The Time of Translation

In this paper, I analyze the time dimension at play in translation processes. First, I consider the simple time relation between a translation and its original. I then consider the multiple and overlapping relations between the translation and the original in history through a specific case study: the translations of the Laozi collected in Micha Tadd’s project Laozegetics. This move discloses tensions in the “history of translation,” which I try to understand with the help of Michel Serres’s conceptual tools. Finally, I stress translation’s inherent power to erode the present state of things and its intimate relation with possible futures.