Bourdieu in Translation Studies

<p>This book explores the implications of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of cultural production for the study of translation as a socio-cultural activity. Bourdieu’s work has continued to inspire research on translation in the last few years though without a detailed large-scale investigation that tests the viability of his conceptual tools and methodological assumptions. With focus on the Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies in Egypt this book offers a detailed analysis of the theory of ‘fields of cultural production’ with the purpose of providing a fresh perspective on the genesis and development of drama translation in Arabic. </p><p>The different cases of the Arabic translations of <i>Hamlet</i> <i>Macbeth</i> <i>King Lear</i> and <i>Othello</i> lend themselves to sociological analysis due to the complex socio-cultural dynamics that conditioned the translation decisions made by translators theatre directors actors/actresses and publishers. In challenging the mainstream history of Shakespeare translation into Arabic which is mainly premised on the linguistic proximity between source and target texts this book attempts a ‘social history’ of the ‘Arabic Shakespeare’ which takes as its foundational assumption the fact that translation is a socially-situated phenomenon that is only fully appreciated in its socio-cultural milieu. Through a detailed discussion of the production dissemination and consumption of the Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies <i>Bourdieu in Translation Studies</i> marks a significant contribution to both sociology of translation and the cultural history of modern Egypt. </p>