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Inter-area/Border Crossing
Mari Ishida
Wake Forest University, United States
Mari Ishida
Wake Forest University, United States
Wakako Suzuki
Bard College, United States
Pedro Bassoe
Purdue University, United States
Timothy Unverzagt Goddard
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University, United States
Mari Ishida
Wake Forest University, United States
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.
Paper Presenter: Wakako Suzuki – Bard College
Paper Presenter: Pedro Bassoe – Purdue University
Paper Presenter: Timothy Unverzagt Goddard – Yale University
Paper Presenter: Mari Ishida – Wake Forest University