[KS] Call for Participants: Experimental Translations in/with East Asian Languages

[David Yang]

Dear colleagues,

The Yanai Initiative <https://yanai-initiative.ucla.edu> is pleased to
invite proposals for a symposium entitled “Experimental Translations
in/with East Asian Languages,” to be hosted at UCLA on April 10-11, 2026.

Over recent decades, scholars of East Asia have increasingly unsettled
Eurocentric translation paradigms by foregrounding the rich history of the
region’s linguistic and textual practices, creating new frameworks for
understanding translingual encounters that move beyond the nation, notions
of equivalence, and phonocentric conceptions of language. At the same time,
the practice of translation has often served as a laboratory: a site of
linguistic experimentation, serendipitous discoveries, and unexpected
collisions. This symposium seeks to highlight the connections between these
seemingly disparate strands of engagement by bringing together translators,
artists, and scholars working at the intersection of East Asian languages
and experimental translation.

We welcome proposals from practitioners and scholars who approach
translation as a generative space—one that simultaneously opens onto
creative experimentation and critical inquiry, serving as a medium for
working through the tensions between theory and practice and pushing
against their very boundaries. We are interested in work that foregrounds
translation’s affective, material, and performative dimensions; that opens
our eyes to new ways of seeing, engaging with, or experiencing translation;
that explores innovative, unexpected ways of using translation in the
classroom. By attending closely to the affordances of East Asian languages
and scripts, this symposium seeks not only to deepen our understanding of
translation, but also to showcase alternative translational practices that
cut across linguistic, medial, and epistemic borders.

We invite proposals on topics or practices including, but not limited to:

   - *Experimental Modes of Translation*: Visual, sonic, performative, and
   intermedial translation experiments (realized, hypothetical, or
   speculative).
   - *Language, Medium, and Materiality*: Investigations into how
   translation from, into, or between East Asian languages negotiates diverse
   media, sensory registers, and material forms.
   - *Histories and Theories of East Asian Translation*: Engagements with
   premodern or modern East Asian theories and practices of translation that
   challenge, complicate, or expand established perspectives, knowledge, or
   analytic frameworks.
   - *Asemic, Non-Representational, or Asignifying Poetics*: Writing or
   translational practices that exceed conventional notions of semantic
   meaning.
   - *Algorithmic Translations*: Projects exploring how machine
   translation, artificial intelligence, and digital interfaces can
   reconfigure the boundaries of language, authorship, and meaning.

Please submit a proposal (approximately 300-400 words) describing your
project and how it fits into your broader intellectual and/or creative
interests, along with a CV of no more than 2 pages, to David Yang (
davidsyang at g.ucla.edu) by November 30, 2025, 11:59 PM (PT). We encourage
contributions in a variety of formats, from academic papers to
creative-critical hybrids, including presentations and discussions of
translations in the form of texts, artworks, performances, music, and so
on. For visual, performative, or multimedia works, you are welcome to
include documentation (images, video or audio links) and technical
requirements. We will notify applicants of the results by late December.
The Yanai Initiative will cover the cost of travel and accommodation for
accepted speakers.

We look forward to your proposals!

Sincerely yours,

Michael Emmerich
Director, Japan Past & Present
Director, The Yanai Initiative
Tadashi Yanai Professor of Japanese Literature, UCLA

David Yang
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20251102/d7d13270/attachment.html>