Translationality

by Douglas Robinson

This book defines "translationality" by weaving a number of sub- and interdisciplinary interests through the medical humanities: medicine in literature, the translational history of medical literature, a medical (neuroscience) approach to literary translation and translational hermeneutics, and a humanities (phenomenological/performative) approach to translational medicine. It consists of three long essays: the first on the traditional medicine-in-literature side of the medical humanities, with a close look at a recent novel built around the Capgras delusion and other neurological misidentification disorders; the second beginning with the traditional history-of-medicine side of the medical humanities, but segueing into literary history, translation history, and translation theory; the third on the social neuroscience of translational hermeneutics. The conclusion links the discussion up with a humanistic (performative/phenomenological) take on translational medicine.

262 pages, Hardcover

Published May 26, 2017

Reviews

[Mohammad Aboomar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title can be a bit misleading: is this a book about translation or medical humanities? It is in fact a book about translation - as expanded to include medical humanities and neurococultural interpretations of translation (or at least that's how I understood it).

The book introduces icosis / ecosis, or plauzibiliation / normativization. The book also suggests interepistemic translation as a name for translational processes taking place between epistemic systems (a concept discussed in consequent literature simply as epistemic translation). The book is stringed together with the underlying idea of "translationality as transformationality", or in my understanding that change is necessarily a translation process.

I certainly need to read more in order to understand better and form my own position, and this book was an excellent step in this direction.