Pleasure Unthought in Translation

Abstract:Building on fifteen years translating Catherine Malabou’s thought from French to English, this article pursues my exploration of her signature plasticity within translation studies. It reflects on the ways Malabou draws on art to name plasticity, as a new thought that emerged for her in philosophy. Her recent book Le Plaisir effacé. Clitoris et pensée (2020) considers what to do with that which remains unthought precisely because it is unseen. Now that contemporary art is at last making the clitoris visible, offering it representation, I ask, does Malabou’s philosophical analysis offer a new art of clitoridean translation?