Transmissibility and Cultural Transfer – Dimensions of Translation in the Humanities

This book brings together monumental voices in the social sciences -- such as Jean-René Ladmiral from Paris and Peter Caws from Washington DC -- to begin to address the Humanities' specific issues with and debt to translation. Calling for a re-examination of how translations are read, critiqued, and taught in Philosophy, History, Political Science and Sociology departments, this book provides tools for reflection, bases for reconsideration of given translations, and historical observations on how thought has been shaped across national borders. The volume ends with four case studies -- examples from auto-translation in postcolonial literature, cultural issues of translation in Chinese-language cinema, negotiating meaning between linguistically and culturally different audiences in the United States and Lebanon, to verbal-visual questions of translation in marketing to German and French clients. All in all, this book is a comprehensive, compact survey of the cultural and linguistic translation and transmission issues in the social sciences today. The book is illuminating and informative. A great tool for study or debate.