Call for papers for special panel entitled "Translation as Narrative Strategy" to be held at CRAFT, CRITIQUE, CULTURE: The University of Iowa's 3rd Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Writing in the Academy, March 28-30, 2003.

This panel seeks to address issues of translation within literary texts themselves. In a story by the criticially acclaimed Japanese writer Tawada Yoko, a character asserts that the way she can identify a translation is by hearing "the gravel rolling behind [the]words. If translation can have, as this story suggests, such a defamiliarizing effect, then how might a narrator who translates complicate the telling of a tale? Does translation excise the emotional build up from over-burdened words and allow us to see language anew? Or does the palpable strangeness render the narrator unreliable and influence the narrative's trajectory?

While translation - in terms of entire texts - is gaining more and more academic attention in the 21st Century it is also important to look at the role translation plays within texts. Can the re-telling of an ancient tale, or the use of a marginally bilingual narrator, draw attention to the materiality of words and the specificity of cultural values?

I am looking for papers that deal with translation as a narrative strategy or as a theme within the content of the narrative. "Translation" may be interpreted as crossing borders linguistically, chronologically or culturally. Papers, written in English, on texts of all languages are welcome.

Please send 300-word proposals by February 28, 2003 via email text - no attachments please.

For more information about the CRAFT, CRITIQUE, CULTURE conference, please visit the website.