"The Alien Within":translation into German during the Nazi regime

In a regime obsessed with purity, what place could there be for a literary practice that epitomises hybridity — translation? Examining the discourse on translation in Nazi literary journals, this study shows how foreign literature was viewed through the prism of national identity formation, in terms of the threats or benefits to nationhood which translation might offer. The fortunes of translation under the strictures of censorship are traced with an analysis of official policies and publication patterns, complemented by two detailed case studies of translations from English.

Towards an integrative theory of religion and politics

In the social sciences, debate on the relationship between religion and politics is mainly the subject of analysis in the sociology of religion and the theory of international relations. While each of these fields promotes different approaches to study their interdependency. The individual's perception of religion and politics is neglected by current research. The faithful, who participates in religious ceremonies, listening and behaving according to specific religious teachings, actively engaging in the liturgical life of the institutional form of his religion, has a specific way of understanding the relationship between religion and politics. I argue that this aspect is under-researched and misrepresented in the literature of sociology and international relations. However, a more complex analysis is offered by the study of nationalism, and especially by its ethnosymbolic approach, which includes at the micro and macro societal level the presence of myths and symbols as part of the individual's and the nation's life. An integrative theory analysing the connection between religion and politics takes into account the role of myths and symbols from the perspectives of both individuals and ethnic communities.

The Internet and other IT resources:tools for translators within a translation programme

Information technology has increased both the speed and medium of communication between nations. It has brought the world closer, but it has also created new challenges for translation — how we think about it, how we carry it out and how we teach it. Translation and Information Technology has brought together experts in computational linguistics, machine translation, translation education, and translation studies to discuss how these new technologies work, the effect of electronic tools, such as the internet, bilingual corpora, and computer software, on translator education and the practice of translation, as well as the conceptual gaps raised by the interface of human and machine.

Translation and intercultural communication: similarities and differences

Despite increasing attention in the last decade, both Intercultural Communication Studies (ICS) and Translation Studies (TS) seem to have reached a stage where some of the key concepts and assumptions are being challenged. This paper looks at similarities and differences in the use of shared concepts, especially the concept of intercultural communicative competence. It begins with a brief sketch of the development of the discipline of Translation Studies and goes on to present some assumptions which TS shares with ICS. However, the two disciplines operate with a different concept of communication and intercultural communicative competence: ICS is researching natural communication for independent acting, whereas TS is concerned with a specific kind of professionally enabled communication. The paper then presents a definition of a translationspecific cultural competence (based on Witte 2000) and illustrates the development of translation competence in the context of translator training at universities.

Translation and the EU - conditions and consequences

Translation plays an important role in the EU institutions. The description and explanation of the conditions of translation work and of the products of this work pose challenges to Translation Studies. For example, it needs to be tested whether traditional concepts do apply to the translation activity and its products, or whether modified or new concepts need to be introduced. Some of these concepts are reconsidered in view of the new contexts. Cross-references are made to the individual contributions in this issue which provide specific information.

Knowledge:the foundations of knowledge

Knowledge is of crucial, and growing importance in social, political and economic relations in modern society. The range and variety of available knowledge dramatically enlarges the available options of social action. This five volume collection brings together a broad array of contributions from a variety of disciplines. Featuring essays from philosophers who have investigated the foundations of knowledge, and addressing different forms of knowledge in society such as common sense and practical knowledge, this collection also discusses the role of knowledge in economic process and gives attention to the role of expert knowledge in political decision making. Including a collection of articles from the sociology of knowledge and science, the set also provides a new introduction by the editors, making it a unique and invaluable research resource for both student and scholar.

Feminist translation studies:local and transnational perspectives

Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives situates feminist translation as political activism. Chapters highlight the multiple agendas and visions of feminist translation and the different political voices and cultural heritages through which it speaks across times and places, addressing the question of how both literary and nonliterary discourses migrate and contribute to local and transnational processes of feminist knowledge building and political activism. This collection does not pursue a narrow, fixed definition of feminism that is based solely on (Eurocentric or West-centric) gender politics—rather, Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives seeks to expand our understanding of feminist action not only to include feminist translation as resistance against multiple forms of domination, but also to rethink feminist translation through feminist theories and practices developed in different geohistorical and disciplinary contexts. In so doing, the collection expands the geopolitical, sociocultural and historical scope of the field from different disciplinary perspectives, pointing towards a more transnational, interdisciplinary and overtly political conceptualization of translation studies.

Contextualising accounts of illness:Notions of responsibility and blame in white and South Asian respondents' accounts of diabetes causation

We undertook a secondary analysis of in-depth interviews with white (n = 32) and Pakistani and Indian (n = 32) respondents who had type 2 diabetes, which explored their perceptions and understandings of disease causation. We observed subtle, but important, differences in the ways in which these respondent groups attributed responsibility and blame for developing the disease. Whereas Pakistani and Indian respondents tended to externalise responsibility, highlighting their life circumstances in general and/or their experiences of migrating to Britain in accounting for their diabetes (or the behaviours they saw as giving rise to it), white respondents, by contrast, tended to emphasise the role of their own lifestyle 'choices' and 'personal failings'. In seeking to understand these differences, we argue for a conceptual and analytical approach which embraces both micro- (i.e. everyday) and macro- (i.e. cultural) contextual factors and experiences. In so doing, we provide a critique of social scientific studies of lay accounts/understandings of health and illness. We suggest that greater attention needs to be paid to the research encounter (that is, to who is looking at whom and in what circumstances) to understand the different kinds of contexts researchers have highlighted in presenting and interpreting their data. © 2007 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Objects and the production of technological forms of life:understanding organisational arrangements from a postsocial perspective

Objects are produced within, and simultaneously affect, the process of organizing as a consequence of their interaction within social collectives. This paper discusses the impact and influences of the growth of post-social relations, between human and technological objects, on social and organisational arrangements. The paper presents a discussion largely at the conceptual level and draws from a variety of literatures, including the burgeoning sociology of science literature. The discussion in this paper is based on a view that posits the growth of intimate links with epistemic objects within organisations and society. Organising through networks of post-social relations increasingly comes to affect the manner in which differing groups of organisational participants, and particularly various categories of knowledge workers, experience time and spatial arrangements within organisations.