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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 >