Problems in Literary Translation

In this seminar we will explore developments in the field of translation studies that have taken it beyond the once common metaphors of fidelity and betrayal, of being faithful or unfaithful to the “original.” We’ll focus on (mis)translations as symptomatic of the poetic and political dynamics of the negotiations between cultures in a particular historical moment. We’ll discuss a variety of approaches to the theory of translation, from system theory to postcolonial and globalization studies, both by reading critically and by theorizing from the translation practice itself. Central issues will include the role of translation in the construction of national and transnational literary histories, (un)equal power relations in the circulation between source and target text, recovering the role of agency in translation, and translation as intertextual practice.

Participants will experiment with collaborative translations of poetry from “their” language(s) and provide a comparative critical analysis of the poetics and politics implicit in influential translation projects in these languages. The modernist poetry of Anna Margolin (1887 Belarus-1952 New York) in a bilingual Yiddish-English edition will serve as our anchor, providing both a case study and an alternative model for theorizing translation “from the margins.”

Students will contribute to a seminar Reader, work in small groups and present their translation and critical process to the seminar. Collaborative oral and written projects will be encouraged. Seminar paper: an annotated translation project with theoretical and historical introduction.

READING LIST:

1) Lawrence Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader, London& N.Y.: Routledge, 2012 (3rd
edition; paperback)

2) Selections from: Tejaswini Niranjana, Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992 (out of print; available free online to Cal students from UC Press).

3) Anna Margolin, Drunk from the Bitter Truth, trans. and ed., Shirley Kumove (Albany,
N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2005).

4) Course Reader: student contributions, as well as extensive selections from Andre Lefevere, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (out of print), and articles (e.g., by Abdelfattah Kilito, Marie Louise Pratt, Homi Bhaba, Maria Tymoczko, Anuradha Dingwaney, Sandra Bermann, Lydia Liu, and Mashweta Sengupta).