This afterword considers Istanbul as a site of translation (architectural, acoustic, sonic, musical, poetic) – an approach to the city richly suggested in all of the articles in this themed issue. Might we consider the matter of translation in terms of the kinds of (radically opposed) comparative epistemologies that were being developed in Istanbul by Auerbach and Spitzer (principally, but other refugee scholars too, considering the work of Emily Apter) in the 1930s? How – viewed through such a lens – has Istanbul been configured as a global site of translation “between East and West,” and how have Istanbul’s intellectual worlds themselves forged the very terms with which we think “between East and West” (or “globally”). And what happens when we replace or enhance “comparative literature” with “comparative music/sound studies” as our framework? Does this make Istanbul “special,” in historical terms?