Translations Histories Enlightenments

Historian and minister William Robertson was a central Scottish Enlightenment figure whose influence reached well beyond the boundaries of the British Isles. In this reception study of Robertson's work, Laszlo Kontler shows how the reception of Robertson's major histories in Germany tests the limits of intellectual transfer through translation.

Historian and minister William Robertson was a central Scottish Enlightenment figure whose influence reached well beyond the boundaries of the British Isles. In this reception study of Robertson's work, Laszlo Kontler shows how the reception of Robertson's major histories in Germany tests the limits of intellectual transfer through translation.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation History presents the first comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this multi-faceted disciplinary area and serves both as an introduction to carrying out research into translation and interpreting history and as a key point of reference for some of its main theoretical and methodological issues, interdisciplinary approaches, and research themes. The Handbook brings together 30 eminent international scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, offering examples of the most innovative research while representing a wide range of approaches, themes, and cultural contexts. The Handbook is divided into four sections: the first looks at some key methodological and theoretical approaches; the second examines some of the key research areas that have developed an interdisciplinary dialogue with translation history; the third looks at translation history from the perspective of specific cultural and religious perspectives; and the fourth offers a selection of case studies on some of the key topics to have emerged in translation and interpreting history over the past 20 years. This Handbook is an indispensable resource for students and researchers of translation and interpreting history, translation theory, and related areas.

Given that the dissemination of enlightened thought in Europe was mostly effected through translations, the present collection of essays focuses on how its cultural adaptation took place in various national contexts. For the first time, the theoretical model of ‘cultural transfer’ (Espagne/Werner) is applied to the eighteenth century: The intercultural dynamics of the Enlightenment become manifest in the transformation process between the original and target cultures, be it by way of acculturation, creative enhancement, or misunderstanding. Resulting in shifts of meaning, translations offer a key not just to contemporary translation practice but to the discursive network of the European Enlightenment in general. The case studies united here explore both how translations contributed to the transnational standardisation of certain key concepts, values and texts, and how they reflect national specifications of enlightened discourses. Hence, the volume contributes to Enlightenment studies, at least as much as to historical translation studies.

This book is the preliminary part of a great work titled «THE BOOK OF THE EGYPTIAN: The beginning of the basic Egyptology or a key to the understanding of history, philosophy and world religion». Usually, the introduction is made in the form of a brief preface or foreword, but I got a whole book as the first step in a multi-volume publication of the study. The purpose of this specific introduction as the beginning of serious research – is right at the level of the opening to inspire a reader, showing him in a clear visual and comprehensible form, the whole true mechanism of the hieroglyphic writing. To achieve this, I will completely dispel the myth created by the modern science that hieroglyphs do not convey any meaning (of words, the whole idea), but only individual sounds (letters), or their combination (syllables). This scientific myth will be finally deprived of the status of scientific knowledge, and the translation of the Phaistos disc, on the contrary, will be clearly shown, what is called «broken apart», and will be read in the ancient hieroglyphic language united by the principle of construction – in the language of the ancient Egyptians. I can say that it will not be two simultaneously existing systems of hieroglyphs translation, as well as two Egyptologies, one will be false, and the other – true! To prove the validity of the system of translation I wanted to give you immediately not only a complete translation of the text of the Phaistos disc, where the number of occurrences of each hieroglyph is not big (1 to 19 times), but the translation of the whole ancient Egyptian writing, because the number of times it is used in there is thousands, if not even millions. And each such use of each hieroglyph is translating in the same way, so it creates the full reading of the hieroglyphic texts – writing, which will be easily read by everyone with the dictionary of hieroglyphs in the future. The main reason why I wanted to do it – is because, at first, I read the ancient Egyptian texts and only then, by chance, came across with the hieroglyphs of the Phaistos disc. But then, I decided to set a different aim – to teach the reader to think, and not just to read hieroglyphs. Since we have no ancient Egyptian temple, and you're not its novice, the method of achieving the aims will be different than in the antiquity. First of all, I would suggest not a translation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but a complete translation of the Phaistos disc, and at the same time to give them a sort of test of common sense to modern science in the face of particular academies and universities of the world. Let them answer me the question, not knowing the translations of ancient Egyptian texts, – whether they think this translation of the Phaistos disc is correct? So when I completely publish «The Book of Egyptian», it will become clear who they are and where do they lead all of you. As they always test the students, it's a time to test them as well. Will they pass the test, I do not know, but any way, you, my reader, will get to know about it, (in the main manuscript) and will be able to draw your own conclusions about their intellectual level. Therefore, I recommend you to take this message of the book, at least with the attention, because not every day the science gets a ready revelation, designed in the form of scientific study. And here the attention and common sense will help the reader to re-look the original, pure, uncomplicated meaning of the Hieroglyphs, which through the veil of delusion will finally begin to appear in their true, original and vibrant colors – and finally, get from the nether world – into the realm of the living!

In Black Enlightenment Surya Parekh reimagines the Enlightenment from the position of the Black subject. Parekh examines the works of such Black writers as the free Jamaican Francis Williams (1697–1762), Afro-British thinker Ignatius Sancho (1729?–1780), and Afro-American poet Phillis Wheatley (1753?–1784), placing them alongside those of their white European contemporaries David Hume (1711-1776) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). By rethinking the Enlightenment and its canons, Parekh complicates common understandings of the Enlightenment wherein Black subjects could exist only in negation to white subjects. Black Enlightenment points to the anxiety of race in Hume, Kant, and others while showing the importance of Black Enlightenment thought. Parekh prompts us to consider the timeliness of reading Black Enlightenment authors who become “free” in a society hostile to that freedom.

A classified bibliographic resource for tracing the history of Jewish translation activity from the Middle Ages to the present day, providing the researcher with over a thousand entries devoted solely to the Jewish role in the east-to-west transmission of Greek and Arab learning and science into Latin or Hebrew. Other major sections extend the coverage to modern times, taking special note of the absorption of European literature into the Jewish cultural orbit via Hebrew, Yiddish, or Judezmo translations, for instance, or the translation and reception of Jewish literature written in Jewish languages into other languages such as Arabic, English, French, German, or Russian. This polyglot bibliography, the first of its kind, contains over 2,600 entries, is enhanced by a vast number of additional bibliographic notes leading to reviews and related resources, and is accompanied by both an author and a subject index.

A compelling reevaluation of the Enlightenment from one of its leading historians In this concise and powerful book, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment provides a bracing and clarifying new interpretation of this watershed period. Arguing that philosophical and historical interpretations of the era have long been hopelessly confused, Vincenzo Ferrone makes the case that it is only by separating these views and taking an approach grounded in social and cultural history that we can begin to grasp what the Enlightenment was—and why it is still relevant today. Ferrone explains why the Enlightenment was a profound and wide-ranging cultural revolution that reshaped Western identity, reformed politics through the invention of human rights, and redefined knowledge by creating a critical culture. These new ways of thinking gave birth to new values that spread throughout society and changed how everyday life was lived and understood. Featuring an illuminating afterword describing how his argument challenges the work of Anglophone interpreters including Jonathan Israel, The Enlightenment provides a fascinating reevaluation of the true nature and legacy of one of the most important and contested periods in Western history. The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS—Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche.