#1 Sept 28 - Gender ＆ Translation
#1 Sept 14 Anne Cranny-Francis, et al.. Gender Studies: Terms and Debates. London: Palgrave, 2003.
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6 意見:
Reading this book for me is just like being bombarded with myriads of terms and theories related to gendering and issues generated from exploring its diverse possibilities. Even so, I found myself particularly shocked by the inference about psychoanalysis and gender, which, as specified by Freud and Lacan(such as the discussion on the “Oedipus complex” and the “castration complex”), might have determined the connotations of being a male or a female in the human society. The compulsory patriarchal oppression that has haunted women for thousands of years is de facto a product of a justified “normative heterosexuality.” The gendered regime further sets up symbolic boundaries that had stereotyped “male” and “female” in a way that no one in this mechanism can escape from. This “ideology” is reminiscent of the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth.” In the film, the immortal “Pan” is actually a symbol of a huge penis (patriarchy, penis envy), and the vicious Spanish captain is a representation of the masculine hegemony that Ophelia would never be able to cross. The little girl had no choice but to escape into her dreams(another identity?) trying to kill her step-father as a Don Quixote self-redemption. The film ends up in the death of Ophelia foreshadowing the futility of fighting the fixed gendering system. Should this be true, why do we bother studying gender and trying to change a situation that is doomed unchangeable? We are like caged birds “embodied” in a biologically and culturally pre-coded organism.
素勳：
中秋節的夜晚，賞著月亮，想起了日／月，男／女，理性的父親／溫柔的母親，男性的線性時間／女性的循環時間（配合月亮的生理週期）等二元對立……賞完月後，讀到Gender Studies的結論提到Gethen的居民大半的時間都沒有男／女之分（但根據Discovery, 地球上確實有些生物是如此的；它們只有在生殖期間分化出雄／雌，其他時間則沒有性別之分）。其實，性別的區分，也就是差異（difference）的區分而已。而且人類一出生就分男／女（至少絕大多數人都是，陰陽人終究是極少數），也分階級、種族等……差異總是存在的。性別的平等（或任何的“平等”）並不是要大家都一樣（the same）──不然和單細胞分裂生殖的變形蟲又有何兩樣？重要的是“尊重”差異，而不是因為別人和自己不同，就視之為monster（Gethen人也毋須因此看輕地球人吧？）調和弗洛伊德的“詭異的重返”（the return of the uncanny），或Kristeva的“賤斥”說（abject），被視為“怪獸”的“他者”可能只是自己的鏡像／分身而已。男性想要賤斥掉的母親／女性，亦有可能是自己的鏡像？……所以伍爾芙喜歡說“androgen”，而且中國人說陰中有陽，陽中有陰──有趣的是，在各種二元對立的高低層級裡，也只有陰／陽是將陰性排在陽性前面……
坦白說，我一直覺得二元對立的劃分法並不是“罪不可赦”，它只是一種方便的分類法而已；而且應該視為一種連續體（continuum），而非兩極的對立。（例如，有人即指出李維斯托的生食／熟食劃分外，還有半生熟……本書裡也提到有批評家主張變性人一定要變成男或女性，只是加強了二元對立，何不以“第三性”（transsexual）的身份來生活？）重要的是，人們必須對二元分立的劃分需抱持著謹慎、批判的態度。更重要的是，不要將”社會化“的二元對立，誤認為”自然化“，並且二元對立不該總是由一邊壓榨另一邊……
這本書包羅萬象，包括性別的理論／性別的閱讀／性別身體／性別的空間／性別的生活等，讀了後收穫甚多。書裡有些關於通俗文化的研究也很有趣。例如對Star Trek的Queer Reading；還有抗拒性的閱讀策略等……又如該系列最初的片頭旁白是：企業號（女性）要征服沒有“男人”征服過的太空（女性）……後將“no man”改成了“no one”……似乎是有了進步（其實，後來還有第三代的企業號系列，還出了個女艦長），以及由一開始的干涉其他文化，到後來的”不干涉／尊重“原則，都很值得探討……這也是人類學家需要的反思吧！（《女性的世界史》裡提到在歐洲帝國主義時期，白人女性在殖民地的紀錄比較是”觀察“，非”干涉性“的，不像男人一心想改造土著……但不干涉原則在遇到像印度”寡婦殉葬“的例子呢？像中國纏足的惡習呢？對這些因”社會化“被認為是”自然化“的習俗，仍然能”不干涉“嗎？）
對了，大家認為網路空間應該是男或女？還是中性的？
P.S.李明哲的結論是否太悲觀了點？
陰性書寫深受心理分析學派的理論影響，也因此，先前閱讀的陰性書寫相關理論多多少少都提到心理分析學派，讀了這本書，對佛洛伊德提出的相關概念也有了更完整的認識。雖然佛洛伊德提出伊底帕斯情結是為了解釋gender、sexuality……的形成，但是在我看來，佛洛伊德的這種解釋稍嫌本質論了，陰莖乎決定了一切，gender和sexuality等等的形成都與陰莖脫離不了關係：因為媽媽沒有陰莖(陰蒂是被閹割的陰莖)，所以男孩有閹割恐懼，轉而認同爸爸；女孩發現自己沒有陰莖，所以把這種陰莖羨妒(penis envy)轉化成生小孩的慾望。彷彿沒有陰莖是個原罪，男性有閹割恐懼是女性的錯，而女性沒有陰莖，不但出現penis envy，還對母親產生憎惡(hatred)等。白人為了壓迫黑人而提出黑人較為低劣的相關理論，姑且不論佛洛伊德的伊底帕斯理論是否讓父權體制有了壓迫女性的「正當」理論，但佛式認為女性會因為缺乏陰莖而認為自己較為inferior，心裡還會留下永遠的傷痕，多多少少可以嗅聞出父權社會裡男性宰制(male dominance)的意味。
One of the things I like about this book is that terms in gender studies were concisely summarized and readers can know very clearly which theorists to refer to about the term. One of such example is the term “genre.” In his explanation of Bakhtin’s view of genre, Todorov connects the transformations in genre with social changes. Genre changes reflect the sociaohistorical context when the changes happen. In novel translation of late Qing, there are many genres, or maybe we should say “sub-genres.” Never in Chinese literature history have novels been divided into so many different sub-genres. There are “political novel (proposed by Liang Qichao,” “science novel,” “educational novel,” “love novel,” “detective novel,” “family novel,” “sentimental novel”言情小說, “historical novel,” “military novel,” “adventurous novel,” “grotesque novel神怪小說,” and so on. More than twenty kinds of novels were recorded. Most researchers into this topic stop at the conclusion that such phenomenon of division ushers in different subjects and genres for Chinese literature at that time. They seldom probe the “social change” part behind such division. Also, the gender aspect in such diversified genres can also be interesting. Woman translators tend to translate more of educational novels, sentimental novels, and family novels and less of other kinds. It seems to me that late Qing is sometimes contradictory in its ideas of gender. In a time of “revolution,” reformers in late Qing tend to build up the notion of “no gender in revolution (men and women are to be treated the same).” But in reality, they are not so.
I am particularly interested in the Third chapter of this book, which dwells on the ways we read gender in texts. I am thrilled to find the theoretical support for viewing readers (translators are also readers) as active recipients of textual messages. In my research, I don’t seem to be able to convince people that translations are, in a very large part, the representation of a translator. (Traditionally, translators’ influence was “under-treated”有沒有這個字啊., or “under-evaluated.” Can translations be the sole “text” (original not needed?) in which translator’s active participation can be spotted? For my research of late Qing translations (many originals were unknown), I need to be theoretically ready for the legitimacy of treating translations as sole texts.
The section Ways of Reading suggested some translation strategy to me. The reader's cultural, community, or gender standpoint influences how a text is understood, and in the case of a translator, how the symbols might be reconfigured in the target language. An example of how the translator might creatively manipulate information in a literary translation comes from the passages on resistant reading (introducing unexpected content into writings of a certain genre). Since equivalent genres cannot always be found between Chinese and English, the translator might choose a genre for the target text that re-contextualizes the content.
Last week in a class at Shida, the teacher brought up Virginia Wolf's Orlando. Cries of “strange!” and “weird!” went up in the classroom. The teacher echoed the students' view that this important work of literature was strange. Strange indeed. Strange that a book written in 1928 and praised for its visionary modernity should elicit such a response. Wolf used her portrayal of Orlando, a fictional character who lives for several hundreds years and expresses multiple genders, sexes and sexualities, to explore her inner world. To me this seems like a natural outgrowth of her life and the ideas that were circulating in British society at the time (specifically Freud, modern subjectivity, feminism, Surrealism, etc). Today, in the various communities I have inhabited (art, New York, western university education) these ideas are commonplace, and even in the wider community of America, there exists a lively discourse—referred to as the culture wars—that has injected notions of gender mutability, alternative sexuality and self-reflective psychoanalyzing into mainstream consciousness. The culture gap I observed that day in the classroom was interesting, as it made me wonder what the work of a translator can and should be.
A few days later, I read an feature article in the New York Times about coming out in junior high school in America. Expanding flexibility for young people to explore their sexualities and gender identities at an age when such practice seems most crucial is news in the US precisely because this has not been the case in the past. I thought the article was touching; even though what the author described was not an Eden of sexual liberation and tolerance, signs of hope appeared that these children weren't being suffocated by heteronormativity. These changes didn't come out of nowhere, nor did they happen overnight, and one may reasonably argue that the current state of affairs is fruit borne of a tree that grew from a seed Freud planted over 100 years ago. Perhaps over-arching cultural narratives like the evolution of psychiatry points to the power and value of theory, and here we can trace the path of gender theories as they slowly wended their way down from the ivory tower and made changed the lives of individuals.
As a student here, I explore the culture and viewpoints of the people whose writings I intend to translate. Cultural understanding is at least as important as the study of language; moreover the two seem to go hand in hand. I read 海上花 last semester, and while doing so interviewed several people in Taiwan about the book. I asked countless questions which I am sure seemed improbably stupid to my interviewees, but my goal was to tease out the paradigms at play behind the genders and sexualities constructed in the text, the paradigms that made what was happening in the book seem not so strange. From the reading list, it seems this course Gender and Translation is primarily focused on western theories, and all theories are generated from socio-historical context (all of theories outlined in the book describe phenomena in western societies in certain historical periods, that is to say, none have achieved universality). I hope that through my classmates' blog posts and in-class discussions, I might learn more about gender paradigms in the East that will contribute to my education as a translator.
Sophia Yu
It suddenly occurs to me that I, as an auditor, should also say something here before the second class begins and after the book is read.
To exaggerate a little bit, reading the terms and debates concerning gender studies presented in the book was a shocking experience. Things normal people deem natural suddenly turn out to be not natural. For example, I thought I had a thinking self existing in my body or brain when I walk, sleep, or translate stuff, but I was told that this once-totally- belong-to-myself thing, or subjectivity, was not there.
Every thing one usually takes for granted are socially and culturally constructed, instead. And every thing is relational, instead.....
This finding, to quote Oppong's field notes, is an appalling experience.
Appalling as it is, it is a fun journery to begin with. Terms and theories are explained and introduced in a clear and plain language, not to mention those numerous interesting examples taken form popular fictions, movies and so on.
But hey, how does the book, packed with names and theories of all sorts, relate to translation studies?
I personlly think that the discussion on Althusser's institution talk perhaps can be used as a tool to explain why some texts got translated and some texts were ignored, even back in Medieval China. Will explore further in this regard.
One last word, I don't buy Freud's theory of how a girl turns into a girl and how a boy turns into a boy. Not a bit. But I do believe in Simone de Beauvoir's dictum--"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."
Aurevoir!
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