on gender, power, identity

While I thought Boris was a charismatic and personable speaker, I found myself somewhat frustrated with certain things he said too. He shared the story of how he first found out about Julia Nemirovskaya’s work, and while he was telling it, I thought: okay, like so much else in translation, it happened just like that—by some almost magical chance. But on second thought, that wasn’t really chance, and it wasn’t really funny either. It was yet another example of how white-male-dominated academia is hostile to women’s writing. It underlined how women’s work is often dismissed, not taken seriously, and chosen last. I found myself wondering if Nemirovskaya—a deeply feeling, sensitive poet—was okay with him sharing that story in a room full of people, set to be recorded forever. Moreover, at several points during the lecture, both Boris and people in the audience mentioned how Nemirovskaya’s work was “marginalized” or “relegated to the margins.” I find myself frustrated by these terms—they seem to suggest that poof! She, and other women poets, just existed in the margins. Men have marginalized women and continue to marginalize women, denying them the space, the attention, the recognition, the funding, and the time that their voices deserve. This is no coincidence.

 

I think that Derrida’s elimination of the power relations between source text and target text is spot on. For Derrida, when a text is written into another language, it becomes an entirely new text, and thus the translator is fundamentally (also) an author. By considering the translator an author in her own right, Derrida upends the traditional author-male/translator-female power dynamics at play. The only way to finally rid translation of these misogynistic power dynamics is to upend the entire power structure; it's not enough just to change the metaphor. Though new metaphors are welcome too. I like the liminal, border space. I like Pandora, Medusa, Athena.

Lastly, I think identity politics absolutely has a place in translation. I think identity politics can be an important way for “marginalized” groups to locate power, to create and share opportunities for members of their community that they otherwise might not be able to access. Building a more equitable translation culture means making sure that others (generally those not part of the longstanding elite white men’s club) have more access, more space, and more opportunity than they have had before. This shift is inevitably uncomfortable for some. That being said, I don’t think texts must necessarily be translated by someone who shares a certain identity with the author, but really it depends on how crucial that identity experience is to the text at hand.

-sharon