Translating Shanghai
The Untranslatable in the translation of a city
This essay problematizes the translation of one city as another: Shanghai for instance as ‘New York’ or ‘Paris.’ Such tropes have long been popular in literature and journalism. By viewing the issue through the lens of translation, the essay proposes to question the equivalence between cities that such statements presume. Behind the presumption of equivalence are political, cultural, and social ‘Untranslatables’ that emerge at the moment of translation. The paper focuses also on issues of intersemiotic translation that arise in the multimedia book, Disappearing Shanghai. The essay discusses how multiple translations of Shanghai co-operate with, conflict with and defy one another, leading to a constantly changing perspective on the city.
References
Abbas, Ackbar
1994 “
Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and the City.”
Public Culture 6 (3): 441–464.
All about Shanghai and Environs
1935 All about Shanghai and Environs: A Standard Guide Book. Shanghai: The University Press.
Apter, Emily
2012 “
Doing Things with Untranslatables: The Problem of Translation and Untranslatability in the Comparative Humanities.” Paper presented at the conference on Transdisciplinarity and the Humanities: Problems, Methods, Histories, Concepts, Kingston University London, January 25–25, 2012.
Apter, Emily
2013 Against World Literature: The Politics of the Untranslatable. London & New York: Verso.
Benjamin, Walter
1969 “
The Task of the Translator.” In
Illuminations, edited by
Hannah Arendt, 69–82. New York: Schocken Books.
Cole, Teju
2012 “
What Is Past and What Is Passing.” In
Disappearing Shanghai, edited by
Howard French, and
Qiu Xialolong, ix–xiii. Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books.
De Certeau, Michel
1984 The Practice of Everyday Life. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
French, Howard, and Qiu, Xiaolong
2012 Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of An Intimate Way of Life. Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books.
Harvey, David
2012 Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London & New York: Verso.
Jakobson, Roman
2000 “
On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In
The Translation Studies Reader, edited by
Lawrence Venuti, 113–118. London: Routledge.
Meng, Yue
2006 Shanghai and the Edges of Empires. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Mitchell, W.J.T
1978 Blake’s Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Mostafa, Joshua
2013 “
Quand Même.” Accessed July 29, 2014.
[URL].
Osnos, Evan
. “
Q. & A.: Howard French’s Images of Shanghai.” In
The New Yorker,
November 28 2012 Accessed May 1, 2014.
[URL].
Simon, Sherry
2012 Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory. New York: Routledge.
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey
2007 “
Is Global Shanghai ‘Good to Think’? Thoughts on Comparative History and Post-Socialist Cities.”
Journal of World History 18 (2): 199–234.
Zhang, Xudong
2008 Postsocialism and Cultural Politics: China in the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.