The matter of narrative closure(敘事的終結), then, and of the relationship of a narrative text to futurity and to some collective project yet to come, is not, merely a formal or literary-critical issue. →敘事的終結、未來性以及其他面向的敘述文字，並不僅僅是一個形式上或文學批評上的議題

I want to suggest that it is only at this price, by way of a complex play of simultaneous and antithetical messages, that the narrative text is able to open up a concrete perspective on the real future.→通過複雜同時且對立的訊息中，敘述性的文字才可以為未來指引一條具體的道路

narrative closure 敘事的終結, formal 形式的, simultaneous 同時, antithetical 對立的, concrete 具體

cultural structures and attitudes as having been themselves, in the beginning, vital responses to infrastructural realities (economic and geographic, for example), as attempts to resolve more fundamental contradictions - attempts which then outlive the situations for which they were devised, and survive, in reified forms, as “cultural patterns.” Those patterns themselves then become part of the objective situation confronted by later generations, and, as in the case of Confucianism, having once been part of the solution to a dilemma, then become part of the new problem. 

→文化模式是人類對一些現象所做的反應之總稱(為了解決更基本的矛盾)，雖然可以解決某些問題，但同時也產生了新的問題(以儒教為例)

outlive the situations for which they were devised, and survive, in reified forms

活得比原先所對應的狀況還久，並因此具體化為一定的形式

infrastructural, fundamental 基礎的, contradiction 矛盾

Nor can I feel that the concept of cultural “identity” or even national “identity” is adequate.

One cannot acknowledge the justice of the general poststructuralist assault on the so-called “centered subject,” the old unified ego of bourgeois individualism, and then resuscitate this same ideological mirage of psychic unification on the collective level in the form of a doctrine of collective identity. 

→在面對認同的時候不應有自相矛盾的思考

collective 集體的

poststructuralist 後結構主義, centered subject 中心主體(?), bourgeois 資產階級(布爾喬亞), individualism 個人主義,

resuscitate 復甦 , ideological 思想, mirage 海市蜃樓, doctrine 教義

Appeals to collective identity need to be evaluated from a historical perspective, rather than from the standpoint of some dogmatic and placeless “ideological analysis.”

→在訴諸集體認同時，需考量歷史脈絡，而非一味的從教義和「意識型態分析」出發

When a third-world writer invokes this (to us) ideological value, we need to examine the concrete historical situation closely in order to determine the political consequences of the strategic use of this concept.

→當一個第三世界的作家使用某些意識型態時，我們必需仔細的分析歷史脈絡，才能了解其使用策略以及造成的政治結果