Academic navel gazing? Playing the game up front?
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Martha P.Y. Cheung✝
Abstract
What are the excitement, burden and responsibilities of a postcolonial translator and/or translation scholar in an age of globalization? The excitement, I believe, lies in a heightened awareness of what we can do and achieve. We can play many more roles than the traditional one of an efficient cross-lingual cross-cultural communicator, or a dispassionate manufacturer of cultural products. We can choose to be a cultural mediator, an innovative image-maker, or an architect of a project of political and/or ideological import, to name but just a few of the new possibilities open to us. At the same time, we have to bear in mind that possibilities carry with them the burden of choice, even of divided loyalties. The agency of a translator entails responsibilities, the heaviest being the responsibility to know why one is doing certain things in the first place, and to be articulate about it. This essay analyzes how positionality and agency function in a translation project – the compilation of an anthology, in English translation, of texts registering the thoughts and ideas about translation in China, from ancient times to the early twentieth century. Volume one, entitled An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation, Volume 1: From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project, was published in 2006, and the sequel, which covers the period from the 13th century to the early 20th century, is under preparation. Attention is focused on a single project because it telescopes many of the ethical, ideological and political issues which a postcolonial scholar has to handle, especially those of identity and representation. The essay also discusses a topic which lies at the heart of all attempts at anthology-making – the construction of knowledge (of the Self or of the Other) and the importance of the personal, the experiential and the introspective in such a venture.
Abstract
What are the excitement, burden and responsibilities of a postcolonial translator and/or translation scholar in an age of globalization? The excitement, I believe, lies in a heightened awareness of what we can do and achieve. We can play many more roles than the traditional one of an efficient cross-lingual cross-cultural communicator, or a dispassionate manufacturer of cultural products. We can choose to be a cultural mediator, an innovative image-maker, or an architect of a project of political and/or ideological import, to name but just a few of the new possibilities open to us. At the same time, we have to bear in mind that possibilities carry with them the burden of choice, even of divided loyalties. The agency of a translator entails responsibilities, the heaviest being the responsibility to know why one is doing certain things in the first place, and to be articulate about it. This essay analyzes how positionality and agency function in a translation project – the compilation of an anthology, in English translation, of texts registering the thoughts and ideas about translation in China, from ancient times to the early twentieth century. Volume one, entitled An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation, Volume 1: From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project, was published in 2006, and the sequel, which covers the period from the 13th century to the early 20th century, is under preparation. Attention is focused on a single project because it telescopes many of the ethical, ideological and political issues which a postcolonial scholar has to handle, especially those of identity and representation. The essay also discusses a topic which lies at the heart of all attempts at anthology-making – the construction of knowledge (of the Self or of the Other) and the importance of the personal, the experiential and the introspective in such a venture.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction: Translation anthologies and collections 1
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I. Discursive practices and scholarly agency
- Forms and functions of anthologies of translations into French in the nineteenth century 17
- The short story in English meets the Portuguese reader 35
- Cancioneiro Chinez 57
- Academic navel gazing? Playing the game up front? 75
- Las antologías sobre la traducción en la Península Ibérica 89
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II. National and international canonization processes
- Poetry anthologies as Weltliteratur projects 107
- Publishing translated literature in late 19th century Portugal 123
- Short stories from foreign literatures in Portugália’s series Antologias Universais 137
- Patterns in the external history of Portuguese collections with translations of Polish literature (1855–2009) 153
- Extra-European literatures in anthology during the Estado Novo (1933–1974) 171
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III. Selection and censorship
- Children’s literature in translation 189
- Translating German poetry into French under the Occupation 205
- The reception of science fiction and horror story anthologies in the last years of Francoist Spain 217
- Censored discourse in anthologies and collections of the Far West 229
- Philosophical collections, translation and censorship 247
- Translation anthologies and British literature in Portugal and Hungary between 1949 and 1974 259
- Notes on contributors and editors 275
- Name index 281
- Subject index 285
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction: Translation anthologies and collections 1
-
I. Discursive practices and scholarly agency
- Forms and functions of anthologies of translations into French in the nineteenth century 17
- The short story in English meets the Portuguese reader 35
- Cancioneiro Chinez 57
- Academic navel gazing? Playing the game up front? 75
- Las antologías sobre la traducción en la Península Ibérica 89
-
II. National and international canonization processes
- Poetry anthologies as Weltliteratur projects 107
- Publishing translated literature in late 19th century Portugal 123
- Short stories from foreign literatures in Portugália’s series Antologias Universais 137
- Patterns in the external history of Portuguese collections with translations of Polish literature (1855–2009) 153
- Extra-European literatures in anthology during the Estado Novo (1933–1974) 171
-
III. Selection and censorship
- Children’s literature in translation 189
- Translating German poetry into French under the Occupation 205
- The reception of science fiction and horror story anthologies in the last years of Francoist Spain 217
- Censored discourse in anthologies and collections of the Far West 229
- Philosophical collections, translation and censorship 247
- Translation anthologies and British literature in Portugal and Hungary between 1949 and 1974 259
- Notes on contributors and editors 275
- Name index 281
- Subject index 285
