What are the limits of translation? And how are these limits established, negotiated, policed, resisted, and rendered porous through translation? These questions will guide our inquiry into the manifold politics of translation, through which what Gayatri Spivak has called an intimate “surrender” in translation may open onto startling forms of agency with open ends. From the monolingual pseudotranslations of postcolonial encounters, to Lin Shu’s translator-collective, our readings will be drawn from works of literary criticism (written in English) that theorize and revisit what counts as translation and language-justice in contexts across the globe. Throughout the course, we will relate these critical arguments to contexts further afield—the ones in which students work and possess linguistic abilities—guided by our careful study of cultural translation as comparative methodology. If time and interest permit, we may also consider how our strategic praxes as literary translators may be inflected by these historical agents and instances of translation.

This course is designed to complement courses on translation theory and literary translation offered via the Translation Studies graduate specialization. In its focus on the contingencies of translation, it is likely to be of particular interest to graduate students working in comparative/world literature; decolonial, postcolonial, transnational, global, and environmental studies; national literatures and area studies in which the above approaches are exigent; and feminist, political, and critical continental philosophy. Advanced undergraduates curious about the politics of language, literature, and comparison are also very warmly welcome. All readings in English; no language pre-requisites.