CFP: [Postcolonial] Call for Papers: ALA Translation Panel

full name / name of organization: 
Natasha Himmelman
contact email: 

CALL FOR PAPERS for a 34th ALA Annual Conference PANEL
22-27 April 2008 Western Illinois University
http://www.wiu.edu/ala2008

Translating African Literature/African Literature in Translation

This panel seeks to discuss the discursive significance of translation
within the context of “African Literature.” Rather than interrogating the
pragmatics of translation itself â€" how it is done, various methods of
translation, etc. â€" this panel seeks to bring new depths to the language
question in African literature through critical analysis of the discursive
transactions involved in translating African literary texts. Within the
context of globalization, there are clear and obvious benefits to writing
in English, French, Italian, and Portuguese (i.e. larger audience,
self-representation, financial gains), but how do these benefits change or
transform when African literature is translated into these languages? In
what ways are these respective benefits complicit within hegemonic, global
systems of knowledge and production (i.e. capitalism)? What are the
consequences of such complicity? Lacking an “original” in an indigenous
language, in what ways does African literature written in global languages
contest and/or collude with these systems? Conversely, how does
translation, which retains the original, contest and/or collude with these
systems? What forms of discursive agency are made available when writing
in global languages? What forms of discursive agency are made available
through translation? What kinds of knowledges are prioritized? Those
interested in participating in this panel can send their abstracts to
Natasha Himmelman at nhimmelman_at_mac.com by November 1, 2007.

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Received on Fri Oct 12 2007 - 21:53:16 EDT

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