Queering Machine Translation?: Post-Editing Queer Russian Poetry

• In Event: Memory in Translation: Gender, Poetry, and Politics

Abstract

My paper explores the intersection of queer theory, memory and translation through a case study of translating the work of the queer Russian poet Ekaterina Simonova (b. 1977). Drawing on Rosi Braidotti's (1994) concept of the nomadic subject, I posit translation as a performative act of remembering that can challenge established norms while participating in forms of memory-making and identity-building. The study reveals how translation serves as a site where personal and collective queer memories are negotiated, with machine translation potentially offering unexpected pathways for (re)writing identities that resist erasure.

Author

• Matilda Hicklin, U of Bristol (UK)