ABSTRACT
Like translation, the concept of culture in the modern era is characterized by a high degree of semantic plasticity. Like translation, culture can refer both to products (e.g., works of art and literature as well as cultural artifacts) and processes (e.g., habits, behaviors or lifeways). Difficult to define and to delimit, culture finds itself at the very center not only of contemporary social and political discourse – from cultural revolutions and culture wars to cultural appropriation and cultural politics – but also of contemporary scholarly discourse in the Humanities, especially since the cultural turn in Translation Studies (TS) and the subsequent translational turn in Cultural Studies. This chapter will trace the various understandings of culture and of culture and translation both within the field of TS and, increasingly, outside it, and end by outlining future directions.
