While the introduction and legitimation of CTS (Critical Translation Studies) to plain old TS (Translation Studies) frames Exorcising Translation, its significance for readers outside of Translation Studies is considerably deeper. In short, out of Sakai's notion of the “civilizational spell," Robinson builds a critical apparatus that can explain Orientalism and its less discursively-defined other Occidentalism, critiquing renowned scholars and philosophers for being spellbound to “ethnocentric misunderstandings of other cultures and other civilizations”. … [Robinson] builds a framework for a more ambitious Translation Studies.

symploke

Exorcising Translation is a cogent and innovative problematisation of the unnecessarily inevitable and highly influential dichotomy that confronts universalist and relativist ideologies in translation studies, in theory and in comparative cultural studies. Doug Robinson's work exemplifies maturing trends in postcolonial and postmodernist studies.

Sean Golden, Full Professor of East Asian Studies, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

In his very compelling Exorcising Translation, Douglas Robinson draws heavily from the work of Sakai Naoki, a plethora of figures in translation studies, and several intriguing case studies from Chinese writing, to create a kind of dialogue between “East” and “West.” He explores some of the conundrums that have arisen within translation studies and the impasse between the deconstruction of the many cliché oppositions still taken for granted and the labels of “ethnocentrism” and “appropriation” when theorists attempt to cross these oppositions. With the kind of creativity and novelty usually exhibited in Robinson's work, he provides a new kind of vocabulary to examine the borders between binary oppositions from the point of view of the “leakage” across them that, while not eliminating difference, at least help us “demystify” it.

Ben Van Wyke, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Translation Studies, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, USA

This book presents a very thought-provoking critical exposition of the nature of translation by driving it into its crucial foundations in philosophies in East and West. From this powerful Exorcising, translation emerges beyond temporal and spatial boundaries not just as a bridge between cultures or ideologies but, most fundamentally, between human minds over the troubled water of (mis)understanding under the spell of civilizational biases – an insight meaningful for anyone interested in translation and cultural studies.

Chunshen Zhu, Professor of Translation Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong