(Self-)creating, (self-)rewriting, (self-)translating: literary postures and political postures in contemporary female authors and translators

Abstract

The research project Crear(se), reescribir(se), traducir(se): posturas literarias y posturas políticas en autoras y traductoras contemporáneas (2020-2024), supported by  the Laboratory of Translation Research (LIT-IdIHCS-UNLP), studies the mutations in contemporary literary practices and discourses based on the concept of posture (Meizoz, 2007, 2011) which reviews and describes the literary act in the light of the constant articulations between the individual and the collective from a sociological perspective. Following this critical and theoretical development, our work proposes an analysis of the emergence of tensions, relationships, and constructions of self-present in the discursive productions of French-speaking authors and contemporary translators who seek to subvert patriarchal language and claim feminist and political ideas. The theoretical approach that we have taken has allowed us to adopt a complex perspective upon the creative act and to discuss traditional conceptions of creative and translating processes given the articulation of concepts from discursive, literary, translational and sociological approaches. We integrate the rhetorical and discursive dimensions that are inscribed in the perspective of the discursive ethos of Maingueneau (2004, 2015) and Amossy (2010, 2012) with the behavioral dimension or corporal hexis, according to Bourdieu (1980 [2017]). The corpus of analysis includes texts written by authors and translators who marked the literature in their languages of writing and translation such as Aurora Venturini, Violette Leduc, Marguerite Duras, Laura Alcoba, Annie Ernaux, Joséphine Bacon, Natasha Kanapé-Fontaine and An Antane Kapesh.