2015-2016 School of Chinese Research Student Seminar
Translational Cannibalism:
On Howard Goldblatt’s Translations of Mo Yan
Ms Ma Anting 馬桉珽女士
Date and Time: May 3, 2016 (Tuesday); 5:30-6:45pm
Venue: Room 730, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Language: English
Following Oswald de Andrade’s proposals and manifestos, the Brazilian intellectuals Augusto and Haroldo de Campos propose “cannibalism” as a strikingly original metaphor for translation and translation studies that revisits the imbalance of power and strives to redeem cultural identity in the postcolonial context. Redefined by the Campos brothers, cannibalism is drastically restricted to an original philosophy that devours foreign discourses and understands the nation’s aesthetically valuable cultural production in its dialogical relationship with the universal. On the other hand, cannibalism has been closely associated with an inhumane and uncivilized activity in the Chinese scenario. Starting with another look at the Chinese novelist Mo Yan and Howard Goldblatt’s translations in particular, I will discuss how the idea of cannibalism is dealt with by means of both a continuation and a variation of the cultural definition in both Brazilian and Chinese terms. In rethinking the crucial significance of “translational cannibalism”, the main question to be addressed in my presentation is that of the ways in which Howard Goldblatt’s translations of Nobel Literature laureate Mo Yan is critically re-evaluated.
巴西知識分子坎波斯兄弟繼承奧斯瓦爾德·德·安德拉德的宣言，提議“食人主義”作為翻譯及翻譯研究的一種極具獨創性的隱喻，來重新探討后殖民主義背景下的權力關係不平等，力求對文化身份的救贖。在坎波斯兄弟的重新定義下，食人主義約簡為一種獨特的哲學思想，即吞噬外國的話語，並且在對話關係中理解文化生產。另一方面，食人主義在中國語境中常與不人道、未開化相聯繫。通過新角度看待莫言及其作品的翻譯，是次演講將討論食人主義的概念在翻譯中的繼承與變體。在對“食人主義翻譯”意義的再次思考中，是次演講著力的主要問題是如何重新批判式地評價葛浩文對諾獎得主莫言的翻譯。
ALL ARE WELCOME!
