Postcolonial untranslatability: reading Achille Mbembe with Barbara Cassin

Syrotinski, M. (2019) Postcolonial untranslatability: reading Achille Mbembe with Barbara Cassin. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 55(6), pp. 850-862. (doi: 10.1080/17449855.2019.1681192)

Abstract

Barbara Cassin’s monumental Dictionary of Untranslatables, first published in French in 2004, is an encyclopaedic dictionary of nearly 400 philosophical, literary, aesthetic and political terms which have had a long-lasting impact on thinking across the humanities. Translation is central to any consideration of diasporic linguistic border crossing, and the “Untranslatable” (those words or terms which locate problems of translatability at the heart of contemporary critical theory) has opened up new approaches to philosophically informed translation studies. This article argues that there is a far-reaching resonance between Barbara Cassin’s Dictionary of Untranslatables project and Achille Mbembe’s theorization of the postcolonial, precisely insofar as they meet at the crossroads of (un)translatability. Both texts are read performatively, in terms of their respective writing practices and theoretical “entanglements”, one of Mbembe’s key terms.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Syrotinski, Professor Michael
• Authors: Syrotinski, M.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French
• Journal Name: Journal of Postcolonial Writing
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1744-9855
• ISSN (Online): 1744-9863
• Published Online: 27 December 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited
• First Published: First published in Journal of Postcolonial Writing 2019
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy