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Zrinka Stahuljak, "Fixers: Agency, Translation, and the Early Global History of Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
New Books in Intellectual History
Communication is Collective, Not Individual
Medieval society was predominantly oral, relying on kinship and communal connections, resulting in collective communication rather than individualistic expressions. This perspective shifts how we view concepts such as commensuration, reciprocity, and gift exchange. The idea of a 'fixer' emerges as an autonomous agent facilitating commensuration, which contrasts with notions of untranslatability and fidelity—views grounded in colonial concepts of ownership and textuality. Untranslatability fails to capture the essence of oral cultures, while fidelity reflects a colonial disposition to claim originality over derivative works. In the medieval context, translation served as a means of cultural transmission rather than mere replication. A transformation in our understanding of translation from a focus on texts to relationality can reshape how we approach history, emphasizing the social dynamics and lived experiences over textual relations, thereby enabling a more holistic view of historical research.
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