Event overview
The improvisational temporality of translation explored through a dystranslation of Fanon’s writing between French, English and Korean hangul and hanja.
This talk will offer a few comments on R.A. Judy’s, Sentient Flesh (2020), and the implications of his theory of para-semiosis for translating non-Western critical theory.
If Judy’s text opens up the confluence of colonial language imposition as a para-semiotic field within which translation operates, I explore the unique problematic of a necessarily improvisational temporality of the signifier. I call the retention of this temporality “translation in black,” whose mode is historically and formally of the African American blues tradition, but can be performed in wholly other colonial linguistic contexts. I demonstrate this through a dystranslation of Fanon’s writing between French, English and Korean hangul and hanja.
Sora Han is the Chair of the Department of African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and an Associate Professor of the Culture & Theory PhD Program, Criminology, Law & Society, Comparative Literature and the School of Law. Her first book, Letters of the Law (2015), extends the theoretical insights of critical race theory to produce new readings of American law’s landmark decisions on race and civil rights. She is also the co-author of the law casebook, Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law, Third Edition (2020), and Lacan and Chan Buddhist Thought (2022).
Her newest book, Mu: 49 Marks of Abolition, to be published in 2022, is an experimental text on the poetics of the unconscious materiality of law in the wake of racial slavery. Recent publications on these new lines of research include ‘Slavery as Contract’, in Law and Literature (2016) and ‘Poetics of Mu’ in Textual Practice (2018). Her first book of poetry, ㅁ: to regard a wave, is forthcoming.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 26 Oct 2022 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.
