"Winner of a 2015 Outstanding Reference Sources Award, Reference and User Services Association, American Library Association" "One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2015, selected by Hari Kunzru" "One of The Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year 2014, chosen by David Wootton" "One of The Times Higher Education Supplement's Books of the Year 2014, chosen by Robert S. C. Gordon" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014" Barbara Cassin is director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. Emily Apter is professor of comparative literature and French at New York University. Jacques Lezra is professor of Spanish, Portuguese and comparative literature at NYU. Michael Wood is the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University.
Characters in some languages, particularly Hebrew and Arabic, may not display properly due to device limitations. Transliterations of terms appear before the representations in foreign characters.
This is an encyclopedic dictionary of close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms and concepts that defy easy-or any-translation from one language and culture to another. Drawn from more than a dozen languages, terms such as Dasein (German), pravda (Russian), saudade (Portuguese), and stato (Italian) are thoroughly examined in all their cross-linguistic and cross-cultural complexities. Spanning the classical, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary periods, these are terms that influence thinking across the humanities. The entries, written by more than 150 distinguished scholars, describe the origins and meanings of each term, the history and context of its usage, its translations into other languages, and its use in notable texts. The dictionary also includes essays on the special characteristics of particular languages--English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Originally published in French, this one-of-a-kind reference work is now available in English for the first time, with new contributions from Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more.The result is an invaluable reference for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the multilingual lives of some of our most influential words and ideas.
• Covers close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms that defy easy translation between languages and cultures
• Includes terms from more than a dozen languages
• Entries written by more than 150 distinguished thinkers
• Available in English for the first time, with new contributions by Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more
• Contains extensive cross-references and bibliographies
• An invaluable resource for students and scholars across the humanities "[W]hat may be the weirdest book the twenty-first century has so far produced. . . . [T]his is a considerable and entertaining book, full of odd words beautifully, at times owlishly, annotated."---Adam Gopnik, New Yorker "[An] extraordinary book. . . . Many of the entries are illuminating, but what is most fascinating about the book is its partial vision of a fragment of European culture, through the dissection of its philosophical vocabulary."---Tim Crane, Times Literary Supplement "[A] cornucopia of lexical trajectories and semantic adventures across a wide variety of languages and histories. . . . As for the achievement of Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra and Michael Wood in orchestrating the English edition, that qualifies as heroic . . . this book is another valuable reminder that a philosophy that ignores i
