Feminist Discourse and Its Translation: Macro- Strategies in Fihrist’s Feminist Utopias Series

Abstract

Starting from the late 18th century, the feminist movement has evolved throughout the world, and literature has a crucial role in its development. Not only the feminist literary works or their translations but also research based on these works help women raise their voices in order to stand against inequalities arising from their gender. With a broad perspective, in this study, feminist translation is not just regarded as a struggle against domination, but it is rethought through feminist strategies and practices applied by the translators and the other agents involved in the translation process. In 2021, the publisher, Fihrist published a series under the title of “Feminist Utopias”. In this series, there are five late 19th-century utopias, which highlight the temporal gap between the source texts and their translation. Within this regard, this study aims to analyze feminist translation macro- strategies in these utopias within Luise von Flotow’s framework. The results of the analysis have shown that Fihrist’s launch of this series aims to introduce Western feminist utopias which present new dimensions by envisioning alternative societies that challenge traditional gender roles and power dynamics to the Turkish reader. The publisher's intention has been strengthened through the strategies employed by the translators, particularly the utilization of footnotes, addressing sexist concepts, and highlighting original feminist discourse.