A009: Dialogism of Self and Others: Colonial and Decolonial Practices of Translation in the Japanese Empire

Organizer(s)

• MI

  Mari Ishida

  Wake Forest University, United States

Chair(s)

• MI

  Mari Ishida

  Wake Forest University, United States

Paper Presenter(s)

• WS

  Wakako Suzuki

  Bard College, United States
• PB

  Pedro Bassoe

  Purdue University, United States
• TG

  Timothy Unverzagt Goddard

  Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
  Yale University, United States
• MI

  Mari Ishida

  Wake Forest University, United States

Discussant(s)

• FK

  Faye Kleeman

  Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations
  University of Colorado Boulder, United States

Session Abstract: As an imperialistic practice of homogenization and hierarchization, translation has mediated the unequal relations between West and East, and between Japan and its colonies. Yet, translation can also be a site of resistance, a diversifying process in which the interplay of multiple languages and perspectives serves to challenge inequality. Our panel discusses conflicting functions of translation in the context of Japanese imperialism and colonialism, investigating the practice of translation as dialogism of self and others in terms of language, race, ethnicity, and gender. Suzuki illustrates the role of Morita Shiken’s translation in the development of Japanese adventure stories and the appropriation of Sinophone and European texts into pedagogical materials, literary entertainment, and colonial fantasy. Bassoe examines Izumi Kyōka’s position against translation as a homogenizing force that threatened to replace traditional forms of Japanese literature, along with his embrace of Prosper Mérimée’s works that question the rhetoric of civilization. Goddard explores the dissemination of surrealism in the context of the Japanese empire, with a focus on the avant-garde literary journal Shi to shiron (Poetry and Poetics, 1928–1931), foregrounding translation as a dialogic process. Ishida demonstrates the literary movement of chihō bungaku (local literature) in wartime Taiwan as sites of dialogic translation through which the silenced voices of gendered and racialized others become recognizable. Collectively, we rethink the effects of translation on the formation of imperial, national, colonial, and decolonial worldviews, responding to the current anti-racism protests. Drawing on her expertise, Kleeman offers insights into our panel’s theme as a discussant.

Presentations:

• Translating Jules Verne's Two Years' Vacation: Morita Shiken's Adventurous Translation
  

  Paper Presenter: Wakako Suzuki – Bard College
• Enemies and Friends of Translation: Izumi Kyōka and Prosper Merimee
  

  Paper Presenter: Pedro Bassoe – Purdue University
• Surrealism in Translation: Shi to shiron and the Dynamics of Literary Exchange in the Japanese Empire
  

  Paper Presenter: Timothy Unverzagt Goddard – Yale University
• Chihō Bungaku as a Dialogic Practice of Translation: The Voices of Gendered and Racialized Others in Japanophone Taiwanese Literature
  

  Paper Presenter: Mari Ishida – Wake Forest University