This course is a part of HF's PhD week, and gives 1 ECTS.
Course Description
A wide range of translation skills are required in humanistic research, from the decoding of texts written in foreign languages and inter-semiotic translation to the domestication of theoretical frameworks developed in disciplines and cultures less familiar than one’s own. This course is designed to advance methodological reflection on translatability, cross-cultural communication, and traveling concepts, addressing questions such as:
- What do «translation» and «translatability» mean in your research field?
- To what extent is the meaning of a literary work changed when translated from one language to another and received and interpreted in a culture different from its origin?
- Which aspects are preserved, and which are altered when a novel is adapted to film or theater, or when a painting is described in words – and why does it matter?
- Which modifications and recontextualizations are needed when theoretical concepts travel from one culture to another?
- How can theories of translation be useful in interdisciplinary research?
Convenors and participants develop a relevant reading list together based on a preliminary selection of articles. The shortlist (5–6 articles) will serve as the basis for plenary and group discussions at the one-day workshop.
Course preparations and deadlines
30 April: Deadline for course participants to submit a one-page description of their own PhD project, including an indication of which form of translation is the most relevant for their research. Participants should indicate which texts from the preliminary reading list they want to discuss in depth at the course. It is also possible to suggest additional publications that might be relevant. We will open a Canvas room for submissions in due time.
20 June: Deadline for submitting a three-page (1.5 spacing) essay based on articles and discussions from the course. Participants are encouraged to reflect on how their individual PhD projects can be situated in relation to existing academic practice.
RegistrationCourse curriculum, preliminary reading list
Alter, Nora M. 2007. «Translating the Essay into Film and Installation». Journal of Visual Culture 6 (1): 44–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412907075068
Apter, Emily. 2021. «What is Just Translation?». Public Culture 33 (1): 89–111. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-8742208
Baer, Brian James. 2020. «From Cultural Translation to Untranslatability». Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 40: 139–163. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26924869
Baker, Mona. 2005. «Narratives in and of Translation». SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation 1 (1): 4–13. http://www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTI01/doc_pdf/01.pdf
Bal, Mieke. 2007. «Translating Translation». Journal of Visual Culture 6 (1): 109–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412907075072
Bielsa, Esperança. 2024. «Translating Academia: Implications for Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences and the Humanities». Social Science Information: 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184231219498
Burke, Peter. 2023. «The Historian’s Dilemma: Domestication or Foreignizing?». In History as a Translation of the Past: Case Studies from the West, edited by Luigi Alonzi. 91–105. London: Bloomsbury. DOI: 10.5040/9781350338241.ch-004
Evans, Ruth. 2000. «Metaphor of Translation». In Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Kirsten Malmkjær. 149–153. London and New York: Routledge.
Finch-Race, Dan and Katie Ritson. 2021. «The Anglophone Dilemma in the Environmental Humanities». Seeing the Woods, 28 July. https://seeingthewoods.org/2021/07/28/the-anglophone-dilemma-in-the-environmental-humanities/
Folkvord, Ingvild. 2014. «Acts of Translation: Ruth Maier’s Testimony and its Reception». Translation and Literature 23 (2): 244–256. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24585358
Gal, Susan. 2015. «Politics of Translation». Annual Review of Anthropology 44: 225–240. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24811658
Greenall, Annjo K. 2015. «Translators’ Voices in Norwegian Retranslations of Bob Dylan’s Songs». Target 27 (1): 40–57. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.27.1.02gre
Greenall, Annjo K. and Eli Løfaldli. 2019. «Translation and Adaptation as Recontextualization: The Case of The Snowman». Adaptation 12 (3): 240–256. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apz002
Grumberg, Karen. 2017. «Between the World and the Yishuv: The Translation of Knut Hamsun’s Markens grøde as a Zionist Sacred Text». Prooftexts 36 (1–2): 111–136. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/683232
Hacking, Ian. 1981. «Was There Ever a Radical Mistranslation?». Analysis 41 (4): 171–175. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3327741
Hanks, William F. and Carlo Severi. 2015. «Translating Worlds: The Epistemological Space of Translation». HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4 (2): 1–16. DOI:10.14318/hau4.2.001
Helgesson, Stefan and Christina Kullberg. 2018. «Translingual Events: World Literature and the Making of Language». Journal of World Literature 3 (2): 136–152. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00302002
Iser, Wolfgang. 1994. «On Translatability». Surfaces 4. https://doi.org/10.7202/1064971ar
Jensen, Casper Bruun. 2020. «Disciplinary Translations: Latour in Literary Studies and Anthropology». Common Knowledge 26 (2): 230–250. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/755582
Latour, Bruno. 1986. «The Powers of Association». In Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?, edited by John Law. 261–277. London: Routledge.
Longxi, Zhang. 2015. «Cross-cultural Translatability: Challenges and Prospects». European Review 23 (3): 369–378. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798715000150
Maitland, Sarah. 2016. «‘In-between’ a rock and a ‘third-space’? On the trouble with ambivalent metaphors of translation». Translation Studies 9 (1): 17–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2015.1085432
Niblett, Michael. 2012. «World-Economy, World-Ecology, World-Literature». Green Letters 16 (1): 15–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2012.10589097
Ožbot, Martina. 2015. «Foreignization and Domestication: A View from the Periphery». In Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, Cognition and Culture. New Frontiers in Translation Studies, edited by Teresa Seruya and José Miranda Justo. 277–289. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47949-0_24
Ramazani, Jahan. 2019. «Persian Poetry, World Poetry, and Translatability». University of Toronto quarterly 88 (2): 210–28. https://doi.org/10.3138/utq.88.2.09
Rendall, Steven. 1997. «The Translator’s Task, Walter Benjamin (Translation)». TTR 10 (2): 151–165. https://doi.org/10.7202/037302ar
Torkaman, Mehdi. 2022. «Fuel and Feminism: Oil, Women, and the Urbanization of Nature in State of Happiness». Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning 46 (2): 98–113. https://doi.org/10.18261/tfk.46.2.6
Venuti, Lawrence. 2009. «Translation, Intertextuality, Interpretation». Romance Studies 27 (3): 157–173. https://doi.org/10.1179/174581509X455169
Ødemark, John. 2023. «Knowledge Translation as Cultural and Epistemic Translation; Comment on ‘Sustaining Knowledge Translation Practices: A Critical Interpretative Synthesis’». International Journal of Health Policy and Management 12 (1): 1–4. 10.34172/IJHPM.2023.7873
Ødemark, John and Eivind Engebretsen. 2018. «Expansions». In A History of Modern Translation Knowledge, edited by Lieven D’hulst and Yves Gambier. 85–90. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.142
You are invited to select 3–6 articles from the list above that might be particularly relevant for the methods section in your PhD thesis. You may also suggest additional titles if they can be related to the topic.
Language
Presentations and discussions will be held in English. The essay can be written in English or a Scandinavian language.
Course convenors
Professor Sissel Furuseth (ILN)
Professor John Ødemark (IKOS)