The Predicament Of Ideas In Culture: Translation And Historiography

Abstract

Rather than a simple transfer of words or texts from one language to another, on the model of the bilingual dictionary, translation has become understood as a translingual act of transcoding cultural material-a complex act of communication. Much recent work on translation in history grows out of interest in the effects of European colonialism, especially within Asian studies, where interest has been driven by the contrast between the experiences of China and Japan, which were never formally colonized, and the alternative examples of peoples without strong, centralized states-those of the Indian subcontinent and the Tagalog in the Philippines-who were colonized by European powers. This essay reviews several books published in recent years, one group of which share the general interpretation that colonial powers forced their subjects to "translate" their local language, sociality, or culture into the terms of the dominant colonial power: because the colonial power controls representation and forces its subjects to use the colonial language, it is in a position to construct the forms of indigenous and subject identity. The other books under review here are less concerned with power in colonial situations than with the fact of different languages, cultures, or practices and the work of "translating" between the twoparticularly the efforts of indigenous agents to introduce European ideas and institutions to their respective peoples.

Conceptual History in the European Space

“…197-211), escrito por el historiador de Budapest László Kontler, está dedicado al tema de la traducción como factor importante para explicar los cambios de significado en los conceptos históricos. Por lo visto, sufren un proceso de reestructuración semántica, denominada en la investigación como efecto translingual de recodificación del material cultural (Howland, 2003), que habría que tener en cuenta no solo en la cultura receptora, sino también en el contexto de la transmisión inicial. El octavo capítulo («Conceptualizing Spaces within Europe: The case of Meso-Regions», pp.…”

Conceptual History in the European Space

“…197-211), escrito por el historiador de Budapest László Kontler, está dedicado al tema de la traducción como factor importante para explicar los cambios de significado en los conceptos históricos. Por lo visto, sufren un proceso de reestructuración semántica, denominada en la investigación como efecto translingual de recodificación del material cultural (Howland, 2003), que habría que tener en cuenta no solo en la cultura receptora, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 180, abril-junio (2018), pp. 359-365 sino también en el contexto de la transmisión inicial.…”

From an Empire to a Nation State: Importing the Concept of Nation into Ottoman/Turkish Thinking

“…of the discipline itself. Since scholars in another discipline -contrastive conceptual history -do conduct research on the flow of ideas and concepts like 'democracy' or 'freedom' or 'the self' between different cultures (see, for example, Howland 2003;Richter 2005), their approaches, and especially the approaches of the German strand of conceptual history, Begriffsgeschichte, have been incorporated in this study.…”

“…These questions are also fundamental for the present study. In order to adopt a more holistic perspective, Richter indicates that following Howland (2003), he benefitted from postcolonial translation theories (Richter 2005: 14) enabling him to account for asymmetrical power relations within intercultural communication and simultaneously defying a normative approach to translation and transfer. According to Richter, contrastive conceptual history should be based on a framework on similar lines (2005: 15).…”