Translating Cultures in the Arab World by Al-Ghadeer, Moneera; Forsdick, Charles; Karatsolis, Andreas;

Short description:

Translating Cultures in the Arab World expands translation studies beyond Western perspectives, focusing on Middle East and Arabic language. Features leading scholars addressing translation philosophy, cultural relationships, and historical contexts. Essential resource for translation studies and Middle Eastern studies.

Long description:

Translating Cultures in the Arab World: New Histories and Geographies significantly expands translation studies by unearthing overlooked discussions and reconceptualizing the history and movements of translation. It moves beyond a Western-centric and Anglonormative research perspective by beginning with the Middle East and the Arabic language, critically engaging with scholarship from the Arab world, including the Gulf region and the Global South. This provides a more inclusive and representative theorization of translating cultures for the twenty-first century. It features contributions from leading scholars that challenge previous interpretations and highlight translation’s crucial role in reshaping the translational humanities and Middle Eastern studies.

The text addresses critical issues, including the philosophy of translation, the dialectical relationship between translation and culture, the complexities of untranslatability, and the pivotal role of translation within specific historical and cultural contexts, such as Medieval Islamic cookbooks, the Arab world in sixteenth-century Islamic Spain, epistemic translation in the Arab Renaissance (Nahḍa), the first Saudi Opera, Zarqa Al Yamama, and the contemporary proliferation of translational spaces within the Gulf region. The volume thus serves as an essential intervention, urging scholars to interrogate how knowledge is constructed, contested, and reconfigured in global and translational contexts.

As a comprehensive examination of translating cultures at the intersection of historical analysis, theoretical exploration, and global cultural exchange, this volume serves as an essential resource for scholars and students in translation studies, comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, and related fields.

"The volume reconceptualizes the history and movements of translation, beginning with the Middle East and the Arabic language, thus moving beyond a Western-centric and Anglo normative research perspective. Apart from translation studies, it will no doubt be useful for scholars working in discourse analysis, history, sociology, politics, and other related subjects."

-África Vidal Claramonte, Professor in Translation Studies, The University of Salamanca

"In its urgent call for re-entering the Arab-Islamic world epistemologically and methodologically, this book is a signal contribution to translation studies in the Arab world, poised to broaden the philosophical scope of its theorizing and to deepen its historical reach."

-Waïl S. Hassan, Professor and Head of the Department of Comparative & World Literature, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

"This fascinating series of theoretical interventions and richly informed case studies is a major re-mapping of the discipline of Translation Studies. Bringing together leading critics and theorists from Eurocentric and Arabic traditions, the volume underscores how foundational Arabic translation is to Western humanism and world culture generally."

Michael Syrotinski, Marshall Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Director, Centre for Comparative Literature and Translation, University of Glasgow

Table of Contents:

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

Acknowledgement

Introduction: Rethinking Translating Cultures and the Arab World

Moneera Al-Ghadeer

Part I - Translating Cultures: Theoretical Frameworks and Foundational Concepts

1.     The Importance of Translation for the Study of Cultures

Susan Bassnett

2.     Translating Cultures: Origins and Future Directions

           Charles Forsdick

3.     Planetary Concept Work: Philology, Untranslatables, Language Justice

            Emily Apter

4.     Philosophy and Translation in the Arab World

Abdessalam Benabdelali

Part II- Translating Cultures in the Gulf Region: Case Studies and Emerging Paradigms

5.     The Specter of Un-translatability and the First Saudi Opera, Zarqa al-Yamama

           Moneera Al-Ghadeer

6.      Arabophone Cultures of Translation: Patterns and Factors for their Emergence

            Andreas Karatsolis and Mohammed Alsudairi

Part III- Historical Perspectives on Cultural and Translational Movements

7.     Rethinking Translating Cultures: Cultural Translation and Appropriation in 16th-Century Islamic Spain

            Ovidi Carbonell Cortes

8.     Epistemic Translation: The Case of al-ʾintiqād by Ya’qub Ṣarrūf

            Haifa Saud Alfaisal

9.     Cultural Confluence: Loanwords as Vessels of Culinary and Cultural Exchange in Medieval Islamic Cookbooks: A Pilot Study

            Dima Abdul-Jabbar

10.  Cultural Confluence: Loanwords as Vessels of Culinary and Cultural Exchange in Cookbooks from the Islamic Golden Age: A Pilot Study

Dima Abdulmajeed Abduljabbar

Index