Translating the Body: Gesture, Silence, and the Unspoken

Translation is often imagined as a problem of words: accuracy, equivalence, correctness. But much of what matters in a text is never spoken. Meaning moves through bodies — through gesture, silence, posture, restraint, and what remains unsaid. Readers interpret these signals constantly, often without noticing that they are doing so. And when texts cross cultures, those embodied meanings are among the first things to be misread. This program explores what happens when language is no longer the primary text. Across six short, focused videos, we look at how bodies carry narrative weight, how silence can concentrate harm rather than soften it, and how readers inherit interpretive habits that shape who is granted complexity and who is denied it. Using examples from literature and memoir — including Northern Girls, Never Let Me Go, Jane Eyre, and Li Na’s memoir — the program examines moments where fluency misleads, accuracy falls short, and smooth reading becomes ethically dangerous. Rather than offering techniques or rules, Translating the Body invites a different kind of attention. It asks what translators and readers are answerable for when meaning resists transfer — and what must sometimes be marked rather than resolved. This is not a program about “better translation” in the technical sense. It is about responsibility: how meaning moves, how it is misrecognised, and how bodies remain in the room long after the words appear settled. The program concludes with a live reflection session, not to wrap things up, but to sit with what remains unsettled — and to consider how translation continues in how we read, listen, and judge. If you work with texts, cultures, or people across boundaries — and are willing to slow down — this program is an invitation to read differently.