Seminar in Comparative Literature: Translation and the Politics of Language
This course examines the past and current fates of translation, mainly, and the politics of language, secondarily. It approaches “translation” from the point of view of “theory” (as the subject of metadiscursive rumination), of “studies” (a field encompassing a variety of approaches to the study of translation), and of practice (as the painstaking transference of a text from one language to another or, more generally, from one medium to another). Translation is paired with the politics of language because of the intimate connection between the two. Translation is a form of language politics and exists in close association with broader understandings of language in a society. The course approaches “the politics of language” historically as well as theoretically, exploring issues like multilingualism, state language policy and cultural resilience. Focused through the prism of the post-/de-colonial, the course examines contestations over language in specific periods and locations (Hawai’i, Africa and India, mainly) while also reflecting more generally on the place of language in culture.
Throughout the course, the co-implication of translation and language politics is kept in view, as are related questions of adaptation, comparison, comparatism, cross-cultural communication, and identity formation. Is adaptation, for example of a novel into a film, a form of translation? Can translation be studied as a specialized form of comparison? Can translation escape the hierarchization some observers have deemed inherent to comparison? How does the politics of language affect actually existing translation practice? Such are some of the questions at the heart of this course.
Guided by these questions, a portion of the semester will be devoted to practical exercises of translation (understood broadly to cover adaptation and intralingual transference–that is, not necessarily between different “natural” languages). Students will learn how to read as translators and as students of translation via comparisons of translations of the same source text. Adaptation will be studied via Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient, a text deeply engaged in the politics of language, and the film adaptation directed by Anthony Minghella.
The texts for the course will be theoretical, practical (i.e. essays exploring adaptation and the actual practice of translation), literary, and cinematic.
Since I am interested in translation at a theoretical level at the same time that I am myself a practicing translator, I welcome students that take an analytical approach to translation as well as projects engaging in actual translation/adaptation. Knowledge of more than one language is an asset but not a requirement; students interested in broader questions of translation/adaptation or of the politics of language will be able to pursue their interests. I welcome student projects situated in a variety of language/cultural contexts, including but not restricted to Hawaiian, Pacific and Asian. I also welcome students from a variety of disciplines.
Student Learning Outcomes
At the end of the semester, students will have a good grasp
of translation studies as a field
of the politics of language as it pertains to literary/cultural studies
of aspects of the disciplines of Comparative Literature, Literary Studies and Cultural Studies
of advanced research methods and/or creative techniques of translation and adaptation
of presenting their research findings in oral and written form to varied audiences
and of the application of several theoretical approaches to literary and cultural materials
Required Texts (tentative list)
The English Patient (novel) by Michael Ondaatje
The English Patient (movie), dir. Anthony Minghella (available through library)
Essays on translation and language politics by Noenoe Silva, Tejaswini Niranjana, Eric Cheyfitz, Sundar Sarukkai, A. K. Ramanujan, Walter Benjamin, Roman Jakobson, Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhail Bakhtin, Tony Crowley, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Raja Rao, Gayatri Spivak, Bryan Kuwada, Raymond Williams, and others. Provided as PDFs available on the course website
Short stories and poems (Baudelaire, Mahasweta Devi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sangam poetry, and others)
Assignments
Students will do an oral presentation (also submitted in written form), a midterm project proposal, regular online posts on the readings, and a twenty-page term paper at the end of the semester. The assignments may build on each other. The term paper may be substituted by an appropriate creative project of translation if approved by me. In all cases, such a creative project will be prefaced by a critical introduction at least ten pages long.