Department of English

In this class we will study multiple translations of famous poems by major world poets such as Shu Ting, Gabriela Mistral, Mahmoud Darwish, Anna Akhmatova, Aimé Césaire, and Dahlia Ravikovitch. The curriculum will be tailored to the backgrounds of students who enroll, and all are welcome. Alternating between creative writing workshops and critical discussions, the course will also study the political and geographical frames that shape each text. For example, our translations of Aimé Césaire will be informed by his scholarship on colonialism, and a sense of China's Cultural Revolution will contextualize translations of Shu Ting. Conversations about history will become conversations about poetry. While essays on translation theory by writers including Borges, Keene, Carson, Benjamin, and Bakhtin will shape our approaches, this course will center around the practice of translation. Using multiple translations of major poems, we will create our own new versions, sometimes writing parallel texts and adaptations, too. Assignments will also include an oral presentation, an exchange of letters with a classmate, and a short creative essay.