In 2022, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI) and Seoul Selection Publishing facilitated the English-language translations of four important literary works by prominent Zainichi (lit. “residing in Japan; resident) Korean authors: Kim Sŏk-pŏm’s Death of a Crow, translated by Christina Yi; Lee Yangji’s Nabi T’aryŏng and Other Stories, translated by Cindi Textor and Lee Soo Mi; Kim Tal-su’s The Trial of Pak Tal and Other Stories, translated by Christopher D. Scott; and Yang Seok-il’s Blood and Bones, translated by Adhy Kim.
This symposium will bring together the translators of these works to collectively consider the state of the field and future directions for Zainichi literary studies. It will conclude with a book talk by Cindi Textor on her forthcoming monograph, Intersectional Incoherence: Zainichi Literature and the Ethics of Illegibility (University of California Press).
Supported by funding from the Department of Asian Studies at UBC, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Date: Saturday, December 9
Time: 2:00pm – 5:45pm
Venue: In-person in Room 604 @ UBC Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall, Vancouver (map here) and online.
Reservation required:
For in-person registration: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9n58S9XTg8tiZvw
For Zoom participation: https://ubc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_r6V7DeLdQCCt9AanoFFZpA
Schedule:
2:00pm – 3:45pm: Roundtable discussion with translators, moderated by Andre Haag
3:45pm – 4:00pm: Coffee break
4:00pm – 5:30pm: Keynote talk by Cindi Textor on Intersectional Incoherence: Zainichi Literature and the Ethics of Illegibility
5:30pm – 5:45pm: Concluding remarks by Christina Yi
Participants:
Andre Haag is an assistant professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Hawai‘i–Mānoa. He received his PhD in Japanese literature from Stanford University. Haag’s research explores how the insecurities and terrors of colonialism attendant to the annexation of Korea and internalization of the “Korea Problem” were inscribed within the literature, culture, and vocabularies that circulated within the Japanese imperial metropole. Haag is completing a book manuscript on this topic titled “Fear and Loathing in Imperial Japan: Colonial Integration, Insurgency, and the Cultures of Korean Peril.” He is the co-editor, along with Christina Yi and Catherine Ryu, of the volume Passing, Posing, Persuasion: Cultural Production and Coloniality in the Japan’s East Asian Empire (University of Hawaii Press, 2023).
Adhy Kim is a lecturer in History & Literature at Harvard University. His research interests are in Asian/American literature and culture from the twentieth century to the present, with a focus on Korea, Japan, and their diasporas. Starting in Fall 2024, he will join the Literatures in English department at Cornell University as assistant professor.
Christopher Scott teaches Japanese, Japanese cultural studies, and translation studies at The Nueva School, an independent school in San Mateo, California. He received his PhD from Stanford University, with a doctoral dissertation entitled “Invisible Men: The Zainichi Korean Presence in Postwar Japanese Culture.” From 2006-2012, he was an assistant professor of Japanese at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. In addition to Kim Tal-su’s The Trial of Pak Tal and Other Stories (Seoul Selection, 2022), his other published translations from Japanese include: Kim Sa-ryang’s “Into the Light” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2010), Levy Hideo’s A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard (Columbia University Press, 2011), and Shu Ejima’s Quick Draw (Vertical, 2014).
Cindi Textor is Assistant Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at University of Utah. Her work on incoherence, illegibility, and intersectionality in Korean- and Japanese-language fiction has appeared in positions: asia critique, Journal of Korean Studies, and other venues. Her monograph, Intersectional Incoherence: Zainichi Literature and the Ethics of Illegibility, is forthcoming from University of California Press. She is also the translator of Kim Sŏkpŏm’s The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost (Columbia University Press, 2010) and Lee Yangji’s Yuhi (in Nabi Taryŏng and Other Stories, Seoul Selection, 2022).
Christina Yi is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of British Columbia. Her first monograph, Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea, was published by Columbia University Press in 2018. She was also the co-editor for a special feature on Zainichi Korean literature and film for Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture 12 (2019) as well as the edited volume Passing, Posing, Persuasion: Cultural Production and Coloniality in Japan’s East Asian Empire (with Andre Haag and Catherine Ryu, 2023).
