1st Edition
Queer Theory and Translation Studies Language, Politics, Desire
This groundbreaking book explores the relevance of queer theory to Translation Studies and of translation to Global Sexuality Studies. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of the origins and evolution of queer theory, this book places queer theory and Translation Studies in a productive and mutually interrogating relationship.
After framing the discussion of actual and potential interfaces between queer sexuality and queer textuality, the chapters trace the transnational circulation of queer texts, focusing on the place of translation in "gay" anthologies, the packaging of queer life writing for global audiences, and the translation of lyric poetry as a distinct site of queer performativity. Baer analyzes fictional translators in literature and film, the treatment of translation in historical and ethnographic studies of sexual and linguistic others, the work of queer translators, and the reception of queer texts in translation.
Including a range of case studies to exemplify key ethical issues relevant to all scholars of global sexuality and postcolonial studies, this book is essential reading for advanced students, scholars, and researchers in Translation Studies, gender and sexuality studies, and related areas.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Textual and Sexual Orientations
Chapter One
Queering Translation, or What Queer Theory Can Do for Translation Studies
Chapter Two
Queering Global Sexuality Studies, or Translation and Unease
Chapter Three
Queering the Gay Anthology, Part I: Evolution in/of a Genre
Chapter Four
Queering the Gay Anthology, Part II: From Appropriation to Consecration to Incorporation
Chapter Five
Keep the Lyric Queer, or Poetic Translation as Reparative Reading
Chapter Six
From Sexual Dissidence to Sexual Dissonance: Translating the Queer Life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
Conclusion
Uneasy Reading, or Putting the Trans* in Translation Studies
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Brian James Baer is Professor of Russian and Translation Studies at Kent State University, Ohio. He is founding editor of the journal Translation and Interpreting Studies and coeditor, with Michelle Woods, of the series Literatures, Cultures, Translation. His most recent publications include the monograph Translation and the Making of Modern Russian Literature; the collected volumes Translation in Russian Contexts (with Susanna Witt) and Queering Translation, Translating the Queer (with Klaus Kaindl); and the translated volumes Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics (by Juri Lotman) and Red Crosses (by Sasha Filipenko, with Ellen Vayner).
"This book strides through an immense array of translation history and queer experience across many literary traditions, letting heretofore stationary concepts spin with a new multilingual luminosity. Lively, confident, and a true joy to read, Baer brings his decades of ambitious collaborative inquiry to bear in this masterwork, which puts to a certain end the ill-fitting love affair between queer theory and Anglophone monolingualism."
David Gramling, University of Arizona, USA"Brian James Baer brings elegance and rigour to the conversation between queer theory and translation studies. This is a book rich in insight, immersed in the most vital currents of contemporary thought. The chapter on Charlotte von Mahlsdorf alone will ensure that this book becomes an essential reference."
Sherry Simon, Concordia University, Canada
