ABSTRACT
This contribution is a prismatic rendering from the Persian of a selection of Iranian theorist Morad Farhadour’s Fragments of Thought (2009), with a critical introduction added by the translators. In this work, Farhadour argues that translation has been the only true form of thought within Iranian modernity, beginning with the Constitutional Revolution in the early twentieth century, and continuing well into the present. He conceptualises translation as a tension between self and other. Iranians’ relation to European modernity is facilitated by translation, but Iranians, Farhadpour argues, must also learn to translate their traditions for themselves. Farhadpour calls for a Persian translation of tradition that goes beyond the project of religious reformism (roshanfekri dini) of Abdulkarim Soroush and political strands of reformism. Translation in his understanding becomes radical when it unveils an inner gap within an ideology that conceals the gaps and fills the void. Farhadpour’s seminal work explains the politicisation of theory through translation in Iran during the late 1990s, which was a period of fervent reformist movements. During this period, translators’ indirect involvement with theoretical discourse often generated the beginnings of radical politics.
