A Translational Sociology: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Politics and Society

Description

A Translational Sociology provides an interdisciplinary investigation of the key role of translation in society. There is a growing recognition of translation’s intervention in the intellectual history of sociology, in the international reception of social theory, and in approaches to the global literary and academic fields. This book brings attention to aspects of translation that have remained more elusive to sociological interpretation and analysis, investigating translation’s ubiquitous presence in the everyday lives of ordinary people in increasingly multilingual societies and its key intervention in mediating politics within and beyond the nation. In order to challenge a reductive view of translation as a relatively straightforward process of word substitution that is still prevalent in the social sciences, this book proposes and develops a broader definition of translation as a social relation across linguistic difference, a process of transformation that leaves neither its agent nor its object unchanged. The book offers elaborations of the social, cultural and political implications of such an approach, as a broad focus on these various perspectives and their interrelations is needed for a fuller understanding of translation’s significance in the contemporary world. This is key reading for advanced students and researchers of translation studies, social theory, cultural sociology and political sociology. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Notes References Part I: Translation and society 1. Translation and identity Introduction The discursive explosion of identity Critical issues and debates Essentialism Positioning Recognition Identity and translation in the age of strangeness An example Notes References 2. Translation and transformation Introduction Two sociological approaches to metamorphosis Metamorphosis and/of knowledge beyond disciplinary boundaries Translation and metamorphosis: a universal practice of the concrete Notes References 3. For a translational sociology Introduction Translation questions simplistic views of cultural homogenisation Translation avoids idealism by focusing on the materiality of language Translation is ordinary Translation underpins the production and circulation of sociological knowledge Conclusion Notes References Part II: Translation and politics 4. Politics of translation Note References 5. Translating democracy Introduction The language of democracy The monolingual vision: a critique Cosmopolitanism, linguistic hospitality and translation Conclusion Notes References 6. The translator as producer Introduction Moving authors and readers, home and abroad Interdisciplinary approaches to translation as transformation Politicising translation Assimilatory and reflexive translation: an outline Conclusion Notes References Part III: Translation and experience 7. Translation and modernity: Benjamin's Baudelaire Introduction Translating Baudelaire: articulating the task of translation Interpreting Baudelaire: the experience of modernity Recovering a philological attitude Notes References 8. Translating strangers Introduction Strangers in the midst of generalised strangeness The significance of the cosmopolitan stranger The interpreting stranger: Cesar Millan The stranger as ventriloquist: Tania Head Conclusion Notes References 9. Homecoming: an auto-analysis Homecoming as an unfinished project On becoming a cultural sociologist in Glasgow The end of homecoming Notes References Conclusion: translation and reflexivity References General bibliography Index