scholarly journals Jorge Luis Borges’s Partial Argentine Ulysses: A Foundational (Mis-)Translation

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Waisman

Abstract In this article, I first introduce the deconstructionist idea of the error (drawn primarily from Paul de Man) as a potentially productive category, then combine this idea with what I call Borges’s theory of mis-translation, to analyze the foundational role of (mis-)translation in Argentine literature, focusing specifically on Borges’s 1925 version of the last page of James Joyce’s Ulysses. I go on to discuss Borges’s theory of mis-translation and its importance within an Argentine as well as a transnational context. In essays such as “Las versiones homéricas” [The Homeric Versions] and “Los traductores de Las 1001 Noches” [The Translators of The 1001 Nights], Borges posits that translations are not necessarily inferior to originals, and that a translation’s merits may actually reside in its creative infidelities. After delineating Borges’s irreverent position on translation, I carefully analyze Borges’s 1925 translation of the last page of Joyce’s Ulysses, to examine how Borges uses (mis-)translation to create a partial Argentine version of Joyce’s Modernist novel, which serves, among other things, a paradoxical foundational role in Argentine and Latin American literatures.

Author(s):  
Patrick Dove

Chapter 5 challenges the automatic association between deconstruction and the work of Derrida by turning to the critical legacy of Paul de Man in Latin American literary studies. Dove evaluates Roberto Bolaño’s posthumous opus magnum through competing theoretical accounts of allegory taken from Paul de Man and Fredric Jameson. Bolaño’s novel both alludes to a Jamesonian notion of “national allegory” and performs its exhaustion in the time of neoliberal-administered globalization. In that light, Dove asks what the accounts of allegory found in de Man might still have to say to us today: Can de Man’s account of allegory as narrative postulation or performance of a radical anteriority help to understand how Bolaño’s novel shapes an idea of time that serves as an alternative to modern conceptualizations of historical time?


2020 ◽  
pp. 153-158
Author(s):  
Erin Graff Zivin

The Afterword asks after the role of the university in the age of Trump, in the so-called post-truth era. Specifically, it pursues the possibility of a defense against inventions and untruths that does not, or does not only, rely upon scientific or legal, proof-based knowledge, but also, crucially, that would advance a notion of knowledge, or truths, that pertain to the logic of testimony and witnessing, but which are themselves unprovable in an empirical sense. It may seem a strange moment to turn, or return, to figures such as Jacques Derrida or Paul de Man, thinkers that have been wrongly accused of relativizing truth, or of doing away with truth altogether, but whose work in fact point the way to a different, but no less radical, commitment to the idea of truth.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Veronis

Issues of immigrant political incorporation and transnational politics have drawn increased interest among migration scholars. This paper contributes to debates in this field by examining the role of networks, partnerships and collaborations of immigrant community organizations as mechanisms for immigrant political participation both locally and transnationally. These issues are addressed through an ethnographic study of the Hispanic Development Council, an umbrella advocacy organization representing settlement agencies serving Latin American immigrants in Toronto, Canada. Analysis of HDC’s three sets of networks (at the community, city and transnational levels) from a geographic and relational approach demonstrates the potentials and limits of nonprofit sector partnerships as mechanisms and concrete spaces for immigrant mobilization, empowerment, and social action in a context of neoliberal governance. It is argued that a combination of partnerships with a range of both state and non-state actors and at multiple scales can be significant in enabling nonprofit organizations to advance the interests of immigrant, minority and disadvantaged communities.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pricila Mullachery ◽  
Daniel A. Rodriguez ◽  
J. Jaime Miranda ◽  
Nancy Lopez-Olmedo ◽  
Kevin Martinez-Folgar ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Andrew Dean

Coetzee’s interest in destabilizing the boundaries of literature and philosophy is most evident in later fictions such as Elizabeth Costello. But as Andrew Dean argues in this chapter, this interest in moving across boundaries in fact originates much earlier, in Coetzee’s quarrel with the institutions and procedures of literary criticism. Coetzee used the occasion of his inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Cape Town (Truth and Autobiography) to criticize the assumption that literary criticism can reveal truths about literature to which literary texts are themselves blind. Influenced in part by such figures as Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, Coetzee posed a series of challenging questions about the desires at stake in the enterprise of literary criticism. Developing these thoughts, Dean explores the way in which Coetzee’s earlier fiction, including such texts as Foe (1986), is energized by its quarrelsome relationship with literary criticism and theory, especially postcolonial theory.


Author(s):  
Daniele Piovani ◽  
Claudia Pansieri ◽  
Soumya R R Kotha ◽  
Amanda C Piazza ◽  
Celia-Louise Comberg ◽  
...  

Abstract Background and aims The association between smoking and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) relies on old meta-analyses including exclusively non-Jewish White populations. Uncertainty persists regarding the role of smoking in other ethnicities. Methods We systematically searched Medline/PubMed, Embase and Scopus for studies examining tobacco smoking and the risk of developing IBD, i.e., Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC). Two authors independently extracted study data and assessed each study’s risk-of-bias. We examined heterogeneity and small-study effect, and calculated summary estimates using random-effects models. Stratified analyses and meta-regression were employed to study the association between study-level characteristics and effect estimates. The strength of epidemiological evidence was assessed through prespecified criteria. Results We synthesized 57 studies examining the smoking-related risk of developing CD and UC. Non-Jewish White smokers were at increased risk of CD (29 studies; RR: 1.95, 95% CI: 1.69‒2.24; moderate evidence). No association was observed in Asian, Jewish and Latin-American populations (11 studies; RR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.83–1.13), with no evidence of heterogeneity across these ethnicities. Smokers were at reduced risk of UC (51 studies; RR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.48–0.64; weak evidence) irrespectively of ethnicity; however, cohort studies, large studies and those recently published showed attenuated associations. Conclusions This meta-analysis did not identify any increased risk of CD in smokers in ethnicities other than non-Jewish Whites, and confirmed the protective effect of smoking on UC occurrence. Future research should characterize the genetic background of CD patients across different ethnicities to improve our understanding on the role of smoking in CD pathogenesis.


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