Feminist Translation as Research and Writing Practice for Scholars Working Between Languages

 

This workshop was a space where scholars working between languages could consider feminist translation as an informative practice that helps us to be more deliberate about some of the many decisions that have to be made when presenting one language in another for the purposes of scholarly, activist and creative work. Guided by the concerns, questions and examples that participants bring with them, the workshop was facilitated by literary translation scholar Sun Kyoung Yoon and graduate student and translator Sophie Bowman. We explored various definitions of feminist translation and what it can mean in practice, using examples from recent translations and translation debates. Students, faculty and scholars from all disciplines were welcome. Participants were encouraged to prepare one or two questions or discussion points in advance.

 

 

Sun Kyoung Yoon is an Associate Professor of literary translation at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Her research interests include English translations of Korean literature, decolonising translation, and translation and gender. She has published many articles on literary translation in international journals such as The Translator, Target, Perspectives, Journal of Gender Studies and Acta Koreana. Recently, her article ‘Fidelity or Infidelity? The Mistranslation Controversy over The Vegetarian’ that deals with translation and gender has been published in Target.

 

Sophie Bowman is a PhD candidate in East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on women’s textual depictions of everyday life in 1950s South Korea. Sophie has also translated multiple works of literature from the Korean, including Kim Boyoung’s I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories (with Sung Ryu, Harper Voyager, 2021) and Pak Kyongni’s “The Sickness No Medicine Can Fix” (published in The Age of Doubt, Honford Star, 2022).