CFP "South Asia via Translation: Human Factor, Power Relations and Heterolingualism" (26th European Conference on South Asian Studies Vienna, 29 July – 1 August 2020)

Alessandra Consolaro Announcement
Location
Austria
Subject Fields
Literature, South Asian History / Studies

 

We would like to invite you to join our panel, South Asia via Translation: Human Factor, Power Relations and Heterolingualism at the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies that will take place in Vienna between July 29 and August 1, 2020. The call for papers will be open till November 17, 2019. The abstract of the panel is written below and also given here: https://ecsas2020.univie.ac.at/panels/z2sov/. 
With this panel we hope to create a dynamic platform for exchange of ideas on translation(s) of South Asian texts of culture and it will be our honour and pleasure to have you as a participant of our panel.

Please note that all participants at the 26th ECSAS (panel convenors, paper presenters and chairs/discussants) must be members of the EASAS. Join EASAS at https://www.easas.eu/become-a-member/

 

Recent decades have seen considerable rise in number of texts rendered from regional languages of South Asia into numerous non-SA languages. Likewise, the body of translations effected between various languages of SA has grown, triggered perhaps by increasing readership. These and other factors spurred the demand for writings by members of marginalised communities, be it Dalits, women, Adivasis, or LGBTQs. Yet, the theoretical and critical reflections on translation relating to languages of SA have to date focused mostly on issues such as (national, colonial or postcolonial) identity construction, or the historical relations between different languages. Such an approach seems limited today in view of the changing power structures when the notion of the ‘language of value’ is in the ascendant, though its semantic structure remains basically a “homolingual address” (Sakai 1997). Analytical study of translation can be a useful tool in investigating antagonisms shaping global capitalism in the context of South Asia. In the light of critical translations studies and of works by Liu, Sakai, Spivak, Mezzadra, and Robinson, we invite papers analysing “the regime of translation” from different critical perspectives and using interdisciplinary approaches, where translation may be viewed not merely as a linguistic or literary matter, but as a locus of production, circulation and exchange of meaning as value. We invite papers presenting original and unpublished research addressing wide range of topics, including but not limited to: human factor in translation, power relations, heterolingualism, ideological/cultural reciprocity.

 

references 

Liu, Lydia H. 2000. “The Question of Meaning Value in the Political Economy of the Sign.” In Tokens of Exchange. The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations, edited by Lydia H. Liu, 13–41. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. 

Liu, Lydia. 2006. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Mezzadra, Sandro. 2010. “Living in Transition. Toward a Heterolingual Theory of the Multitude.” In The Politics of Culture. Around the Work of Naoki Sakai, edited by R. F. Calichman and J. N. Kim, 121–137. New York: Routledge. 

Robinson, Douglas. Transgender, Translation, Translingual Address. London: Bloomsbury 2019 Robinson, Douglas. Critical translation studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2017 

Robinson, Douglas, Who translates? : Translator subjectivities beyond reason. Albany, NY : State Univ. of New York Press ; 2001

Sakai Naoki 1997. Translation and Subjectivity. On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis–London: University of Minnesota Press. 

Sakai Naoki. 2006. “Translation” Theory, Culture & Society23(2–3): 71–86. DOI: 10.1177/0263276406063778 

Sakai, Naoki, and Jon Solomon. 2006. “Introduction: Addressing the Multitude of Foreigners, Echoing Foucault.” In Biopolitics, Colonial Difference, edited by Sakai and Solomon, 1–35. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1985. “Scattered Reflections on the Question of Value.” Diacritics, 15 (4): 73–93. 

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1993. “The Politics of Translation.” In Outside in the Teaching Machine, 200–225. New York: Routledge. 

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2008. Other Asias. Oxford: Blackwell. 

Contact Information

Convenors:

· Monika Browarczyk Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan, Poland) monikabr@amu.edu.pl

· Alessandra Consolaro University of Turin (Turin, Italy) alessandra.consolaro@unito.it

 

Contact Email
alessandra.consolaro@unito.it