Mapping Performative Writing and the Page as Expanded Field

Performativity in Multilingual Writing : the example of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, by Amanda Murphy

During this seminar, I will present the example of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s work as a point of entry into the exploration of performativity in multilingual writing. Through a close reading of an excerpt of Cha’s DICTEE (1982), we will look at how the contact of languages and the destabilizing movement it generates within a work opens new spaces for performance. Specifically, we will look at the way the text places readers in a role similar to that of the translator (untethered from anchorage in any one language or space, and working within a space of awareness of all languages), and implicates the body (the senses, gestures) in the process of reading. To conclude, I will also present some forms of creation that have arisen out of relationships with Cha’s work and have gained their own autonomy, all the while maintaining strong affinity with Cha’s poetics to the point that we could consider them continuations that perform the original.