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Home , Genre studies, Translation studies

Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline*

Edwin Gentzler1a

Abstract

In the West, Translation Studies as a discipline has a very ARTICLE : short but lively history. Founded in the early 1970s in the Low Countries—Holland and Belgium—translation studies Received February 2014 is a fairly new field. Yet, today some theorists suggest that Received in revised form May 2014 the discipline is too limited to translated texts and excludes Accepted May 2014 much translation data being generated from other fields of Available online May 2014 inquiry, including theater, art, architecture, ethnography, memory studies, media studies, , and psychology.

This paper has four sections: ‘Pre-Discipline’, in which I discuss the period after World War II and up until the 1970s; ‘Discipline’, which discusses the founding period of translation studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s; KEYWORDS: ‘Interdiscipline’, which focuses on the expanding field in its many collaborations with outside groups in the 1990s and Translation studies 2000s; and (4) Post-Discipline, a new phase that further Pre-discipline expands the definitions of the field. I refer to some of my Discipline work from Translation and Identity in the Americas (2008) Interdiscipline and discuss the concept “post-translation studies” as posited Post-discipline by Siri Nergaard and Stephano Arduini in their article “Translation: A New Paradigm” (2011) in the introduction to the new journal called translation.

© 2014 IJSCL. All rights reserved.

1 Professor, Email: [email protected] Tel: 413-545-2203 a University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA *An earlier unpublished version of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Translation Studies at Imam Reza International University, Mashhad, Iran, on April 30, 2013. 14 Translation Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline

1. Introduction This talk has four sections: ‘Pre-Discipline’, which discusses the period after World War II n the West, Translation Studies as a and up until the 1960s; ‘Discipline’, which discipline has a very short but lively discuses the founding period of Translation I history. Founded in the early 1970s in the Studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s; Low Countries—Holland and Belgium— ‘Interdiscipline’, in which the field expanded Translation Studies is very new comparatively, by collaborating with outside groups in the as many academic disciplines date in the 1990s and 2000s; and ‘Post-Discipline’, a new hundreds of years at European universities. phase that further expands the definitions of The University of Bologna, often considered the field as I speak. the oldest university in Europe, dates back to 1088, but their translation program is only 2. Pre-Discipline some twenty years old, founded in the 1990s. Translation Studies as a discipline in and of Translation history in the West dates back to itself began in Belgium at the University of the Roman period, when the Romans began Leuven in 1976, but the university itself, the translating from Greek in order to oldest extant Catholic university in the world, enrich and expand their historical and cultural dates back to 1425. Founding a new academic knowledge and hone their oratorical skills, as discipline in the West is not easy, fraught with before the printing press, most territorial battles, but nevertheless can be quite were carried out orally. In After Babel (1975), invigorating. George Steiner lumped all of translation theory before Roman Jakobson into a pre- That is not to say that the activity of World War II category, primarily concerned translation or the training of translators is with the faithful vs. free debate, and primarily young at all. Translation goes back thousands found in prefaces to published literary of years. Mashad, on or near the Silk Road, translations. Most scholars date the must have deep roots in translational activity, history back to Cicero, who, for example, in connecting powerful kingdoms including De optimo genere oratorum [On the Best Kind Rome, Parthia, Kushan, and China, and later of Orators] while discussing his translations of Persian, Arabic and Ottoman empires. the Greek orators Demosthenes and Translation probably began as “discipline” Aeschines, talked in terms of not proceeding within international trade, and the earliest word for word, but instead preserving the translated documents include lists of products character and energy of the language and prices. My guess is that in Iran, throughout (Cicero, 1949). The theologian translations took place in Chinese, Persian, and translator Saint Jerome, best known for his Turkic, Greek, Roman, Indian, and other translation of the Bible into Latin, cites languages, with Middle Iranian Sogdian being Cicero’s translations style and suggested that one of the leading languages along the route. translating literally might actually be more In the seventh century, the Chinese Buddhist confusing than translating sense-for-sense Monk, and famed traveler and translator (Saint Jerome, 1976). This type of speculation Xuanzang, whose travels to India served as the about translation strategy is characteristic of basis for the great Chinese Journey to the 2000 years of translation history in the the West, noted that Sogdian boys were taught West, and why it is called a pre-discipline. to read and write by the age of five, forming Practicing translators in general would make one the earliest great literate . My suggestions about how best to translate, guess is that literacy during that time included usually referring to their own work and learning other languages, too, especially the strategy, and invariably couched in discussions Indian and Chinese languages, making such along the word-for-word translation or sense- early “schools”, probably more apprenticeships for-sense axes. The pre-discipline did not than classrooms, among the first in translation. study what translators actually do, but instead For me, as a translation scholar, and came up with norms or guidelines on what comparatist, it is a great honor to be invited to they should do. Today this period is known as speak in Mashad, one of the cradles of prescriptive and pre-disciplinary translation. translation studies. E. Gentzler/ International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2(2), 2014 ISSN 2329-2210 15

In Europe, the pre-disciplinary phase derived in literary translation. “The Fifties” refers to a primarily from philology, , and small literary journal by that name published language studies. Philology studied the history by Robert Bly in Minnesota. Many creative of language and , with a strong writers during this period, frustrated with emphasis on establishing the original texts and English-only journals and isolationist policies sound interpretations of those respective texts. of the country, turned to translation to import Translation figured heavily in philological new ideas and forms. In 1956, Bly received a investigations, especially in terms of Fulbright grant to study in Norway and deciphering older and often dead languages, translate Norwegian poets; it was there he including Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, and discovered the work of Pablo Neruda, Antonio Hittite languages. But in terms of modern Machado, Federico Garcia Lorca and other languages, translation took on a secondary new and experimental poets in Latin America, status, as the study of original texts took Spain, France, and Germany, and immediately precedence. Linguistics, too, tended to began translating them into English. When he investigate and describe languages, and returned to the USA, he started a new literary became heavily invested in structure and journal The Fifties to publish translations and syntax of language, paying little attention to new verse from USA writers. Soon many other translation in the theory and less to practice, poets were translating and submitting relegating translation to the applied branch. translations to the journal, and other small And in literary studies, translation was viewed presses in the USA. By the time The Fifties as an anathema, secondary and derivative turned into The Sixties, a veritable translation rather than original and inventive. boom was underway. Langston Hughes had translated Lorca; W.S. Merwin was translating In the United States, the history is much the Spanish and Provençal , Lawrence same. While philology never quite caught on Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac were in Mexico in the country, linguistic programs closely translating and writing Mexican poems, Gary followed their European brethren, and Snyder went to Japan to translate Japanese. translation was relegated to the rather marginal Pasternak manuscripts were being smuggled branch called applied linguistics, more out of Russian, translated and published in the interested in problem solving and pragmatics West in the late 1950s, leading to his Nobel than theoretical and cognitive research. Even Prize in 1958. Jorge Luis Borges was first with the beginnings of generative grammar in translated in the late 1950s. A whole series of the States, translation figured poorly, with post-World War Eastern European poets, Chomsky saying that just because generative including Zbigniew Herbert, Tadeusz grammar implied deep structures and universal Różsewicz, and János Pilinszky, were grammars, he saw no easy correlation between translated during this period, often by East generative grammar and translation. European immigrants in the United States after World War II. In 1965, Ted Hughes and Today, much has changed, and I will say in the Danny Weissbort founded Modern Poetry in age of multilingual, movement, migration, and Translation. International Poetry Festivals all the cultural and behavioral bridges to be celebrated these writers and more. The negotiated via translation, applied linguistics is professional organization ATA was founded in seeing a surge social and pragmatic 1959. The PEN American Center founded its investigations into translation. But in the Translation Committee also in 1959. Thus, led United States, few linguistic departments have by creative writers and small presses, outside translation programs: Kent State comes to of academia, the translation boom was on. mind, as does the Summer Institute of Linguistics. In the 1950s and early 1960s, translation was still not welcomed in the universities. But it While translation was not taught inside the grew rapidly outside the walls of academia, university, translation flourished on the and it was not just literary translation. The outside, both literary and non-literary American Translators Association, a non- translation. In my article “Translation, academic professional organization, was Counter-culture and The Fifties in the USA” founded in 1959. After World War II, the (1996), I talked about a pre-disciplinary boom United States emerged as a world economic 16 Translation Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline

and political power, trade increased, languages, and are translating all the time. technology improved, travel and Ethnologue also mentions no Indian, Central communication became easier, and U.S. Asian, or East Asian languages, which is a bit media—especially television and film— hard to believe given Iran’s history and became increasingly popular. Translation at location at a crossroads between continents. the international level increased rapidly. In addition, the United States became one of the In addition to its multilingual cultural make- preferred countries for immigration, and up, Iran also is one of the world’s kindest host peoples from all over the world came into the nations to immigrants. Since the 1979 country. In late 1940, Congress passed revolution, Iran is consistently in the top three legislation expanding immigration quotas, of countries accepting refugees, now host to allowing for war brides, for displaced persons, the third largest refugee population in the and for war refugees. In the 1950s, America world. According to the United Nations High was flooded with immigrants, many Russians, Commission for Refugees, at its peak, in 1991, Germans, and East Europeans who had Iran hosted over four million refugees. Today suffered at the hands of the Nazis, all needing that number is ca. 882,000 refugees, some translation services for housing, jobs, health 80% from Afghanistan, but with 42,000 care, school, and social services. In 1965, others, including Tajiks, Bosnians, Azeris, restrictions against Asian immigrants were Eritreans, Somalis, Bangladeshis and lifted, and a new wave of immigrants from the Pakistanis. Iran’s refugee policy is also east began arriving from the East. Within the comparatively very generous and includes free United States translation also grew rapidly, education, health services, literacy training and and jobs were filled largely by untrained other essential services. My guess would be bilingual immigrants. that translation services are part of the support, as without translation services, no health According to the United Nations International services. Migration Report (2013), the United States continues to lead the world in terms of Translation in many countries largely takes allowing the most number of immigrants to place outside of the university, and community enter the country. More than 45.7 million service groups, volunteers in refugee camps, immigrants live in the United States. members of the immigrant community, often Considering the economic opportunities in the the children of immigrants, some very young, United States, and given its history of are the ones providing translation services and welcoming migrants, it is perhaps not ensuring communication within borders. unsurprising. A large portion of these University trained translators are the immigrants need translation services, from the exception, not the rule. Even today there are immigration hearing itself, to accessing social too few translation training programs in the services providing housing, job placement, universities to keep up with demand. education and training, and health care. Most of these services are provided outside the 3. Discipline university and in languages not taught in the The beginning of translation being studied and universities, and seldom studied by translation taught in the university in the United States studies scholars. came as an outgrowth of the Creative Writing My guess is that much translation in Iran also Workshop, yet going was slow. At Iowa, for takes place outside the university, especially example, while the Writers Workshop, along the borders, in the refugee camps, and in founded in 1936, became a model for teaching the ports and inner cities; the website and studying creative writing at the university, Ethnologue lists 78 languages spoken in Iran: translation was not part of the program until 10 are institutional, 4 are developing, 26 are the late 1960s. Despite the fact that the leading vigorous, 31 are in trouble, and 4 are dying. poets and best small presses were publishing Significantly no European languages—no translations, academic interest was slow. French, English, Dutch, Portuguese—are Edmund Kelley writes, “In 1963 there was no counted, although many Iranians have established and continuing public forum for European languages as second and third the purpose: no translation centers, no E. Gentzler/ International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2(2), 2014 ISSN 2329-2210 17

associations of literary translation as far as I All of this has happening at the same time, know, no publication devoted primarily to often as a result of the academic upheavals and translation, translators, and their continuing new generation of questioning scholars problems” (Kelley, 1981, p. 11; quoted by educated during an earlier period. It was a very Weissbort 1983, p. 7). exciting time, as these scholars were inventing and establishing new programs of study. In In the 1970s and 1980s things begin to change. Translation in Systems (1999), in a section In my book, Contemporary Translation called “The Invisible College,” Theo Hermans Theories (1993), I covered the beginnings of talked about the excitement of creating a new the discipline of Translation Studies in the discipline, the late night meetings and West. In it, I looked at the discipline as it conversations, early conferences and emerged in a parallel fashion in several publications, personal networks, the creativity regions: In the United States, a more literary and insights of just a handful of scholars from approach as an outgrowth of the Creative a variety of countries discussing new ideas, Writing Workshop; in Germany out of more and feelings of solidarity and joint purpose linguistic and scientific disciplines; in Russia (Hermans, 1999, pp. 12-14). These pioneers in and Eastern Europe, translation studies the field were the ones that developed a emerged out of ; in theoretical apparatus, organized conferences, Belgium and Holland out comparative literary recruited colleagues, and begin training and historical studies; in Israel out of cultural students. and systems theory; and in France out of literary stylistics, and later influenced by Surprisingly, I was one of the first scholars to poststructural and semiotic paradigms. In 1970 attempt to bridge the gaps, to begin to see the in Slovakia, Anton Popovič published The similarities rather than the differences. While Nature of Translation, the proceedings from a conducting research, I also lectured in many of 1968 conference in Bratislava. In 1972 in the above places, but in the USA, when I Holland, James Holmes, an American, talked about Descriptive Translation Studies in published his “Name and Nature of the Low Countries, the literary translators in Translation Studies”, which many consider the the USA would resent my suggesting that this founding document of the discipline, and alternative approach to translation studies had certainly in many countries the name and any merit. Or if in Holland, I might talk methods have held strong. In 1973 in France, insights derived from and Henri Meschonnic published “Propositions translation, and again derision would arise pour une poétique de la traduction”, a from the descriptive studies scholars, who systematic set of major principals governing believed in empirical studies and considered a translation In 1976, an historic conference was translated text a fixed entity. Each regional held in Leuven, Belgium, in which several pocket of scholars insisted that their way of pioneers of the field, including José Lambert, studying translation was the right way, or the André Lefevere, and Itamar Even-Zohar best way, and much in-fighting occurred, presented papers, including the Israeli Itamar between linguistics and literary paradigms, Even-Zohar’s “The Position of Translated between target approaches and transfer Literature in the Literary Polysystem” in a approaches, and most polemically, between 1978 collection of papers from the conference. structural and post-structural investigators. At In 1977, in Germany, Wolfram Wilss the time, I lobbied for a multi-theoretical published his Übersetzungswissenschaft: approach, thus the title of my book Problema und Methode. In 1978, back in Contemporary Translation Theories, but it Belgium, André Lefevere publishes his essay would invariable be criticized for not “Translation: The Focus of Growth of Literary emphasizing any one particular theory enough. Knowledge.” In 1980, in Israel, Gideon Toury Today, the criticism continues, but it is quite published In Search of a Theory of different. Instead of not emphasizing one Translation, and Susan Bassnett published the theory enough, I am criticized for not first edition of Translation Studies in the including enough theories. Where is the famous Methuen series. Finnish theory? The Slavic? Why not include Arabic or Chinese translation theories? Film and Media? Gender? Immigrants and 18 Translation Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline

Refugees? Today I find these questions very by Luise von Flotow appeared; Douglas valid, and the need for interdisciplinary Robinson published Translation and Empire investigations is only increasing. (1997); and Peter Fawcett published Translation and Language (1997), part of a 4. Interdiscipline series with St. Jerome called Translation Theories Explored. The key conjunction here The first move toward interdisciplinarity in is the word ‘and’ in the titles. This translation occurred within the field during the interdisciplinary period focus on parallel early 1990s, what might be called intra- developments within different disciplines, and disciplinary translation studies, or the fields developed in their own paradigms, interdisciplinary studies within varying only occasionally overlapping. Many works disciplines of translation studies. After two followed: Translation and Minorities (1998) decades of fighting between linguistic oriented edited by Larry Venuti; Postcolonial branches and literary-oriented braches, Translation (1999) edited by Susan Bassnett translation studies began to coordinate and and Harish Trivedi; Deconstruction and respect varied approaches. In 1988, Mary Translation (2001) written by Kathleen Davis; Snell-Hornby published Translation Studies: Translation and Religion edited by Lynne An Integrated Approach or later in an Long (2005). More titles followed on anthology edited with Franz Pöchhacker and Translation and , Psychology, Philosophy, Klaus Kaindl, Translation Studies: An and several books on Translation and the Interdiscipline (1994) combined literary, Media. As the field grew in the 1990s and linguistic and approaches, early 2000s in a very productive fashion, no allowing for different types of approaches single scholar or school had enough tools to depending upon the nature of the text to be investigate the entire range of fields in which translated. For example, a literary text might translations occurred. Translation suddenly allow more innovation and creativity in had many partners and collaborators, and it translation than a scientific text, in which there was a very fruitful period. By borrowing ideas might be less variance and innovation. and concepts from other disciplines, However, as José Lambert has pointed out, translation studies scholars were able to gain such calls for more interdisciplinarity have led great insight into additional translational to little institutional change, and with the phenomena, and the field experienced another exception of a few individual forays in boom. Biblical Studies or Media Studies, have had little impact on the field (Lambert 2012, p. In another sense, this interdisciplinary period 81). My school at UMass hangs on to the did not go far enough. For example, in 1998, comparative literature framework diligently; the Canadian scholar Ginette Michaud edited Leuven defends its descriptive approach an anthology of work on Translation and dogmatically; Germany holds its functional Psychology, published in a special issue of approach dearly. TTR. She pointed out that studies of psychoanalysis and translation tend to be Instead, many translation studies turned to grouped under certain rubrics, such as the interdisciplinary investigations from outside translation of psychoanalytical texts, or the field. Media Studies in particular began translation within psychoanalytical , conducting research and training in and tended to avoid larger theoretical translations from the discipline of Media and concerns. The problem of translation within Film studies, working both inside and outside psychoanalysis has invariable been one of the Translation Studies. So too in many other central problems, and the theoretical fields; soon one began to see conferences, complexity of “translating” from an collections and monographs on topics such unconscious non-discourse into any language talking about crossing boundaries, integrated or symbolic system is fraught with difficulties. approaches, and interdisciplinary investigations. It was left to post-disciplinary translation In 1996, Sherry Simon’s Gender in studies to begin to address such fundamental Translation appeared, combining Québécois questions that go to the root of any given feminism with Translation Studies paradigms. discipline. A year later, Translation and Gender (1997) E. Gentzler/ International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2(2), 2014 ISSN 2329-2210 19

5. Post-Discipline abysmal dialogue, very difficult to bring to the light of day” (Khatibi, 1981, p.8, quoted by The shift from inter-discipline to post- Mehrez, 1992, p. 134). Derrida discusses what discipline has less to do with “and” and more he calls the “law of what is called translation” with “in”. In what kinds of do as follows: “—We only ever speak one translations inhere, and what kinds of language . . . (yes, but) –We never speak only methodologies are needed to study such one language . . .” (1998, p. 10), showing that embedded translations? While I profited there is never monolingualism without a mightily from interdisciplinary research into hidden presence of multilingualism. The kind translation in my book on Translation and of translation Derrida is referring to is not the Identity in the Americas (2008), I also tried to kind studied in disciplinary translation studies not avoid the hard theoretical questions. I programs; rather it is a complex shifting found that translation inheres in many forms multilingual fabric upon which all languages, that translation studies scholars ignored. I all discourses, rely. Translation thus inheres looked at both successful translations and within language. This translational fabric failures in translation, largely due to larger belongs neither to one language or another, social or psychological factors. Rather than nor is it ever directly communicable. Once it is focusing on translations as they occur across named or cited in any given language, its national borders, I instead looked at research complex multilingual hidden nature is hidden on identity politics, and on language minorities again. To think about the hidden discourse, and domestic translational policies within one has to think in terms of absences not countries. I also looked at work in literary presences, negative space rather than material such as translation in theater or objects, or palimpsests rather than fixed texts. translation in , but also on community This marks the beginning of post-disciplinary translation and interpreting that often takes translation studies (see Gentzler, 2008, pp. 27- place out of sight—in the Latino barrios and 31). slums, on Indian reservations, in the Chinatowns and Little Italies, in refugee I realize that to talk about translation studies in camps, even in prisons, where a large groups a post-disciplinary fashion is difficult for of Hispanic men are incarcerated. What I many, especially when in some parts of the discovered was that translation inheres in world translation studies as a discipline is in many aspects of communication, sometimes its infant stages. I also realize that the way I called translation, and sometimes not, hiding talk about it as a hidden condition underlying within other discourses in a dominant any given national language or culture is hard, language. These are not texts generally studied especially when I refer to scholars such as by translation studies scholars, but my guess Khatibi or Derrida to support my claim. Let would be that translation in minority me give a couple other examples that might communities comprises 80-90 % or all help. In my book Translation and Identity in translational phenomena. the Americas, in the last chapter, I talked about border writing. There I cited the example of Poststucturalist investigations played a Mexican performance artist Guillermo significant role in my research. I turned to Gómez-Peña, who, in a work called The New scholars such as Derrida, author of World Border (1996) reverses the poles Monolingualism of the Other (1996/98) and between original and translation, between Abdelkébir Khatibi, author of Amour bilingue monolingualism and multilingualism, (1990) who suggest that no culture is ever portraying the monolingual English-only monolingual, and that translation inheres culture as the minority. Indeed much of the within every monolingual statement. It is a translation work is done by the different kind of understanding of translation. members, in this case the bilingual Latinos Khatibi, for example, when discussing his who can decode the multilingual references colonial situation in northern Africa, discusses through a process of auto-translation. The how this type of translation is hidden from itself is written and performed in multiple view, “The ‘maternal’ language is always at languages, including English, Spanish, French, work in the foreign language. Between them various dialects of Spanish, Spanglish, occurs the constant process of translation, and Gringoñol, Franglé, Nahuatl and some 20 Translation Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline

Neanderthal grunting. Translation is always semiotic and translational markers that she happening on stage and in the audience; it is feels are very positive and productive for not something that comes after an original, but artistic creation. Simon has gone on to write a simultaneously; in fact, translation is one of new book Cities in Translation: Intersections the compositional elements. Gómez-Peña of Translation and Memory (2011) in which refers to an author is referred to as an she expands upon that notion, viewing “intercultural translator”, “a political trickster” translation in many places as the cultural or an “intellectual coyote” (1996, p. 12). foundation upon which all cultural constructions are founded. Some of cities she For Gómez-Peña, the distinction between discusses include Montreal, Trieste, Calcutta, original artist and translator disappears: all Barcelona, Dakar, and Manila, and again she artists are translators who interconnect, looks at the translational nature of the post- reinterpret, and redefine all the time. And in translation forms in a variety of fields, terms of cultural landscapes, Gómez-Peña including creative writing, art, and refuses to think in terms of national states and architecture. Plurilingualism is seen as a national languages with borders in between positive force: accents, -switching, and instead imagines a space where the translations are enriching, facilitating. borders expand to cover the entire continent, Translators are viewed as cultural heroes, creating a huge border zone no longer defined ensuring the circulation of ideas and as agents by race, language, or nation-state, where initiating new forms of expression and ideas. translation is not seen as a secondary, minor Translators transform social and literary activity, but an always ongoing creative relations: major literary figures emerge, such process (see Gentzler, 2008, pp. 157-65). My as Nicole Brossard inventing a polyvalent guess is that the borders in the Middle East, feminist language in Montreal; Franz Kafka largely drawn by France and England after inventing German strange to itself in World War I, are fairly arbitrary, leaving large Prague; Paul Celan inventing a haunting groups of people displaced and in unfamiliar multilingual poetic language in Czernowitz. territories, geographically, linguistically, and Her list is persuasive: without translational culturally. culture as a foundation, no Tagore without multilingual Calcutta, no Joyce without Perhaps the leading theorist steering me in a Trieste, no Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi without Konya, post-translational studies direction has been no Ferdowsi without Mashhad. Canadian translation theorist and cultural studies scholar Sherry Simon. In her book The name post-translation studies was coined Translating Montreal: Episodes in the Life of by Siri Nergaard and Stefano Arduini in their a Divided City (2006) questions the limits of article “Translation: A New Paradigm” (2011), traditional translation definitions and goes the introduction to the launching of a new beyond them, focusing also on the cultural journal called translation. They write, “We conditions conducive to translation, such as, in propose the inauguration of a transdisciplinary this book, the multicultural life of the city of research field with translation as an Montreal and the hybrid forms of interpretive as well as operative tool. We communication that take place there, not just imagine a sort of new era that could be terms in translation, but also before and after post-translation studies, where translation is translation. Indicative of post-disciplinary viewed as fundamentally transdisciplinary, translation studies, she offers a new definition: mobile, and open ended” (2011, p. 8). They go “I give translation an expanded definition in on to open the field to thinking on translation this book: writing that is inspired by the from outside the discipline—from art, encounter with other tongues, including the architecture, ethnography, memory studies, effects of creative interference (2006, p. 17). semiotics, psychology, philosophy, economics, Simon looks at translational and multilingual and gender studies. As Gayatri Spivak in markers all over the city: in the creative Death of a Discipline (2003) discussed the writing, the theater, the art and architecture, opening up the field of comparative literature, but also the monuments, museums, churches, which she viewed as Eurocentric and based on schools, stores, courts, even the signage in the national languages, to a broader array of streets, all of which offer a palimpsest of disciplinary investigations, which necessarily E. Gentzler/ International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2(2), 2014 ISSN 2329-2210 21

included gender, minority, and third world and caste and translation, all of which widened discourses and their translation. Research on the field of study. translational phenomena need not be inscribed within a single discipline, difference need not Again, Gayatri’s Spivak’s work in rethinking be reinscribed in the dominant discourse, but comparative literature in light of translation, allowed to flourish, to inform, and to instruct. area studies, and subaltern studies proved In as much Nergaard and Arduini suggest that valuable. Our attempt was not to apply a broad investigators be open to poststructuralist Western postcolonial discourse to the subject theory, gender studies, and border studies, matter, wherein Western discourse is imposed demonstrating more interest in the happenings on Eastern who are portrayed as unwitting along the edges, the interstices, and the recipients, or in Spivak’s words, a woman transversal and transgressive movements than from Palestine ends up sounding like a man what is going on in the mainstream. Their from Taiwan (1993, p. 182). Rather, we journal is beginning to reflect that interest. wanted to look at specific situations, focusing Special issues of the journal are planned on on the two way flow of ideas and discourses memory, edited by Bella Brodzki and Cristina and the often complex hybrid intersections, Demaria; on space, edited by Sherry Simon; engaging in the specificity of writing within on conflict, edited by Emily Apter and Mona the colonial and subaltern situations. The Baker; and on economics, edited by Naoki course had a half dozen units, and some of the Sakai and Jon Solomon. Often the discourse of more productive units included (1) Cities, the outside field can help scholars better including looking at the multilingual indentify and analyze the translational landscapes of Montreal, New York, and phenomena within those discourses than those Calcutta; (2) , with units on the epic, the developed from within the discipline of novel, and theater; (3) Print, looking at the translation studies. emerges of print culture in Europe and India and its impact on translation; (4) Gender, To give one last example of such post- looking at gender portrayals in India, Canada, disciplinary investigation, I would like to and North Africa; and (5) Caste, focusing report on a course that I co-taught this year primarily on India, but comparing subaltern with a young Indian scholar by the name of studies in Europe and India. What we found Chandrani Chatterjee, a Fulbright Visiting was that translation, rather than being a Scholar from the University of Pune, India, footnote to cultural development, play a huge and author of the book Translation role in cities, communities within cities, small Reconsidered: Culture, Genre, and the neighborhoods, and even upon individuals, “Colonial Encounter” in Nineteenth-Century inscribed within the people’s psyche, as it Bengal (2011). We titled our course “Beyond were. Restricting translational analysis to Translation: Rethinking Post-colonial Studies”, literary and linguistic concerns proved too but the course challenged many traditional limiting, actually hindering the larger concepts in the entire field. By “beyond considerations of social change. translation,” we felt that literary and linquistic investigations were not enough to explain the In the Genre section, Chandrani Chatterjee’s role of translation in the colonial and post work proved invaluable. When considering the colonial encounters between East and West. Bengali novel, traditional postcolonial studies Instead, we opened the course to possible have argued that the Bengali novel was semiotic, ethnographic, psychologogical, modeled on, copied, or borrowed from the genre and gender studies, film studies, and any English. Yet Chatterjee’s research, particularly number of social and political studies. The on popular , and the novel was focus of the course was on nineteenth-century massively popular in Kolkata, shows that the translations and Western-influenced discourses Bengali novel is very different from the in Calcutta and selected other cases in central English form. Studying the translation of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. words, sentences, chapters, or even full texts Areas covered include literary and cultural proved inadequate, for Chattejee argues that it translation, but also print and translation, was the genre of the novel itself that was genre and translation, gender and translation, translated, incorporated, and made into its own in India. By looking at the entire genre in 22 Translation Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline

Bengali culture, how it was adapted, transposition are more useful. In Iran, the functioned, and consumed, by studying novel was very useful in introducing and similarities with the English form and social criticism, and it may have played a role differences, and by focusing on what was in contributing to the decline of the Qajar imitated and what was created new, added, and rulers. To take just one example, one of the invented, we discovered new processes of earliest Persian novels, Hajji Baba of Ispahan, translation, and new modes of reception. For for many years thought to be written originally example, the satirical and social critical in Persian, was actually a translation of an possibilities of the novel form were picked up English novel written by the British diplomat and expanded in Bengal culture to criticize and writer James Morier. Today the novel Anglicized Indians, Western education appears quite prejudiced against aspects of systems, stagnant relations between married Persian life, but at the time, my student couples, and middle and lower class struggles suggested, the translation was funnier and for existence, at times tragic. This new form— more ironic than the original, while at the realistic and critical—helped pave the way for same time more poetic and intricate in a major social change to follow. Chatterjee manner typical of Persian poetry, serving as a writes: bridge between Persian poetry and a new genre of the prose novel form. Indeed, during We can attempt to understand the genre this period, a new genre emerged as well as a of the novel in Bengal as an “answering new dialect of colloquial Persian in writing. word” in Bakhtinian terms. According to The form and the language allow for new Mikhail Bakhtin, “Every word is topics to be addressed, including works directed towards and answer and cannot dealing with the lives of ordinary people, escape the profound influence of the which emerge for the first time. To study the answering word that it anticipates” novel in Persia, one has to go beyond (Bakhtin, 1994, p. 280) . . . For the novel translation studies and include genre studies, as a form to flourish in India, it needed dialect studies, international movements, to be rendered in indigenous terms so reception studies, and economic relations. that it could translate and adapt the Chatterjee’s thinking about translation in a British model to Indian needs . . . Such larger framework and reflections upon of the form of the novel translation’s role in broader social can best be understood as cultural constructions is illustrative of movements not translation. (Chatterjee, 2010, p. 137) just in India, but also may initiate a focus on marginalized groups and topics seldom In the course, one of the livelier exchanges considered by more traditional translation came between Professor Chatterjee and a studies approaches. And translation, rather student working on Persian translation, who than being a minor genre in both India and drew many parallels. In Iran, the rise of the Iran, might be viewed as one of the primary novel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth factors leading to revolutions to follow. century, a time of considerable political upheaval, was linked to distinct historical 6. Concluding Remarks traditions of narrative work in Persia, including narrative poetry by writers such as Translation thus finds itself in an Firdawsi and Nezami, but it also followed a inside/outside relation with its own discipline. wave of translations from Europe, France in On the one hand, it was very exciting to create particular, and political interests by nations new disciplines when nothing existed before. such as Britain and Russia. As in India, where There is no denying advances made in the Indian novel emerged from a wave of linguistics and literary studies by university European translations, particularly British, and programs have been substantial, and in those soon turned into Indian rewritings, so too in parts of the world where the field of Persia did the form become quickly adapted translation studies is just emerging, I am in full and made into its own Persian form, to the support. But the very fact that the disciplines point that translation, importation, and exist within university frameworks with their are less useful concepts, and emphasis on major languages, data-driven rewritings, furtherings, and creative research, and scientific methodologies, also E. Gentzler/ International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2(2), 2014 ISSN 2329-2210 23

serve to limit their effectiveness and the prosthesis of origin. Stanford: Stanford breadth of range of topics being investigated. University Press. In this age of movement and migration, of Ethnologue: Languages of the World: Iran. globalization and transnational investigations, Web: https://www.ethnologue.com/country of Internet access and instant communication, /IR, accessed April 28, 2014. translation is growing in leaps and bounds, and Even-Zohar, I. (1978). The position of smaller groups in lesser-known languages and translated literature in the literary open-source and crowd-sourcing practices polysystem. In J. S. Holmes, J. Lambert, & grow whether the university discipline is R. van den Broeck (Eds.), Literature and involved or not. I tend to like this inside- translation: New perspectives in literary outside relationship, and find it healthy for the studies with a basic bibliography of books profession. My teaching has learned from on translation studies (pp. 117-27). practice, and I feel my teaching informs my Leuven: Acco. practice. Translation inheres in every discourse; Fawcett, P. (1997). Translation and language. there are many borders impeding communication Translation theories explained. Manchester: that have little to do with national languages or St. Jerome. disciplinary boundaries. Every language has Flotow, L. (1997). Translation and gender: its multilingual roots and its translational Translating in the “era of feminism”. aspects. Every discipline depends upon and Manchester: St. Jerome. thrives within translation matters. My question Gentzler, E. (2008). Translation and identity today is why not embrace the new definitions, in the Americas: New directions in accept the wider field, be open to new translation theory. London: Routledge. approaches from new places, whether they be Gómez-Peña, G. (1996). The new world in your own specific discipline or not. border. San Francisco: City Lights. Translation today knows no institutional Hermans, T. (1999). Translation in systems: boundaries, and it is time for scholars to catch Descriptive and systems-oriented approaches up to the practice. explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. Holmes, J. S., de Haan, F., Popovič, A. (Eds.). References (1970). The nature of translation: Essays on the theory and practice of literary Bakhtin, M. (1994). Discourse in the novel. In translation. The Hague: Mouton. M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogical Holmes, J. S. (1970). Name and nature of imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin translation studies. Amsterdam: Translation (pp. 259-422). Trans. C. Emerson & M. Studies Section, Department of General Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Studies. Also in Holmes, J. S. (1988). Press. Translated! Papers on literary translation Bassnett, S., & Harish T. (Eds.). (1999). Post- and translation studies. Amsterdam: colonial translation: Theory and practice. Rodopi. London: Routledge. Keeley, E. (1981). The state of translation. Chatterjee, C. (2010). Translation reconsidered: Modern Poetry in Translation, 41(2), 7-18. Culture, genre and the “colonial Khatibi, A. (1983). Amour bilingue. encounter” in nineteenth century Bengal. Montpellier: Fata Morgana. Trans. R. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Howard (1990), Love in two languages. Publishing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Cicero, M. T. (1949). De inventione: De Press. optimo genere oratorum; Topica. Trans H. Lambert, J. (2012). Interdisciplinarity in Mortimer Hubbell. London: Heinemann. translation studies. In Y. Gambier, & L. Davis, K. (2001). Deconstruction and van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of translation. Translation theories explained. translation studies (Vol. 3., pp. 81-88). Manchester: St. Jerome. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Derrida, J. (1996/98). Le Monolinguisme de Lefevere, A. (1978). Translation: The focus of l’autre: Ou la prothèse d’origine. Paris: growth of literary knowledge. In J. S. Galilée. Trans. P. Mensah (1998). Holmes, J. Lambert, & R. van den Broeck Monolingualism of the other; or The (Eds.), Literature and translation (pp. 7- 28.). Leuven: Acco. 24 Translation Studies: Pre-Discipline, Discipline, Interdiscipline, and Post-Discipline

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