The Adulteress Wife

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toril Moi
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scholarly Edition ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
English Speaking

Nearly 20 years after Margaret Simons broke the news of the scandal of the English translation of Le deuxième sexe, Toril Moi’s 2002 essay deepened feminist claims in relation to Parshley’s translation, and chronicled the long and still-unsuccessful struggle with Alfred Knopf for a new translation/scholarly edition. Moi showed that “the philosophical incompetence of the translation produces a text that is damaging to Beauvoir’s intellectual reputation in particular and to the reputation of feminist philosophy in general” by detailing Parshley’s silent deletions of sentences and parts of sentences, his tendency to turn existence into essence, misread philosophical references to “subjectivity”, remain clueless about references to Hegel, and misunderstand Beauvoir’s account of alienation. These failures falsely emboldened Beauvoir’s critics by eliminating nuance from key discussions of themes like motherhood. “Her works will not enter the public domain until 2056,” Moi pointed out, and the stubborn refusal of the publisher to commission a new translation meant that essays like this one were absolutely essential to teaching Beauvoir’s Second Sex to English speaking students—“while we wait.”

While We Wait

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toril Moi
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Scholarly Edition ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
English Speaking

Nearly twenty years after Margaret Simons broke the news of the scandal of the English translation of Le deuxième sexe, Toril Moi’s 2002 essay deepened feminist claims in relation to Parshley’s translation. This reprint chronicles the long and at that time unsuccessful struggle with Alfred Knopf for a new translation/scholarly edition. Moi showed that “the philosophical incompetence” of the translation damaged both de Beauvoir’s reputation and that of feminist philosophy by detailing Parshley’s silent deletions of sentences and parts of sentences, his tendency to turn “existence” into “essence,” misreading of philosophical references to “subjectivity,” botched references to Hegel, misunderstanding of Beauvoir’s account of alienation, and elimination of nuance from key discussions of themes like motherhood. Since de Beauvoir’s works will not enter public domain until 2056, the refusal of the publisher to commission a new translation meant that essays like this one were essential to teaching Beauvoir’s Second Sex to English-speaking students.

Jesuit Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 1585-1617 in English Translation

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 375-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. E. H. Hair
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Cape Verde Islands ◽  
The Public

As part of a projected series of edited early Portuguese texts on Guinea, in the early 1960s the late Vice-Admiral Avelino Teixeira da Mota began to assemble, partly from archives, documents for a volume he intended to call Jesuit Reports. As it happened, many of the documents, especially those from Jesuit sources, were published in 1968 by another Portuguese scholar, the late P. Antońio Brásio. But Teixeira da Mota did not abandon his project, partly because he considered that Brásio did not always take account of all copies of a document and all variant readings, and partly because Brásio was unable to accompany the documents with informed Africanist annotation. In the 1970s Teixeira da Mota sent me his own collection of documents to translate into English— and also so that I could ultimately contribute part of their annotation. My translations were completed just before Teixeira da Mota died in 1982, and I have since translated a number of other documents, all from Brásio, which help to round out the picture. Not all of the documents were written by the Jesuits themselves, but most were.When it became clear that the publication of Teixeira da Mota's series would proceed at best very slowly, I began to publish those of the translations which were of material in the public domain, beginning with the material printed in the early seventeenth century by Guerreiro. Since much of the material related to Sierra Leone, I published in the Africana Research Bulletin of the Institute of African Studies at Freetown, and am much indebted to the organizers of the journal for providing an outlet.

The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Simons
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Women's Oppression ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Impact

This chapter, first published in 1983, initially breaks the news of the scandal of the first English translation of Le deuxième sexe to the English speaking world. Through a painstaking comparative reading of the Parshley translation, published by Knopf, alongside the original French, the chapter reveals the abridgment and editing of the original text with no indication of specific cuts in the text. It shows that Parshley’s version of The Second Sex exhibits a sexist pattern of selection that reduces the impact of Beauvoir’s discussions of women’s history; drastically reduces the number of references to women writers, poets, politicians, military figures, etc.; curtails discussions of women’s oppression; and obscures Beauvoir’s philosophical commitments. This text was the first of those that ignited the flood of contemporary Beauvoir scholarship in the English-speaking world. It was because of Margaret Simon’s work that Beauvoir became aware of the flawed translation shortly before her death in 1986, and expressed her ardent wish for a new translation.

Rewritten or Reused? Originality, Intertextuality, and Reuse in the Writings of a Buddhist Visionary in Contemporary Tibet

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 203-231
Author(s):  
Antonio Terrone
Keyword(s):  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Way

The study of Buddhist texts can inform us of the way scriptures were composed, as well as illuminate the reasons behind their production. This study examines the phenomenon of borrowing and reusing portions of texts without attributing them to their ‘legitimate authors’ within the Buddhist world of contemporary Tibet. It shows that not only is such a practice not at all infrequent and is often socially accepted, but that it is used in this case as a platform to advance specific claims and promote an explicit agenda. Therefore, rather than considering these as instances of plagiarism, this essay looks at the practice of copying and borrowing as an exercise in intertextuality, intended as the faithful retransmission of ancient truths, and as an indication of the public domain of texts in Tibet.

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