Sam Kigar and Rokiatou Soumaré, “Translation as Territorialization: Language and Belonging in Modern Africa” | A Translation Studies Hub Colloquium

“Against Translation as Metaphor: Sultanic Languages of Sovereignty in Late 19^th Century Morocco”
Sam Kigar (Islamic Studies, Department of Religion, University of Puget Sound) challenges a scholarly tradition of describing religions as languages that can be translated into one another. He examines the translation of two letters by Sultan Hassan I (r. 1873-1894) about his journeys to the Sūs region of southern Morocco. The Sultan was not translating forms of Islamic sovereignty into “foreign” territorial terms, instead, he was participating in the territorialization of the Sūs.

“Decentering French to re-center Wolof: Translation as a Nationalist Performance in Boubacar Boris Diop’s Work”

Rokiatou Soumaré (French and Francophone Studies, University of Puget Sound) proposes that Senegalese novelist Boubacar Boris Diop positions himself in his work as a nationalist linguistic activist by writing in Wolof instead of French, Senegal’s lingua franca. For Diop, translating these essential pieces initiated an ambitious political project that aligns with his nationalistic views, and his rejection of French hegemony.