Radical Others in the New “Contact Zone”: Tensions, Breaks, Relations

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Published: May 1, 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/syn.16195
Keywords:
Helen Zughaib Suheir Hammad Joan Anim-Addo postcolonialism translation transnationalism creolization
Lisa Marchi
University of Trento
Abstract

Drawing from recent conceptualizations of translation as an open, fragmentary, and unpredictable process (Simon, 2006; Bassnett, 1998), in this article, I employ creolization as a theoretical paradigm of transnational significance to explore the ways in which Other cultures translate cultures, by paying particular attention to the breaks, tensions, and relations that these translations both reveal and produce. The essay examines and compares three creolized ‘texts’: the cycle of paintings “Changing Perceptions” (2005) by Arab-American visual artist Helen Zughaib; the collection breaking poems (2008) by Arab-American poet Suheir Hammad; and the libretto Imoinda or She Who Will Lose her Name (2008) by African-Caribbean-British writer Joan Anim-Addo. The main goal of the paper is to test the potential of creolization as a transnational poetics and practice and a theoretical tool to read and critically interrogate the creolized texts produced by today’s “signifying minorities” (Anim-Addo, 2009) within the British and US nations, and by extension within an increasingly interconnected, heterogeneous, and “uneven” (Radhakrishnan, 2003) world.

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Author Biography
Lisa Marchi, University of Trento
Lisa Marchi holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Trento. She has conducted research at UCLA, McGill University, and at the JFK Institute of the Free University in Berlin. Her research interests include contemporary Arab diasporic literature, gender studies, critical theory, philosophy, ethics, and interculturality. Her article “Ghosts, Guests, Hosts: Rethinking ‘Illegal’ Migration and Hospitality Through Arab Diasporic Literature” has recently appeared in Comparative Literature Studies. 
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