Queer Translation

Just as advocates of postcolonial translation have argued that translation could and should be a way to give colonised cultures back their voice and fight the hegemony of colonising cultures, and advocates of feminist translation have argued that translation could and should be a way for empowering women by clearly representing them in language and combating the patriarchal hegemony, it is now necessary to advocate for a queer form of translation that gives queer people greater visibility and helps them struggle against the subordinating power of the heteronormative hegemony. Even when the homoerotic content of queer texts is not downright censored, it is frequently lost in translation due to such problems as a privileging of heteronormative elements and phrasing over queer ones to increase fluency, or a simple lack of a careful reading caused by a heteronormative bias. The latter occurs because characters in most texts, like people in everyday life, are generally presumed to be heterosexual until proven queer, and an inattentive translator unaware of this kind of personal bias can thus easily albeit unintentionally turn a queer element into a heteronormative one. Through a case study of Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese subtitles of a scene from the movie Gia, whose main character is queer, this article aims to show how queer elements can be lost and/or preserved in translation, in order to further the argument that translators who translate queer texts need to be made aware of, or even specially trained in, how to do queer readings of texts and ways to prevent queer elements from being lost or turned into heteronormative ones. This article also aspires to show the need for expanding and concretising the fledgling field of queer translation studies, offers a proposal for how this could be done, and uses the case study as a concrete example of a link between theory and practice.

Fabi, 1960’lı yıllara kadar heteroseksüellerin eşcinselleri aşağılamak amacıyla kullandığı bir kelime olsa da 1990’larda bir hareketin hatta bir kuramın adı olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Fabi, her ne kadar LGBTİ ile bağdaşsa da aslında din, ırk, cinsiyet, cinsel yönelim ayırt etmeden kapsayıcı bir terimdir. Fabi Kuramı’ndan hareketle Fabi Çeviri Kuramı’nın mümkün olup olmadığı bu çalışmanın odak noktasıdır. Ayrıca Türkiye’deki LGBTİ derneklerinin Fabi konusunu akademik olarak ne kadar çalıştığı, neler yapıldığı tespit edilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Fabi Çeviri Kuramı’na göre “Dogs of Berlin” dizisinin çevirisinin incelemesi yapılıp çevirmenin dizideki Fabi söylemlerde ne gibi aktarmalarda bulunduğu irdelenecektir.

This contribution aims to theorise on the interconections between queer theory and translation by focusing on the recent translation into Italian of ‘Undoing Gender’ (Butler 2004) by Federico Zappino with the title of Fare e disfare il genere (2014), which constitutes an interesting example to start reflecting on the topic. This translation proposes to retranslate a previous La Disfatta del genere (2006) whose title suggested a hypothetical defeat (disfatta) instead of the idea of renegotiation, of a doing and undoing which the retranslation wanted to foreground. As stated by Butler, the book revolves around what it means to undo dominant restrictive understandings of gender and sexuality, but also about the experience of “being undone”. Since gender is something we do with other people, it results that it can’t be possessed but it rather possesses or dis-possesses us. Thinking about gender as undoing and as a way of acting together offers interesting insights for the discipline of translation studies, as it brings to mind the concepts of performativity (Robinson 2003; 2006) and affectivity. Performativity can be found in the fact that thinking of translation as a copy (see Butler 1990) of an original which does not exist, destabilises the very idea of originality. This not only confirms the concept of translation as creation (a notion stressed in last twenty years of studies on the subject) but it also tells us something about the productivity of translation. Fare e disfare il genere was presented, after its publication, in various activist LGBTQ spaces in Italy and has contributed to create new events and networks of affect. Affectivity thus is linked to the relational aspect of gender, mentioned above, since according to Gregg and Seigworth (2010) and Ahmed (2004), it arises in the in-betweeness, in the relationships between bodies and objects. The insistence on affect and relationality is also found in the many reviews of Fare e disfare il genere, often written by activists who participated in the discussion held during the book presentations and which read this translation as a call for rethinking welfare and social justice in Italy in the actual political climate of neoliberal austerity. Their reflections point towards the need to recognise our vulnerability, and dependance to others, as a force through wich social transformation is possible. A reading of the book in its relationship with neoliberim is also confirmed by the project Gender between Neoliberism and Neofundamentalism (Zappino 2016), which took inspiration from Fare e disfare il genere (2014).
Translation, as a consequence, by being implicated in these discourses can be understood as a tool for productive performative and affective un-doings.

Quando mi avvicinai, alcuni anni fa, agli studi sulla traduzione all'Università di Manchester, in Inghilterra, dove studiavo, il sentire generale era che la traduzione fosse un'attività da sempre poco considerata e che tali studi fossero nati appunto per invertire questa tendenza e ridare alla traduzione la dignità che meritava. Insieme al pessimismo si poteva respirare un certo ottimismo: la disciplina stava crescendo, stavano nascendo riviste accademiche sulla traduzione, si aprivano insegnamenti dedicati alla traduzione, si parlava finalmente di traduzione. Erano anni, parlo della prima decade del 2000, in cui stava maturando un filone di studi, capitanato a Manchester da Mona Baker, che poneva l'accento sull'aspetto politico della traduzione, sul suo essere un'attività attraverso cui poter produrre un cambiamento sociale.

Elena Ferrante has long acknowledged the influence of Alba de Céspedes’ 1949 novel Dalla parte di lei on her writing, particularly in terms of conceiving female characters. In Ferrante’s newest novel, La vita bugiarda degli adulti, the prominent theme of queer friendship between young women echoes and reconfigures elements from Dalla parte di lei. This article delves into the capacious queer relationality depicted in both novels, tracing the presence of transmasculinity and feminist re-writing as key elements in both. Situating the two novels’ representations of women’s intimacy in their socio-literary contexts, I analyze the ways in which they utilize models like the «fiamma», romantic friendship, sisterhood, and female husbands. Neither author identifies as lesbian or queer; thus my close reading of the frankly sexual and deeply romantic scenes between female characters seeks not to assign the writers or their books to a category, but rather to elaborate the queer dimensions of relationality that they explore. Ultimately, I propose that a significant part of what makes these queer, lesbian, and transmasculine representations possible is a shared feminist project of reading, writing, and rewriting from one’s own perspective: dalla parte di lei. In this sense, what Ferrante’s narrator-protagonist Giovanna owes to de Céspedes’ narrator-protagonist Alessandra is not only the possibility of a queer life and a feminist voice, but the potential for narrating queer feminist experience as relational.

The circulation of knowledge and representations of non-normative sexualities from the West to the Sinophone world and within Chinese-speaking communities has been an interculturally sensitive issue. In this chapter, I examine various attempts at sinicizing Western/Euro-American non-normative sexualities in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In the first part of the chapter, I offer an overview of scholarship on male homoeroticism in pre-modern China, which sets the foundation for ensuing investigations into translating Western/Euro-American non-normative sexualities. In the second part, I examine critical issues and current contributions in historicizing and scrutinizing translational discourses of contested sexualities. By highlighting the question of translation, I discuss how the Sinophone cultures have been tackling old and new concepts, such as homosexuality, gay, lesbian, and queer, which have been used to refer to contested sexualities in the Western/Euro-American discourse. In the final part, I envision future directions to advance the field and provide several research questions.

Using tools from Cultural Studies, Linguistics and Translation Studies, and following Keith Harvey´s (2000) methodology in the analysis of gay camp in translation, this paper studies William Burroughs' novella Queer (written in 1953, published in 1985, and translated into Spanish in 2013). Considering the historical differences in 1953, 1985 and 2013 to frame the context of production, the article ponders on the two literary systems which the work entered to discuss its reception. Additionally, while at times Burroughs' novella steps away from traditional «gay slang» (Penelope and Wolfe 1979), which Burroughs reportedly despised, some other times it sinks deep into «camp»: In Marcial Souto's translation, «butch» and «camp» blend while some of the sexual power of the source is lost in translation. Tapping into Souto's translation, we may see how far (or near) queer studies and queer translation have gone in the last sixty years.

ABSTRACT (NOTE:  This article is by Ming-che LEE.  It is NOT authored by Ari Larissa Heinrich, I'm just including the paper here in case it's of interest to readers)

Qiu Miaojin, a lesbian icon in 1990s Taiwan, left behind the quasi-memoir novel Last Words from Montmartre in 1995 that features her unique hermaphroditism ideology. Through the first-person narrative, Qiu obfuscates binary gender categories, and subverts rigid gender norms and cisgenderism. A key value of this epistolary novel is her playful manipulation of fluid sexualities via pronominal markers to break free of the shackles of gender dysphoria. Since the 1990s, research attention has been given to the emerging gender/queer-related issues in translated literatures. However, issues pertaining to the de-gendering of homoeroticism and discursive intersexuality in literary translation remain underexplored. This article explores how Qiu’s queer politics in this novel have been reproduced in Heinrich’s 2014 English translation. Based on the “gender performativity” theory, findings indicate that Qiu’s queer ideology and de-gendered language have been accurately rendered for the Anglophone readership.

Translators are often construed as mere intermediaries in transcultural communication, doing little more than transferring packages of meanings that have been unambiguously defined by other parties that really matter. However, translation is hardly innocent, and translation is hardly powerless. Translators produce texts and thereby identities/realities, and this text/identity/reality production cannot happen without interference/intervention from all participants in communication (which includes those parties that are usually theorised as passive, such as translators or recipients). Submission to hegemonic discourses is not a neutral non-decision, but a political act. Therefore, translators take part in the construction of identities. Transcultural communication is an ideal site to expose the cultural constructedness of identities/realities, thereby deconstructing these identities/realities and enabling allegedly passive recipients to see through and behind social constructs.

Eva Nossem calls for the development of a queer approach in the area of lexicography. She begins by challenging the popular notion of an objective, purely descriptive lexicography, and discusses the social norms and values underpinning lexicographical work. In line with Foucault, she assigns a discursive function to lexicographers, through which they play an active role in the production of knowledge. In bilingual dictionaries, the heteronormative ideas conveyed are further exacerbated by requirements of equivalence. Nossem advocates for an anti-normative approach and seeks to lay the foundations for a queer lexicography that establishes the very conditions of possibility for a queer translation practice.
(Baer, Brian James and Klaus Kaindl: "Introduction: Queer(ing) Translation)

Bu yazıda çeviri metin-kaynak metin, çevirmen-yazar, erek kültür-kaynak kültür ikiliklerinden hareketle çeviri yapılan dil ile çevirinin yapıldığı dil, metne kaynaklık eden kültür ile metni haznesine alan kültür arasında kurulan hiyerarşileri sorgulamaya çalışacağım. Bu ikiliklere dair tarihsel sorgulamalar eşliğinde çevirmenin görünürlüğü/görünmezliği konusuna az da olsa dikkat çekebilirsem ne mutlu. Bir tür kültürel yakınlaşmalar tarihi olan çeviri tarihi üzerine düşündüğümde şu soru aklımda devamlı dönüp duruyor: Çeviri tarihi, emeğin ve çevirmen figürünün silikleştirilmesinin tarihi midir?

This article looks at the role played by emotions and affect in activist translation, that is, translation understood as a tool for political change, by analyzing the Italian queer transfeminist group ideadestroyingmuros. Translation is conceived by this collective as a bodily act, a transformation of oneself in the act of migrating, as a way for, in the words of the collective, ‘redeeming life,’ that is, improving living conditions. This transformation, for ideadestroyingmuros and other queer transfeminist groups, can indeed stem from the creation of more affective, supportive and cooperative conditions of living. The article will draw on the concepts of emotion and affect, as theorised by some scholars who dealt with them. Emotion and affect, with their emphasis on relationality and on the capacity to create action and to be affected by action, can demonstrate how translation impacts on translators, and how sociopolitical studies of translation can benefit from a view of ideological positioning as the outcome of a series of intricate emotional and affective journeys.

Over the past twenty years, after the LGBT+ liberationist movement has managed to make new voices heard and had certain social gains, partly overturning decades of exclusion and segregation, gay literature has often focused on the stories of young men and women as a form of instilling positive values upon the future generations. The mainstream publishing world in Spanish has sometimes lagged behind LGBT+ times, publishing little queer literature and favoring mainly canonical authors. Translation criticism from the cultural margins raises questions regarding the voices of alterity and, in this respect, it highlights the visibility of translators (and publishing houses) as subjective factors in the translation process. The ideological analysis of literary translation may identify the role of translators as intercultural mediators who use strategies that accentuate or subdue the LGBT+ character of the texts they translate. The young-adult, gay novel Will Grayson, Will Grayson, written by John Green and David Levithan, presents an interesting challenge from the point of view of the separate discursive identities at play in it. Nonetheless, the novel was solely translated by Noemí Sobregués, a situation calling for closer analysis to revise the strategies used to represent the duality of the text in terms of idiolectal authorship. Using the tools provided by Keith Harvey (2000), this paper focuses on the analysis of the role of this translator in the rendition of the novel in Spanish, in the larger context of what it is that publishing houses seek when they publish LGBT+ literature: either to portray watered-down versions palatable to mainstream readerships, or to queerify their publishing catalogues, and thence, possibly, the canon at large.

Cet article vise à cartographier un ensemble de convergences qui existent entre les deux champs de recherche que sont la Traductologie et la pensée Queer. Il commence en se situant dans le contexte culturel de sa langue ; le français, et considère ensuite l’histoire de la réception du mot « queer » en France (écrit ici avec l’accord au féminin : traduction queere). Il poursuit avec l’analyse des points d’intersection, notamment en ce qui les critiques qui tournent autour de certaines notions clés telles que : l’origine, la performance et la performativité, le détournement et les binaires régénératifs. Il conclut enfin en proposant une piste de recherche pour l’avenir qui s’écarterait de la théorie pour chercher une pratique de la traduction queere.

Voluntary translation work plays a key role in those activist movements in Italy whose agenda can be defined as queer transfeminist. Given that in these groups the critique of heteronormativity is entangled with a critique of neoliberalism, and that the notions of precariousness and precarity discussed in relation to neoliberalism are linked to that of temporality, this chapter aims to investigate how time is resignified in these scenarios and the role that translation plays in its theorization. A paradigmatic case is the queer transfeminist group ideadestroyingmuros. This collective (formed mainly of northern Italian activists who migrated to Spain) conceives translation as a tool for “redeeming life” and is interested in opposing the individualistic self-exploitation and the unsustainable demands on our time posed by the threats of neoliberalist precarity through a reevaluation of practices of collaboration and solidarity. This chapter therefore explores how the practices of the queer transfeminist group, ideadestroyingmuros, and their theorizations of translation, as well as the choice of translating articles on alternative theorizations of time by activist translation collectives such as Les Bitches, participate in the theorization of new alternative temporalities in Italian transfeminist scenes. Temporality can thus be analyzed in relation to translation given that it represents widespread concern of various queer transfeminist Italian collectives
that use translation as part of their political agendas.

Talk at the Translating Queer Historicities. University of London (June 23rd, 2017)

L’oggetto del presente paper è l’esame della ricezione del queer in Italia. Piuttosto che concentrarsi sulla ricezione e la diffusione degli studi queer o delle teorie queer nel contesto accademico italiano, il presente paper si concentrerà sull’uso e sulla diffusione della parola queer nel contesto accademico e/o attivista italiano.
Da un lato viene esaminato quando, come, in quali contesti, in quale forma e con quale potenziale semantico-connotativo, la stessa parola queer ha trovato accesso nel mondo italofono. L’analisi tenta di mostrare quali aspetti semantici e connotativi questo queer di origine inglese-statunitense si è portato dietro nel suo viaggio transatlantico. Un paragone del queer inglese US-americano con quello italiano mostra che esso ha intrapreso il suo viaggio verso l’Italia con bagaglio leggero. Viene mostrato quali aspetti semantici e connotativi sono andati persi nel transito e come il potenziale semantico si è limitato, o meglio trasformato.
Piuttosto che investigare soltanto la prospettiva unilaterale e unidirezionale analizzando come e fino a che punto il queer statunitense ha influenzato il contesto italiano, questo paper si dà l’obiettivo di esplorare quali forme di queer si sono sviluppate e se esse sono specifiche per il contesto italiano. In tal modo, il contesto italiano e la lingua italiana non vengono più visti come passivi riceventi degli influssi inglesi-statunitensi, ma assumono un ruolo attivo e produttivo. In questo contesto è interessante investigare come il queer si è fatto strada in certi discorsi italiani, come è stato fatto proprio, e soprattutto quale altre forme e altre parole si sono sviluppate al suo posto in Italia.
Di particolar interesse in questo senso è la parola frocia, che pare diffondersi sempre di più nel contesto accademico-attivista italiano. Si può considerare frocia come un calco dal queer inglese-statunitense; si potrebbe anche considerare frocia come una traduzione di queer, o si potrebbe considerare frocia come una versione localizzata italiana del queer statunitense. Oppure si potrebbe interpretare frocia come un nuovo concetto specifico italiano, piuttosto che un’adattazione, un’appropriazione del queer inglese nel contesto italiano, una specie di post-queer territorializzato. Mettendo in relazione e confrontando queer e frocia, questo paper porta alla luce i loro rispettivi punti forti e deboli, e mostra le caratteristiche processuali, non stabili e non identitari di entrambi.

This article attempts to explore, in a theoretical manner, some possible ways in which translation may question binaries and authority by creating links between sex-gender non-conforming experiences, and translation. I suggest a flexible, reader-oriented and translator-oriented approach to translation based on performativity, narrativity, theory of emotions and affect theory, feminist theory, and queer theory that can possibly contribute to the transformation of some still rigid expectations about translation as a process, a product, and a phenomenon. The article discusses how emotions and performativity elements used by feminist and queer translation may contribute to a reconceptualization of translation based on a questioning and undermining of binary thinking—and of related concepts such as equivalence, fidelity, unity, coherence, and homogeneity—through repetition, difference, and provisionality. A central point is that the ambiguity that can arise from breaking away from binary thinking in translation and in sex-gender non-conforming bodies and experiences through mechanisms of performativity and of emotions as cultural practices can become an ethical space of resistance and activism. Such a space may denounce the arbitrariness of meaning-producing practices, propose other sites of meaning and knowledge, and construct more flexible narratives. This may be accomplished through the construction of productive shame and discomfort, emotions which are impressed on the body. These emotions can become a link between reader and translator thereby contributing to the transformation of translation and of translation-reading expectations, paradigms, and practices.

Keywords: feminist translation, queer translation, emotion, body, performativity

Résumé

Cet article tente d’explorer de façon théorique certaines manières possibles par lesquelles la traduction peut remettre en question le binarisme et l’autorité en créant des liens entre les expériences de genre non-conforme et la traduction. Je propose une approche de la traduction plus flexible, orientée vers le lecteur et vers le traducteur, sur la base de la performativité, la narrativité, la théorie des émotions et de l’affect, la théorie féministe et la théorie queer, qui peuvent éventuellement contribuer à la transformation de certaines attentes encore rigides concernant la traduction comme un processus, un produit et un phénomène. L’article analyse comment les émotions et les éléments de performativité utilisés par la traduction féministe et queer peuvent contribuer à une reconceptualisation de la traduction basée sur un questionnement et saper la pensée binaire – et des concepts connexes tels que l’équivalence, la fidélité, l’unité, la cohérence et l’homogénéité – par la répétition, la différence et la provisionnalité. Un aspect central est que l’ambiguïté qui peut résulter de la rupture du binarisme dans la traduction et dans les corps et expériences de genre non conforme par le biais de mécanismes de performativité et d’émotions comme pratiques culturelles peut devenir un espace éthique de résistance et d’activisme. Cet espace peut dénoncer l’arbitraire des pratiques productrices de sens, proposer d’autres sites de sens et de savoir, et construire des récits plus souples. Cela peut se réaliser au moyen de la construction d’une honte et d’un inconfort productifs, émotions qui sont imprimées sur le corps. Ces émotions peuvent devenir un lien entre le lecteur et le traducteur, contribuant ainsi à la transformation de la traduction et des attentes de la lecture des traductions, paradigmes et pratiques.

Mots-clés : traduction féministe, traduction queer, émotion, corps, performativité
Corps de l’article

Abstract
Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. The play was an instant critical success, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the following year. At the time, Translation Studies was a blooming science that focused on translatability issues and methodology. With the help of literary criticism and linguistics, translation was paving the way for the quantum leap that it would produce in the coming decades. Because of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, translations into Spanish were mainly produced in Mexico, Peru and Argentina. Writers such as Jorge Luis Borges were quickly expanding the literary canon introducing translations into the system thus opening the world of Spanish letters to new voices, styles and movements. In 1951, León Mirlas translated A Streetcar Named Desire in Argentina, revolutionizing the Argentine stage. Sixty-five years have elapsed since then. This period has seen the establishment of Translatology as a fully-independent science, and it has given the play different readings from a queer perspective. Revisiting Mirlas’ work we may comprehend that with the multiplicity of tools we have developed since then we may revolutionize the stage once more as well as give credit to the vast growth of our science. Following Keith Harvey´s (1998) queer translation methodology in the analysis of gay camp in translation, this paper studies Williams’ play to recuperate the “gaylese” (Penelope and Wolfe 1979) traits that may provide food for a new reading of this old classic.

Résumé
Tennessee Williams a écrit A Streetcar Named Desire en 1947. La pièce a immédiatement eu un énorme succès de la critique et a reçu le prix Pulitzer pour le théâtre l'année d’après. À cette époque-là, la traductologie était une science émergente qui mettait l'accent sur les questions de traduisibilité et de méthodologie. Avec l'aide de la critique littéraire et de la linguistique, la traduction a préparé le terrain pour le saut qualitatif qui l’a caractérisé au cours des décennies suivantes. En raison de la dictature de Franco en Espagne, la plupart des traductions en espagnol étaient principalement produites au Mexique, au Pérou et en Argentine. Des écrivains comme Jorge Luis Borges travaillaient dans l’élargissement du canon littéraire en introduisant des traductions dans le système afin d’ouvrir l’univers des lettres espagnoles à de nouvelles voix, de nouveaux styles et mouvements. En 1951, León Mirlas traduit A Streetcar Named Desire en Argentine et, ce faisant, il révolutionne la scène de théâtre dans ce pays. Depuis lors, soixante-cinq ans sont passés qui ont vu l’éveil de la traductologie comme une science entièrement indépendante et la diversification des lectures de la pièce en question dans la perspective de la Queer Theory. La relecture de la traduction de Mirlas nous conduit à comprendre que la multiplicité d’outils dont nous disposons nous permettrait de révolutionner encore une fois la scène et d’honorer en même temps le grand développement de la science de la traduction. Prenant appui sur la méthodologie queer proposée par Keith Harvey (1998) pour l’analyse du gay camp en traduction, nous abordons la pièce de Williams afin de repérer les «gaylese» (Penelope et Wolfe 1979) traces qui ouvrent une lecture nouvelle de ce grand classique.