Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation

In recent years, scholarship on translation has moved well beyond the technicalities of converting one language into another and beyond conventional translation theory. With new technologies blurring distinctions between "the original" and its reproductions, and with globalization redefining national and cultural boundaries, "translation" is now emerging as a reformulated subject of lively, interdisciplinary debate. Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation enters the heart of this debate. It covers an exceptional range of topics, from simultaneous translation to legal theory, from the language of exile to the language of new nations, from the press to the cinema; and cultures and languages from contemporary Bengal to ancient Japan, from translations of Homer to the work of Don DeLillo.All twenty-two essays, by leading voices including Gayatri Spivak and the late Edward Said, are provocative and persuasive. The book's four sections--"Translation as Medium and across Media," "The Ethics of Translation," "Translation and Difference," and "Beyond the Nation"--together provide a comprehensive view of current thinking on nationality and translation, one that will be widely consulted for years to come.The contributors are Jonathan E. Abel, Emily Apter, Sandra Bermann, Vilashini Cooppan, Stanley Corngold, David Damrosch, Robert Eaglestone, Stathis Gourgouris, Pierre Legrand, Jacques Lezra, Françoise Lionnet, Sylvia Molloy, Yopie Prins, Edward Said, Azade Seyhan, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Henry Staten, Lawrence Venuti, Lynn Visson, Gauri Viswanathan, Samuel Weber, and Michael Wood.

This is a wonderful volume, a dance around the idea of 'translation,' threading it through a dozen languages and testing its claims through as many analytic registers. Each of its essays is lucid and compelling, with a substantial argument to make. Translation is given the broadest possible scope here, not exclusively text-based but embracing a wide range of phenomena, taking as its subject any act of revisiting, any 'remake' that brings new life to texts. -- Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University This book is a major contribution to discussions of translation and should be a reference for years to come. Its scope puts it in a class of its own. I know of no other book on translation that covers this variety of topics, languages, and cultures or that raises such interesting questions. Every single essay merits attention. Sandra Bermann's introduction is a model of clarity and an excellent summary of the issues discussed, and the section introductions are likewise commendable. -- Jean Franco, Columbia University, author of "The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War" The debate on cultural globalization suffers from an inability to tackle the notion of translation in its concrete linguistic and historical reality as well as in its broad philosophical dimensions. This book, edited by Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood and lucidly introduced by Bermann, is an incisive contribution to an emerging kind of global translation studies. It contains an enormous amount of valuable material, interesting insight, and fresh learning. -- Andreas Huyssen, Columbia University, author of "Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory"

Introduction Sandra Bermann 1 PART I: TRANSLATION AS MEDIUM AND ACROSS MEDIA 11 The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals Edward Said 15 Issues in the Translatability of Law Pierre Legrand 30 Simultaneous Interpretation: Language and Cultural Difference Lynn Visson 51 A Touch of Translation: On Walter Benjamin's "Task of the Translator" Samuel Weber 65 The Languages of Cinema Michael Wood 79 PART II: THE ETHICS OF TRANSLATION 89 Translating into English Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 93 Tracking the "Native Informant": Cultural Translation as the Horizon of Literary Translation Henry Staten 111 Levinas, Translation, and Ethics Robert Eaglestone 127 Comparative Literature: The Delay in Translation Stanley Corngold 139 Translation as Community: The Opacity of Modernizations of Genji monogatari Jonathan E. Abel 146 Translation with No Original: Scandals of Textual Reproduction Emily Apter 159 PART III: TRANSLATION AND DIFFERENCE 175 Local Contingencies: Translation and National Identities Lawrence Venuti 177 Nationum Origo Jacques Lezra 203 Metrical Translation: Nineteenth-Century Homers and the Hexameter Mania Yopie Prins 229 Translating History Sandra Bermann 257 German Academic Exiles in Istanbul: Translation as the Bildung of the Other Azade Seyhan 274 DeLillo in Greece Eluding the Name Stathis Gourgouris 289 PART IV: BEYOND THE NATION 311 Translating Grief Francoise Lionnet 315 "Synthetic Vision": Internationalism and the Poetics of Decolonization Gauri Viswanathan 326 National Literature in Transnational Times: Writing Transition in the "New" South Africa Vilashini Cooppan 346 Postcolonial Latin America and the Magic Realist Imperative: A Report to an Academy Sylvia Molloy 370 Death in Translation David Damrosch 380 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 399 INDEX 403