The demand for fidelity, obedience and lawfulness persists in critiques of translation—but a text in translation is rarely content to be domesticated—more often than not it strays, moves, mutates. In this seminar, Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson, co-authors of Deformation Zone (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012), explore the translation of texts and media as a wounded, haunted, possessed, and intentionally problematic practice of transformation and reanimation.
Joyelle McSweeney (University of Notre Dame) is the author of several books of poetry and prose, including Percussion Grenade (Fence Books, 2012) and The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults (University of Michigan Poets on Poetry series, 2015). Her play Dead Youth, or, the Leaks (Litmus Press, 2014) won the inaugural Leslie Scalapino Prize for Innovative Women Playwrights.
Johannes Göransson (University of Notre Dame) is the author of several books, including Haute Surveillance (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2013) and The Sugar Book(Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2014). He is also a translator of works by Swedish and Finland Swedish poets and writers, including Aase Berg, Henry Parland and Johan Jönson. With McSweeney, he edits Action Books and is the founder of Montevidayo, a mulit-author blog that explores “the mushy body of the contemporary.”
Deformation Zone is available to read online: http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/archive/online-reading-old/deformation...
Comparative Criticism and Translation
Contact email: comparative.criticism@st-annes.ox.ac.uk
Website: Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation
Audience: Open to all