Queer In Translation

In Queer in Translation, Evren Savcı analyzes the travel and translation of Western LGBT political terminology to Turkey in order to illuminate how sexual politics have unfolded under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP government. Under the AKP's neoliberal Islamic regime, Savcı shows, there has been a stark shift from a politics of multicultural inclusion to one of securitized authoritarianism. Drawing from ethnographic work with queer activist groups to understand how discourses of sexuality travel and are taken up in political discourse, Savcı traces the intersection of queerness, Islam, and neoliberal governance within new and complex regimes of morality. Savcı turns to translation as a queer methodology to think Islam and neoliberalism together and to evade the limiting binaries of traditional/modern, authentic/colonial, global/local, and East/West—thereby opening up ways of understanding the social movements and political discourse that coalesce around sexual liberation in ways that do justice to the complexities both of what circulates under the signifier Islam and of sexual political movements in Muslim-majority countries.

As the field of translation studies has developed, translators and translation scholars have become more aware of the unacknowledged ideologies inherent both in texts themselves and in the mechanisms that affect their circulation. This book both analyses the translation of queerness and applies queer thought to issues of translation. It sheds light on the manner in which heteronormative societies influence the selection, reading and translation of texts and pays attention to the means by which such heterosexism might be subverted. It considers the ways in which queerness can be repressed, ignored or made invisible in translation, and shows how translations might expose or underline the queerness – or the homophobic implications – of a given text. Balancing the theoretical with the practical, this book investigates what is culturally at stake when particular texts are translated from one culture to another, raising the question of the relationship between translation, colonialism and globalization. It also takes the insights derived from intercultural translation studies and applies them to other fields of cultural criticism. The first multi-focus, in-depth study on translating queer, translating queerly and queering translation, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of gender and sexuality, queer theory and queer studies, literature, film studies and translation studies.

This groundbreaking work is the first full book-length publication to critically engage in the emerging field of research on the queer aspects of translation and interpreting studies. The volume presents a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives through fifteen contributions from both established and up-and-coming scholars in the field to demonstrate the interconnectedness between translation and queer aspects of sex, gender, and identity. The book begins with the editors’ introduction to the state of the field, providing an overview of both current and developing lines of research, and builds on this foundation to look at this research more closely, grouped around three different sections: Queer Theorizing of Translation; Case Studies of Queer Translations and Translators; and Queer Activism and Translation. This interdisciplinary approach seeks to not only shed light on this promising field of research but also to promote cross fertilization between these disciplines towards further exploring the intersections between queer studies and translation studies, making this volume key reading for students and scholars interested in translation studies, queer studies, politics, and activism, and gender and sexuality studies.

This groundbreaking book explores the relevance of queer theory to Translation Studies and of translation to Global Sexuality Studies. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of the origins and evolution of queer theory, this book places queer theory and Translation Studies in a productive and mutually interrogating relationship. After framing the discussion of actual and potential interfaces between queer sexuality and queer textuality, the chapters trace the transnational circulation of queer texts, focusing on the place of translation in "gay" anthologies, the packaging of queer life writing for global audiences, and the translation of lyric poetry as a distinct site of queer performativity. Baer analyzes fictional translators in literature and film, the treatment of translation in historical and ethnographic studies of sexual and linguistic others, the work of queer translators, and the reception of queer texts in translation. Including a range of case studies to exemplify key ethical issues relevant to all scholars of global sexuality and postcolonial studies, this book is essential reading for advanced students, scholars, and researchers in Translation Studies, gender and sexuality studies, and related areas.

What does it mean to queer a concept? If queerness is a notion that implies a destabilization of the normativity of the body, then all cultural systems contain zones of discomfort relevant to queer studies. What then might we make of such zones when the use of the term queer itself has transcended the fields of sex and gender, becoming a metaphor for addressing such cultural phenomena as hybridization, resignification, and subversion? Further still, what should we make of it when so many people are reluctant to use the term queer, because they view it as theoretical colonialism, or a concept that loses its specificity when applied to a culture that signifies and uses the body differently? Translating the Queer focuses on the dissemination of queer knowledge, concepts, and representations throughout Latin America, a migration that has been accompanied by concomitant processes of translation, adaptation, and epistemological resistance.

Queering Modernist Translation explores translations by Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, and H.D. through the concept of queering translation. As Bancroft argues, queering translation is an intersectional lens for gleaning identity and socio-cultural issues in translation, such as gender, sexuality, diaspora, and race. Using theories espoused by Jack Halberstam, José Esteban Muñoz, Elizabeth Grosz, Sara Ahmed, and Rinaldo Walcott as foundations for his arguments, Bancroft demonstrates that queering translation offers more expansive ways of imagining the relationship between translation and the identities, cultures, and societies that produce them. Intervening in new Modernist studies and translation studies, Queering Modernist Translation furthers contemporary conversations regarding Modernism and its lasting importance in the twenty-first century.

This book explores the ways in which translation deals with sexual and textual undecidability, adopting an interdisciplinary approach bridging translation, transgender studies, and queer studies in analyzing the translations of six texts in English, French, and Spanish labelled as ‘trans.’ Rose draws on experimental translation methods, such as the use of the palimpsest, and builds on theory from areas such as philosophy, linguistics, queer studies, and transgender studies and the work of such thinkers as Derrida and Deleuze to encourage critical thinking around how all texts and trans texts specifically work to be queer and how queerness in translation might be celebrated. These texts illustrate the ways in which their authors play language games and how these can be translated between languages that use gender in different ways and the subsequent implications for our understanding of the act of translation and how we present our gender identity or identities. In showing what translation and transgender identity can learn from one another, Rose lays the foundation for future directions for research into the translation of trans identity, making this book key reading for scholars in translation studies, transgender studies, and queer studies.

When terms such as LGBT and queer cross borders they evolve and adjust to different political thinking. Queer became kvir in Kyrgyzstan and cuir in Ecuador, neither of which hold the English meaning. Translation is about crossing borders, but some languages travel more than others. Sexualities are usually translated from the core to the periphery, imposing Western LGBT identities onto the rest of the world. Many sexual identities are not translatable into English, and markers of modernity override native terminologies. All this matters beyond words. Translating sexuality in world politics forces us to confront issues of emancipation, colonisation, and sovereignty, in which global frameworks are locally embraced and/or resisted. Translating sexualities is a political act entangled in power politics, imperialism and foreign intervention. This book explores the entanglements of sex and tongue in international relations from Kyrgyzstan to Nepal, Japan to Tajikistan, Kurdistan to Amazonia. Edited by, Caroline Cottet and Manuela Lavinas Picq. Contributors, Ibtisam Ahmed, Soheil Asefi, Laura Bensoussan, Lisa Caviglia, Ioana Fotache, Karolina Kluczewska, Mohira Suyarkulova, Jo Teut, Josi Tikuna, Cai Wilkinson and Diako Yazdani.