Research Seminar: Borrowed Words: Brodsky’s Collaborative Self-Translation

In their Research Seminar Series 2015-16 the Birmingham Centre for Translation offers a lecture on self-translation by Dr Natasha Rulyova (Birmingham) on Tuesday 17 November 2015 1-2pm, Ashley Building, room 121a (Building R17 on the Edgbaston campus map)

Abstract of the talk:
In this paper, I will propose that collaborative translation and self-translation are not mutually exclusive but, in fact, are two sides of the same coin. Independently, each field – collaborative translation and self-translation – has recently started to receive considerable scholarly attention. Self-translation has become a burgeoning subject of research since the 1980s (Grutman 2013; Boyden & De Bleeker 2013; Hokenson & Munson 2007). Collaborative translation is a newer field but has increasingly been gaining pace (Wakabayashi 2011; Cordingley forthcoming 2016). I will show that self-translation can be, in fact, a form of collaborative translation, especially for late bilingual writers who require a certain ‘reprogramming’ from one language to another (Pavlenko 2014, p.168) This process of re-programming is dialogic: bilingual writers do not only start a dialogue with their inner selves in L2 but they are also in dialogue with native speakers of L2 who often become their implicit co-authors. It is in this dialogic process of co-creation, late bilingual writers conduct their self-translation. As my case study, I discuss the work by Joseph Brodsky, a Russian-American Noble Prize winning poet. Brodsky was a late bilingual who arrived in the USA in 1971, having been exiled from the USSR. His early work was translated into English by excellent translators including George Kline, Daniel Weissbort, Alan Myers and others. By the late 1970s, Brodsky started feeling sufficiently confident to intervene in his translators’ work and to self-translate. My study of his manuscripts and correspondence with his translators reveals some fascinating facts about the way in which Brodsky acquired his English-language voice through borrowing, mixing and experimenting, sometimes at the expense of his dedicated translators and friends.

Lecture on Nabokov

Olga Anokhina will give a lecture on Nabokov's trilingual writing on Friday, March 9, 2012 in Paris.

Title: « Traduction et ré-écriture chez Vladimir Nabokov : genèse d’une œuvre en trois langues »
Place: 59/61 rue POUCHET 75017 Paris, 3ème étage. Salle 311
Date: Friday, March 9, 2012

Source: http://www.item.ens.fr/index.php?id=578079

Lecture on Beckett's Mercier et Camier

Chiara Montini will give a lecture on Beckett's self-translation in the case of "Mercier et Camier" on Friday, May 11, 2012 in Paris.

Title: « Ecriture en langue étrangère, autotraduction et traduction. Genèse et réception d'un texte bilingue. Le cas de "Mercier et Camier" de Samuel Beckett »
Place: 59/61 rue POUCHET 75017 Paris, 3ème étage. Salle 311
Date: Friday, May 11, 2012

Source: http://www.item.ens.fr/index.php?id=578079
 

lecture "A sociological look at self-translation (in and outside of Canada)"

Prof Grutman will give a talk on "A sociological look at self-translation (in and outside of Canada)" at the University Graz on Monday, 23 May at 7pm, ITAT, ÜR. 1.102.

For more information click here.

Lecture: The Denial of Self-translation

Sara Kippur, Assistant Professor of French at Trinity College, will speak about "The Denial of Self-Translation" at 4:30 p.m. on April 13 in the Alumni House of the Amherst College, Massachusetts.
Here is the official announcement from their website:
"Professor Kippur's talk explores why authors write the same book in two languages. While many authors since Samuel Beckett have embraced the practice of self-translation between French and another language, they nonetheless have found ways to "deny" or undermine their very projects. Professor Kippur considers such authors-- including Raymond Federman, Nancy Huston and Jorge Semprun --and asks what it is about self-translation that makes it difficult for writers and critics to affirm as a literary art form. This event is sponsored by the French Department and the Amherst College Lecture Fund."

Lecture: Canadian Multiculturalism and Female Writings of the Other

Dr. Anna Pia De Luca, Università di Udine, will speak about Canadian Multiculturalism and Female Writings of the Other with focus on Italian-Canadian women writers at the University of Bologna:
Bologna – Dip.LLSM (Sala Convegni) – Via Cartoleria, 5, April 6, 2011 10:15 am

Please click here for more information.

Lectures by Thiong'o in November

The African self-translator Ngugi Wa Thiong'o will speak on several occasions in November 2010.

On November 20, 2010 at 3:30pm he will speak at the Chapman Conference Center in Miami about Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir. This lecture is part of the Miami Book Fair international.

He will also give a lecture at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at Claremont McKenna College on Monday, November 29, 2010 from 6:45 pm till 8:00 pm.
For more information see the newsletter The Fortnightly.

Lecture on self-translation

There will be a series of lectures on translation organized for MA students in literary translation in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is also possible for non-students to come, but you have to register beforehand. One of the lectures will focus on self-translation:

• Self translation
  • Spreker: Fransiska Louwagie
  • Datum & tijd: 12 mei 2011, 15:30-17:30
  • Locatie: Lessius, Antwerpen, (STA.2.11)
  • Aanmelden: uiterlijk 11 april 2011

For more information, please click here.

An Interactive Festival of Literary Translation

... will take place under the title "Translated" in Melbourne, Australia next year at the Monash University. From February 7–12, 2011 there will be workshops, talks and panel discussions in French, German and Spanish.

There will also be an afternoon session on self-translation:
"Lia Hills and Ouyang Yu, both writers, translators and poets, will provide an insight into the advantages and pitfalls of self-translation."

For more information, please click here.

Ryoko Sekiguchi

I just read in another blog about the lecture "Ryoko Sekiguchi: Ecrire entre deux langues : en français, en japonais" that will take place 13th July at the University of Osaka (Japan). Sekiguchi will be present. I quote an interesting note:

"Chacun de ses livres existe en version française et japonaise, mais avec de subtiles différences : le titre est parfois identique, parfois non ; il ne s’agit pas simplement d’ une auto-traduction, mais plutôt d’un rapport de transfert, de transposition, puisque la transparence totale entre les deux langues est impossible. Il n’y a ainsi ni original, ni copie, mais une « écriture double », un « entre-deux langues » mouvant qui se nourrit de leur décalage, mais aussi de leur continuel frottement."

This quote underlines the difficulty to find an adequate term for the process of self-translation. Is it more translation or more writing? The suggested term "écriture double" prefers to accentuate the writing aspect. The quote also stresses that established terms like "original" don't seem to be applicable when talking about self-translation.

During my research on Sekiguchi I found a summary of another discussion with her, which took place in 2006: Blurring Boundaries: A Conversation on the Art of Translation with Rosa Alcalá, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and Cole Swensen (Poets House, 11/17/06). I hope somebody will also be so kind to sum up the lecture in Japan.

For further reading:
Sekiguchi, Ryōko (2002): L'auto-traduction ou l'artifice de la contrainte. In: Poésie 100, p. 260-261, Berlin.