Globalization and the Limits of Translation

Home Publications Courses Career			New advanced undergraduate seminar, for Spring 2002: History 176D, Romance Studies 176D, Cultural Anthropology 176D, Dance 176, Literature 143B GLOBALIZATION AND THE LIMITS OF TRANSLATION - Spring 2002 Instructors: William Reddy (History, Cultural Anthropology-wmr@duke.edu) and Walter Mignolo (Literature, Romance Studies and Cultural Anthropology-wmignolo@duke.edu). Teaching Assistant: Thomas Rogers (thomas.rogers@duke.edu). Wednesdays, 7 to 9:30 pm, Room 028, Franklin Center This course has two aims. First, we will explore the character of translation, not just between languages, but also among (1) modes of production: music, dance, written and oral discourse, (2) disciplines of knowledge, and (3) local practices. Second, we will examine the cross-cultural communication demanded by the expansion of global interconnections. While modernity and coloniality, from the 16th to the 20th centuries, imposed homogenous languages, coherent nationalities, and strict disciplinary domains, the 21st century is already witnessing a strong move toward linguistic border crossing, and an emphasis on interdisciplinary pursuits. Translation will become a crucial problem in this new era. C2000: IAA, CCI, W. Seminar Requirements. This seminar has been designated as a "writing seminar." Students will have to write bi-weekly "reaction papers" (no longer than 2 pages); a mid-term report around 8 pages long and a final paper around 15 pages long. Evaluations. Final grades will be based on: --class participation, including "reaction papers" and class presentations, 30% --mid-term report, 30% --final paper, 40% Schedule of weekly activities Week 1, January 16th, Introduction to and organization of the seminar Week 2, January 23rd. The Indeterminacy of translation. Readings:W.V.O. Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 20-46 Donald Davidson, "Truth and Meaning," in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 17-36 Linda Alcoff, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996, pp. 87-110 Total: 68 pages (presentations by three students). Week 3, January 30th. Social suffering: Can we comprehend the suffering of others? Readings: Veena Das. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India, on Ch. 3 (on Partition violence), pp. 55-83; and Ch. 6 (on the Bhopal disaster), pp.137-174. Arthur Kleinman, and Joan Kleinman, "Suffering and Its Professional Transformation: Toward an Ethnography of Experience," Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 15(1991):275-302 Arthur Kleinman, and Joan Kleinman, "The Appeal of Experience; The Dismay of Images: Cultural Appropriations of Suffering in Our Times," in Social Suffering, edited by Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1-23 Total: 112 pages Week 4, February 6th. The tarnished Japanese miracle: Does the current crisis represent a problem in translation? Readings: Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of Dependence Kodansha America, 1982, pp. 7-64 Andrew Gordon, The Wages of Affluence: Labor and Management in Postwar Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998, 157-214 Recent articles on the banking crisis: New York Times, 21 April 1999, Business Week: March 9, 1998; November 30, 1998; August 9, 1999; October 18, 1999; May 7, 2001 (plus two or three others). Total: 125 pages, approximately (presentations by 3 students) Week 5, February 13th. Translation and the Law: Sovereignty, democracy and human rights. Readings: Abdullahi An-Na'Im, "What do we mean by universal?", Index of Censorship, 4/5, 1994, 120-128; Abdullahi An-Na'Im, "Human Rights and the Challenge of Relevance: The Case of Collective Rights", in M.Casterman, and F. van Hooof, The Role of Nation State in the 21st Century, Amsterdam: Kluwer Law International, 1998, 3-16; Martin Chanock, "'Culture' and human rights: orientalising, occidentalising and authenticity". In Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk. Comparative Essays on the Poolitics of Rights and Culture, edited by Mahood Mandani, New York: Martin Press, 2000, 15-36. Thomas Risse and Kathhryn Sikkink, "The socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practices: introduction." The Power of Human Rights. International Normas and Domestic Changes edited by Risse and Sikkink. Edinburgh: Cambridge University Press, 2000,1-38; Total: 80 pages (presentation by 2 students) Week 6, February 20th. Translation, the geopolitics of knowledge and the coloniality of power. Readings: Lydia H. Liu. "Legislating Universal: The Circulation of International Law in the Nineteenth Century." In Tokens of Exchange. The problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Edited by L. Liu. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999,127-164; Walter D. Mignolo, "Signs and their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World." In Writing Without Words, edited by E.H.Boone and W.D.Mignolo. Durham: Duke U.Press, 1994, 220-271; Ashis Nandi, "The Savage Freud. The First-Non-Western Psychoanalyst and the Politics of Secret Selves in Colonial India.". In The Savage Freud, New Jersey: Princeton U.P., 1995, 81-144. Total: 150 pages (presentations by 3 students; every one should read at least two of the essays listed above). Week 7, February 27th. Tradition, modernity and double translation. Readings: Walter D. Mignolo and Freya Schiwy, "Beyond Dichotomies: Translation and the Colonial Difference.", in Elizabeth Boyi, Ed., Beyond Dichotomies. Syracuse: University of Syracuse Press, in press. Lidya H. Liu, "The Question of Meaning Value in the Political Economy of Signs" in L.Liu, editor, Tokens of Exchange. The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Durham: Duke U. Press, 1999, 13-44 Kwame Gyekye, "Epilogue: Whose Tradition? Whose Modernity?" in Tradition and Modernity. Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 273-298; Total: 98 approximately. Week 8th, March 6 , Translation and cultural brokerage. Music and sound (Guest, via conference phone: Louise Meintjes) Readings: Feld, Steven. 1996. pygmy POP, a Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis. The Yearbook for Traditional Music:1-35. * Sound examples on a dubbed tape. Taylor, Tim. 2001. A Riddle Wrapped in Mystery. Chapter 6 in Strange Sounds: Music, Culture and Technology in the Postwar Era, 117-135. New York: Routledge. Sound examples: excerpts at http://www.columbia.edu/~tt327/Strange_Sounds.htm Engima, "Cross of Changes" in the music library: CD 2381. Meintjes, Louise. 1990. Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning. Ethnomusicology 34 (1):37-73. 'You Can Call me Al' on "Graceland", in the music library: CD 2458. Total: 91 pages March 6: Mid-term Report due.* Week 9th, March 13th, SPRING BREAK Week 10th, March 20th. Lawerence of Arabia: Islam, Christianity and capitalism (Guest: Steven Caton.) Readings: Steven C. Caton, Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 100-199. Viewings: 1. "Khaneh, ye doust kojast" ("Where is my friend's house?"). Directed by Abbas Kiarostami. Chicago, IL : Facets Video, 1996. 2. "Lawrence of Arabia." Directed by David Lean (1962). Total: 100 pages, two films Week. 11, March 27th, Translating body movements (I) Presentations by Ava Vinesett (on West African dance forms in Jamaica and Cuba), and by Purnima Shah (on the adaptation of Asian performance disciplines in the West) Readings: To be announced. Week 12, April 3rd. Translating body movements (II) Presentation by Barbara Dickinson on translating other art forms into dance. Readings: To be announced. Week 13th, April 10th, Technology, Translation, Policy: The Creation of 'Public Knowledge.' (Guest: Cathy Davidson) Readings: Digital Promise, pages to be announced. Week 14, April 17. Concluding discussion. Final paper due.

New advanced undergraduate seminar, for Spring 2002:

History 176D, Romance Studies 176D, Cultural Anthropology 176D, Dance 176, Literature 143B
GLOBALIZATION AND THE LIMITS OF TRANSLATION - Spring 2002

Instructors: William Reddy (History, Cultural Anthropology-wmr@duke.edu) and Walter Mignolo (Literature, Romance Studies and Cultural Anthropology-wmignolo@duke.edu).

Teaching Assistant: Thomas Rogers (thomas.rogers@duke.edu).

Wednesdays, 7 to 9:30 pm, Room 028, Franklin Center

This course has two aims. First, we will explore the character of translation, not just between languages, but also among (1) modes of production: music, dance, written and oral discourse, (2) disciplines of knowledge, and (3) local practices. Second, we will examine the cross-cultural communication demanded by the expansion of global interconnections. While modernity and coloniality, from the 16th to the 20th centuries, imposed homogenous languages, coherent nationalities, and strict disciplinary domains, the 21st century is already witnessing a strong move toward linguistic border crossing, and an emphasis on interdisciplinary pursuits. Translation will become a crucial problem in this new era. C2000: IAA, CCI, W.

Seminar Requirements. This seminar has been designated as a "writing seminar." Students will have to write bi-weekly "reaction papers" (no longer than 2 pages); a mid-term report around 8 pages long and a final paper around 15 pages long.

Evaluations. Final grades will be based on:
--class participation, including "reaction papers" and class presentations, 30%
--mid-term report, 30%
--final paper, 40%

Schedule of weekly activities

Week 1, January 16th, Introduction to and organization of the seminar
Week 2, January 23rd. The Indeterminacy of translation.
Readings:W.V.O. Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 20-46
Donald Davidson, "Truth and Meaning," in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 17-36
Linda Alcoff, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996, pp. 87-110
Total: 68 pages (presentations by three students).
Week 3, January 30th. Social suffering: Can we comprehend the suffering of others?
Readings:
Veena Das. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India, on Ch. 3 (on Partition violence), pp. 55-83; and Ch. 6 (on the Bhopal disaster), pp.137-174.
Arthur Kleinman, and Joan Kleinman, "Suffering and Its Professional Transformation: Toward an Ethnography of Experience," Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 15(1991):275-302
Arthur Kleinman, and Joan Kleinman, "The Appeal of Experience; The Dismay of Images: Cultural Appropriations of Suffering in Our Times," in Social Suffering, edited by Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1-23
Total: 112 pages
Week 4, February 6th. The tarnished Japanese miracle: Does the current crisis represent a problem in translation?
Readings:
Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of Dependence Kodansha America, 1982, pp. 7-64
Andrew Gordon, The Wages of Affluence: Labor and Management in Postwar Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998, 157-214
Recent articles on the banking crisis: New York Times, 21 April 1999, Business Week: March 9, 1998; November 30, 1998; August 9, 1999; October 18, 1999; May 7, 2001 (plus two or three others).
Total: 125 pages, approximately (presentations by 3 students)
Week 5, February 13th. Translation and the Law: Sovereignty, democracy and human rights.
Readings:
Abdullahi An-Na'Im, "What do we mean by universal?", Index of Censorship, 4/5, 1994, 120-128;
Abdullahi An-Na'Im, "Human Rights and the Challenge of Relevance: The Case of Collective Rights", in M.Casterman, and F. van Hooof, The Role of Nation State in the 21st Century, Amsterdam: Kluwer Law International, 1998, 3-16;
Martin Chanock, "'Culture' and human rights: orientalising, occidentalising and authenticity". In Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk. Comparative Essays on the Poolitics of Rights and Culture, edited by Mahood Mandani, New York: Martin Press, 2000, 15-36.
Thomas Risse and Kathhryn Sikkink, "The socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practices: introduction." The Power of Human Rights. International Normas and Domestic Changes edited by Risse and Sikkink. Edinburgh: Cambridge University Press, 2000,1-38;
Total: 80 pages (presentation by 2 students)
Week 6, February 20th. Translation, the geopolitics of knowledge and the coloniality of power.
Readings:
Lydia H. Liu. "Legislating Universal: The Circulation of International Law in the Nineteenth Century." In Tokens of Exchange. The problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Edited by L. Liu. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999,127-164;
Walter D. Mignolo, "Signs and their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World." In Writing Without Words, edited by E.H.Boone and W.D.Mignolo. Durham: Duke U.Press, 1994, 220-271;
Ashis Nandi, "The Savage Freud. The First-Non-Western Psychoanalyst and the Politics of Secret Selves in Colonial India.". In The Savage Freud, New Jersey: Princeton U.P., 1995, 81-144.
Total: 150 pages (presentations by 3 students; every one should read at least two of the essays listed above).
Week 7, February 27th. Tradition, modernity and double translation.
Readings:
Walter D. Mignolo and Freya Schiwy, "Beyond Dichotomies: Translation and the Colonial Difference.", in Elizabeth Boyi, Ed., Beyond Dichotomies. Syracuse: University of Syracuse Press, in press.
Lidya H. Liu, "The Question of Meaning Value in the Political Economy of Signs" in L.Liu, editor, Tokens of Exchange. The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Durham: Duke U. Press, 1999, 13-44
Kwame Gyekye, "Epilogue: Whose Tradition? Whose Modernity?" in Tradition and Modernity. Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 273-298;
Total: 98 approximately.
Week 8th, March 6 , Translation and cultural brokerage. Music and sound (Guest, via conference phone: Louise Meintjes)
Readings:
Feld, Steven. 1996. pygmy POP, a Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis. The Yearbook for Traditional Music:1-35.
* Sound examples on a dubbed tape.
Taylor, Tim. 2001. A Riddle Wrapped in Mystery. Chapter 6 in Strange Sounds: Music, Culture and Technology in the Postwar Era, 117-135. New York: Routledge.
*Sound examples: excerpts at http://www.columbia.edu/~tt327/Strange_Sounds.htm
*Engima, "Cross of Changes" in the music library: CD 2381.
Meintjes, Louise. 1990. Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning. Ethnomusicology 34 (1):37-73.
*'You Can Call me Al' on "Graceland", in the music library: CD 2458.
Total: 91 pages

March 6: Mid-term Report due.

Week 9th, March 13th, SPRING BREAK

Week 10th, March 20th. Lawerence of Arabia: Islam, Christianity and capitalism (Guest: Steven Caton.)
Readings: Steven C. Caton, Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 100-199.
Viewings: 1. "Khaneh, ye doust kojast" ("Where is my friend's house?"). Directed by Abbas Kiarostami. Chicago, IL : Facets Video, 1996.
2. "Lawrence of Arabia." Directed by David Lean (1962).
Total: 100 pages, two films
Week. 11, March 27th, Translating body movements (I)
Presentations by Ava Vinesett (on West African dance forms in Jamaica and Cuba), and by Purnima Shah (on the adaptation of Asian performance disciplines in the West)
Readings: To be announced.
Week 12, April 3rd. Translating body movements (II)
Presentation by Barbara Dickinson on translating other art forms into dance.
Readings: To be announced.
Week 13th, April 10th, Technology, Translation, Policy: The Creation of 'Public Knowledge.' (Guest: Cathy Davidson)
Readings: Digital Promise, pages to be announced.
Week 14, April 17. Concluding discussion. Final paper due.