Check-in 2

This semester is doing its best to crush me, but I won't let it. I was ill last week, leading up to the weekend, and it caused me to get slightly behind on my work. That said, I was a little bit ahead before this, so I suppose things have just evened out. I still need to get caught up in Pragmatics and Love Poetry – those were the two classes I missed last week – and so right now I'm working through our second homework assignment for Pragmatics, which includes some interesting wordplay involving unicorns, and recreating a Sappho poem for my Love Poetry course.

Our assignment for Love Poetry is to take what fragments are left from a Sappho poem of our choosing from the Anne Carson translation I mentioned before, and 'fill in the blanks' as it were, recreating the poem as if it were written in Sappho's time. Currently I am struggling with this as I fight the urge to modernize the poem and as I try to find a voice not my own.

Speaking of poetry, I have recently undertaken a new project. I know, I know, I don't exactly need more things to keep me busy, but I have to have fun sometimes right? This side project can definitely be considered fun. When I was at Bread Loaf early in the summer I had the privilege of attending many panels and talks, as well as individual/small group meetings with various editors and agents. One of the people that I ended up talking to was Chad Post, who was there as a publisher/editor for Open Letter at the University of Rochester. In addition to publishing, Open Letter runs a weblog and international review source called Three Percent. After leaving Bread Loaf, I decided that I would sign up to write occasional reviews for Three Percent, and I received my first book today (October 4th) and so far I love it. It's a book of poetry, but I shan't say more than that here. Once I finish writing the review and it goes through editing I will be sure to post a link to it on this blog.

On the topic of editing, my work in the Student-Scholar Partnership is going well, and I continue to be very happy with this project. To have a paying job, part-time or no, that is in my desired field is an absolute dream for someone my age, and I'm very thankful for the opportunity.

Literary Translation is my dream, as readers of this blog may know, and as readers will also know, my thesis is centered around Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and translations of her poems. At present I have scaled back the active translations as I am focusing a bit more on the content of my secondary source material for the critical introduction, although I of course work on bits and pieces when I have those rare spots of free time. I have an annotated bibliography of sources for my research seminar due next Monday, so I have also been working continuously on that.

Another research project that I am working on this semester is for my Pragmatics course. I'm still not entirely sure what I want to investigate yet; but our initial proposal (topic & research question, methodology idea, list of proposed papers) is due on the eleventh, so I'll have to come up with something soon.

Although I enjoy all of my courses and projects, I am developing a soft spot for my course on Ancient Greek. Learning this new (to me) language is a bit like solving a puzzle and slowly unwrapping a gift, and seeing all the pieces come together and getting a closer look at the prize is very enjoyable to me. When I am stressed out over bibliographies and papers and poems, untangling a sentence is oddly therapeutic.

Getting out all my thoughts on paper (or on screen I suppose) has a similar affect, so in a way I feel indebted to this blog for helping me process my strengths and weaknesses this semester. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my mind.

Cheers,
Talia

Issues with What We Want

In the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years at Brandeis I took an online Playwriting Course through the Brandeis summer school. I had never even attempted to write a play before, so this was a challenge, but a thing that I enjoyed. We progressed through the course writing scenes and then finally finished with a 10-minute play. Mine was called What We Want and it is about a girl who was (mostly) raised by her mother and step-father, and eventually goes to confront her biological father. I am not going to give the entire plot away, because while I would like to think no one would steal my ideas, this is the internet. Also, if I ever publish this story I would like it to actually sell at some point and that cannot happen if the whole thing is given away for free on the internet. It was a cute little play, at least I think so, and I do hope that I get to share it with the world ― following serious editing of course.

I first got the idea to rewrite the play as a prose story from one of my professors. He suggested this as a creative exercise, and to use as a prompt for the fiction writing in his class. At the time I was hesitant, because I liked the play as a play, and felt overwhelmed at the idea of changing something I loved dearly. This was Spring 2016, and shortly after I got concussed and forgot all about writing for a time. Now that I have remembered however, one thing has become very clear.

this play does not want to be a frickin' story. 

I spent a summer semester working on this play, and a few months post-submission I was still writing it. I'll be honest, once my software expired I let it fall to the wayside. But now when I look at it, the story feels like my baby again, and I don't want to hurt it by forcing it into a new medium. I've made some progress, but with all that has been going on this summer I dropped the ball a bit, and now that I am heading to Middlebury at the end of this week it's a bit too late to work on a project that is being written in English. I'm going to try again once the program is over during my nonexistent free time. For now, I just have to shrug and say hey, I've written worse.

Cheers,
Talia

End of Translation

From Jacques Lezra's End of Translation: "The question of how humanists  make the case for the value of  their disciplines to others […] is a  matter, it is understood, of  translation." Translation and politics are intimately linked in the view of this paper and he notes that translation is a "master term" when discussing the understanding of the Humanities and their current state, and the place they hold in a society in which they are dwindling.

I am a Comparative Literature major, and our program is very small. In addition to the fact that the humanities are dwindling, we have a firm requirement of taking upper level courses in a language other than English. This tends to scare people away from the program, which is unfortunate because it is a great one (I'll admit, I'm biased as the Undergraduate Departmental Representative of the major!)

As someone who is very passionate about language, culture and communication I am always startled when I come across people who aren't because to me language is one of, if not the most essential ways that we communicate with one another and I believe that we should be encouraging multilingualism because with different languages come different ways of thinking, and everyone can benefit from that. I'm not saying that language learning is something that everyone needs to do (I know that for some people it is an impossibility) but rather that widening our gazes into other ways of life is essential towards looking at each other deeply and complexly, and being multilingual can help with that.

At the very least, I believe that one should study other cultures and traditions, even if only from a monolingual standpoint, in order to gain a mutual understanding with others on this earth. In the wake of this, translation, in all its complexity, is made even more necessary. Not only do we have to translate the words, but sometimes even concepts.

People sometimes argue nature vs. nurture. Whatever one might believe, it is undoubtable that where we grow affects how we do so. There is no denying there is inequality in this world, and as my Mythology Professor pointed said the other day in class - despite what we tell our children not everyone can do everything they set out to in life, and many people are born into this world who are at a crippling disadvantage. Some crosses are too hard to bear. Looking at the world like this can be bleak, but it is a reality. And I seriously doubt that we can ever fully grasp the realities of others without humanities and without translation. 

In the same essay referenced before, End of Translation, Lezra speaks about rights and asks whether they are "translatable across cultures, languages, races, religions  in the name, or under the aegis, of a purportedly universal  standard which is also a universal  translating machine: 'Human'  rights?" This is a startling question, and one I cannot possibly answer in a blog post. I will leave you with this question and encourage you to read the essay in full. (Linked below)

I hope that readers of this blog enjoy my musings, because while I'll write them anyway, it's fun to see what other people think.

Cheers,
Talia

Jacques Lezra, End of Translation: https://humanitiesfutures.org/papers/end-of-translation/