Translating the Future Week 1: David Bellos in conversation with Karen Emmerich on Tues 12 May 2020
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 12/05/2020

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 Translating the Future Week 1: From 1970 to 2020: Translation Transformations: David Bellos in conversation with Karen Emmerich livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 12 May 2020 at 10:30 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 12:30 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 1:30 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4) / 18:30 BST (London, UTC+1) / 19:30 CEST (Berlin, UTC+2).

From 1970 to 2020: Translation Transformations. David Bellos in conversation with Karen Emmerich (with snippets from the original archive audio from the World of Translation conference).

The conference commemorates and carries forward PEN's 1970 World of Translation conference, convened by Gregory Rabassa and featuring Irving Howe, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Muriel Rukeyser and many others. It billed itself as "the first international literary translation conference in the United States" and had a major impact on U.S. literary culture.

The conversation was hosted by Esther Allen & Allison Markin Powell.

Bios
David Bellos studied Modern Languages at Oxford and taught French in the UK before moving to Princeton in 1997, where he served as Director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication for more than ten years. He stumbled into a second career as a translator when he became enthralled by Georges Perec’s Life A User’s Manual. He has translated roughly a book a year ever since, in fields ranging from popular fiction to the history of anti-Semitism, and from the history of counting systems to masterpieces of modern Albanian literature. His teaching, experience and frustration with the state of translation studies led him to write Is That a Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation, which has itself been translated into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.

Karen Emmerich is a translator of modern Greek literature and a professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, where she also directs the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. Her translation awards include the National Translation Award in 2019 for Ersi Sotiropoulos's What's Left of the Night (New Vessel), the Best Translated Book Award in 2017 for Eleni Vakalo's Beyond Lyricism (UDP), and the PEN Poetry in Translation Award in 2014 for Yannis Ritsos's Diaries of Exile (Archipelago).

About HowlRound TV
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. Learn more by going to our participate page. For any other queries, email tv@howlround.com, or call Vijay Mathew at +1 917.686.3185 Signal/WhatsApp. View the video archive of past events.

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