Building on the conference theme “Translation in Action,” this panel invites discussion on how Asia is represented and “translated” in modern and contemporary literature, literary criticism, and popular media, including, but not limited to, film, video games, visual novels, music, and fashion. Panelists are encouraged to engage with the following questions:

1. How is Asia and Asian-ness aesthetically and ideologically represented and “translated” by non-Asian authors and producers, e.g., Historia universal de la infamia (1935) by Jorge Luis Borges, La Chinoise (1967) by Jean-Luc Godard, Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) by Rob Marshall, and Civilization VI (2016) by Sid Meister and Firaxis Games?

2. How do Asian authors and producers “translate” Asia for an international audience, e.g., The Convenience Store Woman (2017) by Murata Sayaka, Beef (2023) and stand-up comedy by Ali Wong?

3. How is the Asian body and sexuality/sensuality “translated” in a non-Asian context?

Asia is always in translation. The translingual, transmedia, and transnational representation has made Asia more than a geographical location but an imaginary, complex, and mythical unity. From Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) to Anne Cheng’s Ornamentalism (2018), from fantasy in literature to fashion in museums, it seems that the translation of Asia only proliferates to ever more media and spaces. However, have the questions posed by Said in Orientalism been well answered? How do we interpret, as Rey Chow proposed, the “ethnographic” translation of Asia offered by literature, film, screen, and other media and the subtle power dynamics between the translators and the audience? Can we envision a new possibility of translating Asia without fetishizing it (or, paradoxically, fetishizing and de-fetishizing at the same time, like what Crazy Rich Asians (2018) does), as more and more Asian authors, artists, theorists, and producers have made their voices heard internationally? This panel invites discussion on how Asia is represented and “translated” in modern and contemporary literature, literary criticism, and popular media, including but not limited to film, video games, visual novels, music, and fashion.

please submit your abstract (around 250 words) via the PAMLA 2024 system. This panel can be located at https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19204