Leveraging the Dismisura: translating the mediterraneity of Franco Cassano’s Southern Thought

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essays reflects on the philosophy and ideology underlying the practice of translaTING Il pensiero meridiano by Italian sociologist Franco Cassano. II pensiero meridiano is a foundational text to understand the culture of deliberate thinking that the author suggests is characteristic of a ‘Mediterranean’ and ‘Southern’ perspective on the world, which he sets counter to the Neoliberal globalizing modes of thinking of Western capitalism. I take as my starting point the terms misura (moderation, measure) and dismisura (lack of moderation, excess), that have been translated in multiple ways in the English text; and I explore how, precisely because Cassano’s book uses the terms to highlight ‘tensions of opposite signs, those of earth and sea’ (which he also uses to compare those of Western capitalism and Southern resistance), they are polyvalent and express more than a single interpretive key in which to read them. As such they embolden the translator to ‘play around’ and transform them in the target text, so that the translator can transfer the ideological fluidity of the original in a textual fluidity that defamiliarizes the target language readers, forcing them to appreciate the original’s message in English even from the textual standpoint.