Random Musings: Queer Theory, Japanese Literature, and Translation

I recently had the opportunity to attend a lecture by J. Keith Vincent, a professor at Boston University whose primary research interests include queer theory, Japanese literature, and translation. The lecture he presented was “Out Gays” or “Shameless Gays”? What Gets Lost, and What is Gained, when U.S. Queer Theory is Translated into Japanese?. The talk is a work in progress and was the third version of the presentation that he has given. In this case, it was tailored for an audience that already had a background in both queer and Japanese studies. I found the lecture to be absolutely fascinating and wanted to share a few of my thoughts.

At this point, queer theory is at least twenty-three years old and can be traced back to as early as the 1990s in the United States if not before. In Japan, queer theory has only become prominent within the last ten years or so. Queer theory continues to develop and evolve and it still has a tremendous amount to say about sexuality, language, and power—subjects that are very important in literature as well. Because language plays such a critical role in queer theory and sexual politics, it makes sense that by extension translation also has a significant role to play when introducing concepts from one culture or language into another.

Vincent makes the argument that the very act of translation is in itself a queer practice. While the original work will always remain the same, new translations provide new interpretations, analyses, and contexts. Natsume Sōseki’s novel Botchan, which has had no less than six translations in English, is one example. As times and ways of thinking change, translation is something that is always in process and can never really be declared definitive—it’s more of an art than a science, which is not to say that there cannot be poor or inaccurate translations. This impossibility of translation can be seen as a metaphor for the impossibility of identity in queer theory.

When dealing with queer sexuality in translation—whether in works of fiction or nonfiction—there are several things to take into consideration. Though hopefully not as common now as it once was in the past, queer sexuality was often left out of translated works or otherwise altered during the domestication of the text. On the other hand, translation may actually erase the homophobia (or other phobias) that exist in a text if the translator is worried about its offensiveness. This, too, is problematic. Probably one of the most difficult tasks for a translator is to accurately convey the tone of the original in another language.

In some cases, translation warps or distorts queer sexuality, especially when there are words or concepts which don’t have a direct correlation from one language to another or which don’t carry the same cultural context when translated. For example, the use of term “queer” is becoming more common in Japanese (written in katakana), but the word doesn’t have the same history or negative connotations that it does in English. Similarly, Japanese terms like “nanshoku” or “okama” don’t have an exact one-to-one English equivalent. Word choice in translation is critical and those choices can completely change the meaning, interpretation, or nuance of a work.

While the focus of Vincent’s lecture was on queer theory and literature in translation, both into and from Japanese, the issues encountered when attempting to translate queer sexuality are also encountered when dealing with other topics. A great translation requires that the translator has fluency in all of the languages and cultures involved as well as a strong understanding of a work’s history and subject matter. Simply put, translation, like identity, is complicated.