Time: 3 June 2024 @ 9.45–11.00
Venue: Aula Collegium Heliodori
Speaker: Prof. Chantal Zabus (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord), Faculty Advisory Board (FAB) Member
Abstract
“Translects” (Zabus & Das, 2020) are transnational, transgender-inflected terms rooted in ancestral contexts. Hinging on ‘transing’ and ‘translating’, I examine the use of translects in ‘autofictions’ — South African Zandile Ngozi Nkabinde’s Black Bull, Ancestors and Me (2008), contrasted with South African Anastacia Thomson’s Always Anastacia (2015); Nigerian-born, US-based, Igbo-Tamil writer, Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (2018); and Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (2021) — to reflect on a ‘post-queer’ and post-secular turn in approaching transgender identities and personhoods, which translate into various shades of postcolonial naming practices in Sub-Saharan Africa.
About the lecture series
WA Distinguished Professors’ Lectures Series features internationally renowned scholars visiting the Faculty of English to share their research and professional expertise with the faculty and students.