Siting Translation - History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context 1996.pdf

SITING TRANSLATION
HISTORY, POST-STRUCTURALISM,
AND THE COLONIAL CONTEXT
TEJASWINI NIRANJANA
University of California Press
Berkeley • Los Angeles • Oxford
To my parents,
Anupama Niranjana
and
K. S. Niranjana
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
Oxford, England
© 1992 by
The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Niranjana, Tejaswini, 1958-
Siting translation: history, post-structuralism, and the colonial
context / Tejaswini Niranjana.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-520-07450-5 (cloth). - ISBN 0-520-07451-3 (paper)
1. Translating and interpreting. 2. Deconstruction.
3. Structuralism (Literary analysis). 4. Historicism.
5. Imperialism. I. Title.
1992
428' .02911--dC20 91-21487
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI -1984. §
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
1. Introduction: History in Translation 1
2. Representing Texts and Cultures:
Translation Studies and Ethnography 47
3. Allegory and the Critique of Historicism:
Reading Paul de Man 87
4. Politics and Poetics: De Man, Benjamin, and
the Task of the Translator 110
5. Deconstructing Translation and History:
Derrida on Benjamin 141
6. Translation as Disruption: Post-Structuralism
and the Post-Colonial Context 163
Bibliography 187
Index; 199
Acknowledgments
For their generosity and careful criticism, I am indebted to
Joseph N. Riddel, Vincent Pecora, and Paul Hernadi, and to
R. B. Patankar, who taught me my first course in literary the•
ory. I am especially grateful to those scholars at UCSC who,
although I wa