This upper level writing class explores the act of translating, which invokes a simultaneous vulnerability and resilience in the study of societies, cultures, literatures, and their languages. We will explore how reading and rewriting texts using different languages allows us to analyze how meaning is created. The critical texts we will read explore how our differences to one another, both inside and outside our communities, can be philosophically examined through a reflection on the act of translating itself. The readings will also guide us through an exploration of the “asymmetries” or differences that places, peoples, and languages have from one another. These differences can give us pause in the capacity to “relate” to texts outside of our contexts if we have not had similar experiences to the author or artist. When original and translated texts become enmeshed in this act of rewriting, we can observe how these differences can become intersections or “transversalities.”

Course Requirements:

The writing assignments in this class will invite you to engage the limits and possibilities of “relating” to the cultural contexts of texts as you translate them and find these intersecting asymmetries in the act of rewriting texts in translation. The final project will be a critical engagement with the paradigm of authenticity and relatability in translating the arts, literature, and culture across global and regional contexts. That critical piece will preface your short original translation piece which you will develop through the class’s translation workshop component.