Abstract
This article examines two pivotal processes in the intellectual history of modern Iran: first, the dynamism of theory as it “travels” across cultural and geographical contexts and undergoes semantic transformation; and second, the role of translation in the reception of ideas in Iran and the crisis-producing consequences of decontextualized or imitative translation. The first part, drawing on Edward Said’s notion of “traveling theory,” shows how concepts are reread and reconfigured when moving from one milieu to another; a salient example is the migration of the idea of “Westoxification” from Heidegger’s philosophical framework into Iranian, and subsequently Indian, horizons. The second part analyzes the experience of translation in the Iranian humanities and argues that neglecting the historical and contextual aspects has resulted in theoretical weakness.
