Save the date: Online Talk "The Origins of National Culture: Self Translation, Originals and Split Authors" by Yaakov Herskovitz on Oct 25, 2022 1:00pm (ET)

Yakoov Herskovitz will give a talk on Zoom on Tuesday, 25th October: "The Origins of National Culture: Self Translation, Originals and Split Authors" at 1:00 pm Eastern Time. Registration is required. 

Abstract:
Is there a difference between originals and translations, artistically? Intuitively the answer seems to be: yes, especially in our cultural and historical context of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literatures, that share a vested interest in originality. But when matters come to self-translation, work written and rewritten by the same author, issues of origins and originality become murky. This lecture will look at work by self-translating writers such as Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, Hersch Dovid Nomberg, and Zalman Shneour to explore the ways authors and critics thought about self-translation, how they pondered and practiced writing the same work time and again. In thinking about this practice the validity of concepts such as “original” and “translation” will be scrutinized, as well as the idea that people have different capacities and even personalities in different languages. Looking at modes of self-presentation and literary composition will allow us to ask what, if at all, sets the self-translating author apart from other writers and translators.

To register:

Please visit the website: https://yivo.org/National-Culture