Editorial politics on translations

J. Dewey in the collection Cultura, Sociedade e Educação (Culture, Society and Education), edited by Anísio Teixeira

Abstract

This article analyzes the translation regime on two of John Dewey’s works – Liberdade, Liberalismo e educação (Freedom, liberalism and education) and Experiência e educação (Experience and education) – set up by Coleção Cultura, Sociedade e Educação (Collection Culture, Society and Education), run by Anísio Teixeira and published by Companhia Editora Nacional (CEN), between 1968 and 1971. The assumption of the analysis is that translations might express cultural interchange practices and the circulation of ideas between different cultures. But they are also affected by the processes that turn them into adapted texts for specific readerships, when published and materialized in paper and ink by specific editorial policies that establish regimes that rule the translation of texts. The source is the translation of Dewey taken in the materiality of books in the collection, its critical apparatus and internal documents of the publishing company. The conclusion is that Dewey’s texts were gathered, translated and edited by Anísio Teixeira at Coleção Cultura, Sociedade e Educação as a program for democracy in hard times – the civilianmilitary dictatorship in Brazil and in Latin America – to the ordinary public. Dewey’s translations are, under the auspices of this collection, as an antidote to violence, to the stolen words, to the suppression and oppression of freedom, expressions that should make up all and every ordinary or general culture in democratic countries.