Gisele: Huda Fakhreddine + Readings

     Huda Fakhreddine was incredible. My knowledge of Arabic literature is limited to one class I took last Spring titled, "Introduction to Middle Eastern Literature," and I'm sure that a brief one-semester class could hardly even graze the edges of the centuries-old traditions of Arabic poetry. I thought her perspective on Arabic poetry (and in some ways poetry in general) as a collection of moments that time does not surpass, but interacts with, was really interesting. In her passion for poetry and deep connection to the Arabic tradition, she managed to make the concept of 'timelessness' come alive. The concept of timelessness always seemed like something entirely subjective and conceptual, but with Fakreddine's explanation of Arabic poetry, the word makes perfect objective sense. I credit this to her emphasis on tradition as the means by which poetry is and continues to be a dynamic current "in a constant state of becoming." What I liked especially about Huda Fakhreddine was her ability to love and read and interact with poetry as it is, accepting the words they are presented and accepting them as they are, never distinguishing "classical" from "contemporary" or "wrong" from "right," only that the poem is as it is, and it is meant to be that way for its own moment in time. When she talked about translation in particular, this perspective was especially unlike anything I've heard before. While some of the other speakers have discussed the importance of accuracy, faithfulness, or domestication, Fakhreddine easily accepted and encouraged mistakes to be made in translation. The past is a necessary part of the present, and mistakes offer new perspectives. 

For this week's readings, I chose Rachel Lung's "Non-standard language translation" and Jaime Harker's "Contemporary Japanese Fiction and Middlebrow Translation Strategies." In Lung's paper, I appreciated the translation examples she provided because they helped me visualize her assertion regarding "linguistic resources" and "dynamic equivalents." These two points reminded me of Huda Fakhreddine's description of the traditional/cultural "footprint" that the original language should leave in a translated text. However, she did say something regarding AAVE being an indication of being uneducated, and I don't think that is true at all—I would consider AAVE as a "standard" form of speech just like any other dialect. While I think her ideas are interesting, the way she chose to employ them here is reinforcing stereotypes regarding speech and education level/racism.

The second reading, "Contemporary Japanese Fiction and Middlebrow Translation Strategies" made me consider social influences on the success of translation in the U.S., particularly concerning East Asian literature. While Harker focused on Japanese literature in translation, I felt that a lot of the assertions she made regarding Western fetishization and stereotypes could be applied to Korean literature as well. She focused a lot on the difficulty of distinguishing foreignization and domestication due to the west's historical fetishization and commodification of Japan, via "orientalism," and the impossibility of distinguishing a "dominant culture," specifically in the U.S. where there is so much overlap in culture and identity. This was an interesting perspective because, from my knowledge of translation, domestication, and foreignization are often up for debate. In reality, as Harker points out, the act of translation is bound to be affected by prejudice and preference. Therefore, in the attempt to find some balance between domestication and foreignization, there will inevitably be the affirming of some stereotype or other.