Performing translation

This essay explores the phrase “performing translation” through a close reading of “Via,” a performance poem by Caroline Bergvall, and a discussion of the terms “performative” and “performativity” as these have developed in the writings of J.L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler. Though each theorist defines these terms differently, their ideas about language, gender, subjectivity, theatricality, and ethics have added to our understanding of the act of translation and have generated new currents in translation studies. The essay discusses a number of these trends as it considers “performing translation” and its implications for twenty-first-century work in the field.