How Can We Transform Translation to Build it as Decolonial, Collective Practice?, Part 1

Likewise, we will question how postcolonial modes of community translation offer different epistemological directions than colonial practices of using standardized efforts of translation as tools of control and annexation. The seminar’s goal is to explore collective translation projects and engage with their negotiations of dominant languages and hegemonic constructions of race, gender, and sexuality. Format: Organizers will circulate two to three suggested readings to prompt participants’ response to the questions guiding this roundtable. Participants may bring samples of their own translation projects or prepare a brief paper or oral presentation to guide their intervention.

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Organizers

Violeta Orozco is a translator for Nueva York Poetry Review, where she translates the work of Latinx and Chicanx poets into Spanish. Her poetry appears in Acentos Review, Harvard’s Palabritas, and Bozalta. She is an alumnus of the BANFF International Literary Translators residency and a PhD student of Romance Languages and Literatures at University of Cincinnati, focusing on translation. Paulina Barrios is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University and a translator. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature and MA in African Studies. Her research focuses on feminist theories and methodologies, literature and social movements, translation studies, activist theater, self-writing, and autonomous publishing. Sneha Khaund is a PhD student in the Comparative Literature program at Rutgers University. She holds an MA degree in Comparative Literature from the Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies at SOAS University of London, and served as an editor for Asymptote. Her research interests include multilingualism, modernity, and borderland studies.

Participants

Lara Norgaard is a translator, essayist, and PhD student in comparative literature at Harvard University. Her work has appeared in publications including Public Books, Asymptote, and Cuíer (Two Lines Press), and she is a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Grant recipient. Her research interests include post-dictatorship literatures and cultural circulation between Indonesia and Latin America. Olivia Lasky is an Oslo-based translator who focuses on Norwegian and Saami translations for English readers. She was a 2020 ALTA Emerging Translator mentee and her work has been published in Words Without Borders, The Southern Review, and The Georgia Review, among others. Anton Hur is a Korean national and translator living in Korea. He has published four book translations in the US and UK. More info available at http://antonhur.com. Gwendoline Choi writes and translates from Hong Kong. Stacey Alba Skar-Hawkins is an accomplished Spanish-English literary translator and professor of Spanish at Western Connecticut State University. Her curricular initiatives include a minor in Spanish translation, and courses to introduce students to translation practice and theory. She is currently developing cultural studies translation courses: Translating Cuba and Latinx in Translation. Liz Rose translates from Spanish and Portuguese, and researches Black studies and transnational queer and trans social movements. Their work has appeared in Volume, Raspa Magazine, and The Poetry Project, among other places. A PhD student in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, Liz is currently based in the traditional and unceded lands of the Lenni-Lenape, in Philadelphia. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Julia Sanches is the author of more than a dozen translations from Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan into English. She has received support for her work from the PEN Heim, PEN Translates, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Julia sits on the Council of the Authors Guild, where she advocates for fairer terms for literary translators.