What Can Translation Collectives Do? Part 1

The emergence of translation collectives over the last decade signals translators’ inclination to build community, work collaboratively, and find guidance and support. Translation is becoming seen less as a solitary act and more as a cooperative effort to produce meaningful work that, in many cases, inspires change and provides platforms for diverse voices to be heard.

Some collectives are structured within the university setting, while others are based geographically or within specific working languages. This workshop provides a space for collectives to discuss and share their approaches, successes, failures, and innovations. We ask: What can translation collectives do? What makes them productive, imaginative, and supportive? How can we build community within and across collectives? Format: We ask participants to prepare a description of their collective and the activities and/or work they do. We are also interested in what has worked well and if there are challenges the group has encountered. We will then open the floor for discussion.

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Organizers

Sarah Booker is a translator from Spanish and a doctoral candidate at UNC Chapel Hill. There she has taught Spanish-English literary translation undergraduate courses. Recent or forthcoming translations include Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country, and New and Selected Stories by Cristina Rivera Garza and Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda. She is a co-organizer of the Carolina Translation Collective. Sarah Blanton is a translator from Spanish to English and a doctoral student at UNC Chapel Hill. She has published work in International Poetry Review and has translated poetry, prose, and children’s literature. She is a co-organizer of the Carolina Translation Collective. Denise Kripper is a literary translator, translation scholar, and translation editor at Latin American Literature Today. She is a member of the Third Coast Translators Collective in Chicago.

Participants

Derick Mattern is a PhD student on the international writers’ track in Comparative Literature at Washington University in St Louis, where he translates contemporary Turkish poetry. Michele Rosen is a French to English translator and book editor living and working in Baltimore. She has translated several technical and academic nonfiction books and is seeking a publisher for her translation of Grosse by Québecoise author Lynda Dion.