Books & ideas

In Praise of the Intermediary

Piroska Nagy — 2024-09-12T07:00:00Z

“Fixers”, or dragomans, are vital intermediaries and interpreters for both journalists and soldiers in hostile terrain, and play a central role in a network of relationships and transfers. In the Middle Ages they embodied the need for otherness, and continue to do so today.

Spinoza as Groundwork for Writing Fiction

Steven Nadler — 2020-06-29T07:00:00Z

The first English translator of Spinoza's Ethics was a woman, and not any woman: the great novelist George Eliot who, before taking to writing fiction, had translated Feuerbach, David Strauss—and Spinoza. Her beautiful translation had remained unpublished until now. It has nothing to envy of the ones that followed.

On Linguistic Imperialism

Emmanuelle Loyer — 2016-06-09T09:31:01Z

After the domination of French in the 18^th Century, English is now the new world language. As a sociologist, Pascale Casanova shows that using the world language gives authority to those who master it. But what other solution is there, given that a world language is necessary for universal communication?

The Geometry of Differences

Lucie Campos — 2015-09-24T12:45:00Z

Published eleven years ago, the Vocabulaire européen des philosophies, also known as the Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, was translated into English in 2014. Barbara Cassin discusses the aim of this project, and how the book is being given a new lease of life thanks to translations in various languages.

Geopolitics of Translation

Lucie Campos — 2015-03-27T06:00:00Z

As publishing markets become increasingly international, sociology looks at the translation of work in the social sciences and humanities. Gisèle Sapiro shows the effects that the crossover between the academic and publishing spheres has on translation practices.

Translation and the Meaning of Linguistic Diversity

Thomas Grillot — 2012-03-01T11:31:53Z

A translator of twentieth-century writers into English, David Bellos has recently devoted an entire volume to his trade, Is That A Fish in Your Ear? Where does linguistic diversity come from? Can we trust automatic translating machines? Is English a hegemonic language? David Bellos offers insights afforded by his familiarity with “the extraordinarily subtle business of English as an international language.”

Translating the Second Sex

Constance Borde & Sheila Malovany-Chevallier — 2011-11-17T12:56:24Z

Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier have published a new English translation of Simone de Beauvoir's famed The Second Sex sixty years after its initial publication. They explain for Books and Ideas how they set out to restore Beauvoir's existentialist, but also very personal approach to the history of the Western notion of “woman”.

European Citizenship on the March

Florent Guénard — 2011-10-24T12:47:58Z

At a time when Europe is equated with sovereign debt and political powerlessness, one should not forget that the foundations for a European citizenship have already been laid. Its potential for democracy needs to be interrogated, as do the cultural resources that it can rely on.

The language of the executioners and the language of the victims

Ivan Jablonka — 2010-11-29T07:50:00Z

As Friedländer notes in The Years of Extermination, Hitler lost the war against the Allied forces but not the one he unleashed against the Jews. Within a few years, Nazism had succeeded in destroying a civilisation, a heritage, a language. The executioners spoke German but they also invented a whole propaganda lexicon, complete with coded language and circumlocutions designed to conceal the extermination scheme. Conversely, in the face of imminent destruction, the victims accumulated testimonies. Are there such things as languages of life and languages of death? Dialogue between a historian and his translator.

Multilingualism Is a Humanism

Leyla Dakhli — 2010-04-15T12:37:12Z

As Umberto Eco once said, “the language of Europe is translation”. In an essay that strikes a political chord, François Ost rises up in defence of the diversity and invincibility of languages. Translation first takes place within an individual language and must free itself from the myth of the single language.