ABSTRACT
Available for the first time in English, this essay discusses Berman’s project of an ethics of translation as an injunction to recognize the Other as Other. This ethical obligation subsequently becomes “a pedagogy of alterity” that moves away from traditional value-laden oppositions between “good” and “bad” translation, or between domesticating and foreignizing strategies. Godard argues that Berman’s “ethical absolute,” despite requiring attention to the play of signifiers in the process of translation, ultimately relies on a “monological vision of truth in translation.” Always committed to a dialogic idea of translation as a socially and historically situated act, Godard contrasts Berman’s ethics of “pure translation” with an ethics of difference and a politics of translation espoused by theorists like Meschonnic, Venuti, and Spivak.
