
Tokens of Exchange
The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations
Lydia H. Liu(Editor)
Duke University Press
Will be published approx. on 19. January 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
464 pages
978-0-8223-2424-9 (ISBN)
Description
The problem of translation has become increasingly central to critical reflections on modernity and its universalizing processes. Approaching translation as a symbolic and material exchange among peoples and civilizations-and not as a purely linguistic or literary matter, the essays in Tokens of Exchange focus on China and its interactions with the West to historicize an economy of translation. Rejecting the familiar regional approach to non-Western societies, contributors contend that "national histories" and "world history" must be read with absolute attention to the types of epistemological translatability that have been constructed among the various languages and cultures in modern times.
By studying the production and circulation of meaning as value in areas including history, religion, language, law, visual art, music, and pedagogy, essays consider exchanges between Jesuit and Protestant missionaries and the Chinese between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and focus on the interchanges occasioned by the spread of capitalism and imperialism. Concentrating on ideological reciprocity and nonreciprocity in science, medicine, and cultural pathologies, contributors also posit that such exchanges often lead to racialized and essentialized ideas about culture, sexuality, and nation. The collection turns to the role of language itself as a site of the universalization of knowledge in its contemplation of such processes as the invention of Basic English and the global teaching of the English language. By focusing on the moments wherein meaning-value is exchanged in the translation from one language to another, the essays highlight the circulation of the global in the local as they address the role played by historical translation in the universalizing processes of modernity and globalization.
The collection will engage students and scholars of global cultural processes, Chinese studies, world history, literary studies, history of science, and anthropology, as well as cultural and postcolonial studies.
Contributors. Jianhua Chen, Nancy Chen, Alexis Dudden Eastwood, Roger Hart, Larissa Heinrich, James Hevia, Andrew F. Jones, Wan Shun Eva Lam, Lydia H. Liu, Deborah T. L. Sang, Haun Saussy, Q. S. Tong, Qiong Zhang
By studying the production and circulation of meaning as value in areas including history, religion, language, law, visual art, music, and pedagogy, essays consider exchanges between Jesuit and Protestant missionaries and the Chinese between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and focus on the interchanges occasioned by the spread of capitalism and imperialism. Concentrating on ideological reciprocity and nonreciprocity in science, medicine, and cultural pathologies, contributors also posit that such exchanges often lead to racialized and essentialized ideas about culture, sexuality, and nation. The collection turns to the role of language itself as a site of the universalization of knowledge in its contemplation of such processes as the invention of Basic English and the global teaching of the English language. By focusing on the moments wherein meaning-value is exchanged in the translation from one language to another, the essays highlight the circulation of the global in the local as they address the role played by historical translation in the universalizing processes of modernity and globalization.
The collection will engage students and scholars of global cultural processes, Chinese studies, world history, literary studies, history of science, and anthropology, as well as cultural and postcolonial studies.
Contributors. Jianhua Chen, Nancy Chen, Alexis Dudden Eastwood, Roger Hart, Larissa Heinrich, James Hevia, Andrew F. Jones, Wan Shun Eva Lam, Lydia H. Liu, Deborah T. L. Sang, Haun Saussy, Q. S. Tong, Qiong Zhang
Reviews / Votes
"This impressive volume expands the metaphor of translation to encompass a broad spread of transcultural negotiations, thereby opening new possibilities for approaching the language and practices of East Asian modernities. The volume presents exemplary models for demonstrating the historicity of how concepts travel and become caught up within localized sign systems."-Ann Anagnost, author of National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China "This volume brilliantly translates 'translation' by theorizing it and demonstrating the contingency, historicity and political inflections of the practices that have constituted it. Specific attention to a series of examples from China and the diverse encounters with European knowledges show that the Universal is always particular."-Paul Rabinow, University of California, BerkeleyMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
22 b&w photographs
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
649 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-2424-9 (9780822324249)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Lydia H. Liu | Stanley Fish | Fredric Jameson
Tokens of Exchange
The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations
E-Book
01/2000
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€228.99
Available for download
Person
Lydia H. Liu is Helmut F. Stern Professor of Chinese Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author of Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity-China, 1900-1937.
Content
Introduction/ Lydia H. Liu 1
The Question of Meaning-Value in the Political Economy of the Sign 13
Part I. Early Encounters: The Question of (In)commensurability 45
Part II. Colonial Circulations: From International Law to the Global Market 127
Part III. Science, Medicine, and Cultural Pathologies 239
Part IV. Language and the Production of Universal Knowledge 331
Glossary 399
Bibliography 411
Index 445
Contributors 457
The Question of Meaning-Value in the Political Economy of the Sign 13
Part I. Early Encounters: The Question of (In)commensurability 45
Part II. Colonial Circulations: From International Law to the Global Market 127
Part III. Science, Medicine, and Cultural Pathologies 239
Part IV. Language and the Production of Universal Knowledge 331
Glossary 399
Bibliography 411
Index 445
Contributors 457