Mª Carmen Africa Vidal Claramonte – författare

Translation and Repetition: Rewriting (Un)original Literature offers a new and original perspective in translation studies by considering creative repetition from the perspective of the translator. This is done by analyzing so-called "unoriginal literature" and thus expanding the definition of translation.

In Western thought, repetition has long been regarded as something negative, as a kind of cliché, stereotype or automatism that is the opposite of creation. On the other hand, in the eyes of many contemporary philosophers from Wittgenstein and Derrida to Deleuze and Guattari, repetition is more about difference. It involves rewriting stories initially told in other contexts so that they acquire a different perspective. In this sense, repeating is often a political act. Repetition is a creative impulse for the making of what is new. Repetition as iteration is understood in this book as an action that recognizes the creative and critical potential of copying.

The author analyzes how our time understands originality and authorship differently from past eras, and how the new philosophical ways of approaching repetition imply a new way of understanding the concept of originality and authorship. Deconstruction of these notions also implies subverting the traditional ways of approaching translation. This is vital reading for all courses on literary translation, comparative literature, and literature in translation within translation studies and literature.

Translation and Repetition: Rewriting (Un)original Literature offers a new and original perspective in translation studies by considering creative repetition from the perspective of the translator. This is done by analyzing so-called "unoriginal literature" and thus expanding the definition of translation.

In Western thought, repetition has long been regarded as something negative, as a kind of cliché, stereotype or automatism that is the opposite of creation. On the other hand, in the eyes of many contemporary philosophers from Wittgenstein and Derrida to Deleuze and Guattari, repetition is more about difference. It involves rewriting stories initially told in other contexts so that they acquire a different perspective. In this sense, repeating is often a political act. Repetition is a creative impulse for the making of what is new. Repetition as iteration is understood in this book as an action that recognizes the creative and critical potential of copying.

The author analyzes how our time understands originality and authorship differently from past eras, and how the new philosophical ways of approaching repetition imply a new way of understanding the concept of originality and authorship. Deconstruction of these notions also implies subverting the traditional ways of approaching translation. This is vital reading for all courses on literary translation, comparative literature, and literature in translation within translation studies and literature.

In this book, Vidal presents a new way of translating indigenous epistemologies. For centuries, the Western world has ordained what knowledge is and what it should be and has also been responsible for transmitting that knowledge. This "universal" knowledge has traveled to the four corners of the globe.

In recent decades, there has been a steadily growing interest in dialogical epistemologies. Disciplines ranging from historiography and philosophy to anthropology are calling for this universalist idea of knowledge to be modified. Thanks to this change of perspective, other forms of knowledge, which until now have been ignored, are gradually coming to light. Indigenous knowledges are not constructed with the scientific, binary, static, Cartesian, or univocal logic characteristic of Western societies. Non-Western types of knowledge incorporate senses, emotions, body, objects, and matter. It is impossible to reduce indigenous knowledges to Western conceptualizations. The types of translation covered in this book assume that knowledge is not transmitted only in the Western way and that there are world views that take into account the emotions and body, as well as the intellect. This includes all types of beings: human, non-human, and extrahuman. In the face of this plurality of epistemologies, this book affirms that the static Western conceptual traditions characterized by a binary logic are not useful and that there is a need to translate outside the scope of these traditions.

The examples given in this book show that translation is not only a process involving Western and non-Western languages. Translation is not a mere substitution of one word for another because knowledge is not only transmitted through words. It also involves non-verbal elements. Knowledge is transmitted through objects, songs, sensations, and emotions, as well as through words. Moreover, many non-Western traditions do not translate with language systems but rather with other semiotic systems, such as knots, threads, colors, and bodies in movement. This is a timely, topical, and transdisciplinary reading, of interest to advanced students and researchers in translation studies, anthropology, and beyond.

In this book, Vidal presents a new way of translating indigenous epistemologies. For centuries, the Western world has ordained what knowledge is and what it should be and has also been responsible for transmitting that knowledge. This "universal" knowledge has traveled to the four corners of the globe.

In recent decades, there has been a steadily growing interest in dialogical epistemologies. Disciplines ranging from historiography and philosophy to anthropology are calling for this universalist idea of knowledge to be modified. Thanks to this change of perspective, other forms of knowledge, which until now have been ignored, are gradually coming to light. Indigenous knowledges are not constructed with the scientific, binary, static, Cartesian, or univocal logic characteristic of Western societies. Non-Western types of knowledge incorporate senses, emotions, body, objects, and matter. It is impossible to reduce indigenous knowledges to Western conceptualizations. The types of translation covered in this book assume that knowledge is not transmitted only in the Western way and that there are world views that take into account the emotions and body, as well as the intellect. This includes all types of beings: human, non-human, and extrahuman. In the face of this plurality of epistemologies, this book affirms that the static Western conceptual traditions characterized by a binary logic are not useful and that there is a need to translate outside the scope of these traditions.

The examples given in this book show that translation is not only a process involving Western and non-Western languages. Translation is not a mere substitution of one word for another because knowledge is not only transmitted through words. It also involves non-verbal elements. Knowledge is transmitted through objects, songs, sensations, and emotions, as well as through words. Moreover, many non-Western traditions do not translate with language systems but rather with other semiotic systems, such as knots, threads, colors, and bodies in movement. This is a timely, topical, and transdisciplinary reading, of interest to advanced students and researchers in translation studies, anthropology, and beyond.