PAMLA: American Literature 1945-present--Translation in Action (PAMLA)
Margaritaville Resort in Palm Springs, California
Organization: PAMLA
Event: PAMLA
Pacific Modern Language Association Special Section: American Literature 1945 to the Present
We invite proposals for papers dealing with American Literature from 1945 to the present. The category of “literature” includes imaginative works (fiction, poetry, drama) but also essays, memoirs, or creative nonfiction. Texts that are written by American-identifying authors or by writers in the US are welcome, as are works that address American life written by non-American authors.
We are open to proposals on a wide variety of topics, with particular consideration granted to papers that engage with the conference theme of "Translation in Action." The postwar period offers a rich body of writing to consider, as a diversifying America has led to a diversifying American literary canon. Writers who engage with questions of translation do so in a context of a nation becoming more linguistically and culturally variegated, even in the midst of surges of xenophobia and resentment toward changes to an Anglo-dominated, English-speaking, mythical, ahistorical vision of the nation.
Some topics of interest include:
--Integrating questions of linguistic translation in literary texts
--Managing the presence of multiple languages within a text
--Translation of cultural practices and senses of identity
--Linguistic hierarchies inside and outside English-dominated polities
--Figurative language and stream-of-consciousness as forms of translation
--Translation in light of AI-generated or language poetry
--Postmodernism, the signifying chain, and translation
--Refusing to translate and the untranslatable
--The market for translations
--The place of translations in English departments
--Translation across media
Submit abstracts via the PAMLA homepage: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/
Send questions to Jeffrey Gonzalez at gonzalezje@montclair.edu.
Jeffrey Gonzalez