The contemporary history of translation into Persian has witnessed the development of different approaches that attempt to address problems including mistranslation, untranslatability, and unintelligibility. Some view radical reconstructions in Persian as inevitable for proper translation. But such approaches are harshly criticized by conservatives, who argue that radical reconstruction comes at the expense of intelligibility. At the same time, related debates are not confined to language and translation but often extend to more general issues of a cultural nature. This project conceptualizes debates on translation into Persian and seeks to situate the problem of translation in contemporary Iran in its cultural context. Could the problem instead be related to the cultural challenge of choosing between domestication and foreignization in the age of globalization?

Roohola Ramezani is a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy and a freelance translator. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. His Ph.D. thesis focuses on the epistemology of disagreement, and his research interests include topics in social philosophy and cultural studies. While teaching courses in social epistemology and the philosophy of science in recent years, he has also translated texts in philosophy and the humanities into Persian.