ABSTRACT
Derrida’s reflections on translation occupy a very small place in his oeuvre, but account for most of the critical scholarship that brings Derrida and translation together. That scholarship tends to emphasise the disruptive perspectives that are present in or can be deduced from Derrida’s work, particularly in relation to the notion of différance. However, Derrida never completely dispenses with the idea that translation is about transfer of meaning, and even affirms the indispensability of this conceptualisation. Although this seems paradoxical when considered in light of his forceful challenges to structuralism, it ultimately reveals tensions inherent in deconstruction itself. At the same time, Derrida points to a different kind of translation – ‘something else beginning in tr’ – that is ‘active, poetic, productive’, occasionally resulting in translations that are textual events in their own right. Texts discussed in this chapter include ‘Freud and the Scene of Writing’, ‘The Supplement of Copula’, ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’, ‘The Ends of Man’, ‘What is a “relevant” translation?’, ‘Two Words for Joyce’ and ‘Silkworm’.
