Specters of the West and the Politics of Translation (Traces 1)

This is the first installment of the Traces series, which was originally published by the series editors and distributed in limited quantities. It is now made available by the Hong Kong University Press in its new role as the English-language publisher of Traces. This first volume deals with the underlying principle of the series as a whole: the fundamental role of translation in modernity. Until recently, the global circulation of academic and intellectual information has customarily been divided: empirical information and factual datum may come from peripheral sites to the “West,” whereas the academic information generally called “theory” and is believed to be universal is generated in the West and moves from there to the rest of the world. In order to counter such assumptions, and by creating a venue for academics who wish to express themselves in their native tongue, this volume seeks to expose and support the flow of theoretical knowledge in multiple directions.