Poems about translation 16: Traduzioni da Torquato Tasso

For our next Poem About Translation, here is a piece of gamery by the writer and critic Guido Almansi (who turns out to have been a lecturer, among other places, in the city of my birth at University College Dublin, and at my formerformer place of work in Norwich - who knew??).

It's called 'Traduzioni da Torquato Tasso' and is from Imimitazioni (Cooperativa scrittori, Roma, 1974). You can read the full text here.

'Gerusalemme liberata' works so well, for me, because it draws on very everyday translation practices and shifts to achieve its purpose - it plays with cognates, with word-for-word translation, with collocation, with rhyme, with ambiguity and misunderstanding. And it only cheats sometimes.

For more of this sort of thing, see the 'Mistraduzioni' in Almansi's marvellous book Maramao (Longanesi, 1989) (but be warned, those of a prudish disposition may wish to steer clear). My favourite part is the dedication:

A David O’C., studente di primo anno a University College, Dublino, che gloriosamente mistradusse le prime due parole degli Indifferenti di Alberto Moravia, “Entrò Carla”, con “He entered Carla”.

[For David O'C., first-year student at University of College, Dublin, who gloriously mistranslated the first two words of Alberto Moravia's Gli Indifferenti, “Entrò Carla” [Carla came in] as "He entered Carla".

Photo from http://www.aforismario.it/guido-almansi.htm with thanks.

Seminar cancellation (28 October 2013)

Unfortunately, due to problems on the Portsmouth to Bristol line caused by the weather, we have had to postpone today's seminar by Juliette Scott on specialised corpus resources for translators. Apologies for any disappointment caused. We hope to reschedule the seminar for later in the autumn and the date will be publicised in due course.

Call for Papers: Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies: East and West in Dialogue

Call for Papers

Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies: East and West in Dialogue

7-8 May 2014

Institute for Modern Languages Research, University of London

Keynote Speakers:  

Mona Baker (University of Manchester, UK)

Farzaneh Farahzad (Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran) 

Ferial Ghazoul (American University of Cairo)

Theo D’Haen (KU Leuven, Belgium)

Defeng Li (SOAS, University of London, UK) 

Kirsten Malmkjaer (University of Leicester, UK) 

Maria Tymoczko (University of Massachusetts, USA) 

Judy Wakabayashi (Kent State University, USA)

Conference Organizers: Dr Maike Oergel and Dr Kathryn Batchelor (University of Nottingham, UK)

The Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham is organizing a keynote conference to bring together Asian, Arabic and Western scholars in the area of translation and comparative literary and cultural studies, with the aim of facilitating and accelerating dialogue between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ traditions. The conference seeks to establish areas of overlap and difference in Eastern (Asian and Arabic) and Western traditions of translation and comparative studies in order to contribute towards re-shaping our understanding of intercultural encounters and engagement. This will be achieved by discussing the different traditions not in terms of differentiating traditional dichotomies (Own and Other) nor subsuming them under monolithic concepts of universal values (humanity, globality etc), but by prioritizing the activity of comparing. The link between Translation Studies and Comparative Cultural Studies is key, and mutually productive, in this respect: while comparative studies is currently engaging with the notion of the incomparability of cultures, translation studies, while equally engaging with the (related) notion of untranslatability, is based on the necessity to compare in order to find appropriate equivalents. By animating the link between these disciplines we aim to contribute to the outlining of new horizons for both of them.

The conference intends to build on the following intellectual and academic activities, all of which indicate a clear need for increased exchange:

1) the publications profiling non-Western traditions of translation scholarship and practice, such as the Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation (2006) by the late Martha Cheung and Asian Translation Traditions (2005) or De-centering Translation Studies: India and Beyond both by Judy Wakabayashi.

2) the opening up of comparative studies, especially comparative literature, beyond its traditional North American-European focus towards Asian and Arabic materials, evident in the growing numbers of anthologies of world literature, e.g. Norton’s Anthology of World Literature (2001), Longman’s and Bedford’s Anthologies of World Literature (2003 and 2004 respectively) or The Routledge Companion to World Literature (2011), edited by Theo D’Haen.

3) in the founding of international organisations such as the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (2004) that seek to redress the Western bias in the field.

It is expected that the conference will serve as a platform for setting up an innovative research network straddling not just the traditions of East and West, but also the disciplines of translation studies and comparative studies.

Abstracts (250 words) are invited for the panels below and should be sent to both organizers at maike.oergel at nottingham.ac.uk and kathryn.batchelor at nottingham.ac.uk  by Friday, 6 December 2013.

The Panels

Panel 1: Histories and Anthologies of Translation and Comparative Literature

Keynote Speakers:  Theo D’Haen (KU Leuven, Belgium), Judy Wakabayashi (Kent State University, USA)

This panel will be dedicated to the memory of Martha Cheung, who was to have been a keynote speaker at the conference before her untimely death in September 2013.  

Panel 2: Translation Theory

Keynote Speakers: Mona Baker (University of Manchester, UK), Kirsten Malmkjaer (University of Leicester, UK), Farzaneh Farahzad (Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran)

Panel 3: Comparative Cultural Studies Approaches

Keynote Speakers: Ferial Ghazoul (American University of Cairo), Maria Tymoczko (University of Massachusetts, USA)

Panel 4: Teaching Translation and Comparative Studies

Keynote Speaker: Defeng Li (SOAS, University of London)

More information is available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ctccs/events/conferences-and-public-lectures/conference-in-may-2014.aspx. 

Initiatives in scholarly translation

I've just been reading a series of articles from a special issue of Art in Translation (volume 4, issue 1, from 2012, paywalled) on the translation of art history. The journal is the only periodical I know whose main function is to publish and discuss research in translation. There's a fascinating piece, 'Honor Thine Author' by Fiona Elliott, about being a translator of art-related texts and what that actually means. She has some very interesting reflections on ambiguity, author sensitivities and the ethical stance of the translator. On a light-hearted note, I like her remark that

if I get the chance, I always make sure I ask authors to avoid using the word 'aufheben', and any words deriving from it. What English verb could match 'aufheben', meaning to pick something up from the floor, to save something up for later, to close a meeting, to terminate a siege, to remove restrictions, to cancel or annul, to repeal or revoke, to compensate, neutralize, offset, or elevate?

More seriously, it's great to see the arts and humanities gradually get more interested in the role of translation in the transmission of research findings. There's a long history of debates about translation in the history of ideas, of course, about translation of Freud, Derrida, de Beauvoir, Cixous, Barthes, about the problems of translating philosophy in general (for readers with a JSTOR subscription I recommend this article by Jonathan Rée), or the 'epistemicide' wreaked on ideas by scholarly translators, as per Karen Bennett's argument.

But what I really wanted to write about today is practical initiatives to support scholarly translation in the arts and humanities.

Namely:

The Getty-funded Art in Translation has a standing call for suggestions of important work in art history which deserves to be translated into English. They also have an annual student prize with a first prize of £250 for the best proposal by a registered art history student (next deadline 1 November 2013).

The Organisation of American Historians (OAH) offers a biennial prize, the David Thelen Award, to the author of the best article on American history published in a foreign language. The winning article is published in English translation in the Journal of American History. Next deadline 1 May 2015 for articles published in 2013 or 2014.

The European Society for Translation Studies has a new grant, the Translation Prize, which offers up to €2000 to support the translation of a key text or texts in Translation Studies. It was awarded in 2013 for the first time, for the translation of Anton Popovič's Teória umeleckého prekladu [Theory of Literary Translation] from Slovak to English. The next deadline is 1 June 2014.

On a related note, I see that the long-running Polish literary translation journal Przekładaniec has made several recent issues available in English on its website. I didn't know that there was a lively debate about the translation of Derrida's term différance into Polish, but I do now. 

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies has a Translation Committee which has a brief to promote the translation of scholarship in film and media studies not written in English. I have a memory of a page on their old website with a collection of texts proposed for translation, which was a very nice idea, but I don't seem to see it on the new website.

Lastly, there was an initiative a few years ago by the American Council of Learned Societies, part-funded by the Ford Foundation, to produce guidelines for translators in the social sciences. It culminated in Michael Henry Heim and Andrzej Tymowski's 2006 Guidelines for the Translation of Social Science Texts, which can be downloaded in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese here.

UPDATE 28 December 2013: I've just been reminded of the wonderful-looking Paul Celan Fellowships, 3-6-month funded residencies for translators of works of criticism and research publications from and into Eastern European languages. The website gives the following description of the programme:

The aim of the Paul Celan Fellowship Program is to overcome deficits and asymmetries in the exchange of ideas and the reception of scholarly literature which result from the division of Europe in the 20th century. Therefore, the program supports translations of canonical texts and contemporary key works in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies from Eastern to Western, Western to Eastern, or between two Eastern European languages. Special emphasis is put on translations of relevant works written by East European authors and/or by female scholars.

I'd be very interested to hear from readers of more initiatives to promote and support scholarly translation.

UPDATE 26 January 2015: I've just read an excellent short report on a French government-funded project commissioned by the Institut Français and run by Gisèle Sapiro on the translation of French research in social sciences and humanities. The project makes a number of recommendations and it will be very interesting to see how many of them will be taken up. More on the project here (in French).

Post for German to English translator in Bonn (deadline 3 November 2013)

A job advertisement, recently circulated:

Für unsere Sonderstelle Sprachendienst suchen wir für den Standort Bonn eine Übersetzerin / einen Übersetzer für die englische Sprache als Referenten (m/w).

Das Aufgabenfeld umfasst im Wesentlichen:

 Fertigen schriftlicher Übersetzungen von schwierigen Texten juristischer, betriebswirtschaftlicher und technischer Art aus dem Deutschen und einer weiteren europäischen Fremdsprache ins Englische
 Terminologiearbeit

Wir erwarten von Ihnen:

 Ein einschlägiges Universitätsstudium (Master oder Diplom)
 Englisch als Muttersprache
 Deutsch als erste Fremdsprache
 Eine weitere europäische Fremdsprache als zweite Fremdsprache
 Fähigkeit zur raschen Einarbeitung in neue Themenbereiche
 Sichere Beherrschung der gängigen MS-Office-Anwendungen
 Fähigkeit zur eigenständigen termingebundenen Arbeit
 Hohe Leistungsbereitschaft und Belastbarkeit sowie Teamfähigkeit
 Interesse an den Aufgabengebieten der Bundesnetzagentur
 Erfahrung im Umgang mit SDL Trados Translation Tools ist von Vorteil
 Einschlägige Berufserfahrung ist erwünscht, jedoch erhalten auch interessierte Berufseinsteigerinnen/Berufseinsteiger eine Chance

Wir bieten Ihnen:

 Als Beamtin/Beamter Übernahme bis zur Besoldungsgruppe A 14 Bundesbesoldungsordnung
 Eine befristete Beschäftigung von in der Regel 24 Monaten mit einer Eingruppierung nach Entgeltgruppe 13 Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst (TVöD); bei mehrjähriger einschlägiger Berufserfahrung ist eine Eingruppierung bis Entgeltgruppe 14 TVöD möglich; die Übernahme in ein unbefristetes Beschäftigungsverhältnis wird angestrebt
 Selbständiges, eigenverantwortliches und teamorientiertes Arbeiten auf interessanten und entwicklungsfähigen Gebieten

Bewerbungen von Frauen sind besonders erwünscht. Wir begrüßen ausdrücklich Bewerbungen von schwerbehinderten Menschen; sie werden bei gleicher Eignung im Rahmen der Regelungen des Bundesgleichstellungsgesetzes vorrangig eingestellt. Die Bundesnetzagentur unterstützt die Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf, z. B. durch flexible Arbeitszeitmodelle.

Haben wir Ihr Interesse geweckt? Dann senden Sie Ihre vollständigen Bewerbungsunterlagen bitte bis zum 3. November 2013 an die

Bundesnetzagentur für Elektrizität, Gas, Telekommunikation, Post und Eisenbahnen
Z 12-4, Kennziffer Sprachendienst
Postfach 80 01
53105 Bonn

oder per Mail (Bitte als zusammengefasste Datei im doc.- oder pdf.- Format) an:
Bewerbungen_Z12-4 at BNetzA.de

Informationen zum TVöD erhalten Sie auf den Internetseiten des Bundesministeriums des Innern.

Poems about translation 15b: Magrelli redux

As readers may remember, the last Poem in Translation (number 15) was Magrelli's wonderful 'L'imballatore', in honour of my moving to Bristol.

I have now tracked down my copy of the published translation by Anthony Molino in The Contagion of Matter (2000), published by Holmes & Meier.

I was particularly curious to know how Molino had rendered two lines from the poem:

È questo il futuro, la spola, il traslato,
il tempo manovale e citeriore,

Cognates of 'translate' are difficult anyway, because Italian has so much more space to play with them than English does - but the real problem for me was this 'tempo manovale e citeriore'. There is something magically hermetic about this phrase, and I note that Molino picks it up in his dedication of the book to his son.

Molino translates it

This is the future, the shuttle, the shift,
manual, otherwhere Time,

So the problem of 'citeriore' is solved with 'otherwhere', relationally less specific than the Italian but similarly ambiguous in context in relation to time. The weight and rhythm of the polysyllables in the second line of the Italian is present again in a very different but also compelling form in the English, and the sound patterns are also acknowledged in the alliteration of 'shuttle' and 'shift'. The choice to capitalise Time is a nice reminder of how the materiality of print can carry signification. Absolutely fascinating to see how Molino does it.

There are some other very interesting translational things at work in this section of the book. For one thing, Magrelli uses the first two lines of Nabokov's famous poem about translating Pushkin (fêted as no. 6 in our occasional series) as an epigraph to the Italian poem: 'Cos'è la traduzione? Su un vassoio / la testa pallida e fiammante d'un poeta'.

Rather than doing what one might normally do and restoring the lines from Nabokov's poem in his English translation ('What is translation? On a platter / a poet's pale and glaring head'), Molino chooses to translate the Italian translation used by Magrelli: 'What is translation? On a platter / the pale and glaring head of a poet'.

This has the effect of adding a further layer of 'translatedness' to Molino's own translation. The 'poet' in question is not only Pushkin, and Nabokov but also Magrelli. This bravura translation by Molino of a poem about translation by a translator (we should remember that in Magrelli's Italian collection, the poem about translation accompanies translations of a number of poems, one of them also about translation) is presented through the lens of somebody arguing that the translation of poetry is impossible and undesirable. By way of response, Molino then goes on to present Magrelli's translations themselves in English translation - and in a nice touch, the poems translated into Italian by Magrelli are presented in their original languages in an appendix.

Interestingly, in his introduction, Molino admits that one poem from Magrelli's collection (Esercizi di tipologia, 1992) had to be omitted. 'Due dichiarazioni' presents a play on words between 'Scarabeo' (the Italian translation of the game 'Scrabble') and scarabeo, the beetle.

What is a translator to do, says Molino,

to later justify in the text the sudden appearance of a beetle? Short of toying with images of a Volkswagen, or a member of Liverpool's Fabulous 4, the decision was reached to wave a white flag and desist, in this case, from "pushing a whim to its utter extreme". (p.xiii)

Normally, one treats with gentle scepticism the claim that a poem is truly untranslatable. In this case, I think Molino has more than earned the benefit of the doubt.