Reclamation and Revolution: Translation as a Catalyst for Change (NeMLA)
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Organization: Northeast Modern Language Association
Event: NeMLA
Since coalescing into a formal discipline in the 1970s, Translation Studies has both hinged upon and facilitated conversations about power. For better or for worse, the movement of a text from one form into another necessitates reflection upon hierarchy, periphery, and justice. From Spivak's native informant, to Chamberlain's feminist critiques of canonical translation theory, to Venuti's identification of translation as a seeking of utopia, analyses of the connection between (dis)empowerment and translation abound. However, what happens to and with translation when disempowered actors seek agency? How can translation be examined, utilized, and conceptualized when disempowerment demands revolution?
This panel welcomes any topic that treats both revolution and translation, including the translation of revolutionary texts, the treatment of revolution as a literary theme, the relevance of translation to social or political revolutions, or theoretical arguments linking revolution and translation as concepts. Our goal, regardless of perspective and content, will be to elucidate the relationship(s) between these two concepts in order to examine the revolutionary and revolutionizing potential of translation.
Rebecca Thompson