The Translatability of Cultures: Figurations of the Space Between

Translation between any two languages sets in motion a cultural tug-of-war. This struggle can be perilous for the culture that has less power to retain the usages of its language. Since translation wields powerful forces of cultural change, it is an arena both of the global coercions of national cultures and of the local dominations of everyday others by everyday selves. Thus the ethics of translation are both the ethics of cross-cultural discourse and the unit problem of ethical discourse itself. The 14 essays in this volume consider a wide variety of cultures from ancient Egypt to contemporary Japan. The essays describe the conditions under which cultures that do not dominate each other may yet achieve a limited translatability of cultures, while at the same time alerting us to some of the dangers of a so-called mutual translation between cultures.