Maisons de la Sagesse - Traduire

Maisons de la sagesse – Traduire is a charitable organization housed at Maison des sciences de l'Homme - Paris Nord (MSH).

A space that sees translation as knowing how to live with difference, the organization believes that languages, skills, cultures, and visions of the world are a means by which individuals can become citizens of something larger.

Its members are citizens, artists, creators, and researchers from across the disciplines, as well as associations, organisms, and institutions who are working together to celebrate social cohesion and the power of the local.

Its first sites, in Aix-Marseille, Ile de France (Paris-Saint-Denis-Aubervilliers), and Dunkirk, focus on three areas relating to the pressing issues of today.

1. the theme of welcome, with the creation of bilingual glossaries of French bureaucracy intended to be used by immigrants to France and French administrators;
2. the theme of integration and recognition, with “community culture banks” that serve as both object story museums and microlending facilities;
3. the theme of research, with the creation of a Dictionary of Untranslatables from the three major religions that looks at the texts in their original languages and in translation and attempts to highlight the failures of fundamentalism. How are the ideas of “God,” “community,” or “the other” expressed in the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran?