1. Remote translators
- Author
-
David Huddart
- Subjects
Value (ethics) ,Cultural translation ,Aesthetics ,Scripting language ,Foregrounding ,Narrative ,Performative utterance ,Sociology ,Privileged access ,computer.software_genre ,computer ,Life writing - Abstract
Different spaces of questions (for example, concerning what is good to remember) interrelate – and life writing gives us privileged access to this ethical interrelation. This chapter examines life writing by Edward G. Seidensticker and Donald Richie, each associated with translating Japan. What links these works is not only the writers’ personal connections, but an exploration of the value of translation in the writing of cultural scripts. Translation refers to broader processes of cultural translation, but also to literal translations, in particular for Seidensticker The Tale of Genji. Both Seidensticker and Richie write about translation between Orient and Occident, foregrounding cultural scripting as performative. Each probes the limits of spaces of questions, and also of opposing cultural scripts. Are their narratives more evidence of familiar stereotypes? In both, the relational quality of life writing undermines any effort to shore up ontological and epistemological distinctions, as this chapter explores.
- Published
- 2021
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