Translation as a Productive Cultural Space: Gao Xingjian in Translation

My proposed project focuses on the translation and reception in France of works by the Chinese-French writer, Gao Xingjian, the laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000. I will use Gao’s novels in French translation as a case study to problematize the pessimistic views on the untranslatability between Chinese and Western languages as well as the manipulation of Chinese literature in the West. Through textual analysis, I argue that translation creates a productive space beyond the limits of the source and target cultures in the contact zone.

The Paternity Crisis and the Other Side of Turkish Modernity

My research project presents a unique perspective on the Turkish experience of modernity from the side of the discredited, disavowed and repressed, and thus contributes to a better understanding (and to a better identification of the failures) of the modernization in Turkey that predominated much of the twentieth century. It does this through an exploration of paternity crisis that hinges upon the traumatic inception of modernity.

Pages