The “Yeas” Have It for “Translation”: Notes from the Editor

Love

amour / ololufe / amor / fikir / liebe / uthando / hub / amore / upendo / renmen

THE 2012 CALLALOO CONFERENCE

Hosted by The Center for African American Studies Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

October 11–13, 2012

Program

5:30 PM, Thursday, Oct. 11A Dance PerformanceThe Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance
Theater, New York City

9:00–10:30 AM, Friday, Oct. 12
Sacred Love and Society
Anthony Pinn, Rice University, Houston
Marla F. Frederick, Harvard University, Cambridge

11:00–12:30 PM, Friday, Oct. 12
Writing Love in the African Diaspora
Keith Leonard, American University, DC
Michael Stone-Richards, College for Creative Studies, Detroit

2:00–3:30 PM, Friday, Oct. 12
Love Visual
Theaster Gates, Jr., Freelance Artist, Chicago

4:30–6:00 PM, Friday, Oct. 12
Queering Love
Sharon Holland, Duke University, Durham
Marlon Ross, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

8:00–10:00 PM, Friday, Oct. 12
Love’s Lyricism
Courtney Bryan, Graduate Student
Composer, Columbia University, New York City

10:00–11:30 AM, Saturday, Oct. 13
Love Beyond Borders
Samuel R. Delany, Jr., Temple University, Philadelphia
Greg Tate, Visiting Professor, Brown University, Providence

READINGS

6:00 PM, Saturday, Oct. 13
Chris Abani, University of California, Berkeley
Tracy K. Smith, Princeton University, Princeton
Tyehimba Jess, The City University of New York, New York City

For further information on the conference, contact the Callaloo office via email at callaloo@tamu.edu or telephone 979.458.3108. See information about Callaloo and its other upcoming projects at http://callaloo.tamu.edu or at http://facebook.com/callaloo.

Photo by Nelly Rosario © 2011

Q & A Moment.

Photo by Chad Cockrum ©2011

Part of Conference Audience.

Photo by Chad Cockrum ©2011

. . . translation from one language into another substitutes messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire messages in some other language. Such a translation is a reported speech; the translator recodes and transmits a message received from another source. Thus translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes.

—Roman Jakobson

To speak of translating a gathering, or a photograph, is not to speak of translating as one translates a text.

—Brent Hayes Edwards

As we approach the end of the fifth year of our annual meetings of the Callaloo Conference, I would be remiss if I did not express my heartfelt appreciation to the members of our conference group for the intellectual and artistic needs they fill in my professional life: for their rigorous examinations of ideas, issues, and experiences that we must—as world citizens, engaged academics, working writers, international travelers, indefatigable culture workers, etc.—address each day. I have always profited from their work, for it informs, delights, and inspires me. The elegant originality, the superior quality, and the expansive scope of their work signal a very positive future for Africana studies. They are some of its feature leaders. I am convinced that the collective and individual work they produce is not only for themselves but also for the common good of the African Diaspora—and Africa itself. These future leaders, tireless and enterprising in their industry, create texts directed toward informing, transforming, extending, and refining contemporary literatures and other cultural forms, as well as their appending discourses. I am especially grateful that they share their time and work with me, for their keen, refreshing, and future-oriented worldview reawaken in me, from time to time, youthful creative and intellectual energies—what for my own age—that I was beginning to think I had long lost. I am not surprised, then, that they agree with me that our gatherings should be free and open to the general public and that we should begin to publish in Callaloo the different conference texts. By publishing our conference proceedings, we not only document our collective professional concerns; we also share with a larger public of avid readers and discerning critics the invaluable productions that emerging and established writers, and junior and senior academics contribute at...