Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators in 'Peripheral' Cultures [electronic resource] : Customs Officers or Smugglers? /
Roig-Sanz, Diana.editor.
Meylaerts, Reine.editor.
This book sets the grounds for a new approach exploring cultural mediators as key figures in literary and cultural history. It proposes an innovative conceptual and methodological understanding of the figure of the cultural mediator, defined as a cultural actor active across linguistic, cultural and geographical borders, occupying strategic positions within large networks and being the carrier of cultural transfer. Many studies on translation and cultural mediation privileged the major metropolis of Paris, London, and New York as centres of cultural production and translation. However, other cities and megacities that are not global centres of culture also feature vibrant translation scenes. This book abandons the focus on ‘innovative’ centres and ‘imitative’ peripheries and follows processes of cultural exchange as they develop. Thus, it analyses the role of cultural mediators as customs officers or smugglers (or both in different proportions) in so-called ‘peripheral’ cultures and offers insights into an under-analysed body of actors and institutions promoting intercultural transfer in often multilingual and less studied venues such as Trieste, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Lima, Lahore, or Cape Town.
1 -- General Introduction: Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators. Toward an Agent and Process-Oriented Approach -- 2. Early Institutionalised Promotion of Translation and the Socio-Biography of Emil Walter, Translator, Press Attaché and Diplomat -- 3. Edoardo Weiss, A Triestine Translating Freud -- 4. Spanish Discovers Yiddish: The Cultural Policies of Salomon Resnick in Argentina in the Interwar Period -- 5. Xiaoshuo yuebao (1921-1931) as a Cultural Mediator of Small Literatures in China -- 6. Mashal Books as Cultural Mediator: Translating East Asian, Middle Eastern, and African Literatures into Urdu in Lahore -- 7. Politics of Translation: How States Shape Cultural Transfers -- 8. From a Slave to a Translator: Conflicts and Mediation in Fatma-Zaïda’s Translation of the Quran -- 9. Mediating Flemish Folk Songs Across Cultural Borders During the 19th century: From Patrimonial Monuments to Musical Propaganda -- 10. From Binarity to Complexity: a Latourian Perspective on Cultural Mediators. The Case of Georges Eekhoud’s Intra-National Activities -- 11. Moving “Out of the Laager” and “Betraying the Tribe”: André Brink as Cultural Mediator -- 12. “Let’s Make Peru Peruvian Again:” Cultural Mediators and Indigenous Literature.
This book sets the grounds for a new approach exploring cultural mediators as key figures in literary and cultural history. It proposes an innovative conceptual and methodological understanding of the figure of the cultural mediator, defined as a cultural actor active across linguistic, cultural and geographical borders, occupying strategic positions within large networks and being the carrier of cultural transfer. Many studies on translation and cultural mediation privileged the major metropolis of Paris, London, and New York as centres of cultural production and translation. However, other cities and megacities that are not global centres of culture also feature vibrant translation scenes. This book abandons the focus on ‘innovative’ centres and ‘imitative’ peripheries and follows processes of cultural exchange as they develop. Thus, it analyses the role of cultural mediators as customs officers or smugglers (or both in different proportions) in so-called ‘peripheral’ cultures and offers insights into an under-analysed body of actors and institutions promoting intercultural transfer in often multilingual and less studied venues such as Trieste, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Lima, Lahore, or Cape Town.
Literature   .
Literature—Translations.
Comparative literature.
Literature, Modern—20th century.
Literature, Modern—21st century.
European literature.
Postcolonial/World Literature.
Translation Studies.
Comparative Literature.
Contemporary Literature.
European Literature.