Translation is an important job!

When asked, "What is your research about?" I usually answer, "Contemporary thought." Contemporary thought is a broad term that collectively refers to the movement of reorganization in the humanities that has been developing, mainly in Europe, since the mid-20th century and continues to this day.

I translate, introduce, and research the works of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, who are synonymous with French contemporary thought. My translations include Foucault's Security, Territory, Population and Derrida's The Death Penalty, Volume I. My research publications include After Foucault (co-edited) and Thinking with Derrida on the Death Penalty (edited).  

My field also includes Italy. I have translated numerous works by Giorgio Agamben, one of the leading figures in contemporary Italian thought (including Beyond Human Rights, Homo Sacer, Bartleby, The Potentiality of Thought, The Kingdom and the Glory, Nymphs, and Stasis), and have also published the research book In the Name of Agamben.  

Now, I will not delve further into the substance of my research at this time (please visit my homepage). All the works listed above are written in Japanese, so in principle, anyone can refer to them without difficulty. In what follows, I will write only about something that is, in a sense, superficial and formal, related to this very fact of being able to refer to them without difficulty.  

In my work, translation cannot be ignored in terms of either quality or quantity. I still sometimes hear opinions like, "Translation is just turning something horizontal into something vertical. It can't be considered a proper achievement." However, the endeavor of "making various global discussions accurately accessible in a Japanese-language environment" should not be taken lightly. In general, academic translation cannot be accomplished by merely "turning something horizontal into something vertical."

For researchers whose native language is Japanese, the majority can likely handle English but not French, and Italian is probably out of the question for most. The act of translation naturally has an internal function within the research world, such as "enabling researchers who can only read Japanese and English to refer to discussions in French or Italian."

But that is not all. Contemporary thought, or more broadly, the humanities, are in principle accessible to everyone. In the sense of "making it readable for everyone in Japanese," the significance of translating contemporary thought can be considered in parallel with the significance of translating literary works, for example.

(Just to be clear, the above also applies to English! Even though English is the de facto standard language in the research world, it is not so simple that one can boast, "Translation is unnecessary. With English, I can grasp the meaning of any text as smoothly and accurately as reading Japanese." Far from it...)

Translation is an important job!