COM 210 Translation: Theory & Practice Fall 2015 Wednesday 1:10

COM 210 Translation: Theory & Practice Fall 2015 Wednesday 1:10-4:00 PM 812B Sproul

Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday: 11-12 & by appointment

Course Description

This course will cover major theories of translation. The emphasis of the course will be on the craft and art of translation, and students will be asked to engage critically with their own translation work. The course will require students to complete an original translation and to draft a short essay reflecting on their approach to translation.

Required Texts

 Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky. In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What it Means. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.  Lawrence Venuti. Ed. The Translation Studies Reader. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012.  Online Resources on Smartsite.

Recommended Texts

 Emily Apter. Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability. London: Verso, 2013.  David Bellos. Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything. New York: Faber & Faber, 2011.  Carol Maier and Francoise Massardier-Kenney. Literature In Translation: Teaching Issues and Reading Practices. Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2010.  Lawrence Venuti. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2008.  Apter, Emily. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.  Theo Hermans. Translating Others (Vol. 1&2). Manchester, UK: St. Jerome, 2006.  Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet. Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.  George Steiner. After Babel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Requirements

1. Students will be required to bring a short previously published translation (about 2-5 pages) to each class session. This translation may be a complete translation of a single work, an excerpt from a long poem, a selection of verses from an anthology, prose, poetry, technical writing, legal work etc. You may bring different versions of the same translation to class over the course of the term. These may include your translations as well. You may choose to bring a translation of a work in a language in which you are fluent. I encourage you to choose also works in languages in which you’re not fluent. 2. A brief reflection on the translation (no more than 500 words). This is not necessarily an evaluate critique of the translation (ie. is it good or bad), although it can be. Rather, it is a means to engage with the translation as a product and translation as a process at the point(s)/moment(s) of reception. 3. A short translation of your own. You will work on the same translation over the course of the quarter. So, choose your text (a poem, an excerpt of an essay etc.) with care. You will revise and rework the same translation over the course of the quarter. The theory we read, the works you select, and your short reflective essays on the previously published translation should inform your process of revision. This is a means to engage with translation as a product and translation as a process at the point(s)/moment(s) of creation. Your translation here maybe mediated through another language. You can choose to work collaboratively with another person in producing a translation. 4. A final essay on your translation explicating your process, your method and your approach. You will include 3-5 versions of your translation along with your essay.

Grading

Class attendance and participation are required and constitute 50% of the course grade. Translation efforts over the course of the quarter will not be graded.

The remaining 50% of the grade will be based on the final essay.

Final Essays are due on Monday, December 11, 2015 by 12 noon. All papers are due as hard copies.

Selected Resources (Academic Programs/Centers for Translation Studies)

http://www.princeton.edu/~piirs/programs/PTIC/Program.html http://www.translation.illinois.edu/ http://barnard.edu/translation http://translation.utdallas.edu/ https://www.binghamton.edu/comparative-literature/graduate/trip/ http://www.aucegypt.edu/research/cts/Pages/Home.aspx https://transvienna.univie.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte/quality-in-simultaneous- interpreting/the-research-team/ http://www.surrey.ac.uk/englishandlanguages/research/centre_for_translation_studies/ https://www.ucl.ac.uk/centras http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/bct/index.aspx http://www.bclt.org.uk/

Selected Resources (Academic Presses with Translation Series)

Translation/Transnation (Series Editor. Emily Apter): http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/translation-transnation.html Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation (Series Editor, Richard Howard) http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/lockert-library-of-poetry-in-translation.html Translations from the Asian Classics (Series Editor, Jennifer Crewe) http://cup.columbia.edu/series/translations-from-the-asian-classics http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/books/columbia-university-press-to-publish-new- translations-of-russian-literature.html?_r=0 Margellos World Republic of Letters (Yale University Press) http://www.worldrepublicofletters.com/ Cultures in Translation (Yale University Press) http://www.goethe.de/ins/se/prj/uar/eng/ver/yal/enindex.htm Loeb Classical Library (Harvard) http://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1031 Murty Classical Library of India (Harvard) http://www.murtylibrary.com/ http://www.thehindu.com/books/murty-classical-library-scouting-for- translators/article2465445.ece http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/murty-library-aims-revive-2-millennias-worth- indic-literature/ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/books/murty-classical-library-catalogs-indian- literature.html Texts and Translation Series (MLA) http://www.mla.org/pub_guidelines_tt Religion in Translation (American Academy of Religion) https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/a/aar-religions-in-translation- aartt/?cc=us&lang=en&

Reading Schedule

Week 1: Entry Points

Wednesday, October 7 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/is-translation-an-art-or-a-math-problem.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/opinion/found-in-translation.html http://scroll.in/article/698475/why-arent-translations-the-big-story-of-indian-publishing https://www.mla.org/ec_guidelines_translation “Introduction: A Culture of Translation.” In Translation. pp. xiii-xxiii Catherine Porter. “Translation as Scholarship.” In Translation. pp. 58-66.

Week 2: Foundational Statements

Wednesday, October 14

Jerome. “Letter to Pammachius” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 21-30. John Dryden. “From the Preface to Ovid’s Epistles.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp.38-42. Friedrich Schleiermacher. “On the Different Methods of Translating.” The Translation Studies Reader. 43- 63. Alice Kaplan. “The Biography of an Art Form.” In Translation. pp. 67-81.

Week 3: Vexations

Wednesday, October 21

Walter Benjamin. “The Translator’s Task.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 75-83 Ezra Pound. “Guido’s Relations.” The Translation Studies Reader. 84-91. Vladimir Nabakov. “Problems of Translation: Onegin in English.” The Translation Studies Reader. 113-125. Michael Emmerich. “Beyond, Between: Translation, Ghosts, Metaphors.” In Translation. pp.44-57. George Steiner. “The Hermeneutic Motion.” The Translation Studies Reader. 156-161.

On Rumi: http://religiondispatches.org/found-in-translation-how-a-thirteenth-century-islamic-poet- conquered-america/

Excerpts of Translation from Coleman Barks’ Essential Rumi

Lewis, Franklin

Week 4: Crossing Pasts, Past Crossings

Wednesday, October 28

Antoine Berman. “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 240-254. David Bellos.” Fictions of the Foreign: The Paradox of ‘Foreign-Soundingness.” In Translation. pp. 31-43. Jason Grunebaum. “Choosing an English for Hindi.” In Translation. pp. 156-169. Christi A. Merill. “Are We the Folk in This Lok?: Translating in the Plural.” In Translation. pp. 143-155.

Guest Speaker: Professor Michelle Yeh, EALC, UC Davis

Week 5: Translate(d) Worlds

Wednesday, November 4

Itamar Even-Zohar. “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 162-167. David Damrosch. “Translation and World Literature: Love in the Necropolis.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 411-428. Vicente L. Rafael, “Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 451-468. Michael Cronin. “ The Translation Age: Translation, Technology, and the New Instrumentalism.” The Translation Studies Reader. 469-482

Guest Speaker: Prof. Joshua Clover, Departments of English and Comparative Literature

Week 6: Effective and Affective Translation

Wednesday, November 11

Philip E. Lewis. “The Measure of Translation Effects.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp.220-239. Lori Chamberlain. “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation.” The Translation Studies Reader. pp. 254- 268. Michael Emmerich. “Beyond, Between: Translation, Ghosts, Metaphors.” In Translation. pp.44-57. Susan Bernofsky. “Translation and the Art of Revision.” In Translation. pp. 223-233. Clare Cavanagh. “The Art of Losing: Polish Poetry and Translation.” In Translation. pp. 234-244. Peter Cole. “Making Sense in Translation: Toward an Ethics of the Art.” In Translation. pp. 3-16.

John Keats. “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” Excerpts from Chapman’s Homer.

Guest Speaker: Prof. Seth Schein

Week 7

Wednesday, November 18

Guest Speaker: Prof. Martha Selby, University of Texas, Austin

Week 8

Wednesday, November 25

Presentation and discussion of translations

Week 9

Wednesday, December 2

Presentations and discussion of translations