Making Meaning
Drawing Occlusions: Visual Relational Time in Dancing After TEN and The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lauren Chivington
Both graphic novels Dancing After TEN by Vivian Chong and Georgia Webber and The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood depict semi/autobiographical graphic narratives of vision loss, and the relationships that accompany those lived experiences. Each narrative uses formal elements in distinct ways to show the occurrence of unexpected vision loss that progressively worsens over time. They also both show, in form and/or in content, the relationality that often accompanies living within “crip time”. The comic form, while ocularcentric, is uniquely formally positioned to show us--as in narratives like these--ways in which life with visual impairments can look different and still make meaning. Some specific elements we consider in these narratives are the use of color, black panels, palimpsest, and closure to convey visual occlusion and relationality. Each of these narratives grapples with issues of isolation commonly experienced by people with disabilities, whether it be feeling alone without the people who love us or feeling alone with them. However, through their own respective experiences of crip time, when Billie and Vivian begin to accept relationality, their vision loss no longer consumes them with the same level of darkness. Furthermore, we consider the significance of creators with visual impairments generating expression in visual spaces. As a character with an impairment in Billie Scott tells the protagonist: “disability isn’t the end. I’m not saying it’s the beginning either”. The comic medium allows the reader to engage with this liminal way of being that subverts ableist expectations.
Navigating Fluid Landscapes: Hybridity in Paul Bowles’ Translations of Larbi Layachi and Mohammed Mrabet’s Stories
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Inass Essrhir
This paper examines hybridity in the literary collaboration between American writer Paul Bowles and Moroccan storytellers Larbi Layachi and Mohammed Mrabet. Their collaborative translation project illustrates hybridity through characters navigating across heterogeneous spatio-temporal spaces. This paper falls within postcolonial translation studies, a field that emerged in the 1990s to recognize that translation transcends linguistic conversion encompassing sociocultural, historical, and political dimensions. Bowles’ translations of Layachi’s Yesterday and Today and Mrabet’s Love with a Few Hairs demonstrate hybridity through three key aspects. First, linguistic hybridity manifests in the incorporation of Moroccan Arabic vocabulary without paratextual elements or annotations. Second, sociocultural hybridity emerges through the preservation of untranslated cultural traditions that foreignize the target text. Third, economic hybridity appears in the characters’ movement across various economic environments, particularly through multi-job holding. These characters navigate hybrid spaces, notably twentieth-century Tangier—a metropolitan hub known for cross-cultural exchanges. The narration and translation of these stories become sites of hybridity themselves, as each target text serves simultaneously as a story and translation. The hybrid landscapes in Yesterday and Today and Love with a Few Hairs transform these narratives into heterogeneous compositions of hybrid storytelling and translation. It is through this transformation that Bowles, Mrabet, and Layachi craft their fluid identities in this collaborative process.
Between Preservation and Possession - the Postcolonial Politics of the Ki‘i: A Close Reading of Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hoolaokealoha Higuchi Simmons
This essay examines Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me by Lurline Wailana McGregor through a postcolonial lens, focusing on how cultural preservation is influenced by colonial histories and power dynamics. The characters Moana and Lei represent opposing approaches to Indigenous artifacts: institutional display versus cultural sovereignty. The ki‘i becomes a symbol of these tensions, reflecting broader debates about possession and protection. By analyzing the novel alongside museum practices and scholarly critique, the essay argues that true preservation must prioritize Indigenous voices and values. Moana’s journey from academic detachment to cultural responsibility highlights the importance of connection in preserving heritage.
