Translation of Four Books by Westphal in the Field of Interdisciplinary Studies
According to Iran Book News Agency (IBNA), Bertrand Westphal is a professor of comparative literature at the Center for Human Spaces and Cultural Interactions at Limoges University in France and a member of the French University Academy. Since 2000, he has been recognized as one of the theorists in the fields of literature, geography, and space, and in the years ahead, he has endeavored to expand this idea and theory.
Ahmad Shakeri, a faculty member of the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies and a translator, spoke with IBNA about the translation of Westphal’s works: “The first book, titled ‘Geocriticism: Reality, Fiction, Space,’ was published in 2007 by Minuit Editions in France. Geocriticism can be considered a critical approach in literary cultural studies that involves the study of various spaces. In France, Bertrand Westphal elaborated on the concept of geocriticism in several of his works, and in the United States, Robert Tally, the translator of this work, believes that geocriticism is a form of literary analysis and mapping. Accordingly, this approach is one of the new approaches in comparative and interdisciplinary studies, which, from one perspective, examines the link between literature and space and the human world, and then, in the extension of urban studies, addresses the representation of urban spaces from different viewpoints. From another perspective, it calls for a human approach to shaping urban spaces and cultural development for empathetic and ethical coexistence of citizens.”
He continued: “This book has been published in six languages to date, with its latest Chinese edition released in November 2024. The current book has five chapters and has garnered significant interest in the field of interdisciplinary studies due to its lack of Persian translation since its initial publication, as well as some inaccurate previous translations of parts of the book. The right to publish the work in Persian has been acquired by the translator from the French publisher, and the author has also written an introduction for the Persian translation. The translation of this work was carried out by myself and Ms. Arezoo Soleimani, based on both French and English versions.”
Shakeri added: “Westphal’s second work, published in 2011, is titled ‘The Probable World: Space, Place, Map,’ written in five chapters. In this book, Westphal analyzes how space is understood and represented in Western culture and other civilizations. He demonstrates how the perception of space is shaped through myth, religion, philosophy, literature, and cartography, and how this understanding has influenced the worldviews of civilizations. The book begins with a critique of ‘Western centrism,’ showing how the West has considered itself the center of the world and imposed this view on others through maps and narratives.”
The French language translator also spoke about other works underway for publication: “The third work, titled ‘Atlas of Wanderings,’ was published in 2019. This book was released after his famous trilogy, ‘Geocriticism’ (2007), ‘The Probable World’ (2011), and ‘The Meridian Cages’ (2016), and offers a new approach to analyzing real space and its artistic representations. In this work, Westphal, with the help of an analysis of interdisciplinary boundaries, examines visual media such as cinema, artistic maps, architecture, and even performance art. The book is a collection of 11 articles compiled from Westphal’s lectures between 2013 and 2018. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s concept of ‘rhizome,’ he chose a non-linear, puzzle-like structure for the book, inviting the reader to explore multiple paths. The fourth translation is also of Westphal’s book titled ‘Cultural Infinity: Literary Theory and the Fragility of Diversity,’ published in 2023. In this book, by combining literary theory, cultural geography, and postmodern philosophy, he argues that understanding cultures requires moving beyond limited Western frameworks. The book’s structure is organized into six chapters with general titles (e.g., ‘Endless Openings,’ ‘Focal Contradictions’) that emphasize the incompleteness of the analyses. For this reason, using case studies, it critiques the ‘myth of unity’ in Western culture and proposes a new ethics for confronting cultural plurality. Westphal’s argument is that in a globalized and hypermedia world like today’s, the artistic representation of spaces inevitably raises questions about the cultural diversity of our planet’s inhabitants.”
Shakeri concluded: “In this book, Westphal poses a set of central questions for understanding the contemporary cultural and critical landscape. Undoubtedly, this is a major challenge, as ‘infinity’ hardly fits within the pages of a book. Perhaps this is why the author chose plural titles for the six chapters of the book (e.g., ‘Endless Openings’) to emphasize the incompleteness of the discussed examples. Nevertheless, these case studies are not random, and issues such as perspectival relativism, layers of intertextual connections, the deterritorialization of the artwork and its circulation have previously been at the core of the author’s thought. These concepts act as markers that prompt the reader to navigate the complex network of case studies.”
These four books have been completed by a group of translators edited by Ahmad Shakeri, in collaboration with Arezoo Soleimani, Atieh Arabi, and Mahsa Rezapour.
It is worth noting that Ahmad Shakeri is a faculty member of the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, a graduate of comparative literature from the Center for Human Spaces and Cultural Interactions at Limoges University in France, and currently an affiliated researcher and research collaborator at Limoges University. His works include the compilation and translation of ‘An Explanatory Dictionary of Postcolonial Studies’ as well as the co-translation of the book ‘Actor-Network Theory in Megacities’.
