2229 KB55 KB197820252019Biti, Vladimirštevilka:3letnik:42str. 247-266ISSN:0351-1189COBISSID:70740322URN:URN:NBN:SI:doc-F7ROGP6NenSlovensko društvo za primerjalno književnostPrimerjalna književnostBenjamin, WalterBhabha, Homikulturne razlikemedkulturnostpostimperializempostkolonializemprevajanjeprevodteorija prevajanjaTranslating the untranslatable| Walter Benjamin and Homi Bhabha|Since Homi Bhabha introduced the notion of 'cultural translation' in the penultimate chapter of his Location of Culture, translation no longer implies the overcoming of existing differences between cultures. In his peculiar interpretation, it becomes a process that initiates cultural differences in the same way as life, for instance, incessantly diversifies its creatures. As these differences follow from translation, rather than preceding it, cultures are conceived as hybrid and in-between rather than pure and autonomous entities. It is this characteristics of theirs that, in Bhabha's understanding, renders them untranslatable. A culture cannot assimilate into another culture without maintaining its internal difference and it cannot liberate itself from another culture without having embodied this culture's trace. In the final analysis, his idea of "cultural translation desacralizes the ... assumptions of cultural supremacy" by undoing the asymmetry between languages that for long centuries accompanied the Western practice of translation. The thesis that I want to propose is that, in this context, Bhabha's engagement of the notion of untranslatability, introduced by Walter Benjamin in his 1923 essay The Task of the Translator, acquires a special significance. It establishes a clandestine 'elective affinity' between the two thinkers who, doomed to cope with the traumatic constellations of their respectively post-imperial and postcolonial age, attempt to disengage these ages' political asymmetriesOdkar je Homi Bhabha v predzadnjem poglavju svoje knjige Location of Culture uvedel pojem "kulturnega prevoda", prevod ne implicira več preseganja obstoječih medkulturnih razlik. V njegovi dokaj posebni interpretaciji postane prevajanje proces, ki spodbuja vznik kulturnih razlik na enak način kot denimo življenje nenehno diverzificira svoje stvaritve. Ker te razlike ne pridejo pred prevodom, temveč iz njega izhajajo, so kulture razumljene kot nekaj hibridnega in vmesnega, ne pa kot nekaj čistega in avtonomnega. Prav ta njihova značilnost pa jih po pojmovanju Bhabhe dela neprevedljive. Kultura se ne more asimilirati v drugo kulturo, ne da bi ohranila svojo notranjo raznolikost, prav kot se ne more osvoboditi od druge kulture, ne da bi utelesila sled te kulture. V končni analizi njegova ideja o "kulturnem prevodu odvzame svetost ... domnevam o kulturni prevladi", s tem ko ukinja asimetrijo med jeziki, ki je stoletja spremljala zahodno prevajalsko prakso. Teza, ki jo zagovarjam, je, da pridobi v tem kontekstu njegova uporaba pojma neprevedljivosti, ki jo uvaja že Walter Benjamin v svojem eseju Prevajalčeva naloga iz leta 1923, poseben pomen. Z njo namreč Bhabha vzpostavi skrivno "izbirno sorodnost"' med obema mislecema, ki sta obsojena na soočanje s travmatičnimi konstelacijami, v primeru prvega postimperialne, v primeru drugega pa postkolonialne dobe, in ki skušata odmisliti politične asimetrije njunih dobTEXTznanstveno časopisjejournalsSlovenian National E-content AggregatorNational and University Library of SloveniaSlovensko društvo za primerjalno književnost