Cultural Translation and Translational Comparative Literature

Abstract

In the strange interstitial space of the klein bottle neck, simultaneous centripetal and centrifugal vortex of double cross – cultural experience in transcultural modern and contemporary literature and culture can be slowly revealed as far as we are disciplined with keen eyes and delicate ears. This strange locus of multiple interstices include such pairs as inside and outside, consciousness and unconsciousness, self and other, nature and culture, and voice and vision. Thus, what appears to be untranslatable in terms of the cultural difference can be transculturally approachable, if the reader contacts the strangeness, listens to the other's voices, and opens his/her heart to the cross – cultural initiation beyond the space of monocultural untranslatability. Also, when the reader performs an insurgent and/or passionate, entertaining, differential act of cultural translation, the transculturally encoded hybridized texts will lay bare their truths. In this context, the purpose of this presentation is to provide the context of the Korea East – West Comparative Literature Association (KEASTWEST) Sessions.