About the project

Funded by the Mellon Foundation, our Sawyer Seminar series highlights the US Midwest as a multilingual region shaped by native inhabitants, the first wave of colonizers, and subsequent waves of migration. The seminars build on interdisciplinary resources at the University of Michigan as a public university, dedicated to global initiatives as well as local outreach, in order to explore various histories and cultures of translation in the multilingual Midwest.

Our goal is to collaborate on research and teaching around this topic, within our university and at other midwestern universities, colleges, and schools, and to reach out to diverse language communities around us. To provide a working model for such collaborations, we will offer seven seminars from 2021-23 directed by a team of UM faculty members in collaboration with colleagues, students, and community partners. Each seminar will offer public-facing events and smaller workshops to explore current research related to specific sites of translation. Most of our events will be accessible for remote participation during COVID-19.

Principal Investigators

Maya Barzilai, Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew and Comparative Literature, is leading a seminar on Jewish Multilingualism in the Midwest: Yiddish Translations of Urban Experience (Spring 2021).

Kristin Dickinson, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, is leading a seminar on Visualizing Translation: Homeland and Heimat in Detroit and Dortmund (Fall 2021).

Christi Merrill, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, is leading a seminar on Building Translation Networks in the Midwest with HathiTrust (Fall 2022).

Benjamin Paloff, Professor of Slavic Languages and Comparative Literature, is leading a seminar on Building Bridges over Walls: Midwestern Translation Networks and Eastern European Literature (Spring 2022).

Yopie Prins, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, is directing a seminar on Translation for the Community (Fall 2021).

Marlon James Sales, 2019-21 Postdoctoral Fellow in Critical Translation Studies in the Department of Comparative Literatures, is leading a seminar on Translation and Memory: Hispanofilipino Literature and the Archive in the US Midwest (Spring 2021).

Silke-Maria Weineck, Professor of Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature, is leading a seminar on Translating Hamtramck (Spring 2023).

Collaborators

Barbara Alvarez, UM Library

Laura Brubacher, UM Language Resource Center

Emmanuel Orozco Castellanos, LSA Undergraduate Student Research Assistant

Aaron Coleman, 2021-23 Postdoctoral Fellow in Critical Translation Studies, Department of Comparative Literature

Julie Evershed, UM Language Resource Center

Fe Susan Go, UM Library

Graham Liddell, Winter 2022 Graduate Student Research Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature

Charlotte Fater, LSA Undergraduate Student Research Assistant

Elisabeth Fertig, Fall 2021 Graduate Student Research Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature

Julia Irion Martins, Winter 2021 Graduate Student Research Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature

Marina Mayorski, Winter 2021 Graduate Student Research Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature

Philomena Meechan, UM Language Resource Center

Ivan Parra Garcia, Graduate Student Research Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature

Alfonso Sintjago, Video Specialist, Language Resource Center

William Stroebel, Assistant Professor of Modern Greek and Comparative Literature

Berkay Uluç, Fall 2022 Graduate Student Research Assistant, Department of Comparative Literature