Shawn Gonzalez
Comparative Literature, Rutgers University
195 College Avenue
Colloquium - 6:00pm
Shawn Gonzalez will be presenting 'Translating Linguistic Conflict in Two'
The traditions of postcolonial and decolonial theory have established the centrality of linguistic conflict to the practice of literary translation. In this presentation, I will compare how the editors of two multilingual translation anthologies either engage with or suppress linguistic conflict in their projects. In Multiples: 12 Stories in 18 Languages by 61 Authors, the editor, British novelist Adam Thirlwell, avoids questions of linguistic conflict by focusing on literary style. Thirlwell invited novelists with varying levels of linguistic proficiency to serially translate short stories between English and other languages such as Arabic, Dutch, and Japanese. However, Thirlwell evades recognizing the power relationships among these languages. In contrast, the poetry anthology, Palabras de una isla/Paroles d'une île [Words of an Island], edited by Gahston Saint-Fleur and Basilio Belliard, centers on linguistic conflict. The volume features Haitian poetry translated into Spanish and Dominican poetry translated into French in order to highlight commonalities between the two poetic traditions, a strategy that directly engages the linguistic and political conflicts between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. When analyzing the texts' representations of linguistic conflict, context emerges as a crucial factor. Reading translation from a contextualized perspective reveals radical practices of translation coming from outside of the metropolitan centers of literary experimentation.
Enmanuel Martinez, 5th Year Graduate Student
Comparative Literature, Rutgers University
195 College Avenue
Potluck - 5:30pm
Colloquium - 6:30pm
Enmanuel Martinez will be presenting 'Of Cassette Tape 'Letters' and Basement Refrigerators: Housing the Archive of the Caribbean "Diaspora".
In Silencing the Past, Michelle-Rolph Trouillot attests to the "unthinkable history" of the Haitian Revolution, reminding readers that, "In history, power begins at the source" (29). Building from Trouillot's analysis of the role ofarchival power in the making and recording of colonial (Francophone) Caribbean history, my colloquium presentation turns to examine the crossing of power and the historical record by means of the archive in the context of the post 1970 Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean and their diasporas. Directing this analysis is Enmanuel's concern for the source of the source, which is to say the place of the archives of the Caribbean diaspora. By interrogating the place of the diasporic archive, he asks two derivative questions: where do we physically locate the archive; but also what social, cultural or political roles does the archive occupy for the transnational communities of the Caribbean diaspora?
Carolyn Ureña, Ph.D. Graduate Student
Comparative Literature, Rutgers University
195 College Avenue
Potluck - 5:00pm
Colloquium - 6:30pm
"Of Beloved and Other Demons: (De)Pathologizing Black Love in Morrison and Garcia Marquez"
Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Gabriel García Márquez’s Del amor y otros demonios (Of Love and Other Demons, 1994) are two novels that explore the dangers and potentialities of what I call “black love.” My focus is on forms of wounded embodiment and the unexpected expressions of love that spring forth from these wounds. By exposing the pathologization of black love, these texts also engage in the ongoing debate between the rational and the irrational. As such, Beloved and Del amor y otros demonios offer rich terrain for the exploration of questions of identity and subjectivity through a phenomenological lens. Ultimately, Morrison and García Márquez rewrite histories of oppression by emphasizing perspectives from the underside of modernity and explore new definitions of love that have the power to heal the wounds of coloniality.
