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Transference Vol. 1, Summer 2013 Aug 2013

Transference Vol. 1, Summer 2013

Transference

Transference is published by the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Western Michigan University. Dedicated to the celebration of poetry in translation, the journal publishes translations from Arabic, Chinese, French and Old French, German, Classical Greek and Latin, Japanese, and Russian into English verse. Transference contains translations as well as commentaries on the art and process of translating.


Reconceiving Self-Abnegation: Female Vulnerability As Embodied (Un)Sovereignty, Renee Lee Gardner Jun 2013

Reconceiving Self-Abnegation: Female Vulnerability As Embodied (Un)Sovereignty, Renee Lee Gardner

Dissertations

Liberal feminism views vulnerability as weakness and dominance as strength. This binary parallels nationalistic assertions of sovereignty. Within militaristic responses such as the U.S. retaliation to 9/11, however, we see the cost of refusing to acknowledge our vulnerability. In my analysis of eleven novels arising from eight distinct nation-states and representing historical moments from the final decades of slavery through the early post- 9/11 years, I use alternative (queer, postcolonial, Islamic) feminisms to read power in vulnerability. I explore female characters who deliberately self-abnegate – sacrificing their lives, bodies, voices, and children – but whose actions can be read as …