Diaspora and Translation

Catalog description

This course explores the fraught and fruitful relationship between diaspora and translation. If diaspora refers to the movement of peoples across physical space while translation points to the movement of meaning between languages, how might the subtle asymmetries and political stakes of each help to better understand the processes of the other? How do key questions of cultural transmission, original/target audience, and identity formation inflect differently across archives of diasporic and translated literature? We will read works spanning various diasporic geographies, including that of Langston Hughes, Eileen Chang, Don Mee Choi, Valeria Luiselli, Yaa Gyasi, and Mohsin Hamid. Students will gain a grounding in translation theory and diaspora studies and practice creative methods of combining them. Knowledge of a non-English language will be helpful but is not required for this course.