Motherless Tongues, Multiple Belongings I
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 23/06/2020

PEN America, the Center for the Humanities at CUNY Graduate Center, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library presented Motherless Tongues, Multiple Belongings I livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 23 June 2020.

Moderated by Bruna Dantas Lobata, with Mónica de la Torre and Jeffrey Angles

Central to the monolingual paradigm is the cherished notion of the "mother tongue": the single, home language instilled from birth. "This particular vision does not want to admit.. the ability to live multiple belongings," writes Yasemin Yildiz in her landmark 2012 Beyond the Mother Tongue. Jeffrey Angles, who translates from Japanese and has also won high honors in Japan for his poetry written in Japanese, and Mónica de la Torre, a poet who has written in and translated from both Spanish and English, discuss the joys and perils of their personal linguistic multiplicity. Moderated and inspired by Brazilian writer and translator Bruna Dantas Lobata.

https://howlround.com/happenings/motherless-tongues-multiple-belongings-i

Translating the Future launched with weekly hour-long online conversations with renowned translators throughout the late spring and summer and will culminate in late September with several large-scale programs, including a symposium among Olga Tokarczuk's translators into languages including English, Japanese, Hindi, and more.

The conference, co-sponsored by PEN America, the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center CUNY, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, with additional support from the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, commemorates and carries forward PEN's 1970 World of Translation conference, convened by Gregory Rabassa and Robert Payne, and featuring Muriel Rukeyser, Irving Howe, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and many others. It billed itself as "the first international literary translation conference in the United States" and had a major impact on US literary culture.

The conversations are hosted by Esther Allen & Allison Markin Powell.

HowlRound TV is a global, commons-based peer produced, open access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound. HowlRound TV is a free and shared resource for live conversations and performances relevant to the world's performing arts and cultural fields. Its mission is to break geographic isolation, promote resource sharing, and to develop our knowledge commons collectively. Participate in a community of peer organizations revolutionizing the flow of information, knowledge, and access in our field by becoming a producer and co-producing with us.