Translation

Laura Castor

doi:10.7557/13.1847

Authors

Laura Castor Department of Culture and Literature, University of Tromsø

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/13.1847

Keywords:

Postcolonial studies, Mental decolonization, Life narrative, Collective memory, Native American literature, Conflict transformation, Peace studies

Abstract

"Translation" is a life narrative about the ways in which cultural histories shape personal stories, and the capacity of the imagination to develop alternative narratives about oneself and the world. It can also be read a way of addressing the effects of what Ato Quayson calls the global process of postcolonializing. Quaysons critical perspective might be used as an interpretive lens for seeing some of the ways in which this autobiographical narrative complicates the jargon of race, class, gender," terminology which risks reducing the lived experiences of individuals to slogans and ideologies. The narrative considers, imaginatively, the difficulties of cultural translation, and especially some of the inadequacies of thinking in terms of narrow ideologies and national identities at the turn of the 21st century.

Author Biography

Laura Castor, Department of Culture and Literature, University of Tromsø

Laura Castor, (Associate Professor, Department of Culture and
Literature, University of Tromsø) has a doctorate in American studies from the University of Minnesota (1994), where she wrote her dissertation on autobiographical writing as a tool for interpreting relationships between gender, art (dance and theatre) and history in the early twentieth century. Her current research interests include life narratives, collective memory, and indigenous selfrepresentations in literature. She has recently published articles on the novels and short fiction of Native American writers Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Linda Hogan.