Emily Apter - Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability

Portions of this book appeared in the journals Sites, New Literary History, American Literary History, boundary 2, October, Angelaki, PMLA, Profession, Translation Studies and Third Text. Versions of several chapters were published in Transnational French Studies: Postcolonialism and Littrature-monde (edited by Alec G. Hargreaves, Charles Forsdick, and David Murphy, Liverpool University Press); Teaching World Literature (edited by David Damrosch, Modern Language Association); and The Blackwell Companion to Comparative Literature (edited by Ali Behdad and Dominic Thomas, Blackwell). For permission to republish, I thank the editors, journals and presses.

My thanks to Sebastian Budgen, an encouraging and persevering editor at Verso. To Barbara Cassin, editor of the Vocabulaire europen des philosophies: Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, I owe the philosophical construct of the Untranslatable and the opportunity to work on an immensely engaging collective projectthe translation and re-edition of the Vocabulaire in English. Working with Cassin, Jacques Lezra, Michael Wood and tienne Balibar provided ideas and impetus for this book; our discussions are part of its substance throughout. Co-teaching a graduate seminar entitled The Problem of Translation with Jacques Lezra under the auspices of the Mellon Foundation was the perfect forum for rethinking translation theory. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, tienne Balibar, Samuel Weber, Alain Badiou, Kenneth Reinhard and Bruno Bosteels helped set the terms for thinking the relation between philosophy and politics in the context of translation theory. Special thanks to Karim Mattar, David Fieni, Aamir Mufti, Thomas Keenan, Gil Hochberg, Omar Berrada and Leslie Dick for advice on checkpoints. Stathis Gourgouris, Dominic Thomas and Ali Behdad kindly provided the opportunity to develop and refine my reading of Edward Saids terrestrial humanism. Jane O. Newman shared galleys of her important studies of Erich Auerbach and Walter Benjamin and offered invaluable editorial guidance. In Paris, Barbara Cassin, Gisle Sapiro, Marielle Mac, Laurent Jeanpierre, Tiphaine Samoyault, Lionel Ruffel, Zahia Rahmani, Rahul Markovits and Blaise Wilfert provided stimulating contexts for presenting parts of the manuscript. As a Remarque Visiting Faculty member at the cole Normale Suprieure in Fall 2012 I had an excellent situation for the final phase of work.

At NYU, I have been lucky to have Denis Hollier and Richard Sieburth as close colleagues and constant interlocutors. Jane Tylus, whose own expertise in translation theory was greatly appreciated, created a close-knit intellectual community at the Humanities Initiative at NYU, where I was a fellow in 20092010.

For excellent opportunities to rehearse sections of the book, thanks to Margaret Cohen, Virginia Jackson, Martin Harries, Ron Clark, Aaron Levy, Avital Ronell, Franois Noudelmann, Lucien Nouis, Elisabeth Ladenson, Susan Bernstein, David Bellos, Samuel Weber, Toril Moi, Rda Bensmaa, Wai Chee Dimock, Aamir Mufti, Birgit Kaiser, Jonathan Arac, Paul Bov, Todd Reeser, Neil Doshi, Helena Buescu, Andrew Parker, Meredith McGill, David Damrosch, Robert Young and John T. Hamilton.

Anthony Vidler, Nicolas Apter-Vidler and Eleanor Apter gave constant feedback and support through untranslatable highs and lows. The book is dedicated to David Apter, whose practice of comparative politics and intense political engagements helped forge my own longstanding commitment to the politics of comparative literature.