Strange Loops of Translation

Douglas Robinson is Chair Professor of English at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, and is one of the world’s leading experts on translation. He is the author or editor of two dozen books, including path-breaking publications in translation studies such as The Translator’s Turn (1991), Translation and Taboo (1996), Translation and the Problem of Sway (2011), and The Dao of Translation (2015). He is also author of important works on postcoloniality, from Translation and Empire (1997) to Displacement and the Somatics of Postcolonial Culture (2013).

• IntroductionI.1 “Paradoxical Level-crossing Feedback Loop”I.2 “Pleasantly Pervasive Paradoxes”I.3 The Strange Loops of TranslationI.3a First Strange Loop of Translation: Self-referenceI.3b Second Strange Loop of Translation: The Incoherently Written Source TextI.3c Third Strange Loop of Translation: The Passage of TimeI.4 The Structure of the BookI.5 Acknowledgments1. The Strange Loops of (Non)Equivalence 1.1 The Campaign Against Word-for-Word Translation1.2 The Strange Loops of Sense-for-Sense Translation: St. Jerome1.3 The Shared Strange Loops of Sense-for-Sense Translation1.4 The Strange Loops of Word-for-Word Translation: Friedrich Schleiermacher 1.5 Conclusion2. The Strange Loops of the Translator-Function2.1 The Strange Loops of the Translator-Function 1: Myriam Díaz-Diocaretz 2.2 The Strange Loops of the Translator-Function 2: Rosemary Arrojo 2.3 Towards an Author-Function: Derrida, Barthes, Foucault2.4 The Strange Loops of the Translator-Function 3: Theo Hermans3. The Strange Loops of Translation as (Peri)Performative Identities 3.1 Logical Aporias and the Strange Loops of Periperformative Workarounds: Mauricio Mendonça Cardozo3.2 The Strange Loops of Translating Heidegger’s Untranslatables: Sabina Folnovic Jaitner3.3 The Strange Loops of “Good” and “Bad” (Periperformative) Translatabilities: Natalia S. Avtonomova and Tatevik Gukasyan3.4 The Strange Loops by which Translation Shapes Collective Subjectivities: Sakai Naoki and Lydia H. Liu4. The Strange Loops of Translational Bodies4.1 The Strange Loops of Somatic Response: the DRP 4.2 The Strange Loops of Knowledge-Translation as Mouthable Rhythm: Henri Meschonnic4.3 The Strange Loops of the Translator’s Constructivist Agency: Kobus MaraisConclusion: The Strange Loops of Translation as Transgressive Circulations: Johannes Göransson C.1 HoaxesC.2 Interiority and IdentityC.3 TransminoritizationC.4 Salutary FailuresNotesReferencesIndex

A distinguished translator and theorist, Douglas Robinson has done a fabulous job in his discussions of the strange loops of translation. Like all his other books, this new book is set to inspire new thinking among translators and will be repeatedly referred to in translation studies in the future.