Events 2016-2017

RIW in Literary Translation Meeting (Welcome to a New Year!)

September 23, 2016 |2 PM | Comparative Literature Library (2021 Tisch)

Come see what the Literary Translation is all about and meet the RIW’s members, old & new!

RIW in Literary Translation Meeting (October I)

October 27, 2016 |2 PM | Comparative Literature Library (2021 Tisch)

Join other graduate student translators as they edit their work!

“From Live Speech to Cultural Memory: Language and Oral Literature of San Basilio de Palenque (Colombia)” with Yves Moñino and Graciela Maglia

October 12, 2016 | 4-5:30 PM | Hatcher Library

Since the “discovery” of San Basilio de Palenque in the 1950’s by Aquiles Escalante, scientific research has advanced on the classification of the Palenquero Creole as a language instead of a Spanish dialect. This process helped the Palenqueros, during much time sunk into the self-imposed shame of speaking a “bad Spanish”, to self value their linguistic and cultural riches. In 2005, UNESCO declared the community “Masterpiece of Oral and Immaterial Heritage”, this fact reverted its prior history of cultural and linguistic discrimination. After a presentation of the village and its material and spiritual activities, we will give examples of genres of Palenquero oraliture in conversation, poetry and tales, as well as a sample of our socio-semiotic and cultural analysis to show how a cultural collective memory is built in live dialog. Our presentation will be based on the collaborative research, we undertook on the oral productions of Palenque: Kondalo pa bibí mejó. Contarlo para vivir mejor. Oratura y oralitura de San Basilio de Palenque (Colombia). Bogotá, Editorial Javeriana / ICC, 2015).

Lecture and Workshop with Diane Rayor (Classics, Grand Valley State University) 

October 21, 2016 | 12-4 PM | Classics Library (2175 Angell Hall)

12-1 PM: Lecture, “What’s New with the New Sappho?”
2:30-4 PM: Translation Workshop

Diane Rayor, Professor of Classics at Grand Valley State University and author of six translations of Greek lyric and tragedy including, most recently, Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works (Cambridge 2014). The workshop is intended as an opportunity for participants to bring in translation questions, issues, or problems they encounter in their own translations (works-in-progress are preferred). Dr. Rayor will discuss translation strategies and share portions of her current translation project, Euripides’ Helen, which is supported by a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship. Undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty from any department are invited to attend. Those with translations they wish to discuss are encouraged to submit them in advance to Amy Pistone (apistone@umich.edu).

RIW in Literary Translation Meeting (October II)

October 27, 2016 |2 PM | Comparative Literature Library (2021 Tisch)

Join other graduate student translators as they edit their work!

Fall 2016 Translate-a-thon

October 28-30, 2016 | 9-5 PM | LRC (1500 North Quad)

The Translate-a-thon is a short, intense, community-driven event when volunteers interested in translation come together to translate! We have collected videos, websites, and print from museums, non-profits, and university organizations… or bring your own project! You can work in teams or on your own.SPECIAL LECTURE on Saturday, October 29th at 1 PM (LRC): “Do No Harm: Translation Ethics & Storytelling” with Ema StefanovaThe Translate-a-thon is organized by the Language Resource Center in collaboration with the Department of Comparative Literature. Visit our event page for more details: http://lsa.umich.edu/lrc/translation/translate-a-thon.html

Esther Dischereit’s Flowers for Otello

November 1, 2016 | 6 PM | NQ 2435

Please join Alamanya: Transnational German Studies Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 6pm for a multimedia performance with guest author, German-Jewish poet Esther Dischereit, as she performs laments from her 2014 work Flowers for Otello. Flowers for Otello is dedicated to the families of nine immigrants and one policewoman who were maliciously murdered by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) between the years of 2000 and 2007. Due in part to state investigative authorities’ refusal to seriously consider racism as a motive, these crimes went unsolved until 2011. Flowers for Otello addresses issues of race, memory, and violence in relation to these crimes; in a series of lamentations it offers a unique multilingual perspective on systematic racism in present-day Germany through a medium that is at once poetic, musical, and performative. Spoken word performance in German and Turkish (English translations provided) by Esther Dischereit and Selim Özdogan. Interpretive dance by Holly Handman-Lopez. Electronic music by Tom Lopez. Percussion by Justin Gunter

RIW in Literary Translation Meeting

December 2, 2016 |2 PM | Comparative Literature Library (2021 Tisch)

Join other graduate student translators as they edit their work!

“Celebrating Translation at Michigan”

January 20th, 2017 | 3-5 PM | Department of Comparative Literature (2021 Tisch Hall)

Join the Department of Comparative Literature as they celebrate the work of undergraduate and graduate translators at Michigan. The reception will feature readings from the newest issue of Absinthe, as well as translations produced in the Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop in Literary Translation and several Comparative Literature courses.

LRC Translation Club Mass Meeting

January 20th, 2017 | 5-6 PM | LRC, 1500 North Quad

If you are interested in translation initiatives, this is a great opportunity to talk about them. We will have pizza at the meeting so please RSVP so we can get a better idea of how much to order.

Translation, Conversion, and the Black Body in Colonial Spanish America Harvard University with Professor Larissa-Brewer Garcia  (Spanish, University of Chicago)

February 1, 2017 | 4-6 PM | 4th floor RLL Commons (Modern Languages Building)

Larissa Brewer-García specializes in colonial Latin American studies, with a focus on cultural productions of the Caribbean and Andes and the African diaspora in the Iberian empire. Within these areas, her research and teaching interests include the relationship between literature and law, genealogies of race and racism, humanism and Catholicism in the early modern Atlantic, and translation studies. Her current book project, Beyond Babel: Translation and the Making of Blackness in Colonial Spanish America, examines the influence of black interpreters and go-betweens in the creation and circulation of notions of blackness in writings from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish America. She is also working on Saints’ Lives of the Early Black Atlantic, a translation and critical edition of hagiographies of individuals of African descent written in Spanish from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

RIW in Literary Translation Meeting (February)

February 10, 2017 |11 AM | Comparative Literature Library (2021 Tisch)

Join other graduate student translators as they edit their work!

Translating Greek Poetry Under Crisis

March 13th, 2017 | 7 PM | Literati (124 E. Washington)

The Department of Classical Studies invites you to a book signing and reading of Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis with it editor Theodoros Chiotis (Oxford). The event is sponsored by the Program in Modern Greek.

RIW in Literary Translation Meeting (March)

March 31, 2017 |11 AM | Comparative Literature Library (2021 Tisch)

Join other graduate student translators as they edit their work!