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Jennifer Nunes MA thesis.pdf (1.1 MB)

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“Afternoon, a Fall”: Relationality, Accountability, and Failure as a Queer-Feminist Approach to Translating the Poetry of Yu Xiuhua

Nunes, Jennifer Marie
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494231761761609

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, East Asian Studies.
Yu Xiuhua is a contemporary Chinese poet who became a sensation in China after her poem “Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You” (Chuanguo daban ge Zhongguo qu shui ni) went viral in 2015 via the popular Chinese messaging platform, WeChat (Wexin). As a woman with cerebral palsy who did not complete high school and lives on a small farm in rural Hubei Province, Yu’s popularity intersects with her various identities, making her not only an interesting poet but also an interesting public figure. This project aims to translate a selection of her poetry in a queer-feminist mode for a contemporary English-speaking audience of politically engaged poets and writers. Drawing on a long history of feminist translation practices that visibly “womanhandle” texts in order to attend to both the author’s and the translator’s agency, alongside Aimee Carrillo Rowe’s call for a politics of relationality and queer theory’s notion of failure as a mode of resistance, these translations challenge a discourse of fluency and the resultant invisibility of the translator in standard English translation. This project thus contributes to a feminist translation practice of accountability, collaboration, and play and promotes an “ecology” of translation that values how different translations interact with each, whether symbiotically or antagonistically. Building on that foundation, these translations enact a practice of vulnerability that acknowledges and honors the failure inherent in translation as it attempts to work across difference and the power dynamics embedded in that difference. The tension between attending to the poet’s style and poetics and making visible the translator’s own processes of engagement is not relieved but rather presented as an integral part of the final translation. Ultimately, this project makes room for more varied and nuanced consideration of ethical reading approaches for those positioned in the Global North translating work by those positioned in more vulnerable locations within transnational power structures.
Patricia Sieber (Advisor)
Kirck Denton (Committee Member)
Lynn Itagaki (Committee Member)
Lina Ferreira (Committee Member)
144 p.
Asian Studies
Yu Xiuhua; China; Chinese; poetry; Chinese poetry; contemporary poetry; translation; feminist theory; queer theory; translation studies

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Citations

  • Nunes, J. M. (2017). “Afternoon, a Fall”: Relationality, Accountability, and Failure as a Queer-Feminist Approach to Translating the Poetry of Yu Xiuhua [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494231761761609

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Nunes, Jennifer. “Afternoon, a Fall”: Relationality, Accountability, and Failure as a Queer-Feminist Approach to Translating the Poetry of Yu Xiuhua. 2017. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494231761761609.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Nunes, Jennifer. "“Afternoon, a Fall”: Relationality, Accountability, and Failure as a Queer-Feminist Approach to Translating the Poetry of Yu Xiuhua." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494231761761609

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1494231761761609
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.