THE PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD » AO-Mistranslations

Ich/I/moi

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:57:52 +0000

Back to the question of translation though this time the text is encumbered by a move from the German original. Freud’s Oedipal trinity is of the “es/it,” the “Ich/I,” and the “Uber-Ich/Over-I.” While his English translators introduced the “id,” “ego,” and “super ego,” their French cousins remained closer to the original with the “ça,” “moi,” …

Subjects-2

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:51:25 +0000

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the psychoanalysis with which Deleuze and Guattari were most suffused, jouissance has come to hold pride of place amongst the categories and constructs. Jouissance is neither pleasure nor enjoyment (this is yet another one of those distinctions the translators seem to have completely missed); it is what goes beyond either of these …

Falling Back Onto

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:27:21 +0000

Before preceding any further, another note on the translation is in order. Most critical and most misleading in the English rendering is the translation of “se rabattre sur” as “to fall back onto.” The learned footnote on page 10 of the English text lists the various meanings of the verb “rabattre” and evokes, whether intentionally …

Breaking Down

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 03:18:53 +0000

In the context of a connective synthesis, a machine or a chain of associations works only when it breaks down. It works by breaking down, continually, by having the flow it produces interrupted and consumed by another that is inevitably produced by it. “Breaking down” in the French original is actually “detraquée.” The word suggests …