Performing translation: The transnational call-and-response of African diaspora literature

The dissertation argues that translations of African diaspora literature both within and beyond the diaspora should be treated as collaborative performances, which, in a manner similar to the critical tradition of call-and-response, have the power of negotiating political meanings in the source and target cultures.; Chapter one presents translation studies as a fast-expanding area within African diaspora studies scholarship, attributing the parallels between the two fields to the formative role of transnational experiences in African diaspora cultures.; Chapter two discusses Langston Hughes and Ben Frederic Carruthers' use of the blues form in their translations of Nicolas Guillen's Motivos de son. The chapter argues that the common West African origins of son and blues as well as their parallel political and social roles position Hughes and Carruthers' translation as a collaboration with Guillen.; Chapter three argues that contemporary translations of African American literature in Poland frequently collide with stereotypes of African American culture which developed during the Cold War as a result of respective Soviet and U.S. propagandas. The chapter demonstrates that the author's own translations of Yusef Komunyakaa's jazz-related poems were able to challenge the Cold War legacy, partially thanks to jazz's resistance to appropriation.; Chapter four treats the international marketing of Zadie Smith's White Teeth as a form of translation, which reduces the novel's criticism of British race relationships to a story designed chiefly for entertainment. Despite the popularity of these reductive readings, the chapter shows that White Teeth resists the market's cooptive strategies through its own translation references, which open the novel for cross-cultural dialogue.; The final chapter postulates the use of translated texts and translation theory in the teaching of African diaspora literature. It proposes that such a strategy undermines students' tendency to focus on individualism, and encourages their engagement with the public sphere.