Liberal Arts for Advanced Students I

Week 1 - Introduction Week 2 - Friedrich Schleiermacher, “On the Different Methods of Translating” - André Lefevere, Translating Literature: The German Tradition from Luther to Rosenzweig, pp. 30-65 Week 3 - Antoine Berman, “Translation and the Trial of the Foreign” - Antoine Berman, The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany, pp. 1-21 Week 4 - Roman Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” - Eugene Nida, “Principles of Correspondence” Week 5 - Itamar Even-Zohar, “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem” - Gideon Toury, “The Nature and Role of Norms in Translation” Week 6 - Antoine Berman, The Experience of the Foreign, pp. 69-102 Week 7 - Hans J. Vermeer, “Skopos and Commission in Translation Theory” - André Lefevere, “Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory of Literature” Week 8 - Philip E. Lewis, “The Measure of Translation Effects” Week 9 - Walter Benjamin, “On the Mimetic Faculty” - Walter Benjamin, “On Language as Such and the Language of Man” Week 10 - Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator” - Paul de Man, “Conclusions: Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’” Week 11 - George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language & Translation, pp. 236-278 Week 12 - George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language & Translation, pp. 296-333 Week 13 - Lawrence Venuti, “Local Contingencies: Translation and National Identities” - Lawrence Venuti, “Translation as Cultural Politics: Regimes of Domestication in English” - Lawrence Venuti, “Genealogies of Translation: Schleiermacher” Week 14 - Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility Week 15 - Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility

The course will rely principally on small group discussion. The teacher will prepare discussion questions based on the readings and distribute them on the day of class. Students will then separate into small groups and hold discussions about the readings using the distributed questions as a starting point. Towards the end of the period, we will come together as a class to review and further explore the group discussions. Graduate students taking the course will be asked to assume additional responsibilities, including giving two presentations and developing class discussion questions for those days that they present on. The form the presentations takes is left to the student to determine, but the presentations should help guide the class through the readings for that week, ideally by laying out and exploring, through the close reading of passages, the key issues raised by the text(s). Students will also develop at least five discussion questions for the weeks that they present. These questions will be used to help steer class discussion on the issues that each text raises.

Participation 40% - Students are expected to regularly participate in and contribute to class discussions. For discussion to work, you must have read the assigned text with some care before coming to class. Be prepared with your own thoughts and reactions, however provisional. - Please note that no auditing is permitted and that research students are only allowed to take the course if they are willing to complete the course requirements. Final Paper 60% - Students will submit an essay of 5,000 words or more (not including the works cited page) on a topic of their choice related to the content of the course. Recommended topics include: a comparison/contrast paper on two or more of the thinkers that we have read; an analysis paper that attempts to explicate the ideas of a particular thinker or a particular concept; or an analysis of a translated work in terms discussed by one or more of the thinkers or concepts that we have read.

Lawrence Venuti, ed. The Translation Studies Reader. 4th edition. New York: Routledge, 2021.

Lawrence Venuti, ed. The Translation Studies Reader. 4th edition. New York: Routledge, 2021.

No auditing is permitted.

The first class will be held on-line. All other classes will be held in the assigned classroom.