Hermeneutic heresy: Rey Chow on translation in theory and the ‘fable’ of culture

Abstract

Translation is a topic that seems to come and go with regularity on the literary theory scene. It has most recently enjoyed a vogue among comparatists, who have positioned translation as a way to renew—yet again—their discipline (see, for example, Emily Apter's The Translation Zone). Translation has also been discussed in the context of feminism, deconstruction, and postcolonial studies. With respect to the last grouping, the writings of Niranjana, Spivak, and Chow stand out. In this essay, I return to Chow's discussion of translation and national identity in Primitive Passions. I am particularly interested in showing how Chow, almost alone, attempts in that work to overcome the dominant hermeneutic paradigm that informs other theorists on translation, from the cultural conservatism of George Steiner to the declared radicalism of Spivak and of more recent works such as Bassnett and Trivedi's edited volume Postcolonial Translation Theory. I argue that none of these writers has taken up the challenge to hermeneutics that Chow posited and explored specifically with regard to ‘Fifth Generation’ Chinese filmmakers. Chow's challenge, I claim, resides in her focus on mediation as key to understanding both identity formation and the construction of ‘culture’ itself. Using theorists of media and social systems such as Friedrich Kittler and Niklas Luhmann, I go on to unfold Chow's discovery and demonstrate that hermeneutics and the translation theory derived from it are largely products of print and that the shift to film in the global marketplace has undermined the conceptual apparatus of both.