La traduction comme acte politique (Europe: 1500-1800) / Translation as a Political Act (Euorpe: 1500-1800)

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the connection between translation and politics, especially from a diachronic perspective. This turn towards the interface between translation and politics has been characterized by a significant widening of the field of research and a strong interdisciplinary approach. The essays this issue follow this generally interdisciplinary framework, and maintain a marked diachronic focus, with papers ranging from the early modern period until the early nineteenth century in Europe. The essays presented cover a wide variety of translation events, and share a view of translation as a particular form of political doing, as a particular means by which a political act can be carried out. They share, in other words, a perspective that highlights the performative aspect of translation, its 'doing something' in the world at a particular time and in a particular place. As such, the issue focuses on translation within a performative and pragmatic perspective on language deriving from the work of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969).