CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

This is the abstract—in French and English—of a research paper I presented at the CNRS research unit LaCiTO’s Jeux de Langage seminar on April 19th, 2022. The article draws on linguistic anthropology, semiotics, Tibetan studies, and translation theory to discuss the translation of an esoteric Tibetan Buddhist ritual, the Nechung kang-so.

I present here a critical reading, through a semiotic lens, of Walter Benjamin’s essay on ‘The Translator’s Task.’ Together with it, I present critical comparative notes on the three translations referenced, viz. Harry Zohn’s 1968 English, Steven Rendall’s 2000 English, and Maurice de Gandillac’s 2000 French translations. I derive from these critical comparisons a set of rules of good academic translation practice, which is presented at the end. This is the last of four installments of this article.

I present here a critical reading, through a semiotic lens, of Walter Benjamin’s essay on ‘The Translator’s Task.’ Together with it, I present critical comparative notes on the three translations referenced, viz. Harry Zohn’s 1968 English, Steven Rendall’s 2000 English, and Maurice de Gandillac’s 2000 French translations. I derive from these critical comparisons a set of rules of good academic translation practice, which is presented at the end. This is the third of four installments of this article.

I present here a critical reading, through a semiotic lens, of Walter Benjamin’s essay on ‘The Translator’s Task.’ Together with it, I present critical comparative notes on the three translations referenced, viz. Harry Zohn’s 1968 English, Steven Rendall’s 2000 English, and Maurice de Gandillac’s 2000 French translations. I derive from these critical comparisons a set of rules of good academic translation practice, which is presented at the end. This is the second of four installments of this article.

I present here a critical reading, through a semiotic lens, of Walter Benjamin’s essay on ‘The Translator’s Task.’ Together with it, I present critical comparative notes on the three translations referenced, viz. Harry Zohn’s 1968 English, Steven Rendall’s 2000 English, and Maurice de Gandillac’s 2000 French translations. I derive from these critical comparisons a set of rules of good academic translation practice, which is presented at the end. This is the first of four installments of this article.

This is the master’s thesis (mémoire) that I submitted at ESIT (École supérieure d’interprètes et de traducteurs) in June, 2021, towards a master’s in editorial, technical and financial translation. The thesis was selected for publication on the open archive HAL-DUMAS. It was written under the direction of Mme Marie-Paule Chamayou, with Mary-Ann Constantine as my translation reader and Hanna Martikainen as jury member. It was awarded a “mention excellente” (highest honors) with a grade of 19/20.

This is a book review of sociologist François Héran’s 2021 Lettre aux professeurs sur la liberté d’expression. Analyzing the current French conjuncture, marked indelibly by gruesome violence and frenzied polemics surrounding the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Héran exhorts teachers—and citizens more generally—to work to preserve democracy. Héran proposes the judicious exercise of freedom of expression in public discourse: public critique, he stresses, must be founded in reason, valid information and respect for all beliefs. Héran’s work yields the following insight: his addressees constitute what one might term a Cartesian counterpublic, with all the fraught implications the term carries.

This is the second part of a critical review of 20^th-century literary critic and art historian André Jolles’s Simple Forms and his attempt at theorizing “the totality of all literary art”.

I present here a critique of the interpretive theory of meaning (la théorie interprétative du sens) proposed by French translation theorists Danica Seleskovitch and Marianne Lederer. This is the second part of my critique, and is excerpted from a thesis on translation that I wrote at ESIT in early 2021.

This is a critical review of 20^th-century literary critic and art historian André Jolles’s Simple Forms and his attempt at theorizing “the totality of all literary art”.

I present here a critique of the famous interpretive theory of meaning (la théorie interprétative du sens) proposed by French translation theorists Danica Seleskovitch and Marianne Lederer. This critique is excerpted from a thesis on translation that I wrote at ESIT in early 2021.