Queer Theory and Translation Studies: Language, Politics, Desire

by Brian James Baer

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781315514710
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/21/2020
Series:	New Perspectives in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	238
File size:	697 KB

About the Author

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).

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher