Resistant Translation and the Language of Hegemony

Today's world of liberal academia, hypersensitized to the demands of cultural relativism and political correctness, abounds with theories that aim to situate the dominant white Western identity in relation to the non-white Other. In this framework, a nebulous yet very present sense of culpability for the perceived crimes of our ancestors coupled with an acute awareness of the pitfalls of cultural exchange make any attempt at dialogue between Us and Them a risky endeavor, requiring us to tread carefully lest we find ourselves guilty of false assumptions, accidental racism, or the perpetuation of outmoded supremacist norms.

Dr. Martha Cutter, a specialist in multiethnic literature studies in the graduate English Department at Kent State University, contends in her 2005 book Lost and Found in Translation that "there is a trope of cultural and linguistic translation...[that] involves transcoding ethnicity, transmigrating the ethnic tongue into the English language, and renovating the language of hegemony.... [T]ranslation typifies, then, a remaking of not only language but also racial, generational, and cultural identities." In response to concerns raised by Cutter and other liberal academics over the ramifications of translating non-Western texts into the dominant Western language of English comes the idea of "resistant translation," which maintains that English renderings of non-Western texts should be characterized by a degree of awkwardness and a lack of fluidity sufficient to remind readers of the cultural divide separating the book in front of them from its original version. The stilted nature of these translations will force readers to acknowledge the complexity of the translation process, and by extension will serve to suggest the intricate underlay of anthropological assumptions, cultural appropriations, and power differentials attendant in the act of cross-cultural exchange.

In the latest development in the ongoing debate over modes of translation, a panel of academics at this year's annual MESA conference suggested that the notion of resistant translation ought to be applied to literature translated from Arabic to English--exactly the sort of literature published by AUC Press. Translating between English and Arabic is a perennially challenging and at times frustrating endeavor. No matter how skilled the translator or how fluid the language of the Arabic original, there will inevitably be certain turns of phrase, idiosyncrasies, and colloquial expressions that simply don't have neat equivalents in English. This is the reality of all translation to some extent, yet where Arabic-to-English translation is concerned the lack of straightforward parallels between the two languages has historically been a particular obstacle. In light of this, the idea of intentionally complicating the process still further strikes me as at best redundant, and at worst detrimental to an already-problematic situation. Do the academics at MESA really believe that the best way to foster an acceptable attitude among Western readers toward Arab culture is by making it even more inaccessible than it already is? I do think it's necessary to acknowledge that translation can be a form of cultural appropriation, and to treat it as such with a certain amount of caution, but to be so afraid of betraying our lofty liberal ideals that we intentionally obfuscate and confuse seems self-defeating and out of touch with reality, a product of the worst tendencies of liberal academia.