Literary translation conference draws worldwide luminaries
Making the world's great literature and poetry widely available has been possible since the invention of the printing press, and it becomes ever more a reality with modern printing methods, global trade and the Internet. Yet for significant writers and poets around the world to truly become widely known, it is necessary to grapple with the thorny politics of language and the formidable demands of creating great translations.
These issues will be explored in depth at a major international conference at Stevens Institute of Technology, during 12 hours of diverse presentations, Nov. 2, 2002. The Third Biennial Conference for Contemporary Literary Translation: Texts, Translation and People will bring together more than 200 translators, critics, scholars, fiction writers and poets from around the world. During this meeting of minds, more than 25 sessions will be held on topics focusing on works in numerous languages and the problems of translation of literature and poetry.
The sessions will open with a performance of scenes from the modern Catalan theater. Jeanette Morales, Georgina Richardson and other players will enact portions of Keeping in Touch by Beth Escudé, a renowned Catalan playwright. Bethany M. Korp and Phyllis Zatlin of Rutgers University will lead a discussion of the performance and issues relating to theatrical translation.
Concurrent sessions will follow throughout the day concerning the theoretical and practical problems of recasting works of literature from language to language. Sessions will consider translations from and into Russian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, as well as Middle Eastern, Latin American, African, Eastern European, Far Eastern and ancient and medieval languages.
Among the luminaries who will be presenting at the conference is R. Barton Palmer of Clemson University, who will deliver the evening keynote address, after a reception and dinner at the Stevens Faculty Club, titled "What is Translation?" Prof. Palmer is Calhoun Lemon Professor of English at Clemson, as well as General Editor, Routledge Medieval Texts, and General Editor, World Cinema Traditions (Edinburgh University Press). Palmer also heads the South Carolina Film Institute.
There are many notables among presenters, including Carmen Firan, a Romanian poet who directs the Romanian Cultural Center in New York City; and Nina Cassian, who is considered one of the great contemporary poets of Eastern Europe. Participants from around the world include: Earl Jeffrey Richards (Germany), Keijiro Suga and Charles Fox (Japan), and Thiery Marignac (France). Numerous Russian poets and scholars, including Natalya Reinhold and Vadim Mikhailin, will also present papers and read poetry. Murat Memet-Nejat, a prominent Turkish poet and translator of Turkish poetry, will chair the session on Turkish translation.
Local universities are well represented among the panelists, with speakers from New York University, Columbia University, various branches of the City University of New York, and Drew University.
A special session will consider the "Mandelstam Project," with presentations by scholars and translators involving current translations from the works of the Russian poet and essayist Osip Mandelstam. Regarded alongside Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Anna Akhmatova as one of the greatest voices of 20th-century Russian poetry, Mandelstam perished in the Soviet Stalinist Gulag of the 1930s. His work began to be known widely outside Russia only after translations became available in the late 1950s.
Vitaly Chernetsky will chair an afternoon session on Russian and Ukranian translation issues. Chernetsky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University, where he is also an affiliate of the Harriman Institute and the Center for Comparative Literature and Society. His expertise ranges widely across the spectrum of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian and Yugoslavian literature.
"We're excited about this year's conference for several reasons," says Dr. Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, a medieval literature specialist and associate professor of humanities at Stevens. "The politics of language is an increasingly highly charged subject in our world today. Moreover, gatherings of poets and scholars from around the world are inherently stimulating."
"Ours is an intimate conference in a great setting near New York City, and because it involves the confluence of so many brilliant people, the connections one can make are compelling to many people with an interest in literature, poetry and translation."
Sinnreich-Levi and Dr. Edward Foster, a professor of literature who directs the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Stevens, have organized this year's conference.
"The United States is involved quite heavily in world politics," said Foster, "and yet the American population is largely monoglot - speaking only one language. Conferences such as this help to bring an awareness of other languages, cultures and literatures."
The conference runs from 8:30 a.m. through 9:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov 2. Registration is continuous from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Conference events take place in Stevens' Morton-Peirce-Kidde complex, located on Stevens' campus northeast of 6th and River Streets in Hoboken, N.J. The public is welcome to attend conference proceedings.
Conference registration is at the desk in the third floor hallway of the Morton-Peirce-Kidde complex. Public transportation is recommended since parking at Stevens and in Hoboken is limited. The conference location is just six blocks north of historic Hoboken terminal, a primary hub where several forms of public transit, including PATH trains, are available to and from New York City and many parts of New Jersey.
The conference is sponsored by Stevens' Imperatore School of Sciences and Arts, the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Russian/American Cultural Exchange Program, and the Samuel, Minerva and David Lee Humanities Resource Center at Stevens.
For more information contact Dr. Deborah Sinnreich-Levi at (201) 216-5403 or e-mail her at dsinnrei@stevens.edu.
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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