Translating Egypt's Revolution

Description

A unique interpretation of Egypt's revolution, through analysis of the language used during the protests in numerous forms: the written, sung, and spoken word, across a variety of media
This unique interdisciplinary collective project is the culmination of research and translation work conducted by American University in Cairo students of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds who continue to witness Egypt's ongoing revolution. This historic event has produced an unprecedented proliferation of political and cultural documents and materials, whether written, oral, or visual. Given their range, different linguistic registers, and referential worlds, these documents present a great challenge to any translator.
The contributors to this volume have selectively translated chants, banners, jokes, poems, and interviews, as well as presidential speeches and military communiqués. Their practical translation work is informed by the cultural turn in translation studies and the nuanced role of the translator as negotiator between texts and cultures. The chapters focus on the relationship between translation and semiotics, issues of fidelity and equivalence, creative transformation and rewriting, and the issue of target readership. This mature collective project is in many ways a reenactment of the new infectious revolutionary spirit in Egypt today.
Introduction: Translating Revolution
Samia Mehrez
I. Mulid al-Tahrir: Semiotics of a Revolution
Sahar Keraitim and Samia Mehrez
II. Of Drama and Performance: Transformative Discourses of the Revolution
Amira Taha and Christopher Combs
III. Signs and Signifiers: Visual Translations of Revolt
Sarah Hawas and Laura Gribbon
IV. Reclaiming the City: Street Art of the Revolution
Lewis Sanders IV
V. Al-Thawra al-Dahika: The Challenges of Translating Revolutionary Humor
Kantaro Taira and Heba Salem
VI. The Soul of Tahrir: Poetics of the Revolution
Lewis Sanders IV and Mark Visonà
VII. The Army and the People are One Hand: Myths and their Translations
Menna Khalil
VIII. Global Translations and Translating the Global: Discursive Regimes of Revolt
Sarah Hawas
Appendices
(Arabic texts)
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Political Science

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617973567
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Translating Egypt’s Revolution
This unique interdisciplinary collective project is the culmination of research and translation work conducted by AUC students of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds who continue to witness Egypt's ongoing revolution. This historic event has produced an unprecedented proliferation of political and cultural documents and materials, whether written, oral, or visual. Given their range, different linguistic registers, and referential worlds, these documents present a great challenge to any translator.
The contributors to this volume have selectively translated chants, banners, jokes, poems, and interviews, as well as presidential speeches and military communiqués. Their practical translation work is informed by the cultural turn in translation studies and the nuanced role of the translator as negotiator between texts and cultures. The chapters focus on the relationship between translation and semiotics, issues of fidelity and equivalence, creative transformation and rewriting, and the issue of target readership. This mature collective project is in many ways a reenactment of the new infectious revolutionary spirit in Egypt today.

First published in 2012 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com

Copyright © 2012 Samia Mehrez

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Dar el Kutub No. 11218/11
eISBN 978-1-6179-7356-7

Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mehrez, Samia
      Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir / Samia Mehrez. —Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2012
      p. cm.
      ISBN 978 977 416 533 7
      1. Egypt—History—1981
      2. Revolutions
      I. Title

1 2 3 4 16 15 14 13 12

Designed by Adam el-Sehemy
For Egypt: the revolutionaries and the martyrs whose creative energy, unwavering courage, and enormous sacrifice continue to inspire us all
Contents

Note on the Contributors

Note on Transliteration

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Translating Revolution: An Open Text Samia Mehrez 1. Mulid al-Tahrir : Semiotics of a Revolution Sahar Keraitim and Samia Mehrez 2. Of Drama and Performance: Transformative Discourses of the Revolution Amira Taha and Christopher Combs 3. Signs and Signifiers: Visual Translations of Revolt Laura Gribbon and Sarah Hawas 4. Reclaiming the City: Street Art of the Revolution Lewis Sanders IV 5. al-Thawra al-DaHika : The Challenges of Translating Revolutionary Humor Heba Salem and Kantaro Taira 6. The Soul of Tahrir: Poetics of a Revolution Lewis Sanders IV and Mark Visonà 7. The People and the Army Are One Hand: Myths and Their Translations Menna Khalil 8. Global Translations and Translating the Global: Discursive Regimes of Revolt Sarah Hawas
Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3
Note on the Contributors

Chris Combs has a BA in Spanish and history from Mount Saint Mary’s University in Maryland. Early in his career, he became fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and developed an interest in translation. Since he began learning Arabic in 2002, Chris has spent three years living and studying in the Middle East, and was pursuing a graduate diploma in Middle East studies at the American University in Cairo when Egypt’s revolution began. He currently serves as director of international programs at a trade association near Washington, D.C., and aims to continue working with Arabic in his career.
Laura Gribbon has a first class bachelor’s degree in international development with NGO management from the University of East London. She is currently studying for an MSc in Middle East politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Her professional background is in youth and community relations, working in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland on the politics of identity. Laura’s work focuses on the discovery of unheard voices and she has a keen interest in conveying messages through images and the non-verbal. Arriving in Cairo in early January 2011, and living close to Tahrir, Laura was often in the midan speaking to people and taking pictures.
Sarah Hawas graduated from the American University in Cairo in 2011 with a BA in comparative literature. In the past, she has translated for creative writers, journalists, bloggers, and social movements in Palestine, Egypt, India, and the United Arab Emirates. Sarah is fluent in English and Arabic, with a reading knowledge of Hebrew and French. She is interested in the role of translation in the political economy of culture, with a special emphasis on gender politics, as well as contemporary literary and translation practices in the Arab world and Israel. She plans to pursue graduate studies in the near future.
Sahar Keraitim is a graduate student in the Middle East studies program at the American University in Cairo. Her main fields of research are the politics of the Middle East, conflict resolution, and gender studies. She holds both Egyptian and Norwegian nationalities and has three years’ work experience in the field of translation, mainly from Norwegian into Arabic. She had the privilege of being in Egypt and experiencing the revolution from the very beginning.
Menna Khalil is an independent researcher and writer working between the Middle East and the United States, interested in pursuing further graduate studies in anthropology. She holds an MA in international human rights law from the American University in Cairo and a BA in international studies, French, and economic theory from DePaul University in Chicago. Menna’s academic interests in anthropological approaches to language, semiotic mediation, and narrative production have guided her work on translation and forms of storytelling. She has been carrying out ethnographic work on the relationship between citizens and the Egyptian army following the ouster of former president Mubarak.
Samia Mehrez is a professor of Arabic literature and founding director of the Center for Translation Studies at the American University in Cairo. She has published widely in the fields of modern Arabic literature, postcolonial literature, translation studies, gender studies, and cultural studies. She is the author of Egyptian Writers between History and Fiction: Essays on Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim, and Gamal al-Ghitani , and Egypt’s Culture Wars: Politics and Practice . She has translated numerous Egyptian writers in her edited anthologies A Literary Atlas of Cairo and The Literary Life of Cairo , published in English by the American University in Cairo Press and in Arabic by Dar el-Shorouk.
Heba Salem has an MA in teaching Arabic as a foreign language from the American University in Cairo, where she also earned a BA in mass communication with a minor in psychology. She currently teaches various levels of Egyptian Colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic at AUC. She has participated in developing computer-assisted materials and a website for reading and listening materials for Aswat Arabia. She is co-author of a book on colloquial Arabic to be published by the American University in Cairo Press. Heba is particularly interested in the creative linguistic energy of the January 25 Revolution in Egypt.
Lewis Sanders IV is a graduate student in the Middle East studies program at the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy of the American University in Cairo. He received a BA in international and comparative politics with departmental honors from the American University of Paris in 2009. His research interests are identity formation in Egypt’s cultural underground, the impact of space on identity, semiotic theory, and post-structuralist approaches to Middle East studies. He is proficient in Spanish and French, and has a working knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. His work on translation attempts to capture alternative narratives in the January 25 Revolution.
Amira Taha is completing her master’s thesis on Egyptian and Tunisian civil–military relations in the Department of Political Science of the American University in Cairo, where she also received her bachelor’s degree in international relations. Her professional background is in the field of governance and civil-society development. Amira took on this book project because the Egyptian Revolution, although still in progress, represents to her an epic period that ought to be documented, taught, and studied.
Kantaro Taira has an MA in area studies from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, where he is enrolled in a doctoral program. For three years he has translated articles from Al-Ahram newspaper into Japanese for a Tokyo University project. He studied Japanese literature, but was impressed by Ghassan Kanafani’s short stories and decided to shift to Arabic literature. He is also enrolled in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo, where he is pursuing studies in Arabic literature.
Mark Visonà has an undergraduate degree in Arabic language and linguistics from Georgetown University and is completing his master’s thesis in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the American University in Cairo. In addition to poetry, he enjoys translating drama and has written an honors thesis comparing two plays of Yusuf Idris. As a dual Italian/American citizen living in Cairo, he studies both theoretical and practical journalism and writes anecdotal short stories in his spare time.
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