September 28 - MLCS Research Conference Series lecture by Sylvia Ijeoma Madueke

Join us on Monday, September 28 at 3 p.m. in the 2-20A Visualization Lab (Digital Scholarship Centre, Cameron Library) for the first lecture in our 2026-27 MLCS Research Conference series.

The Missing Translations: Beyond the ‘Absent Presence’ of Black Canadian Voices, a talk by Dr. Sylvia Ijeoma Madueke

This presentation examines the relative absence of translation in scholarship on Black Canadian writing. While my focus is specifically on Black Canadian writers and translation, I situate this inquiry within the broader history of Black Canadian writing and the bibliographic and scholarly efforts that have documented its development, diversity, and significance. These efforts have challenged what Yvonne Brown describes as the “absent presence” of Blackness in Canada by documenting, recovering, and critically engaging with Black Canadian literary histories and contributions. Yet the question of translation remains largely absent from this discussion. Against this background, I ask what happens when translation is brought into the picture. This preliminary inquiry maps existing scholarship and bibliographic records to identify translations and gaps, and considers what these presences and absences reveal about the circulation and visibility of Black Canadian writing in translation. By bringing translation into conversations about representation and literary recognition, the presentation seeks to open a space for further scholarly inquiry into the historical, institutional, and publishing conditions that shape the circulation of Black Canadian writing across languages and cultural contexts.

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