Barbara Cassin

Barbara Cassin (b. 1947, Paris) is a French philosopher and classicist who has devoted her career to the study of ancient Greek philosophy, rhetoric, and the question of untranslatability. She is a directrice de recherche émérite at the CNRS and a member of the Académie française, where she was elected in 2018.

Her work centers on the Sophists and the tradition of rhetoric they inaugurate — an alternative philosophical lineage to the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. Her book L'Effet sophistique (1995) is the foundational text of this argument. She is also known for directing the Vocabulaire européen des philosophies: Dictionnaire des intraduisibles (Seuil/Le Robert, 2004), a massive collaborative reference work — translated into English as Dictionary of Untranslatables (Princeton University Press, 2014, edited by Emily Apter) — that maps philosophical concepts across European languages and demonstrates how meaning is constituted through, rather than prior to, translation. The project has had wide influence across philosophy, literary studies, and translation theory.

She received the Prix Femina Essai in 2014 for La Nostalgie: Quand donc est-on chez soi?, an essay on nostalgia, exile, and return in the Odyssey. She has also written on politics, psychoanalysis, and contemporary issues.