The apparent conceptual or theoretical gap between those who approach Translation Studies from the perspective of postmodern cultural studies and textual theories and those who see it as an empirical, descriptive field is a common theme. The debate between these different approaches is sometimes couched in terms of essentialism versus non-essentialism. In general, essentialism claims that meanings are objective and stable, that the translator’s job is to find and transfer these and hence to remain as invisible as possible. Non-essentialism, on the other hand, basically claims that meanings (including the meaning of the concept of ‘translation’) are inherently non-stable, that they have to be interpreted in each individual instance, and hence the translator is inevitably visible. The authors explore how far these two approaches to Translation Studies can be reconciled. In the paper, the authors list all the 30 ‘theses’ which represent their shared ground.