UNSETTLING TRANSLATION This collection engages with translation and interpreting from a diverse but complementary range of perspectives, in dialogue with the seminal work of Theo Hermans. A foundational figure in the field, Hermans’s scholarly engagement with translation spans several key areas, including history of translation, metaphor, norms, ethics, ideology, methodology, and the critical reconceptualization of the positioning of the translator and of translation itself as a social and hermeneutic practice. Those he has mentored or inspired through his lectures and pioneering publications over the years are now household names in the field, with many represented in this volume. They come together here both to critically re-examine transla- tion as a social, political and conceptual site of negotiation and to celebrate his contributions to the field. The volume opens with an extended introduction and personal tribute by the editor, which situates Hermans’s work within the broader development of critical thinking about translation from the 1970s onward. This is followed by five parts, each addressing a theme that has been broadly taken up by Theo Hermans in his own work: translational epistemol- ogies; historicizing translation; performing translation; centres and peripheries; and digital encounters. This is important reading for translation scholars, researchers and advanced students on courses covering key trends and theories in translation studies, and those engaging with the history of the discipline. Mona Baker is Affiliate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Uni- versity of Oslo, Norway, and co-coordinator of the Genealogies of Knowledge Research Network. She is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, and Adjunct Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. She is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation and Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account; editor of Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution; and co-editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Citizen Media. UNSETTLING TRANSLATION Studies in Honour of Theo Hermans Edited by Mona Baker LONDON AND NEW YORK Cover image: Getty First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Mona Baker; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Mona Baker to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Baker, Mona, editor. | Hermans, Theo, honouree. Title: Unsettling translation : studies in honour of Theo Hermans / edited by Mona Baker. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021056856 | ISBN 9780367681999 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367681968 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003134633 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting. | LCGFT: Festschriften. | Essays. Classification: LCC P306 .U57 2022 | DDC 418/.02—dc23/eng/20220316 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056856 ISBN: 978-0-367-68199-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-68196-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-13463-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003134633 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra The rather smooth, unruffled picture of translation that I have just painted has an ‘other’ to it, a more unsettling but also a much more interesting and intriguing side. The smooth, unruffled picture may be part of the conventional perception and self-presentation of translation, but it papers over the cracks. I want to try and poke my finger into at least some of these cracks. And the reason for doing so lies in the recognition that translation, for all its presumed secondariness, derives its force from the fact that it is still our only answer to, and our only escape from, Babel. Theo Hermans, ‘Translation’s Other’, Inaugural lecture, University College London, 1996 CONTENTS Acknowledgements xi Illustrations xiii List of contributors xv 1 On the folly of first impressions: a journey with Theo Hermans 1 Mona Baker Part I Translational epistemologies 13 2 Translation as metaphor revisited: on the promises and pitfalls of semantic and epistemological overflowing 15 Rainer Guldin 3 The translational in transnational and transdisciplinary epistemologies: reconstructing translational epistemologies in The Great Regression 29 Rafael Y. Schögler 4 Translation as commentary: paratext, hypertext and metatext 48 Kathryn Batchelor Part II Historicizing translation 63 5 Challenging the archive, ‘present’-ing the past: translation history as historical ethnography 65 Hilary Footitt viii Contents 6 Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s tailor and significance in translation history 81 Christopher Rundle Part III Performing Translation 95 7 From voice to performance: the artistic agency of literary translators 97 Gabriela Saldanha 8 Gatekeepers and stakeholders: valorizing indirect translation in theatre 112 Geraldine Brodie 9 Media, materiality and the possibility of reception: Anne Carson’s Catullus 125 Karin Littau Part IV Centres and peripheries 143 10 Dissenting laughter: Tamil Dalit literature and translation on the offensive 145 Hephzibah Israel 11 Gianni Rodari’s Adventures of Cipollino in Russian and Estonian: translation and ideology in the USSR 162 Daniele Monticelli and Eda Ahi 12 Retranslating ‘Kara Toprak’: ecofeminism revisited through a canonical folk song 180 S¸ebnem Susam-Saraeva Part V Digital encounters 195 13 Debating Buddhist translations in cyberspace: the Buddhist online discussion forum as a discursive and epitextual space 197 Robert Neather 14 Intelligent designs: a corpus-assisted study of creationist discourse 217 Jan Buts Contents ix 15 Subtitling disinformation narratives around COVID-19: ‘foreign’ vlogging in the construction of digital nationalism in Chinese social media 232 Luis Pérez-González Name index 249 Subject index 256