Sample Course Descriptions

Translation Workshop | Translation Touchstones | Critical Approaches to Translation

Since the 1970s, translation has captured the interest of an ever-widening group of literary critics. No longer dismissed as a secondary, derivative literary practice, translation has become a challenging test case for theorists from many camps of literary theory: deconstruction, gender studies, post-colonialism. This seminar will trace the evolution of these approaches, from translation as a test case to the development of Translation Studies as a field in itself. This development encompasses several important shifts. We will watch the topic of conversation shift from "translation," used as a metaphor, to "translators," actual writers working in particular circumstances. We will chart the course from prescriptive, theoretical models for translation to descriptive case studies. We will see Translation Studies moving past the eternal debates over what a translation ought to be, toward a discussion of the roles translators have played in important cultural and literary movements. By the end of the term, we will have a sense of the wide range of possible approaches that Translation Studies can include.

Conversations in the seminar encompass close readings of theoretical texts, applications of these ideas to literary and historical situations, and the development of new approaches to translator case studies.

Required Readings:
Susan Bassnett, Translation Studies; Sherry Simon, Gender in Translation; Jacques Derrida, The Monolingualism of the Other; Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility; Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator"; Tejaswini Niranjana, Siting Translation; Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice