation and the fusion of races. We must not forget that the last sig- nificant act of war in the Strait took place in August 1936, when around eight thousand troops from the rebel Spanish army in Morocco were transported by sea to the Spanish mainland to join the rebel troops once the Civil War started. The history of the Strait, therefore, has been, and continues to be, a history of conflict involving the clash of two different civilizations, established on the two continents located on either side of this stretch of water, which also economically represent two very different zones—Europe on the north side and Africa on the south, which are profoundly asymmetrical in economic terms. It is, in this sense, perhaps the most unequal border in the whole world, and crossing the Strait was, and perhaps still is, travelling to another reality. This is how it was described by the Spanish traveller and spy Ali Bey when he said in 1814, on crossing from Tarifa to Tangier, that whoever crosses the isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 73 Strait goes “en tan breve espacio de tiempo a un mundo absolutamente nuevo, y sin la más remota semejanza con el que se acaba de dejar, se halla realmente como transportado a otro planeta” (Bey 2009, 147). Nowadays, the most vis- ible aspect of this conflict is that of illegal migrants, who, as we have pointed out above, use the Strait to enter Europe, and who in recent years consist mainly of people from sub-Saharan countries. This is why this intermediate space that is the sea is the space in movement that, although in the middle, is the space of the beginning and the end, the space of the in-between which necessarily has to be crossed by these fragmented lives. It is the only space in which, unfortunately, they will be full citizens. However, there are other conflicts in the area, including claims from other countries for territories they consider to have been illegally occupied for centuries. This is the case, above all, of Spain and Gibraltar, but also of Morocco and Ceuta. Exile, or immigration for political or ideological reasons, is also linked to the history of the Strait of Gibraltar. Many historical diasporas have traversed it, including, for example, the Jews (around 80,000) or the Moriscos (around 300,000) when they were expelled from Spain in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively, who abandoned Spain and crossed over to Africa. Some Spanish Jews settled in towns in the north of Morocco, where they lived for centuries with a largely Muslim population. Many migrated to Israel shortly after the new state was founded and now form part of the Sephardic community, one of the most visible and well-known communities of that country. The Spanish Moriscos who took refuge in Morocco, on the other hand, contributed their andalusí character to Moroccan culture and it is now one of its signs of identity. And not only that, but the space we will examine below is, as well as being a multicultural space, or perhaps precisely for that reason, a multilingual space. Four languages live side by side on both shores: Spanish on the Spanish side in Ceuta, in Gibraltar, and to a much lesser degree throughout North Morocco; English in Gibraltar; and French and Arabic in Morocco. The two most used languages, Spanish and Arabic, correspond to diatopical dialect forms, Andalusian Spanish in Spain and colloquial Moroccan Arabic or dāriŷa on the Moroccan coast of the Strait. The Andalusian variant is also used by the citizens of Gibraltar, which immediately makes them Andalusians for the rest of Spain when they speak Spanish, although they do in fact speak a hybrid variety called “llanito,” a kind of small-scale European Spanglish. Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, has a strong Berber substrate and influences from French and Spanish and is an identitarian dialect, far removed from modern standard Arabic and unintelligible to many Moroccans. Due to their own particular history, a number of coastal towns on the Strait, such as Tangier 74 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 for example, can be considered to be multilingual spaces where it is possible to be understood in three or four languages. Others, like Gibraltar, are clearly bilingual. Ceuta is similarly an interesting example, as it is also becoming a bilingual city due to the increasing Muslim population, to which we must likewise add a significant Hindu community which is completely bilingual in Spanish and Hindi. These multicultural and multilingual spaces will allow us to better understand the Strait’s coastal “dual cities”—to use Sherry Simon’s terminol- ogy—which we will examine below. tangier, a dual city The place [Tangier] was counterfeit, a waiting room between connections, a transition from one way of being to another… (Bowles 2006, 382). Tangier is not part of Morocco. It’s international. Paul Bowles interviewed by Abdelhak Elghandor (Elghandor 1994, 16) From the end of the 1940s until Moroccan independence in 1956, the city of Tangier, located to the extreme west of the African coast of the Strait of Gi- braltar, had a unique political status, that of being an “international zone.” But it was, at the same time, a multilayered space where many languages existed, and still do exist, at the same time, a space where translation was never a mere language transfer but a practice of writing that took place at the crossroads (Simon 2012, 8). Perched on the northern tip of Morocco with its eyes trained across the Strait of Gibraltar toward Spain, “Tangier certainly has long been at the crossroads, a point of intersection of various civilizations, notably African/ Islamic and European Christian” (Hibbard 2009, 1). This is why Tangier is a space that has always generated multiple discourses; it is a city that has always “spoken,” because it is a site of representation. However, the discourses it has generated have been different translations of reality, rewritings of a space that some, Westerners, exoticized, and others, Moroccans, understood differently, as a way of “writing back to the West” (Elkouche 2008, 1). Tangier was, on the one hand, a space of rich British expatriates and, on the other, the receiving space of many expatriates from Paris during the years between the World wars, artists and writers who sought in the “interna- tionalized” Tangier what the Lost Generation had searched for in the French capital a few years earlier, a space open to less conventional ways of life. The era during which both artists and writers lived in Tangier was especially rele- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 75 1. View of Tangier vant with regard to political and social change, because during these years the Maghreb moved on from being an area under European colonial control to one of postcolonial independence Halfway between nations, cultures, and languages, Tangier became an “interzone,” to use Burroughs’s word—that is, “a place of intermediacy and ambiguity, a place that remains outside standard narratives of nationhood and identity. It proved to be an expedient location for [writers] to sort out the multiple crises of identity, desire, and loss that motivated their writing” (Mul- lins 2002, 3). In this sense, we must not forget that, as Tangier’s legal situation allowed moral permissiveness with regard, for example, to sexuality and drugs 76 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain and was considered to be a mental illness in the United States, it was logical that this unorthodox space should attract many gay artists of the time, from Jean Genet to Robert Rauschenberg, William Burroughs and Paul Bowles (who lived in Tangier for over fifty years, from 1947 until his death in 1999). To these names we could add a long list of intellectuals who spent time in Tangier, such as Gertrude Stein, Francis Bacon, Djuna Barnes, Brion Gysin, Samuel Beckett, Alfred Chester, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Aaron Copeland, Juan Goytisolo, Ian Fleming, and many others. Because Tangier was the promised land of the bohemian Diaspora and refuge of many rich, eccentric Westerners (see Pulsifer 1992 and Walonen 2011) who sought ways of life that constituted an alternative to the orthodoxy of their countries of origin. This is something that, in spite of everything, the city is still proud of and still attracts a lot of tourists. A recent tourist brochure, Tangier in Morocco, published by the Mo- roccan National Tourist Office, states: “The streets of Tangier are teeming with artistic and literary memories. Countless painters, novelists, playwrights, poets, photographers, actors, filmmakers and couturiers from every nation under the sun have stayed here a while or made their home here, inspired and bewitched by the city’s magic” (Moroccan National Tourist Office n.d., 12). Truman Capote, in a 1950 article entitled “Tangier” (Capote 2013), reminds us of the radical heterogeneity and idiosyncrasies arising from this huge amount of freedom. Tangier was the space on the border between Eu- rope and Africa, between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity; a place where nationalities, cultures, and languages mixed to the point of promiscuity. In fact, in Morocco translation is still a means of survival today. Although the official language is Arabic, the economic and cultural life of the country has always been carried out in several languages. The educated classes speak and write standard Arabic and French, while the majority of people use varieties of Moroccan Arabic or Berber variants. In the north many people speak Span- ish and also English, particularly those involved in tourism and commerce. Therefore, “no single Moroccan language can universally speak to and for all Moroccans; rather, Moroccans must daily translate among themselves, or in the formation of literary narratives, both written and oral” (Sabil 2005, 176). It is no surprise, then, that this open locus, especially that of Tangier when it was an International Zone, should have been so attractive a place for writers whose lives and works were considered unorthodox in Western circles. Tangier was a space where for many years national structures and rigid codes of ethics were deconstructed and where confusion of all binary logic was favored. However, the spaces inhabited by Westerners in Tangier were gen- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 77 erally separate from those inhabited by Moroccans. We see this in the case of Bowles, whose descriptions of the spaces his characters are situated in speak of class, race, or cultural differences. Moreover, Bowles describes in many of his translations the horror of not having a place in space, in For Bread Alone by Choukri (2010), for example. The above-mentioned rich British expats created a series of separate places that reflected English ways of life, places of worship like St. Andrew’s Church, tea parties and lavish parties with film stars (Finlayson 1992, 271 and following pages), although it is also true that the density of the population and the physical and social distribution of the city led to inevitable contact between the communities. The center of Tangier had been designed initially for around 12,000 people and it remained un- changed when population numbers increased. So, the streets were always full of people, cultures, and religions as reflected in the pages of Burroughs’s The Naked Lunch or Bowles’s Let it Come Down. The narrow streets in the center showed multiplicity and the two main axes of the town, the Boulevard Pas- teur running from east to west, and the Rue du Statut running from north to south, crossed at Place de France, “a bustling roundabout ringed by popular cafés frequented by the diplomatic community and Moroccan nationalists” (Edwards 2005, 130). In Tangier, the European powers were initially the producers of spac- es, the power groups who designed, distributed, named, and built spaces and who also established the rules for the use of these spaces. This divided spatial- ity is typical, as Fanon reminds us in The Wretched of the Earth, of colonizing processes: “The first thing which the native learns is to stay in his place, and not to go beyond certain limits” (Fanon 1968, 52). The space of colonial order is always one of luxury, cleanliness, and entertainment; the other formed of wretched places, as we see, for example, in Choukri’s For Bread Alone. Without a doubt, for Bowles and many other writers and artists, Tang- ier was a “third space,” in Edward Soja’s sense of the term—that is, “the space where all places are capable of being seen from every angle, each standing clear; but also a secret and conjectured object, filled with illusions and allu- sions, a space that is common to all of us yet never able to be completely seen and understood” (Soja 1996, 56). Perhaps this is why Bowles never considered himself to be Tangierian but, rather, a vocational stateless person. In March 1992 he said in an interview, “I am not American and I am not Moroccan. I’m a visitor on earth. You have to be Muslim to really be accepted in Morocco, to be a part of it” (Choukri 2008, 304). Bowles was also against the Westernization of Moroccan spaces after independence—for him geography was a way of reading identity. Spaces were texts and the scenery was the reflection of his characters’ inner self, some- 78 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 thing the critics have discussed in detail (Pounds 1985; Olson 1986; Hassan 1995; Caponi 1998; Patteson 2003; Walonen 2011) and that he himself recognized in some of his travel writings such as Their Heads are Green and their Hands are Blue (1963), and in his novels and several interviews. Characters like Thami in Let it Come Down identify with the place and the space, but when they are taken somewhere else like New York many of his characters feel out of place. It was in his translations of oral texts by Moroccan narrators (Ahmed Yacoubi, Layachi Larbi, Abdeslam Boulaich, and Mohammed Mrabet, among others), howev- er, that he rewrites in that contact zone that is no good to imperialism, like many other postcolonial translations, but comes from within the Other(‘s) space, “involves a much looser notion of the text, interacts intensely with local forms of narrative and is a revigorating and positive global influence [. . .] a con- tinuous life-giving and creative process” (Simon and St-Pierre 2000, 10). After October 1956, when Tangier was no longer an International Zone (in 1961 it became part of Morocco), people came to suspect that “the good times, the high-living years for foreign residents with substantial assets in Tangi- er, might be ending” (Finlayson 1992, 75). In 1957 the British Post Office closed its offices; the Spanish Post Office did the same in 1958. In addition, many banks and companies closed and transferred their branches to other countries. The lux- ury goods shops on Boulevard Pascal were replaced by shops selling local crafts and clothing. But one of the most revealing details of the change was “a new edict banning the sale of liquor within a certain distance from a mosque” and another determining the places that stayed and those that did not: “There were a great many mosques, and a great many Spanish, Jewish and other foreign-owned bars. The mosques stayed open, the bars closed” (Finlayson 1992, 75). That is, the places that Lefebvre calls “representations of space” (1991, 33) closed, that experience of space referring to hegemonic ideological representations, to space constructed by professionals and technocrats (engineers, architects, urban plan- ners, geographers, etc.), a space where ideology, power, and knowledge are in- variably linked to representation. Besides, when it was no longer an International Zone, many Moroccans living in the country moved to Tangier, which changed the city space. The clean, luxurious Tangier of today is Muslim, the best areas be- long to citizens of countries in the Persian Gulf and to Moroccans who have made their fortune from drug-trafficking between Africa and Europe, traffick- ing in which the city is a crucial point (Walonen 2011, 127). The city and its population have evolved and so has their interaction with the first world, to such an extent that the essentialist vision of the Muslim population, which to- day reproaches the former foreign residents of the Tangier of the International Zone, might have changed. The foreign residents and tourists currently in isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 79 Tangier (many attracted by the literary past of the city) still mix with the local people, but probably in a different way to that of the foreign community of the Tangier of the 1940s and ‘50s. Despite this, it is curious that in the tourist brochure mentioned above, Tangier in Morocco, Tangier’s special character, compared to that of other Moroccan cities, is highlighted in the following words: “Today, the city still has its cosmopolitan side, with a wide variety of outside influences contributing to its cultural diversity and unique personali- ty” (Moroccan National Tourist Office n.d., 7). Or with these other puzzling words: “There is something altogether unique about the town, something impalpable, indefinable –a sense of freedom that hangs in the air like the scent of orange blossom” (Moroccan National Tourist Office n.d., 5). Tangier, with its linguistic and cultural contrasts and the social and classist inequalities reflected in its spaces, is therefore the living example that spaces are socially created entities, political constructions that reveal prejudices, asymmetries, and inequalities. But, in addition, the places are “practiced” spaces (De Certeau 1988, 117). De Certeau compares spatiality, place and narrative, and, for him, the narrative ends up “transforming places into spaces or spaces into places” (De Certeau 1988, 130). The writer and the translator take the reader by the hand when they describe an apartment, a street, a country, or a border. gibraltar, a translational city [...] dual cities have their origins in conquest, when a stronger language group comes to occupy or impinge upon a pre-existent language which may itself have displaced another before it. (Simon 2012, 3) The city of Gibraltar (Jebel-al-Tariq, or “the mountain of Tarik,” an Arab leader who led the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 ce), resting on its Rock, has been, as we all know, a British colony since the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1704 Gibraltar was occupied by an English fleet involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and included in the Spanish territories ruled by the Archduke Charles of Austria, one of the pretenders to the throne (the other was Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis xvi of France and legitimate heir according to the last will and testament of the last king of Spain, Charles II, who had died in 1700). However, the detachment that expelled the citizens from the city—they founded the town of San Roque, whence an irate stone lion stills looks threateningly over at the Rock—never left, not even when the war ended and Philip V was proclaimed King. One of the conditions of the famous Treaty of Utrecht (1713) was that Spain should recognize British sovereignty over the Rock of Gibraltar, the city, and the 80 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 port. The Treaty, which has never been revoked and is, therefore, still in force today, continues to be invoked by Spain today on the grounds that, among other things, the land occupied by Gibraltar Airport is in a neutral area that had never been signed over to the British and, therefore, was occupied illegally during the First World War. More than three hundred years of British sovereignty have made Gi- braltar a unique enclave. It is located on the southern tip of Andalusia and its only land border is with Spain. This Lilliputian territory is 5.8 square kilo- meters in size and has a population of almost 30,000 inhabitants, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world (4,290 inhabitants per square kilometer). As the original Spanish population of the city abandoned the Rock after the British occupation, it soon filled with immigrants from several places—Genoa, Portugal, India, Malta, Morocco, and Spain, among others—and also had a significant Jewish community, who had migrated to Gibraltar to “serve” the British troops and their families. As we have men- tioned above, the city is also practically bilingual, English is spoken, as well as “llanito” or a kind of Spanglish spoken on the Rock which the locals call “suichito” or “switch,” a hybrid language where code switching is constantly used. Many Gibraltarians also speak fluent Spanish with a marked Andalusian accent. Relations with Spain have never been easy. In Spain, whatever the ideology of the ruling party, Gibraltar is always considered to be a colonized territory which should be returned to Spain as it was taken by force in an act of war. Today most Gibraltarians think that the Treaty of Utrecht is obsolete, that history has shown that Gibraltar is a territory demographically, linguis- tically, and culturally different from Spain, and that the current autonomous status of the territory, approved by all its inhabitants, is proof of its democrat- ic nature. Although the United Nations declared in 1964 that Gibraltar should be “decolonized,” under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht it could never be an independent country—it could only be British or, should the latter abandon the territory, Spanish. At that time, the United Kingdom refused to enter into any kind of negotiation with Franco’s Spain, and the Spanish gov- ernment, in retaliation, closed the land border between Gibraltar and Spain, leaving Gibraltar isolated via land from 1969 to 1985. Recent attempts to set up negotiations to try to reach an agreement of British and Spanish cosovereignty of the territory have met the refusal of almost all the Gibraltarians. In any case, there is still a problem between Gibraltar and Spain which is visible, especially at the moment, in the “queues” of cars and people that have been forming at the Spanish border crossing every summer since 2013, when the Spanish government decided to periodically tighten the con- isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 81 trol of vehicles and persons, which only adds to the active conflicts in the area of the Strait. In this case, however, it is a political conflict more than a social or cultural one, but it affects the daily life of people who live in the area and have become hostages, in a way, of decisions taken very far away for reasons they often do not understand. This “distance” from the centers of power can be seen in the references to the population of Gibraltar in the media. Therefore, while the Spanish government said these queues were “necessary” to stop smuggling, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, Fabián Picardo, denounced the “passivity” of the British government in this affair for fear of worsening relations with Spain (Ayllón 2014), and the Spanish workers on the Rock expressed their disagreement with the measures put into place by their own government (Romaguera 2013). This is, therefore, a deep-rooted problem with no easy solution. Gi- braltar is a prosperous place with a high standard of living—it is, in fact, the second most prosperous territory in the European Union, which is in stark contrast with the Spanish region surrounding it. The Campo de Gibraltar is a depressed area with a high level of unemployment and is still far behind other areas of Spain. But, this prosperity is due, above all, to the fact that it is a tax haven where companies and financial institutions pay hardly any taxes, which would explain the huge amount of investment and increasing number of com- panies registered on the Rock. From Spain it is argued that this prosperity is largely due to fiscal rules and regulations, which are very different to those in Spain and prevent investment, for example, reaching Campo de Gibraltar, the area around the Rock. The Gibraltarian stereotype as seen from Spain is that of a smuggler on a motorbike who takes advantage of his situation as an islander with respect to Spain to obtain economic benefits, but who, deep down, is just an Andalusian in denial. From the Gibraltarian point of view, Spaniards are considered to be provincial individuals anchored in the past who have never been able to understand that Gibraltar is not a part of Spain, that its population is more heterogeneous in comparison to that of Spain, and that it is so prosperous. Whatever the case, we cannot forget that currently more than seven thousand Spaniards work in Gibraltar and that many Gibral- tarians have invested large amounts of money in properties in Spain. This “insularity” or impermeability of Gibraltar, even though it is not an island as such, has led to it being a place of stability and freedom in contrast with the turbulent history of its neighbor. During the nineteenth century, the Rock was a refuge for Spanish exiles who had to abandon their country for political reasons and were making their way to the United Kingdom or other European countries. During the twentieth century the Rock, as a British terri- tory, maintained standards of religious freedom and tolerance which were un- 82 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 2. Views of Gibraltar known in Spain, especially during the Franco regime, and this would make it a more advanced society in all aspects. We cannot forget the famous wedding of John Lennon and Yoko Ono which took place in Gibraltar in 1969, a media event highlighting the “modernity” of the Rock, which was much closer to the “swinging London” of the 1960s than backward, conservative Spain. In any case, the closure of the border crossing in 1969 made communication between Gibraltar and Spain almost nonexistent. Today, Gibraltar (or “Gib” as it is known in Britain) could be any town on the southern coast of England, or perhaps the Channel Islands. There are typical references found in British territories, red telephone box- es, “bobbies” and the Union Jack, which continues to fly in many places. The supermarkets and shops belong to British groups—Marks and Spencer, BHS, Boots, Morrisons, and so on—and the pubs are authentic. However, this translation of a southern space to a northern one does not include all the codes or elements: in Gibraltar people drive on the right, as they do in Spain; the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the most “British” space in the whole area, is built in an oriental style with horseshoe arches over doors and windows; at the entrance to the city the Muslim fort, which could never be seen in an English town, is still standing strong; and the Andalusian accent of the inhabitants when they speak Spanish or “llanito” assimilates them to their neighbors in Campo de Gibraltar. There are two theories regarding the origin of the term “llanito,” both related to the clash between languages. Ac- cording to one theory, “llanito” was coined in Gibraltar in the early twentieth century by Andalusian workers who would hear Gibraltar mothers call their “yanitos” (the Spanish diminutive for Johnny—Johnnito) and began to call all Gibraltarians “yanis” (Johnnys), which led in turn to the current “llanitos” isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 83 or “yanitos.” The other theory is that the word derives from the large num- ber of “Giovannis,” or “Giannis” as they are familiarly called, in the large Genoese colony which settled on the Rock. The simultaneous use of Spanish and English can often be very amusing. Main Street, the commercial artery of the city, is also called the “Calle Reá,” and Gibraltar is “Gibrartá,” both in “llanito” and Andalusian Spanish. Manuel Leguineche (2002, 2) mentions his surprise when a Gibraltarian bobby replied “Zí, zeñó” to the question “Do you speak English?” This way of speaking is only the reflection of the coexistence of asym- metrical spaces where at least two cultures live side by side or occasionally clash. It is a way of speaking that, as Susan Bassnett states (in Simon 2012, n.p.), shows the fundamental importance of languages shaping cultural, geo- graphical, and historical space. In effect, the particular language used in Gi- braltar demonstrates the power of language to mark the urban landscape, to understand it, and how important it is to listen to cities (Simon 2012, xix and 1), especially these types of cities which are contact zones (see Pratt 1992), noisy streets of polyglot neighborhoods. These are very clear examples that language is an area of negotiation, a space where connections are created through rewritings and where ideas circulate, converge, and clash in the translational city, which imposes its own patterns of interaction and these emerge out of their spaces and their own narrative pasts (Simon 2012, 2). But in Gibraltar, as in Tangier or the Strait, languages share the same terrain but rarely participate in a peaceful and egali- tarian conversation. And there is some, albeit not a great deal of, Gibraltarian literature, written mostly in Spanish by authors like Héctor Licudi, Alberto Pizzarello, or Elio Cruz (see Yborra Aznar 2005). More recent writers, how- ever, write in both languages (Mario Arroyo, for example) or only in English. One of the most interesting current Gibraltarian authors is Trino Cruz, a poet who writes in Spanish, translates Moroccan poetry from Arabic, and defends the multiethnic and multilinguistic character of the territory. These and many other authors allow us to see that translation (or self-translation, depending on your point of view) “can no longer be configured only as a link between a familiar and a foreign culture, between a local original and a distant destination, between one monolingual community and another. [. . .] The Other remains within a constant earshot. The shared understandings of this coexistence change the meaning of translation from a gesture of benevolence to a process through which a common civility is negotiated” (Simon 2012, 7). As we have seen, given its history and the composition of its popu- lation, Gibraltar is now also a hybrid or “dual” city whose complex, young identity is based, above all, on the wishes of its population to maintain their 84 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 status as a British overseas territory and not be absorbed in any way by Spain in the long term. It is clear that the friendly relations between the two parties at the beginning of the twentieth century collapsed, probably permanently, when the border crossing was closed from 1969 until 1985, isolating the two peoples and provoking in Gibraltar both anti-Spanish feelings and a lack of proficiency in the Spanish language. Even so, certain data (Grocott and Stock- ey 2012, 125) show that the inhabitants of the Rock consider themselves to be more and more Gibraltarian and less British, although it is not clear what this feeling, whose signs of identity are still fairly vague yet real, consists of, the city now celebrates a “National Day” on September 10 to commemorate the date of the first referendum, held in 1967, to reject annexation to Spain; the red and white flag of Gibraltar can be seen more and more often flying over the territory, “llanito” is sometimes used in the local press instead of English, and the project to publish the first local paper Calpe Press is already under way. This nationalist feeling would only assimilate Gibraltar to tiny European nations such as Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino, which are historically much older. If this “national” sentiment were to become consol- idated, which does not appear to have happened yet, Gibraltar would be an example of a relatively new “heterogeneous,” hybrid, multilingual communi- ty, seeking to define its own identity, composed in turn of hybrid elements from different cultures. concluding remarks Living in different places means growing separate selves, learning other languages and ways of being, and looking at the world from different vantage points, without ever quite belonging to any of them. The state of being of a foreigner wherever I am has become second nature to me. It is a condition that sharpens the eye and the ear, that keeps awareness on its toes, and that takes nothing for granted. It means also that whatever I am, the ghosts of other places and other lives are hovering close. (Reid 1994, 3) The linguistic forms used in a space like Gibraltar cause us to reflect on how diffi- cult it can become to find or create equivalent idioms for local, nonstandard lan- guages, but in general everything mentioned above in relation to other spaces such as Tangier and the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar confirms that “the translator’s dilemmas are not to be found in dictionaries, but rather in an understanding of the way language is tied to local realities [. . .] and to changing identities” (Simon 1995, 10). This is why nowadays, in a global and transcultural society, translation is a transversal and interdisciplinary activity that has much to do with geography, while only a few years ago they were both considered to be fields of research far removed from each other (Bassnett 2011; Vidal 2012). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 85 By examining in this essay spaces such as Tangier and Gibraltar, cit- ies of ethnicities with shifting centers and peripheries, sites of transitory events, movements, memories, open spirals of heterogeneous collaborations and con- taminations, heterotopic, multiform and diasporic realities, spaces which un- dermine the presumed purity of thought (Chambers 1994, 93 and 95), we hope to have shown the need to access both space and translation in a different way, to have questioned what we understand today by space and why translation has forced us to very seriously analyze how ideology and power interfere in the creation of a space and a translation, what cultural contact points we have seen between peoples whose spaces become joined or clash in translations of those texts that define them in this way; what role is played by cartography of the plac- es understood as texts; and how this concept of knowledge is instrumentalized in asymmetrical and multidirectional contexts. From this point of view, translating in the hybrid spaces studied here, spaces like the Strait, Tangier, or Gibraltar that are sites of displacement, in- terference, and constructed and disputed historicities (Clifford 1997, 25), has shown itself to be a border experience able to produce powerful political vi- sion, the subversion of binarism which makes us wonder how translatable these places/metaphors of crossing are, how like and unlike diasporas. What does it take to define and defend a homeland? What are the political stakes in claiming a “home” in hooks’s (1991) sense? How are ethnic communities’ “insides” and “outsides” sustained, policed, subverted, crossed by historical subjects with different degrees of power (Clifford 1997, 36)? Considered from this state of things, translation is a foundational activity, an activity of cultural creation that takes into account the unstable and liminal identities it trans- forms and that partakes of the incompleteness of cultural belonging in spaces informed by estrangement, diversity, plurality, and already saturated with a logic of translation (Simon 1996, 152, 165, and 166) and dual cities may not serve only to impose an alien and oppressive presence but also to be part of a process of exchange which involves “an active chain of response, a vivifying interaction” (Simon and St-Pierre 2000, 10). This article is part of the research projects entitled “Violencia simbólica y traducción: retos en la representación de identidades fragmentadas en la sociedad global” (Symbolic violence and translation: challenges in the representation of fragmented identities within the global society) and “La traducción de clásicos en su aspecto editorial: una visión transatlántica” (Publishing strategies in the translation of classics: a transatlantic approach) (respectively FFI2015-66516-P and FFI2013-41743-P; MINECO/FEDER, UE) financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. 86 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 <References> Ayllón, Luis. 2014. “Picardo enfurece contra Cameron.” http://abcblogs.abc. es/luis-ayllon/public/post/picardo-enfurece-contra-cameron-16073. asp/ Bassnett, Susan. 2011. “From Cultural Turn to Transnational Turn, A Transnational Journey.” In Literature, Geography, Translation. 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Disorienting America’s Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express. Durham and London: Duke Univer- sity Press. Elghandor, Abdelhak. 1994. “Atavism and Civilization, An Interview with Paul Bowles.” Ariel. A Review of International English Literature 25 (2): 7–30. Elkouche, Mohamed. 2008. “Space and Place, Tangier Speaks.” http://interac- tive-worlds.blogspot.com.es/2008/03/tangier-speaks.html. Fanon, Frantz. 1968. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press. Finlayson, Iain. 1992. Tangier. City of Dream. London: Harper Collins. Goytisolo, Juan. 1970. Reivindicación del conde don Julián. Barcelona: Seix Barral. Grocott, Chris, and Gareth Stockey. 2012. Gibraltar. A Modern Story. Cardiff: Univer- sity of Wales Press. Hassan, Ihab. 1995. “Paul Bowles, The Pilgrim as Prey.” In Rumors of Change, Essays of Five Decades, 3–16. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 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Smihi, Moumen, dir. 1999. Moroccan Chronicles/Chroniques Marocaines/Waqa’i maghribia. 35mm, 70 minutes. Distributed by POM films (Montreuil). Soja, Edward W. 1996. Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell. Vidal, M. Carmen África. 2012. La traducción y los espacios: viajes, mapas, fronteras. Granada: Comares. Walonen, Michael K. 2011. Writing Tangier in the Postcolonial Transition. Space and Power in Expatriate and North African Literature. Surrey: Ashgate. 88 / translation / issue 7 / 2018 isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 Yborra Aznar, José Juan. 2005. “La frontera estéril. La literatura en español en Gi- braltar.” In El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes. <M. Carmen África Claramonte> is Professor of Translation at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Her research interests include trans- lation theory, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, contemporary art, and gender studies. She has published a number of books, anthologies, and essays on these issues, including Traducción, manipulación, des- construcción (Salamanca, 1995), El futuro de la traducción (Valencia, 1998), Translation/Power/Subversion (coedited with Román Álvarez, Clevedon, 1996), En los límites de la traducción (Granada, 2006), Tra- ducir entre culturas: diferencias, poderes, identidades (Frankfurt, 2007), Traducción y asimetría (Frankfurt, 2010), La traducción y los espacios: viajes, mapas, fronteras (Granada, 2013), ”Dile que le he escrito un blues.” Del texto como partitura a la partitura como traducción (Frank- furt, 2017), and La traducción y la(s) historia(s) (Comares, 2017). She is a practicing translator specializing in the fields of philosophy, literature, and contemporary art. <Juan Jesús Zaro> has been professor of translation studies at the University of Málaga since 2008. His research interests include trans- lation theory, history of translation, and literary translation. He obtained an MA from New York University, as a Fulbright student, and a PhD in English Literature from the University de Granada (1983). He has pub- lished a number of books, anthologies, and articles, including Manual de Traducción/A Manual of Translation (Madrid, 1998), Shakespeare y sus traductores (Bern, 2008), Traductores y traductores de literatura y ensayo (Granada, 2007), and Diez estudios sobre la traducción en la España del siglo xix (Granada, 2009). He is also a practicing translator and has translated, among other books, Charles Dickens’ Historia de dos ciudades (Cátedra, 2000); Samuel Butler’s El destino de la carne (Alba Editorial, 2001), Edith Wharton’s El arrecife (Alba Editorial, 2003), and Jane Austen’s Persuasión (Cátedra, 2004). isbn 978-88-85622-47-0 issn 2240-0451 translation / issue 7 / 2018 / 89

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Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 8 Introduction Translation: a new paradigm T oday, translation scholarship and practice face a twofold situation. On the one hand translation studies is enjoying unprecedented success: translation has become a fe- cund and frequent metaphor for our contemporary intercultural world, and schol- ars from many disciplines, for instance, linguistics, comparative literature, cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, communication and social behavior, and global studies have begun investigating translational phenomena. On the other hand, many scholars in the field rec- ognize an epistemological crisis in the discipline of translation studies, noticing a repetition of theories and a plethora of stagnant approaches. This impasse derives largely from the field’s inability to renew the discipline and its unwillingness to develop approaches that are able to say something original or reflect the complex situations of migration and hybrid cul- tures and languages we live in today. Translation needs to redefine its role in a context of fragmented texts and languages in a world of crises within national identities and emerging transnational and translocal realities. The fertility of the metaphor of translation is worthy of study, and we probably will find out that it is not merely a metaphor. Since Salman Rushdie’s well-known statement “Having been borne across the world, we are translated men” (1991), translation has become a frequent concept to describe and even explain identity as it surfaces in travelling, migrating, diasporic, and border-crossing individuals and cultures. It has been so frequent that some even state we are experiencing a “translation turn” in the humanities. The anthropologist Talal Asad’s concept of “cultural translation” became central in the seminal Writing Cultures edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus in 1986. Later Clifford developed this concept and imagined travels and even museums as translations (1997). Even though many scholars today are familiar with such a broad use of the concept of translation, they tend to keep them sep- arated from “real” translation. The step forward we want to make with and through this jour- nal is to consider Rushdie’s translated men and Asad and Clifford’s cultural translations as real acts of translation, as representations of how translations appear in our world. Beyond disciplinary boundaries: post-translation studies W ith this new journal the editors attempt to go beyond disciplinary borders, and specifically beyond the bounds of translation studies. We invite original thinking translation / inaugural issue / 2011 about what translation is today and where translation occurs. We welcome new concepts that speak about translation and hope to reshape translation discourse within these new terms and ideas. To achieve this goal, we must go beyond the traditional borders of the discipline, and even beyond interdisciplinary studies. We propose the inauguration of a trans- disciplinary research field with translation as an interpretive as well as operative tool. We imagine a sort of new era that could be termed post-translation studies, where translation is viewed as fundamentally transdisciplinary, mobile, and open ended. The “post” here recog- 8 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 9 Introduction nizes a fact and a conviction: new and enriching thinking on translation must take place out- side the traditional discipline of translation studies. The time is past when we can maintain the usual borders of translation studies, just as the time is past when in a more general way we can close the borders of certain disciplines and exclude translation discourse from entering their intellectual space. We are convinced that today—at least in the humanities but surely in principle for all academic fields—exchange and dynamic discourse are fundamental. Gay- atri Spivak’s discourse in Death of a Discipline (2003), dealing specifically with comparative literature, is emblematic of concerns within translation studies: We cannot not try to open up, from the inside, the colonialism of European national language-based Comparative Literature and the Cold War format of Area Studies, and infect history and anthropol- ogy with the ‘other’ as producer of knowledge. From the inside, acknowledging complicity. No accu- sations. No excuses. Rather, learning the protocol of those disciplines, turning them around, laboriously, not only by building institutional bridges but also by persistent curricular interventions. The most difficult thing here is to resist mere appropriation by the dominant. (2003: 10-11) The crisis of translation studies: a missing epistemology T he crisis of translation studies compares with other situations of crisis in many dis- ciplines, especially those in the humanities and social sciences: all have to do with fundamental questions of knowledge and meaning. The crisis or, let’s say, the death of translation studies as a discipline, leads us necessarily to transdisciplinarity. To speak of transdisciplinarity is not to propose that we create new relationships between closed disci- plines; rather, transdisciplinarity opens up closed disciplines and inquires into translational features that they have in common or toward translational moments that transcend them. Such a perspective implies that no single logic, no single tool, no single perspective by itself is sufficient to explain the world’s complexity, and that research cannot be inscribed in one discipline, with one defined object and method. Translation in this sense is a “nomadic con- cept”; it is born in transdisciplinarity and it lives in transdisciplinarity. Epistemologically this transdisciplinarity signals a change: it is not the disciplines that decide how to analyse their objects of research, but the objects themselves that ask for certain instruments, neither inside nor outside the academic boundaries of the disciplines, but “above” them. We are speaking of a different way of facing the great epistemological questions of what we know and how we know, and these questions model new transdisciplinary re- search. Such research cannot follow linear paths that conceive of structures as trees, but must rather walk along rhizomatic paths, in the sense given to it by Deleuze and Guattari: translation / inaugural issue / 2011 “unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states. The rhizome is reducible neither to the one nor the multiple” [1980 (1987): 21]. In an epistemological sphere it becomes less important to distinguish and define clearly what translation is and what it is not, what stands inside the borders of translation and what 9 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 10 Introduction stands outside. Such distinctions and definitions belong to an older and widespread sense of limits that scholars register when they create categorical, but also hierarchical and di- chotomous divisions between self and other, true and false, original and translation, inside and outside, feminine and masculine, pretending that they are natural. From queer theory as well as from border studies, and in general from poststructuralist thinking, we have learned that these divisions are constructed and that many texts, identities and cultures move in between, on the edges and in the interstices, in transversal movements. In this sense we can also evoke other deleuzian conceptualisations, such as multiplicity, and even that of transpositions of multiple differences developed by Rosi Braidotti (2006), to promote the idea of a multiple transdisciplinary concept of translation. The evolution of translation studies I n order to create a common ground for our future dialogue, we sketch in the following paragraphs a brief history of what we consider the principal stages in the evolution of the discipline of translation studies (from the Seventies until today). In 1990 Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere stated that “the growth of translation studies as a separate dis- cipline is a success story of the 1980s.” We take this claim to mean that translation studies was at that time no longer in a subordinate position to linguistics or comparative literature. Still, when translation studies sought out its own autonomy, it relied heavily on the definition James S. Holmes had already given the discipline in the early Seventies. At that time Holmes moved translation studies away from prescriptivism towards empirical description of what happens when cultures translate each other’s texts. At the beginning of the Eighties, and still in this theoretical context, the Israeli scholars Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury introduced a perspective that saw translations as a part of a culture’s literary polysystem. Elsewhere, in the so-called “manipulation school,” scholars like Theo Hermans, André Lefe- vere and José Lambert defined all translations inevitably as manipulations of an original text. These scholars located the causes for such manipulations not only in the differences between the structures and segmentation of meaning within languages, but also in the struc- ture of cultures, for instance in a culture’s range of ideologies. Inevitably, then, the Nineties came to be characterized by a “cultural turn” that insisted on the intercultural nature of any translation, whereby ideology was a determining factor. Here scholars took some of the first interdisciplinary steps. This cultural turn defined the questions surrounding translation in new terms. As translation studies drew on and was in- translation / inaugural issue / 2011 spired by cultural studies and poststructuralism, it took into account questions of gender and postcolonialism and recognized the political value of translating. With this turn trans- lation studies struck out in international directions, reaching beyond Europe and influencing Asia (see the work of Z. Tan, M. Cheung), Canada (S. Simon), and North America (L. Venuti, E. Gentzler, M. Tymoczko). Postcolonial studies, on the other hand, started to ques- tion the Eurocentric perspectives of translation studies, turning its attention to alternative 10 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 11 Introduction directions that recognize how every translation implies a conflict between dominating and dominated cultures and languages. To summarize: the Eighties and Nineties were characterized by an eagerness to found a new and autonomous discipline. No doubt this effort has been successful and of funda- mental importance for the recognition of what translation is, and for its role in the develop- ment and transformation of language and culture. Still, and in terms of a conscious appreciation of the important role occupied by translators and translations both throughout history and today, there is still much work to be done. While we encourage the continuation of this very important work in translation studies, we also see that this concentration on the definition of translation as an autonomous discipline represents a problem, a problem for translation studies itself. It is the problem of epistemological roots, or rather the lack of epis- temological roots. Translation studies, having “collected” data and knowledge from other dis- ciplines, was so eager to stand on its own feet that it neglected to develop and explain its own overarching epistemology and to show how it knew what it claimed to know. In our view what was created as the discipline of translation studies was actually an illusion: it existed in a sort of epistemological naïvety. Pieces from other disciplines like linguistics and comparative literature were assembled without being really questioned. What was done was simply to open up pathways on a terrain already covered with well-travelled pathways, and with exactly the same epistemological map and guiding principles as those present in the disciplines from which the so-called founders borrowed. What should have been done, or what was lacking in our opinion, was an epistemological and paradigmatic shift. In this panorama we should nevertheless recognize and salute the important efforts made by translation studies as it introduced new and alternative paradigms. André Lefevere significantly proposed the category of ideology and introduced the concept of rewriting. Edwin Gentzler introduced at a critical moment the category of power. But inside the boundaries of translation studies these new concepts did not develop completely. It is our hope that the research of such scholars might find fertile ground and wide reception through the transdisciplinary perspective we are proposing. We are confident that the journal’s con- tributors will rethink and, hopefully, re-establish the epistemological foundations behind our conceptualization of translation. This re-establishing will, we think, necessarily follow because the material of our research is new, or better; its focus is both broader than and dif- ferent from the focus and material conceived by traditional translation studies. Setting a fresh course translation / inaugural issue / 2011 D espite an original focus and fresh material content, the object of our research, namely translation, remains the same. But it will appear differently. New objects called translation will emerge, letting the already existing ones take a different shape and value. It is similar to those moments when scholarship uses new words to speak about and describe a thing, allowing the thing itself to appear different and, in addition, al- lowing us to see things in a fresh light. 11 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 12 Introduction It is more and more difficult to define translation and to limit the situations in which translation occurs. Today many of us are familiar with the idea that translation is a transfor- mative process not only of texts produced in different languages and media, but one that af- fects cultures and individuals. While some express concern about an ill-defined and delimited concept, we are of the view that such an approach is a strength and that any premature and a priori definition of the limits and borders of translation prevents us from evolving new the- ories and changing our assumptions and directions. The tendency within the discipline of translation studies is to continue to operate with traditional definitions and conceptualizations of translation, and thus with the same epistemological paradigm, sometimes proposing ad- ditional definitions, but never new and alternative ones. We believe this tendency is reductive and unhelpful for thinking about translation and suggest that it is time to open up new and in some cases startlingly new uses of the concept of translation. By accepting new ideas, by moving the focus, and by revealing new objects, we believe it will be possible to develop and organize the necessary theoretical consequences, to more fully understand what translation entails, to pinpoint where translation occurs today, and to formulate a perspective able to deal with all these different translation situations. Jakobson and beyond: the hybrid nature of culture S ince we believe translation is a universal and characteristic aspect of our contemporary world we will have to go far beyond the tripartite model (intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translation) proposed by Roman Jakobson in 1959. His model had the advantage of considering translation also outside language and written texts, and as a transformative interpretive practice taking place between different semiotic systems. But even this approach is much too reductive. Today, translation has to be considered as a transformative representation of, in, and among cultures and individuals. Until recently translation has been studied almost exclu- sively as a transaction between cultures, where cultures have been identified within single nation states and linguistic limits. Only in the latest studies have scholars begun to consider the phenomenon of translation among other cultural identities that are situated inside, upon, or across the traditional delimitations of national and linguistic borders. These scholars have recognized the fragmented, hybrid nature of cultures and texts. The direction indicated by Edwin Gentzler, who states that “translations in the Amer- icas are less something that happens between separate and distinct cultures and more some- thing that is constitutive of these cultures” expresses the way forward (2008: 5). We think that translation is constitutive not only for American cultures, but for all cultures and culture translation / inaugural issue / 2011 as such. When we speak of cultures here, we also think about individuals, subjectivities and identities. And even in a broader sense, it is not only about widening the perspective, but seeing translation in new and different spaces. 12 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 13 Introduction Radically rethinking translation T his kind of radical rethinking of translation is what our new journal brings forward as its special contribution to research: translational processes are fundamental for the creation of culture(s) and identities, for the ongoing life of culture(s), and for the creation of social and economic values. As the Russian cultural semiotician Jury M. Lot- man puts it, translation is the necessary mechanism of cultural dynamics: For culture to exist as a mechanism organizing the collective personality with a common memory and a collective consciousness, there must be present a pair of semiotic systems with the consequent possibility of text translation. (2000: 34) We believe translation constitutes a fundamental condition for the existence and the transformation of cultures, and especially of cultural spheres where values, and in particular economic values, reside: as Chakrabarty persuasively asserts, “the problem of capitalist modernity cannot any longer be seen simply as a sociological transition […] but as a problem of translation, as well” (2000: 17). In effect, translation appears to us as the social relation from which the critique of communication and its corollary “culture” as the reigning ideology of Capital is most directly linked to a politics of life, or again, the politics in which life becomes invested by Capital. (Solomon 2007: 6) We also recognize that everything said so far should also be applied to the new, and still renewing, media environments in which translation occurs. Our use of the internet, so- cial media, and digital and screen tools produces consequences for translation that transform identities, power structures, theoretical models and day-to-day practices that constitute so- ciety. These transformations in all their radical implications deserve our profound investi- gation. From this point of view, the project called Open Translation appears particularly interesting, as it proposes “a new participatory ecology of translation emerging on the inter- net” questioning in this way “the proposition that discrete languages exist before the act of translation” (Neilson 2009). Within contemporary translation studies the traditional concept of translation is un- able to determine what translation actually is or identify all the different situations in which it occurs. Ironically, the larger, contemporary world of scholarship, outside the discipline of translation studies, understands translation in a much broader sense. As we indicate above, we do not dismiss the possibility that “real” translation and the metaphor of translation over- lap and mix. On the contrary, we wish to establish a dialogue with any area of research in which translation is, implicitly or explicitly, occupying a central conceptual position, or even a marginal one. The way, for instance, that Ulf Hannerz (1990, 1996) or Tullio Maranhão (2003) have conceptualized cultural translation in anthropology is illuminating for thinking translation / inaugural issue / 2011 about translation itself. In the same way, Sakai and Solomon’s (2006) way of thinking about translation in economic, ontological and political terms is equally illuminating. Translation in these uses of the concept has taken on additional meaning and given deeper meaning to the whole translation problem. 13 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 14 Introduction Translation matters in different fields of research O ther scholars, representing different fields of research, have written on translation in terms that have been new for studies on translation, and that we think should be given more credit than hitherto afforded. We are thinking of scholars such as Derrida and his concepts of monolingualism (1998) and hospitality (2000) as they bear on translation, and of Bhabha and his concept of cultural translation (1994). In recent years, due to the discipline’s stronger interdisciplinarity, many areas of human experience and representation connected to translation have begun to be explored. The dif- ferent aspects of translation connected to issues of postcolonialism are perhaps the most evident examples of positive exchange among the disciplines: through postcolonial perspec- tives, translation studies has been able to put aside a Eurocentric dominance that has on both a theoretical and practical level blinded research to important questions of cultures in contact. With a postcolonial perspective, research has been able to uncover the many varieties of inequality in cultural exchange. Back to epistemology T his epistemological potentiality of the concept of translation is an untapped re- source and seems central to us here. Both inside and outside translation studies scholars are today working on epistemologically relevant themes that clearly con- nect to translation: memory (B. Brodzki), space (S. Simon), conflict (E. Apter, M. Baker) and economics ( J. Solomon, S. Mezzadra). What is new in this work is that translation functions as an interpretive and operative instrument for deeper analysis and a more pro- found comprehension of these themes. By reconceptualizing these themes in and around the concept of translation, we believe new perspectives will emerge. Translation is poised to become a powerful epistemological instrument for reading and assessing the transformation and exchange of cultures and identities. As we see it, this new appreciation of translation compares favorably with the emergence of the concept of structure in the Seventies. We welcome this tendency because we are sure it is a way to study how translation is constitutive for cultures. We are witnessing nothing less than a sea-change in the world of translation. Translation is moving away from being simply a concept based in certain disciplines to being an epistemological principle applicable to the whole field of humanistic, social and natural sciences. If we follow this path, we will reshape the epistemological principles of the humanities and at the same time fashion a new instrument that also will permit us to reconsider trans- translation / inaugural issue / 2011 lation in all its properties and facets. Only in this sense do we see a future for reflection on translation. 14 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 15 Introduction New directions W hat kind of new directions will the journal follow? Without excluding any fruit- ful direction, we can already anticipate that it will seek to investigate the hybrid nature of languages, cultures, identities in our present deterritorialized world of difference and the ways in which space is continuously crossed, translated, and rede- fined through migration. It will be attuned to our globalized and localized world that is at one and the same time a common and divided world, structured around differential power relations and ideologies, where new media scenarios occupy an active role both reflecting and causing completely new conditions for representation and translation. War and conflict for their part will have the power to transform our world into a “translation zone” (Apter 2006), where economy and politics of course play the most powerful role in terms of value. The journal will also direct us to knowledge, especially to its acquisition and distribution, but also to the important channel called memory, which is responsible for the transmission and cultural translation of present cultural knowledge and litera- ture to future cultures and their encyclopedias of knowledge. As the journal develops into a natural and much needed space for a new kind of analysis of translation, this will always be characterized by its transdisciplinary approach. STEFANO ARDUINI and SIRI NERGAARD References Apter, Emily (2006) The Translation Zone. A New Comparative Literature. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Asad, Talal (1986) “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Anthropology” in James Clifford and George E. Marcus (eds.) Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnog- raphy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Baker, Mona (2006) Translation and Conflict. London – New York: Routledge. Bassnett, Susan and André Lefevere (eds.) (1990) Translation, History and Culture. London – New York: Pinter Publishers. Bhabha, Homi (1994) The Location of Culture. London – New York: Routledge. Braidotti, Rosi (2006) Transpositions. On Nomadic Ethics. Cambridge, UK – Malden, Mass: Polity Press. translation / inaugural issue / 2011 15 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 16 Introduction Brodzki, Bella (2007) Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Dif- ference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Clifford, James (1997) Routes. Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cam- bridge Mass: Harvard University Press. Clifford, James and George E. Marcus (eds.) (1986) Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Fèlix Guattari [1980] (1987) A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schiz- ophrenia. Minneapolis – London: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, Jacques (1998) Monolingualism of the Other; or, the Prosthesis of Origin. Stanford: Stanford University Press. — (2000) Of Hospitality. Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gentzler, Edwin (2008) Translation and Identity in the Americas. New Directions in Transla- tion Theory. London – New York: Routledge. Hannerz, Ulf (1990) Cultural Complexity. Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press. — (1996) Transnational Connections. Culture, People, Places. London – New York: Rout- ledge. Jakobson, Roman (1959) “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In R. Brower (ed.) On Translation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lotman, Yuri M. (2000) Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Maranhão, Tullio and Bernhard Streck (eds.) (2003) Translation and Ethnography. The An- thropological Challenge of Intercultural Understanding. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Mezzadra, Sandro (2008) La condizione postcoloniale. Storia e politica nel presente globale. Verona: Ombre corte. Neilson, Brett (2009) “Opening Translation.” Transeuropeennes. International Journal of Crit- translation / inaugural issue / 2011 ical Thought. November http://www.transeuropeennes.eu/en/articles/107/-Open- ing_translation Rushdie, Salman (1991) Imaginary Homelands. New York: Penguin. Sakai, Naoki and Jon Solomon (eds.) (2006) Translation, Biopolitics, Colonial Difference. (Traces), Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 16 Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 17 Introduction Simon, Sherry (2006) Translating Montreal. Episodes in the Life of a Divided City. Montreal – London – Itacha: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Solomon, Jon (2007) “Translation as a Critique of The West: Sakai, Agamben, and Liu” http://phen.nsysu.edu.tw/culturalskin/Translation%20as%20a%20Critique%20of%2 0The%20West%20_Chilhac_Solomon_.pdf Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2003) Death of a Discipline. New York: Columbia University Press. translation / inaugural issue / 2011 17

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17548

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Translation Inaugural Introduction:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.03 Pagina 18 Introduction The journal: a presentation W e are honored to introduce the twenty-two prominent scholars who have ac- cepted to serve as members of translation’s advisory board, and are grateful to them for supporting our project. With this publication, we let the words of each of these scholars represent their initial positions. Their words, whether written explicitly for this journal or taken from their previously published work (notes and/or references of original publications are not included here), represent suggestions, directions, and even pro- grams for the journal’s future issues. While presenting each member of the advisory board with a short bio–bibliography, we have made rhizomatic collages of their texts, creating links and even unexpected and surprising connections between them, with a view to stimulating ideas for a new reflection on translation. These connections are organized according to a se- lection of key words that are representative of the vision of the journal; they are intended to function like guidelines for reading the texts and to invite reflection about translation. translation / inaugural issue / 2011 18

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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/translation/article/view/17552

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Translation Inaugural 01.qxp:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.04 Pagina 19 Hybridity HOMI K. BHaBHa From: The Location of Culture (1994) London – New York: Routledge. f hybridity is heresy, then to blaspheme is to dream. To dream not of the past or pres- I ent, nor the continuous present; it is not the nostalgic dream of tradition, nor the Utopian dream of modern progress; it is the dream of translation as ‘survival’ as Derrida translates the ‘time’ of Benjamin’s concept of the after-life of translation, as sur- vivre, the act of living on borderlines. Rushdie translates this into the migrant’s dream of Homi K. Bhabha is the survival: an initiatory interstices; an empow- Anne F. Rothenberg ering condition of hybridity; an emergence Professor of the that turns ‘return’ into reinscription or Humanities in the Department of English, redescription; an iteration that is not belated, Director of the but iconic and insurgent. For the migrant’s Mahindra Humanities survival depends, as Rushdie put it, on dis- Center, and Senior Advisor on the Humanities to the President and Provost covering ‘how newness enters the world’. The at Harvard University. He is the author focus is on making the linkages through the of numerous works exploring postcolonial unstable elements of literature and life—the theory, cultural change and power, and dangerous tryst with the ‘untranslatable’— cosmopolitanism, among other themes. His works include Nation and Narration rather than arriving at ready-made names. and The Location of Culture. He has two The ‘newness’ of migrant or minority forthcoming books titled A Global Measure discourse has to be discovered in medias res: a and The Right to Narrate. Bhabha most recently contributed essays to exhibition newness that is not part of the ‘progressivist’ catalogues on the work of Anish Kapoor, division between past and present, or the Raqib Shaw, and Shahzia Sikander archaic and the modern; nor is it a ‘newness’ and interviews with Akbar Padamsee and on the work of ORLAN. that can be contained in the mimesis of ‘orig- He serves as an advisor at key art inal and copy’. In both these cases, the image institutions, as well as on the Steering of the new iconic rather than enunciatory; in Committee of the Aga Khan Architectural translation / inaugural issue / 2011 both instances, temporal difference is repre- Prize. He is a Trustee of the UNESCO World Report on Cultural Diversity and the Chair sented as epistemological or mimetic dis- of the World Economic Forum’s Global tance from an original source. The newness Agenda Council on Human Rights. of cultural translation is akin to what Walter Educated at the University of Bombay and the University of Oxford, Bhabha was Benjamin describes as the ‘foreignness of lan- profiled by Newsweek as one of “100 guages’—that problem of representation Americans for the Next [21st] Century”. 19 Translation Inaugural 01.qxp:Layout 1 12/09/11 12.04 Pagina 20 Homi K. Bhabha Hybridity native to representation itself. If Paul de Man focused on the ‘metonymy’ of translation, I want to foreground the ‘foreignness’ of cultural translation. With the concept of ‘foreignness’ Benjamin comes closest to describing the performa- tivity of translation as the staging of cultural difference. The argument begins with the sug- gestion that though Brot and pain intend the same object, bread, their discursive and cul- tural modes of signification are in conflict with each other, striving to exclude each other. The complementary of language as communication must be understood as emerging from the constant state of contestation and flux caused by the differential of social and cultural sig- nification. This process of complementary as the agonistic supplement is the seed of the ‘untranslatable’—the foreign element in the midst of the performance of cultural transla- tion. And it is this seed that turns into the famous, overworked analogy in the Benjamin essay: unlike the original where fruit and skin form a certain unity, in the act of translation the content or subject matter is made disjunct, overwhelmed and alienated by the form of signification, like a royal robe with ample folds. Unlike Derrida and de Man, I am less interested in the metonymic fragmentation of the ‘original’. I am more engaged with the ‘foreign’ element that reveals the interstitial; insists in the textile superfluity of folds and wrinkles; and becomes the ‘unstable element of link- age’, the indeterminate temporality of the in-between, that has to be engaged in creating the conditions through which ‘newness comes into the world’. The foreign element ‘destroys the original’s structures of reference and sense communication as well not simply by negating it but by negotiating the disjunction in which successive cultural temporalities are ‘pre- served in the work of history and at the same time cancelled… The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed. And through this dialectic of cultural negation-as-negotiation, this splitting of skin and fruit through the agency of foreignness, the purpose is, as Rudolf Pannwitz says, not ‘to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German [but] instead to turn German into Hindi, Greek, English’. Translation is the performative nature of cultural communication. It is language in actu (enunciation, positionality) rather than language in situ (énoncé, or propositionality). And the sign of translation continually tells, or ‘tolls’ the different times and spaces between cultural authority and its performative practices. The ‘time’ of translation consists in that movement of meaning, the principle and practice of a communication that, in the words of de Man ‘puts the original in motion to decanonise it, giving it the movement of fragmenta- tion, a wandering of errance, a kind of permanent exile’. (pp. 227-228) translation / inaugural issue / 2011 20

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