Dr Sameh Hanna Soliman's - new article published

Our warmest congratulations to Dr Hanna on his recently published paper: Knowledge Production and Identity Formation in Two Arabic Translations of the Bible.

Hanna, Sameh. 2018. Knowledge Production and Identity Formation in Two Arabic Translations of the Bible. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 38: 11-45

This article seeks to explore the complex socio-cultural dynamics involved in the Arabic translation of the Bible. Using Al Subawi’s Rhymed Gospels (1300) and Al Bustani-Van Dyck’s (1865) Bible as case studies, the processes of knowledge production and identity formation are described and accounted for through the conceptual tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu. The study is motivated by two key aims: first, to problematise the translation of sacred texts in general, and the Bible in particular, by casting a fresh perspective from the sociology of cultural production; second, to challenge the ‘disinterestedness’ associated with translators of sacred texts, unveiling the positioned decisions made by translators of the Bible into Arabic in negotiating Christian sacredness in the language of the Qur’an.