Talk: Self-Translation & Translating Meaning Through Contemporary Art

Talk: Self-Translation & Translating Meaning Through Contemporary Art

Friday, June 21 2024 at 1:00 PM EDT on Zoom

How is it possible to communicate meaning in art through translation? How does diplomacy work through translation? Can we think of translation as a kind of soft power? If so, why do authors such as Karen Blixen / Isak Dinesen self-translate their writing? In this talk, Catherine Lefebvre will draw on examples from her current work as a curator of contemporary art and the cultural attachée for the Danish Embassy in Paris as well as from her work as the former director of the Karen Blixen Museum.

Link to  register  for the talk to receive the zoom link can be found here: 
https://engage.gsas.harvard.edu/event/10177695  

This event is hosted by the Fellowships & Writing Center, the Language Center, and Translation Studies 260, with support from the Elson Family Arts Initiative Fund at Harvard University.

Talk on self-translation and Li Kotomi

 Dr Aoife Cantrill (Manchester) will give a talk on self-translator Li Kotomi with the title "Self-Translation and Language-Making in Li Kotomi/Li Qinfeng's The Island Where the Spider Lily Blooms" on Monday, 15 May 2023, 12:45.
More information: https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/a9cea786-6665-4b0d-8be5-40e4f5ca9c5c/  
Only accessible of members of Oxford university, unfortunaley.

Abstract;

Li Kotomi/Li Qinfeng is a Taiwanese-born author living and writing in Japan, whose novels explore migrant experiences, queer perspectives, and linguistic politics. In this talk, Dr Aoife Cantrill will discuss Li’s 2021 Japanophone novel The Island Where the Spider Lily Blooms, which uses the plot device of a young girl washed up on an island with no memory of her previous life to comment on competing ideas of language purity and identity. The linguistic hierarchies established within the novel depend on the different Japanese scripts (kanji, hiragana, katakana), which Li uses to develop themes relating to territory and exclusion. The book was a critical success, winning the prestigious Akutagawa literary award in 2021, making Li the first Taiwanese-born Akutagawa recipient.

The linguistic complexities of the novel are reiterated in its Mandarin Chinese translation, undertaken by Li in 2022. This version of the novel reproduces the linguistic hierarchies of the first, but relies on patterns of script variation devised by Li herself. Taking both versions together provides an opportunity to think about self-translation: what is the influence of script in the translation of contemporary Sinophone and Japanophone literatures? How does Li reproduce structures of linguistic logic between the two versions? And how does a novel in an author’s second language translated back into their first shape ideas of a text being ‘born translated’?

Conference: Mediator and “Grenzgänger" (29th-30th November), Jerusalem, Israel

Self-translation will be a topic of two upcoming talks at the conference "Mediator and 'Grenzgänger'" organized by the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History, to be held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, on November 29-30, 2022. 
International Conference on Israeli Poet and Artist Manfred Winkler (1922-2014).

Tuesday, 29 November 2022: 11:00-12:30 Panel 1: Literary Creativity und Multilingualism

• Mikhal Ben-Chorin, Bar-Ilan University: Von Sprache zu Sprache: Winkler Translating Rübner Translating Himself
• Jan Kühne, Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Winkler’s Metamorphoses: Adaptations of Kafka in Self-Translation

For the complete program, please visit: www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-131444

Recording of the talk "The Origins of National Culture: Self Translation, Originals and Split Authors" by Yakoov Herskovitz

Yakoov Herskovitz gave a talk on "The Origins of National Culture: Self Translation, Originals and Split Authors"on 26th October. 
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. 

The recording is available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQINdqSYcVY&ab_channel=YIVOInstituteforJewishResearch 

Conference: Translation and multilingualism in the history of translated literature October, Finland

Self-translation will be a topic of several talks at the upcoming conference "Translation and multilingualism in the history of translated literature" taking place 6.-7. October 2022, Tallinn University, Narva mnt 29.

October 6, Room: M649
11.30-13.00 Sandra Vlasta: “Jhumpa Lahiri – a multilingual writer and (self-)translator”

October 7, Room: S428
11.45-13.15 Ramona Pellegrino: “Self-translation in German-Speaking Transcultural Literature”
14.15-15.45 Julie Hansen: ““Multilingualism and Self-Translation in Theodor Kallifatides’ memoir Another Life”

Please visit this website to consult the complete program.

Séminaire Multilinguisme, Traduction, Création, 2022-2023

Séminaire Multilinguisme, Traduction, Création, 2022-2023 organized by ITEM - Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes

A series of talks on the genetics of (self-)translations coordinated by Patrick Hersant, taking place in Paris, France.

18/10/2022 — Max Hidalgo Nácher, "Haroldo de Campos, un cosmopolite périphérique", ENS, 45 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris. Salle Info 1. 16h – 18h.

08/11/2022 — Ilan Stavans, "On Self-Translation : Meditations on Language", ENS, 45 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris. Salle U209 + visioconférence, 16h – 18h.

13/12/2022 — Dirk Weissmann, "Goethe, Frédéric Soret et l’édition bilingue de la Métamorphose des plantes (1831)", ENS, 45 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, Salle Info-1, 16h – 18h.

31/01/2023 — Katrien Lievois, "Oxfam Novib et les romans francophones africains en traduction néerlandaise", ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, Salle Assia Djebar, 16h – 18h.

14/02/2023 — Chiara Montini, "Vittorio Alfieri : apprendre la langue en traduisant et en s’autotraduisant", ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, Salle Assia Djebar, 16h – 18h.

21/03/2023 — Elies Smeyers, "Hugo Claus en traduction française", ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, Salle Assia Djebar, 16h – 18h.

11/04/2023 — Esa Hartmann, "Les manuscrits de Rainer Maria Rilke : genèse translingue, traduction collaborative et autotraduction", ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, Salle Assia Djebar, 16h – 18h.

09/05/2023 — Stavroula Katsiki, "Traduire dans le sillage de Silvia Baron Supervielle", ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, Salle Assia Djebar, 16h – 1

Source and more information:
https://www.fabula.org/actualites/109882/seminaire-de-lequipe-multilinguisme-traduction-creation----item.html

Talk: Emotional Response to Self-Translation. The Case of Jhumpa Lahiri

 The talk "Emotional Response to Self-Translation. The Case of Jhumpa Lahiri" by Andrea Bergantino (Trinity College Dublin) is available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJf45YilDnM&ab_channel=TrinityCentreforLiterary%26CulturalTranslation

Talk on Academic Self-translation

On 12th November 2020, Maria Alice Antunes (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) gave a talk on the experience of translating her article “The decision to self-translate, motivations and consequences: a study of the cases of João Ubaldo Ribeiro, André Brink and Ngugi wa Thiong’o“ (2013)" into Portuguese- She raises some interesting questions about the differences between academic and literary self-translation. You can watch the talk here: https://youtu.be/jOgwoPH3X8Y 

Talk: “He Wrecked the Boat.” Code-Switching and Self-Translation in Tlingit Oral Literature

Matthew Spellberg is giving a talk with the title "'He Wrecked the Boat.' Code-Switching and Self-Translation in Tlingit Oral Literature" on Monday, 24th February 2020 at 12:00 pm at Princeton, 144 Louis A. Simpson International Building.

Source: https://piirs.princeton.edu/event/he-wrecked-boat-code-switching-and-self-translation-tlingit-oral-literature

Talk: "The challenges of self-translation and bilingual writing", 10th March, Sydney

Judith Mendoza-White, bilingual Spanish-English writer, will give a talk on the challenges of self-translation and bilingual writing on 10th March at 5:00 pm at the Sydney University Research Community for Latin America seminar, Australia.

Abstract:
In this paper Judith Mendoza-White looks at the challenges involved in the practice of self-translation and bilingual writing, as she writes in Spanish and English and has produced versions of most of her work in both languages. These challenges go beyond the linguistic realm, as cultural connotations and underlying meaning may remain unreachable to the second language speaker, however fluent and accurate her knowledge of the language may be. In addition to this, the writer’s identity can become compromised in the process of self-translation, as feelings of betrayal to the mother tongue may develop. The author will also look at the dual impact of self-translation, both on the mother tongue and the second language pieces: the two final versions of the same work involve recreation and rewriting rather than translation per se, and often affect each other in previously unsuspected ways.

Source with more information:
https://slc-events.sydney.edu.au/calendar/surcla-challenges-self-translation-bilingual-writing-judith-mendoza-white/

Talk "Un/originals: Multilingual Literature and Self-Translation in Contemporary Spain."

Graduate student in Hispanic Studies, Gabriella Martin will give a talk "Un/originals: Multilingual Literature and Self-Translation in Contemporary Spain" on 24th January 2020 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM  at Danforth University Center, room 239, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Source: https://rll.wustl.edu/events/unoriginals-multilingual-literature-and-self-translation-contemporary-spain

Conference "Translation is knowledge", Italy

Self-translation will be a topic at the conference Traduzione è conoscenza /Conference Translation is knowledge which is taking place at the Università IULM, sala dei 146, IULM 6, 25 September 2019.

16.15 – 16.45 Chiara Elefante (Università di Bologna): L’autotraduction, une forme de connaissance de soi

To access the complete conference program please click here.

Talk "Self-Translation: Between Minor Literature, Bilingualism and Subsequence"

Sigrid Weigel will give a talk on "Self-Translation: Between Minor Literature, Bilingualism and Subsequence" on Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 7 pm in Berlin, Germany. 

Abstract:
Several concepts of self-translation – such as rewriting, re-enactment, reproduction – came up in the translation discourse of recent decades, whereby “cultural translation” has become the chief cliché. This shifted the emphasis away from exile to migration and bilingualism. Thus, the translation work itself and the view of possible linguistically hegemonic relationships have faded into the background along with the question of whether the work to be translated was written in the author’s first or second language. What happens when authors translate themselves? What is the difference between discursive and poetic writing? What does the subsequence of self-translation do with the writing? Weigel discusses the discomfort of self-translation in “minor literatures,” the emblematic figure of the “translated man,” the echo of the translation and the specter of the “original,” comments on Yoko Tawada and the exophony at the threshold between pictogram and alphabet and refers to Hannah Arendt to explore remembering, repeating, working through a translation without the original.

Source and more information: 
https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/veranstaltung/p_153779.php

Writing for Liberty Conference 2019

Self-translation will be a topic at the Writing for Liberty Conference 2019, taking place in Buenos Aires, 11-13 April 2019.

• Panel 2: Writing Transgression
  SPORTURNO, María Laura (UNLP/CONICET). “Writing for Liberty: Self-translation as a Form of Liberation”.

Schedule: http://noticias.unsam.edu.ar/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Prog.pdf

Source: http://noticias.unsam.edu.ar/2018/11/14/writing-for-liberty-2019-english-version/

AIA Seminar, 4-6. April 2019 Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro"

Self-translation will be the topic of two talks at the AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica) Seminar, taking place from 4th-6th April 2019 at Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro".

• Elisa Pantaleo “In Search of a Source Text: Questioning the Concept of “Source Text” in Retranslation, Self-Translation and the Translation of Postcolonial Works”
• Michele Russo: “Self-Translation and Language Hybridization in Gary Shteyngart’s Little Failure. A Memoir (2014)”

Source and full program: http://www.anglisti.it/event/aia-seminar-programma-definitivo/

Talk: Transcribir: Self-Translation in U.S. Latinx Poetry

Rachel Galvin will give a talk on Transcribir: Self-Translation in U.S. Latinx Poetry at the University of Chicago on Wednesday, April 10, 2019 ( 4:30PM TO 6:00PM) at MCCOSH HALL 40.

Source: https://english.princeton.edu/events/transcribir-self-translation-us-latinx-poetry

Conference: Il Canada visto dal Friuli: identità e relazioni interculturali (23-25.10.2018, Udine, Italy)

Self-translation will be a topic at the conference "Il Canada visto dal Friuli: identità e relazioni interculturali", taking place from 23 till 25 October 2018 at Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy.

• Felicia Mihali scrittrice, Montréal: De l’écriture à l’autotraduction. Parcours littéraires et aventures linguistiques
• Valeria Sperti Università Federico II, Napoli: La valeur de l’écriture translingue et multiculturelle de Nancy Huston au Canada

The complete program can be found here: https://qui.uniud.it/notizieEventi/cultura/il-canada-visto-dal-friuli-identita-e-relazioni-interculturali/programma

CERES/CETRA Fall Lecture: Denise Merkle on (self-)translation of multilingualism in Canadian literature

Date: Wednesday 17 October 2018, from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Location: KU Leuven – Campus Brussel, Room 6303, Hermesgebouw, Stormstraat 2.
Language: French (with simultaneous interpretation into Dutch)

Title
Traduire le plurilinguisme littéraire au Canada : l’(auto-)traduction dans Petites difficultés d’existencede France Daigle, La Trahison de Laurier Gareau, Kiss of the Fur Queen de Tomson Highway

Abstract
L’hybridité était perçue sous une lumière défavorable jusqu’à relativement récemment quand des chercheurs postcoloniaux ont réévalué la présence de l’hybridité et de plurilinguisme dans les soi-disant monocultures, et les rôles qu’ils y jouent. L’état-nation considérait sa langue, sa culture et sa nation comme indissociables, malgré l’existence patente de plurilinguisme et de pluriculturalisme, écartés comme étant impurs. Il est aujourd’hui généralement admis que la pure unicité relève du mythe, les cultures étant de nature plutôt plurilingue et hybride du fait d’avoir évolué depuis des siècles et des millénaires. Pourtant, les approches traditionnelles de la traductologie, dont la recherche de l’équivalence, sont ancrées dans le modèle de « une langue, une culture, une nation » (Meylaerts, 2010). Ce sont effectivement des traductologues, dont Sherry Simon (2011), qui ont remis en question ce modèle pendant les dernières décennies du xxe siècle, dans le cadre de leurs études sur le phénomène des langues et cultures en contact dans les contextes postcoloniaux. Dans cette conférence, nous examinerons des définitions de plurilinguisme, pluriculturalisme et hybridité, ainsi que des stratégies d’(auto-) traduction retrouvées dans quelques textes littéraires canadiens plurilingues, Petites difficultés d’existencede France Daigle, La Trahison de Laurier Gareau, Kiss of the Fur Queen de Tomson Highway. Afin de saisir les enjeux du plurilinguisme, du pluriculturalisme et de l’hybridité dans ces textes, il nous faudra d’abord les situer dans leur contexte sociolinguistique respectif.

Source: https://receptionstudies.be/2018/09/19/ceres-cetra-fall-lecture-denise-merkle-on-self-translation-of-multilingualism-in-canadian-literature/

Conference: Le Kala Pani dans les littératures féminines de la diaspora indienne

Self-translation is a topic at the conference "Le Kala Pani dans les littératures féminines de la diaspora indienne", which will take place Tuesday, 19th June, 15h00-17h00, at the University de La Réunion.

Laëtitia Saint-Loubert (Université de La Réunion) : « Traduction et kala pani : passages obligés, passages interdits » (16:00-16:30)

Abstract:
Cette communication s’attachera principalement aux travaux d’Ananda Devi en tant qu’écrivain-traductrice. Elle portera essentiellement sur sa traduction en français du roman de David Dabydeen The Counting House (1996) et sur son auto-traduction de Pagli (2001) vers l’anglais. Le caractère défectif associé à la condition ancillaire du traducteur, et, bien souvent, de la traductrice, sera mis en parallèle avec la traversée des eaux impures du kala pani afin de montrer en quoi les pratiques (auto)traduisantes d’Ananda Devi s’inscrivent dans la transgression créatrice et offrent une véritable poétique relationnelle de la traduction. Cet art du passage observé chez Ananda Devi consistera à rétablir des liens transocéaniques par-delà des codes convenus, guidés par le motif de la trace et rappelant les « arcs-en-mer » d’Edouard Glissant.


Source: http://www.univ-reunion.fr/fileadmin/Fichiers/communication/3_Newsletter-evenementielles/2018_06_04/KALA_PNAI_programme-seminaire-dire-19-06-2018.pdf

Conference "Corresponding with Beckett The Epistolary in Literary Research"

Self-translation was the topic of one talk given at the conference "Corresponding with Beckett. The Epistolary in Literary Research" which took place in London, 1-2 June 2018.

Ioanna Kostopoulou (Humboldt University of Berlin) “Translation, Self-Translation and Emerging Poetics: Samuel Beckett’s Correspondence in French (1941-56)” 

Abstract: In the immediate post-war years, Beckett’s writing is shaped by his use of French. What is known as the chosen language for his literary work is also unsurprisingly the language of the majority of his correspondence in the period 1941-56. This particular proficiency in French can be seen as a result of increasing confidence and everyday contact with “standard” French; it relies also on a deeper connection with other (French-speaking) writers and thinkers, made possible by epistolary-based friendship and trust. On the other hand, moments of “invented” French and the development of different epistolary styles hint at a process of translation, self-translation and the emerging of poetics in the letters and literary works—such as the “Trilogy”—alike. Bearing Beckett’s words to Simone de Beauvoir in mind—“You are giving me the chance to speak only to retract it before the words have had time to mean anything” (25 September 1946; LSB 2, 42)—the letters seem to reveal poetological decisions on when to start or end a text as well as conditions for speech and its (im)possibilities of meaning production. The correspondence with art critic Georges Duthuit reveals Beckett’s thoughts on translation and documents the struggle with the “burden”, but also the necessity of selftranslation into English. At the same time, Beckett’s encounter with Henri Michaux’s prose poetry raises the question of translation as influence, corresponding in a metaphorical sense and Übertragung crucial for Beckett’s (literary) writing in the years after Transition, Forty-Eight, No. 4. This paper aims to locate, in the exchange of concepts, (un)words and views on art, a possible correspondence with Beckett’s translation practice of around 1948 and the conditions under which notions of speech, language and silence flow into novels such as L’Innommable, or in Textes pour rien.

Source: https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences/corresponding-beckett