Dear Colleagues at Film-Philosophy Salon,

As a new subscriber (2 weeks, I think) to your e-Salon, imagine my surprise
to see the following text appear on my screen... from me! Frankly, I only
recall writing this for the Deleuze-Guattari Listserv several years ago,
for general consumption of that readership. I am writing to ask what
prompted you to include this in your Salon. I am actually rather flattered
that you have included it, but please understand that I do not recall at
all ever having sent you the message below. That does not mean I did not
send it, of course -- I find more and more that I have these peculiar
lapses of recall that I am just learning to live with, even to enjoy. In
any event, I am glad to see this rant appear again! Thank you,
Charles J. Stivale


>X-Sender: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 21:20:34 +0000
>Reply-To: Film-Philosophy Salon <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: Film-Philosophy Salon <[log in to unmask]>
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Brief Comment on _Discourse_
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>From: Charles J. Stivale
>
>I am sending the attached brief comment on the issue of _Discourse_ that
>you would like reviewed. I do not know if it will be possible for you to
>include it, but frankly, this issue of _Discourse_ is a disgraceful example
>of indifference to the efforts of the translators who produced more than
>half of the issue.
>
>My background is extensive work on Deleuze and Guattari (see my Web site
><http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/Romance/FreDeleuze.html>).
>
>Thank you for your consideration.
>
>*
>
>This review has several purposes. First, I wish to bring attention to the
>journal _Discourse_ vol. 20 no. 3, entitled: 'Gilles Deleuze, A Reason to
>Believe in this World'. It is guest edited by Reda Bensmaia and Jalal
>Toufic. It contains translations (mostly by Tim Murphy and Melissa McMahon)
>of six articles by Deleuze, of two seminars (one on Leibniz, April 15,
>1980, that I translated for Richard Pinhas's Web Deleuze site), of two
>interviews (one of which is Deleuze's excoriating blast against the
>'nouveaux philosophes'), and of one group statement by Bourdieu, Deleuze,
>Jerome Lindon, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet to the French government protesting
>the Gulf War. There are also essays by: Bruno Paradis, Raymond Bellour,
>Steve McCaffery, Tom Conley, Michael Hardt, Jean-Clet Martin, Jalal Toufic,
>David Bunn, Doug Rice, Alphonso Lingis, John Corbett, and Eric Alliez, with
>an introductory exchange of letters by Bensmaia and Toufic.
>
>That's the informative, affirmative part. The other purpose is less
>affirmative, but needs to be emphasized nonetheless. I had originally
>thought of entitling this review 'Translators are Scum', and here's why:
>having agreed to prepare my translation for this issue of _Discourse_, I
>was unpleasantly surprised to see that among the contributors' names at the
>end of the issue, none of the translators' names are listed, despite the
>fact that nearly half of the pieces included therein were produced through
>the efforts of the translators. It's not that I or any of the translators
>need to see our names in print other than at the end of the texts we
>translated. I am simply fascinated and appalled by the disregard with which
>editors treat those of us who spend fairly wasted time preparing texts for
>readers who cannot read the appropriate foreign language, in this case
>French. Tim Murphy surely deserves better treatment than the cursory: 'We
>would like to thank Fanny Deleuze and the [unnamed] translators: 'Thank
>you'.' And then there is the repetition of the misspelling, Melissa
>McM*u*han after her two translations.
>
>What's the point of this whinging? Simply stated: when one puts in the kind
>of effort that Tim, Melissa, and many others have done in translating texts
>long and short by Deleuze and Guattari, it seems a bit tedious, fatiguing,
>dare I say, insulting . . . to feel like an also-ran when it comes to the
>scholarly pecking order. Need I mention that many of the eager and earnest
>readers of Deleuze and Guattari, as well as of this issue, are perhaps only
>dimly aware that these two writers wrote all their works in French? And
>that without the labor of translators, most of these eager and earnest
>souls would be without access to these texts? Such commonplaces, however
>self-serving, apparently must be reiterated, and no review of this issue of
>_Discourse_ can be complete without setting the record straight.
>
>Charles J. Stivale
>Wayne State University
>Detroit, Missouri, USA
>http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/Romance/FreDeleuze.html
>