History of science and history of translation: disciplinary commensurability?

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Abstract

The history of translation is seen variously as examining the role of translation in historical episodes or investigating the phenomenon or understanding of translation itself historically. These different historiographical perspectives involve potentially different research aims, approaches, concepts, methods and scholarly interlocutors. The paper focuses on this question of disciplinary commensurability in historical studies, and draws parallels between the history of translation and the history of science. Themes addressed include the tensions between local and global, national and transnational histories, and concomitant tensions between established historiographical norms and alternative, interdisciplinary approaches. It is argued that both the history of translation and the history of science are following a similar trajectory, towards a reflexive, transnational history that seeks productive modes of engagement with other historical disciplines. By bringing to the attention of translation scholars some of the key debates in the history of science and by identifying commonalities, this paper hopes to encourage historians of translation and of science to collaborate in the pursuit of a transnational history of science, the conceptual and methodological requirements of which could be usefully fulfilled by that combined expertise.

Keyword(s)

history of science; disciplinary commensurability; historiography; history of translation; microhistory; self-reflexivity; transnational history

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