ALTA38: Translation & Traffic: Full Schedule

This panel examines reimaging/retouching of fictional characters by translators from a pallet of individual aesthetics as well as literary, socioeconomic and other nonliterary proclivities of the target languages/cultures, paying particular attention to such re-imaging/re-touching in the translational traffic between East (dominated cultures/languages) and West (dominant cultures/languages)

Moderators

Shouhua Qi

Panelists

Xianbin He

Roman Ivashkiv

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

11:15am MST

Digital Translation Journals as Innovators

Readers interested in the newest translations have the most diverse reasons and backgrounds driving their special interests, and are spread across countries. The digital environment is revolutionizing the way new voices from around the world are being discovered while also building community and creating a new readership for writers from many distinct traditions. What are the specific opportunities for translations in the digital sphere, what are the the successes, and what needs to be done to ensure vital new voices rise above the din to find new Anglophone audiences?

Moderators

Eric M. B. Becker

Panelists

Heather Cleary

Chenxin Jiang

Jennifer Zoble

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Sabino

Panel

11:15am MST

Moral Rights, Subsidiary Rights, and Divorcing Your Publisher

In past years, questions about moral rights and subsidiary rights have come up in Q&A after panels on publishing, when there was not enough time for clear explanations or discussions of real-world issues. Our third topic, termination of transfer ("divorcing" your publisher after many years—not the same as a reversion clause) is part of U.S. copyright law, but few translators are aware of this possibility. To "translate" these legal issues into plain English, this panel consists of ALTA members who are both translators and lawyers.

Moderators

Jeff Ankrom

Panelists

Chris Tamigi

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Pima

Panel

11:15am MST

The Perils and Pleasures of Editing an Anthology of Translations

This session will examine different approaches to selecting work for an anthology of translations, framing the work in the introduction and headnotes, collaborating with multiple poets and translators, securing funding, and marketing the anthology. Four editor / translators, each working from a different source language, will share their experiences of anthology editing. Questions we will consider: what were your selection criteria? How did you frame the included work for Anglophone readers with limited knowledge of the source culture? How is marketing an anthology different from promoting a single-author translation?

Moderators

Jesse Lee Kercheval

Panelists

J. Kates

J. Kates is a poet, literary translator and the president and co-director of Zephyr Press, a non-profit press that focuses on contemporary works in translation from Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship... Read More →

Samuel Perry

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

11:15am MST

Traveling Through the Newly Opened Cuba

With the recent improvement in relations between the US and Cuban governments, and the opportunity for US citizens to travel more freely to the island, what will be the impact on Cuba writers? Will communication with US writers enhance and expand Cuban writers' world or detract from the country’s rich literary heritage and traditions? Will Cuban writers look beyond their island readers and aim for a foreign readership? Is this so-called climate of change actual or imagined? Will the change occur abruptly or have writers in both countries been subtly cross-fertilizing each other throughout the 50 year embargo? Translators who have worked with Cuban writers for a number of years will discuss any changes they have observed and discuss what the future may be for Cuban letters.

Moderators

Pamela Carmell

Panelists

Dick Cluster

Kristin Dykstra

Achy Obejas

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Madera

Panel

11:15am MST

Bilingual Readings 1: Mexico

11:15 Chandler Thompson
11:25 John Pluecker
11:35 Jordan Eash
11:45 Nancy Ross
11:55 Wendy Burk
12:05 Patricia Dubrava

Panelists

Wendy Burk

Patricia Dubrava

Jordan Eash

John Pluecker

Antena

John Pluecker is a writer, interpreter, translator and co-founder of the language justice and literary experimentation collaborative Antena. His work is informed by experimental poetics, radical aesthetics and cross-border cultural production. His texts have appeared in journals in... Read More →

Nancy Jean Ross

Chandler Thompson

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Canyon A

Reading, Bilingual Reading

11:15am MST

Bilingual Readings 2: Balkan

11:15 Wayne Miller
11:25 Paula Gordon
11:35 Sibelan Forrester
11:45 Rachael Daum
11:55 Martha Kosir
12:05 Christina Kramer
12:15 Margarit Ordukhanyan
12:25 Stephen Henighan

Panelists

Rachael Daum

I'm a graduate student at Indiana University, inflicting Russian and Yugoslav literature on myself -- and vice versa! My languages of interest are Russian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, German, and Arabic. I'm also interested in pursuing the ideas of translation between media (especially... Read More →

Sibelan Forrester

Paula Gordon

translator, editor, doing business as Plan B

Paula Gordon, CT*Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian into EnglishPlays, short stories, memoir, poetryEssays about culture, art, media, and politics of post-WWII Yugoslavia and successor countries, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro*ATA Certified Translator... Read More →

Stephen Henighan

Martha Kosir

Christina E. Kramer

Wayne Miller

Margarit Ordukhanyan

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

11:15am MST

Curated Readings (Feminist Press and Asymptote)

This curated reading will feature highlights from works recently published by Feminist Press and Asymptote. Join in this celebration of these wonderful presses and the ALTA translators that they’ve published!

Thursday October 29, 2015 11:15am - 12:30pm MST
Canyon C

Reading, Press Curated Reading

12:45pm MST

NTA Longlist & Stryk Shortlist Reading

Readings from the longlists for the National Translation Award (NTA) and the Stryk Shortlist. Light lunch provided by ALTA, and food available for purchase. Open to the public.

Roger Greenwald (NTA Poetry)
Elizabeth Harris (NTA Prose)
Steve Bradbury (Stryk)
Hugh Hazelton (NTA Poetry)
Marian Schwartz (NTA Prose)
Samuel Mark Frederick & Graham Foust (NTA Poetry)

Thursday October 29, 2015 12:45pm - 1:45pm MST
Café Passé (415 N. 4th Ave.)

Reading, ALTA Curated Reading

2:00pm MST

History, Culture, Memory: Forgetting Russian Women, Stereotyping Greek Lit, Forcing (Non-)German Identities, and Disappearing a Spanish Political Activist

Reinstating Forgotten 18th C. Russian Women, Bucking Western Stereotypes of Ancient Greek Literature, Saying No to Contemporary Hyphenated German Identities, and Re-Presenting Different Languages in the Archivo Hildegart. Four colleagues, all literary translators, have also planned and co-taught a course on the theory and practice of literary translation. They will present problems of trafficking their translations across the curriculum, across their own departments and fields, and across the historical and cultural canon, with examples from Enlightenment Russia, Ancient Greece, contemporary Germany, and Spain's 2nd Republic. Because they have worked together closely over several years they bring to this session an uncommon intensity and efficiency in their presentation.

Moderators

Scott Denham

Davidson College

Teaching translation. Translating Jagoda Marinić. http://www.jagodamarinic.de/

Panelists

Keyne Cheshire

Amanda Ewington

Kyra Kietrys

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Canyon C

Panel

2:00pm MST

Trafficking in Smoke Signals? Attempts at Conveying Ethnicity in Translation

How do we as English-speaking translators do justice to texts from sources that are Native American, Middle Eastern, Caribbean, European, Asian or African in origin? What pitfalls, what , what strategies can we determine that will allow us to offer a nuanced and thus viable translation for an audience unfamiliar with the source culture?

Moderators

Marilya Reese

Professor of German, Northern Arizona University

I was born in Oklahoma but educated in NJ, Germany, & Sweden in three languages until my Ph.D. from UT Austin in 1990 . Since then, I've been in Flagstaff at NAU. I was trained in literary translation by my dissertation director, ALTA co-founder A. Leslie Willson. If I had to name... Read More →

Panelists

Laura Ferris

Patricia Frederick

Yardenne Greenspan

Michael Rulon

Lecturer of French, Northern Arizona Univeristy

Michael Rulon earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now Lecturer of French at Northern Arizona University, specializing in French for the science professions, 19th-century French literature, and Francophone literature... Read More →

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

2:00pm MST

Translating Verse Without Fluency in the Source Language: Assessments of and Strategies for an Old Tradition at the Crossroads

Verse translations made by translators not fluent in the source language form a significant part of modern and contemporary American poetry. Translators working in this manner, which represents an old literary tradition, generally collaborate with native speakers (informants) and/or use literal translations (trots). The translation process used by these translators is not fully appreciated by readers and scholars alike. Moreover, this approach to translating poetry is not widely taught in creative writing programs today. Our panel will address the issues that surround the art of translating verse without fluency in the source language, and will discuss the ways by which this tradition might be advanced so that it continues to contribute to the necessary border crossings of our literature.

Moderators

Jonathan Cohen

Panelists

Willis Barnstone

Jerome Rothenberg

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

2:00pm MST

Where are the Women in Translation?

WiT (Women in Translation), Biblibio, Translationista, and others have sounded the alarm. Women authors in translation remain far behind men across several important categories: number of titles published; literary prizes won; book reviews, and criticism. Women translators are similarly underrepresented. What exactly are the numbers? How do publishing practices, both in the US and abroad, affect the statistics? What cultural and institutional factors are at work? A panel of translators and literary editors will explore the huge gender gap in translation and consider solutions. Is “awareness” enough?

Moderators

Margaret Carson

Alta Price

Panelists

Susan Harris

Editorial Director, Words Without Borders

Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words without Borders www.wordswithoutborders.org and coeditor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of Eco Anthology of Internatinoal Poetry.

Jim Hicks

Meytal Radzinski

Kaija Straumanis

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Pima

Panel

2:00pm MST

“Trafficking” across Borders

As translators we act as facilitators, helping to move the words of others across borders. Whether these “others” are authors or poets, migrants or asylum seekers, diplomats or politicians, prisoners or tourists, we as their translators/interpreters become players in a field that is often far more complicated than what we sign up for. The present panel aims to bring forth some of the social, political, ethical, and legal complications that define and/or arise out of the translating process in these different contexts.
In a world that is increasingly shaped by global traffic, translators are “traffickers” of lives and destinies, present or past, real or fictional; whether we like it or not, are aware of it or not.

Moderators

Poupeh Missaghi

Panelists

Ana Cornide

Yanara Friedland

Yanara Friedland is a German-American writer and translator. Her first book Uncountry: A Mythology was the winner of the 2015 Noemi Press Fiction award and is forthcoming in German translation with Mattes & Seitz. She is the recipient of research grants from the DAAD and Arizona Commission... Read More →

Rebekah Smith

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Madera

Panel

2:00pm MST

Bilingual Readings 3: Catalan and Basque

2:00 Kathleen McNerney
2:10 Ronald Puppo
2:20 Clyde Moneyhun
2:30 Mara Faye Letham
2:40 Megan Berkobien
2:50 Nere Lete (cancelled)

Panelists

Megan Berkobien

Mara Faye Letham

Kathleen McNerney

Clyde Moneyhun

Ronald Puppo

Universitat de Vic

Poetry translation Ron's modern verse translation of nineteenth-century Catalan rebel poet-priest Jacint Verdaguer's foundational epic 'Mount Canigó: A Tale of Catalonia,' complete with extensively annotated index, comes out this November at Tamesis. Meanwhile, he's putting the... Read More →

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

2:00pm MST

Midnight’s Foster Children: Raising South Asian Books in English-speaking Homes

Panelists will share their favorite works from the Indian Subcontinent that have yet to be adopted by a translator into English: why they should be, why they haven’t been, and the likely joys and challenges associated with doing so. They will also address issues particular to moving English translations of literature that represents hundreds of languages and one-fifth of humanity into the daylight and onto the shelves.

Moderators

Jason Grunebaum

Panelists

Shabnam Nadiya

Mahmud Rahman

Daisy Rockwell

Arunava Sinha

Head, IBNlive.com & CricketNext.com

John Vater

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Canyon A

Roundtable

2:00pm MST

Teaching Translation Workshops

In this interactive workshop, participants will work together generate ideas and share best practices for teaching literary translation. By collecting our reflections on possible course objectives, theoretical and practical readings, workshop dynamics, assessment and evaluation, we will produce working documents to share with all of our members.

Moderators

Leah Leone

Thursday October 29, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Sabino

Roundtable

3:45pm MST

Finding Models in Target-Language Poetics

A recent turn in Translation Studies shifts the traditional focus from the correlations between translations and their source texts to the ways in which translations function within their receiving cultures. One outgrowth of this new direction is the consideration of literary "models" in the target language that translators may use to shape their renderings. The panel will focus on how such poetic subgenres in the target language inhered in the translation of poetic texts from classical antiquity, the Spanish Golden Age, and modern-day Russia.

Moderators

Gary Racz

Panelists

Keyne Cheshire

Sibelan Forrester

Martha Pulido

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Canyon A

Panel

3:45pm MST

Navigating Troubling Waters

A panel discussion of what to do when translating a manuscript (or section of a manuscript) that presents politically, socially, or ethically problematic issues, either in the origin or destination language. Panelists will speak about their struggles and decisions regarding expressions of anti-Semitism (as in the poetry of Petr Bezruč), creepy objectification of the female body (as in the poetry of Claudio Bertoni), interest in young women bordering on pedophilia (as in the work of Peter Altenberg), or violence against children (as in a novel by Aglaja Veteranyi).

Moderators

Jacob A. Bennett

Panelists

Vincent Kling

Anne Posten

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Sabino

Panel

3:45pm MST

Reviewing Translation

A panel of reviewers and magazine editors will discuss the processes behind whether or not a book in translation gets reviewed and some of the complications in reviewing international literature. They will share practical solutions for improving the chances of getting a title reviewed, and will answer questions from the audience.

Moderators

Minna Proctor

Panelists

Mark Athitakis

Katrine Øgaard Jensen

Blog Editor, Asymptote

Michelle Johnson

Carolyn Kellogg

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Pima

Panel

3:45pm MST

Traffic Among Cultures: Double-Layered Translation

Typically, translating requires knowledge of both the author’s language and culture. But what happens when there is more than one culture or language involved in the translation process? Panelists will discuss their experiences and strategies for translating texts with two or more layers. Examples include stories written in Persian about Iranian characters living in Paris; stories written in Spanish set in Eastern Europe; a book about the Mao era in China written in Spanish; and translating Vietnamese poems into Japanese via an English translation.

Moderators

Yvette Neisser Moreno

Panelists

Nancy Arbuthnot

Patricia Dubrava

Sima Sharifi

University of Ottawa

Literary translation studies from feminist or women-centred perspective. Censorship and literary translation

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Canyon C

Panel

3:45pm MST

Translating “The Other Side”

Translators work at the metaphoric borders between languages and cultures. Physical borders function both metaphorically and concretely in the lives of those who live near them. Often the borderlands develop their own distinct inflections of the cultures and languages on either side. The US-Mexico border, just 60 miles south of Tucson, a ragged scar marked by an endless fence, is particularly stark, but it remains permeable, reaching deep into the interiors of both cultures. In this panel we will address some of the issues it raises for translators and its impact on the writers we translate.

Moderators

Mark Weiss

Panelists

Wendy Burk

Catherine Hammond

I translate poetry from Spanish to English. My translation of Olvido Garcia Valdes' And We Were All Alive, winner of Spain's Premio Nacional 2007, is forthcoming fron Cardboard House Press in the spring of 2016. My manuscript for the selected poems of Carmen Boullosa was a finalist... Read More →

C. M. Mayo

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

3:45pm MST

“They Don’t Need to Know”: Translation and Cultural Exceptionalism

“Foreigners don’t need to know that” is a refrain often heard in the process of translating literature from South Korea. It implies that some parts of a text are superfluous, but it also presumes that there are some things that “foreigners cannot know.” The assumption that some cultural content can only be understood by a domestic audience, or that other audiences could not possibly comprehend these cultural specifics invites certain questions: Why bother to translate at all? Who can translate? And are some target languages more receptive (or less foreign) than others?
This roundtable discusses the notion of literary texts as hermetically sealed containers of cultural identities and examines how the hyper-mobility of bodies and ideas has affected South Korean literature, its translation, and reception. If local culture is opaque, what, as translators and transmitters are we to make of writing that imagines multiple cultural perspectives? Our panel of translators, scholars, and publishers of Korean literature from the early 20th century to the present will share their experiences and thoughts on Korean literature from different periods, particularly regarding the representation of race, exclusion/inclusion, and essentialism in the institutional and individual selection of texts bound for translation.

Moderators

Sunyoung Park

Panelists

Sora Kim-Russell

Jenny Wang Medina

Miryong Shim

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

3:45pm MST

Bilingual Readings 4: Argentina

3:45 Andrea Labinger
3:55 Cindy Schuster
4:05 Graciela Lucero-Hammer
4:15 Lisa Rose Bradford
4:25 Priscilla Hunter
4:35 Sergeio Waisman

Panelists

Lisa Bradford

Priscilla Hunter

Andrea Labinger

Graciela Lucero-Hammer

Cindy Schuster

Sergio Waisman

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

3:45pm MST

Difficult Passages: An Interactive Workshop

We all know those times: Despite our best efforts, the passage stares up at us from the page, obstinate, defiant, bitterly resisting our efforts to render it into the target language. We do translate it, in the end, somehow, because we must—but how? Bring to this workshop a stubborn, thorny, “untranslatable” short passage (a word, a phrase, a sentence, a bit of dialog, a couplet …) and share it with a roomful of translators who have struggled in the same situation. We will discuss possible solutions to each dilemma (including yours) and also share general approaches to “untranslatable” passages. Please bring a dozen or so copies of your passage (strips of paper rather than whole pages will save trees) labeled with your name and the name of the original author and work.

Moderators

Clyde Moneyhun

Thursday October 29, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Madera

Workshop

5:15pm MST

Offsite Bilingual Readings 1: Café Français

5:15 Dorothy Gilbert
5:25 Nicole Ball
5:35 Ellen Sprague
5:45 Armine Kotin Mortimer
5:55 Gloria Merle Huffman
6:05 Jeanne Garane

Panelists

Nicole Ball

Jeanne Garane

Dorothy Gilbert

Gloria Huffman

Founder & CEO, Gloria Sun Productions, LLC

Founder & CEO of Gloria Sun Productions, LLC. Born in Asheville, North Carolina, currently live in Stamford, CT. 3 degrees (B.A. Music & French, M.A.T. French & Education, M.M. Piano Performance) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (with a year at Lyons, France, and... Read More →

Armine Kotin Mortimer

Ellen Sprague

HUFFMANCafeFrancais2SongsOct29at0555pm pdf

HUFFMANApresUnReveEnglishAminorVocalDemo20151115 mp3

HUFFMANLaMarseillaiseEnglishEflatMajVocalDemo20151113 mp3

HUFFMANfullPresentation2FrenchToEnglishSongs20151029at0555pm mp3

ALTA38BilingReadingFrench6onPanel20151029at0515pm jpg

Thursday October 29, 2015 5:15pm - 6:15pm MST
Café Passé (415 N. 4th Ave.)

Reading, Bilingual Reading

6:30pm MST

ALTA Fellows Reading

Reading by the 2015 ALTA Travel Fellowship winners

Thursday October 29, 2015 6:30pm - 7:30pm MST
Madera

Reading, ALTA Curated Reading

7:30pm MST

ALTA Awards Reception

Sponsored by the Poetry Center and AmazonCrossing

Thursday October 29, 2015 7:30pm - 9:30pm MST
Pima and Sabino

Special Event, Awards Reception

9:30pm MST

Declamación

Thursday October 29, 2015 9:30pm - 11:30pm MST
The Canyons

Special Event

8:30am MST

ALTA Book Exhibit

Friday October 30, 2015 8:30am - 5:00pm MST
Ventana

Other

9:00am MST

History of Translating Contemporary Arabic Literature

This panel addresses broad aspects of the history of translating contemporary Arabic literature to other languages. The goal of the panel is to generate a primary understanding and interest in the relationship between the translation of contemporary Arabic literature and reception or shaping of Arab culture, outside the Arab world, through translations. Talks and papers will explore the trends, obstacles, breakthroughs and major contributors in the history of translating contemporary Arabic literature. More specifically, panelists are questioning and examining the ways in which translations of Arabic literature promoted understanding of the culture of the Arab world in a specific dimension, the role of major magazines, such as Banipal, in promoting the translations of contemporary Arabic literature, ideologies that have framed these translations, and ideologies that might have been influencing major translation awards. In addition, the panel will explore strategies that major translators of Arabic literature have followed in order to bridge literal translation and cultural translation.

Moderators

Asmahan Sallah

Panelists

Reemah al-Urfali

I am interested in Arabic literature and transgeneric forms.

Madeleine Campbell

I am a freelance writer, researcher and translator. Born in Canada, I lived in France for over a decade before settling in Scotland. After completing my PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2014, I continue to research translation as an experiential process that involves the reader/spectator... Read More →

Matthew Chovanec

UT Austin

William Hutchins

Edward Morin

Hilary Plum

Hilary Plum is the author of the novel "They Dragged Them Through the Streets" (FC2, 2013). She has worked for a number of years as an editor of international literature, including as co-director of Clockroot Books, and is an editor with the Kenyon Review. With Zach Savich she edits... Read More →

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Canyon C

Panel

9:00am MST

Transits of History: Contemporary Writing from Latin America

The encoded languages of convulsive politics, theatrical repression, and hidden realities infuse the work of writers across the genres. The transits between fact and fiction, substance and spectacle, lucidity and hallucination have created a host of transformative works that present especial translation challenges and opportunities, including literal and metaphorical travel into and away from politics.

Moderators

Marguerite Feitlowitz

Panelists

Michelle Gil-Montero

Mara Faye Letham

Maria Negroni

Amanda Powell

Owen Rowe

Sergio Waisman

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Madera

Panel

9:00am MST

What Prefaces Reveal

Prefaces by authors, translators, publishers, critics, etc., reveal similarities and differences depending on when, where, and why they were written or modified. Issues include the evolution of translator's authority and responsibility, historical and geo-political factors, genre differences, differing subforms, brevity limitations and variations, first time attention to work, and so forth.

Moderators

Leah Zazulyer

Panelists

Aron Aji

Stephen Kessler

Lida Nosrati

Marian Schwartz

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Canyon B

Panel

9:00am MST

Who Knew?—a Tell-All Panel on Asian Poetries in English Translation

The translation of poetry from one language into another inevitably entails some degree of misrepresentation even when the source and target languages are closely related. When they have little in common the gulf between reality and the representation can be enormous. Such has long been the case with English representation of the poetries of Asia. Here, myths and misconceptions abound even when it comes to such familiar genres as the Tang quatrain and the Japanese haiku. In this tell-all panel, translators working out of various Asian poetic traditions will dispel some of the more egregious misunderstandings and, in setting the record straight, draw attention to the wonderfully diverse poetries of Asia.

Moderators

Steve Bradbury

Panelists

Jennifer Feeley

Anothai Kaewkaen

Canaan Morse

Andrew Schelling

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Boardroom

Panel

9:00am MST

Bilingual Readings 5: Spain

9:00 Barbara Ichiiishi
9:10 Carmen Morawski
9:20 Catherine Hammond
9:30 Catherine Nelson
9:40 Claudia Routon
9:50 Don Bogen
10:00 Maria Cecelia Ruiz
10:10 Yvette Siegert
10:20 Stephen Kessler

Panelists

Don Bogen

Catherine Hammond

Barbara F. Ichiiishi

Stephen Kessler

Carmen Morawski

Cathy Nelson

Associate Professor, Nebraska Wesleyan University

Claudia Routon

Maria Cecilia Ruiz

Associate Professor, University of San Diego

Yvette Siegert

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Canyon A

Reading, Bilingual Reading

9:00am MST

Bilingual Readings 6: Romance and Mediterranean

9:00 Donald Wellman
9:10 Anne Greeott
9:20 Anne Milano Appel
9:30 Alan Altimont
9:40 Michael I. Hulin Wheeler
9:50 Maria Nazos
10:00 Murat Nemet-Nejat (cancelled)
10:00 Jamie Richards
10:10 Derick Mattern
10:20 Matthew Chovanec
10:30 Yardenne Greenspan
10:40 Jeremy Schwartz

Panelists

Alan Altimont

Anne Milano Appel

Italian-English Literary Translations

Anne Milano Appel, Ph.D. was awarded the John Florio Prize for Italian Translation (2013) and the Northern California Book Awards Translation Prize for Fiction (2014 and 2013). Her translations include works by Claudio Magris, Paolo Giordano, Giovanni Arpino and Goliarda Sapienza... Read More →

Matthew Chovanec

UT Austin

Yardenne Greenspan

Anne Greeott

Derick Mattern

I'm working on a book of Haydar Ergülen's selected poems. Versions have appeared or are forthcoming in Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, Guernica, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere.

Maria Nazos

Jamie Richards

Jeremy Schwartz

Donald Wellman

Michael I. Hulin Wheeler

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

9:00am MST

Cash and Prizes: How Grants and Awards Contribute to a Sustainable U.S. Literary Culture

The PEN America literary awards, the PEN/Heim Translation Fund; the ALTA translation awards, prize and travel fellowships; the Best Translated Book Award; the NEA Literature Fellowships and Art Works grants: Besides rewarding and bestowing recognition on individual translators for excellence and achievement, how do these honors help support the healthy literary ecosystem that is essential for us to continue translating and publishing literary translations in the United States? Or do they? Are they sufficient? Do they work the way they should? How do they compare to analogous programs in other countries? Do we need more of them?

Moderators

Alex Zucker

Panelists

Margaret Carson

Erica Mena

Chad W. Post

Mohamed Sheriff

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Pima

Roundtable

9:00am MST

Editors Roundtable: Poetry, Prose, Nonfiction

Editors from a variety of print and online presses and publications discuss the joys and horrors of publishing work in translation. They’ll discuss the process from start to finish—how books are acquired, to how they’re edited and then sold—providing valuable insights while also while illuminating the process for new translators. A great opportunity to peek behind the curtain and find out more about how editors think.

Moderators

Minna Proctor

Panelists

Kate Bernheimer

Kate Bernheimer has been called “one of the living masters of the fairy tale” (Tin House). She is the author of a novel trilogy and the story collections Horse, Flower, Bird and How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales, and the editor of four anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award winning and bestselling My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me... Read More →

Chris Fishbach

Susan Harris

Editorial Director, Words Without Borders

Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words without Borders www.wordswithoutborders.org and coeditor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of Eco Anthology of Internatinoal Poetry.

David Shook

Editor, Phoneme Media

Kaija Straumanis

Friday October 30, 2015 9:00am - 10:30am MST
Sabino

Roundtable

11:00am MST

Information Superhighway or End of the Road? Implications of the Compulsory Electronic Deposit of Theses

For both MFA and Literary Translation students, copyright is increasingly an issue as more and more emphasis is placed on electronic deposit of theses as an institutional requirement. Publicly funded research must be made publicly available, we are told, and the single-copy-available-by-interloan is no longer deemed to fulfil this obligation. The aim of this panel is to explore the options currently available to students within this framework, looking at both national (US) and international institutions (NZ, Australia, the UK, South Africa). Key questions will include: copyright – whose responsibility? financial implications; making the case for withholding material; along with other issues raised by the audience.

Moderators

Jean Anderson

Panelists

Jeff Ankrom

Russell Valentino

Associate Dean for International Affairs, Indiana University, College of Arts and Sciences

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Pima

Panel

11:00am MST

Issues in the Translation of Classical Japanese Poetry

Classical Japanese poetry presents particular issues for translators: These include unique rhetorical devices such as the kakekotoba, challenges presented by the common practice of integration of sequences of individual poems into longer and often very elaborate units, poetic forms based on syllable count, the featured use of place names for their figurative meaning as well as poetic associations, the Buddhist world view and courtly context, etc. This panel will focus on issues presented by sequencing, utamakura (place name that carry both semantic as well as associative freight), and the Buddhist world view in classical poetry, with attention to additional challenges as time permits.

Moderators

Laurel Rasplica Rodd

Panelists

Michael Levine

Stephen Miller

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

11:00am MST

Pets, Epithets and Sobriquets, or Sometimes a Bignose is Just a Schnoz

How nicknames and epithets are developed and applied vary from culture to culture and from era to era. From the Classical to the contemporary, this panel seeks to explore ways in which translators traffic in these sometimes puzzling appellations, transporting them to the target language while conserving the cultural impact of the original. We will discuss examples from classical Latin poetry (Art Beck), modern Cuban fiction (Dick Cluster), Yiddish literature (Shirley Kumove), and contemporary Argentine noir fiction (Andrea Labinger).

Moderators

Andrea Labinger

Panelists

Dick Cluster

Art Beck (Dennis Dybeck)

Shirley Kumove

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Canyon A

Panel

11:00am MST

River Plate Tectonics: Women Poets of Argentina and Uruguay

Is the Río de la Plata a river, an estuary or a gulf? This natural border both separates and unites the capitals of Argentina and Uruguay, resulting in a nuanced traffic of ideas, images, words and silences. What are the challenges of translating rioplatense? How does this regional Spanish form bridges between the two countries? On this panel, we will explore the rich exchange of female poetic voices across several generations. From the Uruguayan side, Jesse Lee Kercheval will introduce Circe Maia (b. 1932) and Jen Hofer will discuss Virginia Lucas (b. 1977); from Argentina, Curtis Bauer will report on contemporary poets and Yvette Siegert will talk about Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972).

Moderators

Jesse Lee Kercheval

Panelists

Curtis Bauer

Jen Hofer

Antena

Jen Hofer is a Los Angeles-based poet, translator, social justice interpreter, teacher, knitter, book-maker, public letter-writer, urban cyclist, and co-founder of the language justice and literary activism collaborative Antena. Her latest translations include the chapbook En las... Read More →

Yvette Siegert

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

11:00am MST

Wrong Turns: On Making Mistakes in Translation

This panel explores the ideology of the mistake in directing translation’s traffic. What constitutes a mistake in translation, and who gets to decide? Can we identify a typology of mistakes? Are they made by translators alone, or by communities of readers and modes of reading? Can ‘originals’ be mistaken? If so, when and why should translations ‘correct’ those mistakes? Are mistakes in translation ever fortuitous or generative? How do changing ideas about accuracy, equivalence or correspondence, and the role of poetic experiementation shape our answers to these question? Our panel operates from the position that this category deserves interrogation, such that we can begin to challenge the way reviewers, educators, and lay readers often think and talk about mistakes in translation.

Moderators

Karen Emmerich

Panelists

Heather Cleary

David Shook

Editor, Phoneme Media

Matvei Yankelevich

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Sabino

Panel

11:00am MST

Bilingual Readings 7: Arabic and Farsi

11:00 Alice Guthrie
11:10 William M. Hutchins
11:20 Mbarek Sryfi
11:30 Asmahan Sallah
11:40 Maryam Zahtabi Sabeti Moqaddam
11:50 Fatemeh Madani Sarbarani

Panelists

Alice Guthrie

William Hutchins

Fatemeh Madani

Teaching Assistant, Arizona State University

Maryam Zehtabi Sabeti Moqaddam

Asmahan Sallah

Mbarek Sryfi

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

11:00am MST

New in Translated Fiction: Reading followed by Q&A

AmazonCrossing editors Gabriella Page-Fort and Elizabeth Denoma moderate a discussion and three short readings by translators David Ball (French author Philippe Bouin’s Revenge on the River), Catherine Nelson (Spanish author Mayte Uceda’s Love for Rebecca) and Wendy Hardenberg (French author Aurélie Valognes’s Out of Sorts). Translators will discuss passages that were particularly challenging or enriching to translate, read, and sign complimentary copies of these recently published novels.

Moderators

Gabriella Page-Fort

Panelists

David Ball

Elizabeth Denoma

Wendy Hardenburg

Cathy Nelson

Associate Professor, Nebraska Wesleyan University

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Canyon C

Reading, Press Curated Reading

11:00am MST

Spanish Prose Translation Workshop

If you’re currently at work translating literary prose from Spanish to English, especially if you’re relatively new to the field, this workshop is for you! Join others like yourself under the mentorship of two experienced translators in sharing 3-5 pages of a manuscript in progress. Mentors and group members alike will offer suggestions.

Moderators

Sandra Kingery

Panelists

Pamela Carmell

Friday October 30, 2015 11:00am - 12:15pm MST
Madera

Workshop

12:15pm MST

University of Arizona Poetry Center Tour

Sign up online!

The University of Arizona Poetry Center is offering a guided tour of their library on Friday during lunch. The Poetry Center possesses one of the finest, most extensive, and most fully accessible collections of contemporary poetry in the nation, most comprehensive in contemporary English-language poetry (including translations from other languages) from the last half of the twentieth century through the current day and maintains a strong representative collection of poetry from previous decades and centuries. After the tours, a light lunch will be provided. Limited to 75 guests, a sign-up sheet will also be available at the Thursday night Awards Reception (Marriott, Pima & Sabino, 7:30 pm). It's approximately 20 minutes walking or 15 minutes by Sun Link to The Poetry Center. Participants should meet Erica Mena at 12:20 sharp in the lobby.

Friday October 30, 2015 12:15pm - 2:00pm MST
The Poetry Center (1508 E. Helen St.)

Special Event

2:00pm MST

The Trafficking of Dialogue

This panel will discuss translating the many ways in which dialogue is trafficked or conveyed in literary and epistolary texts. How do translators enter into a dialogue with the text? How do they traffic dialogue across cultural divides? How do they capture the voice in dialogue, particularly those voices that enter through music and other media? How do they make the text sing? Examples will be drawn from contemporary plays, fiction, prose, and letters from Southern Cone and Caribbean literatures.

Moderators

Jill Gibian

Panelists

Velma Garcia

Amalia Gladhart

Priscilla Hunter

Suzanne Jill Levine

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Canyon C

Panel

2:00pm MST

Translators as Acknowledged Meaning Traffickers

This session’s title plays on the statement made some time ago by the Bakhtinian Peter Hitchcock: “Translators are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” (1993). Times have changed since then but, for better or for worse, translators continue to traffic in meaning, and profit or suffer from the consequences as the case may be. The session’s participants will offer varying perspectives on this theme and argue that today’s growing acknowledgment of translators’ work may lead to detrimental traffic control or facilitate global circulation of translations, or even allow imaginary and often ludic concepts of translators as part of a constructed creative hyper-network. Michael Epstein has advanced the idea of transpersonal authorship, within which translators obviously fit, by suggesting that “[t]here is so much talk of hypertext now. But what about hyper-authors?” (2000). As meaning traffickers translators stand to be arrested and even killed but also to aid, and more and more often to participate, in the flow of meaning across borders of all kinds be they geographical, political, cultural, societal, technological, imaginary, or all at the same time.

Moderators

Anne Malena

Panelists

Lynn Penrod

Julie Tarif

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

2:00pm MST

Translator’s Subjectivity, Ideology, Ethics

The issues of the responsibility, agency, and power of translators and related concepts of ideology and culture have been at the center of translation studies in recent years. Much has been said on the social contexts where translators live and work, the consequences of their translational choices, and linguistic features of their translations. While acknowledging the importance of these factors, this panel seeks papers focusing on individual subjectivities and self-reflexivity of translators of ideologically charged texts. The questions we wish to address include but are not limited to how translators have defined their agency in various political contexts and what it means to confer responsibility on the translator.

Moderators

Maryam Zehtabi Sabeti Moqaddam

Panelists

Hyongrae Kim

Muira McCammon

Inci Sariz-Bilge

Christopher Schafenacker

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Madera

Panel

2:00pm MST

What's Happened in Mainland Chinese Poetry during the Last 40 Years?

Panelists discuss major poets living in China or abroad, their works, schools or trends (Menglong Shi, surrealism, etc.), publication environments in China, public reception of their work in China and elsewhere, available translations into English, & needs for further translation.

Moderators

Edward Morin

Panelists

Eleanor Goodman

Lucas Klein

Canaan Morse

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Canyon A

Panel

2:00pm MST

Bilingual Readings 8: Russian and Polish

2:00 Andrea Gregovich
2:10 Jamie Olson
2:20 Katherine E. Young
2:30 Lisa Hayden
2:40 Jesse Irwin
2:50 Piotr Gwiazda
3:00 Danuta Borchardt

Panelists

Danuta Borchardt

Andrea Gregovich

Piotr Gwiazda

Lisa Hayden

Jesse Irwin

Jamie Olson

Katherine Young

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

2:00pm MST

The Great Canadian Roundabout? Literary Translation in Canada

What is the current status of literary translation in Canada? How does the emphasis on the two official languages (English and French) affect the funding and publication of translations into and from non-official languages? What kind of border traffic is there between the Canadian and US publishing worlds? Participants will discuss the above questions, and more, including dynamic exceptions to the English-French axis rule and future opportunities for increasing dialogue and literary exchange. An open discussion will follow.

Moderators

María José Giménez

A genderqueer born-and-raised Venezuelan poet, translator, editor, and connector with roots and community in places like Montreal, the Bay Area, María José Giménez celebrated in 2020 twenty years of freelancing and creative practice through translation, revision, copyediting and... Read More →

Panelists

Phyllis Aronoff

Stephen Henighan

Enter Name

Lida Nosrati

Howard Scott

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Pima

Roundtable

2:00pm MST

The Perils of Punctuation

Punctuation may seem a humble topic in the house of literature, but it can be as individual to each author as any other stylistic element. What is more, before the translation process reaches a full stop, punctuation must be rendered in the new language along with all the words. In this session, five experienced and distinguished translators will address punctuation in German, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.

Moderators

Aviya Kushner

Panelists

Aron Aji

Susan Bernofsky

Lisa Bradford

Marian Schwartz

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Sabino

Roundtable

2:00pm MST

French Prose Translation Workshop

A passage in French provided by the moderator will be translated into English by three panelists. They will send their translations a month ahead of time to each other and to the moderator. Panelists will prepare their discussions of (1) the merits of their own choices and (2) their critiques of the other choices. At the workshop, print copies or projections of each translation will be provided to audience members and each panelist will discuss the other two (30 min). They will then enunciate their philosophies, their goals, their strategies, their opinions about what makes a translation good, and whatever else they wish to contribute, including specific responses to critiques, in a five-minute summary or “rebuttal” (15 min). Discussion will then be open to the floor (30 min).The French passage is a 1585-word extract from Philippe Forest’s 2013 novel, Le Chat de Schrödinger, published by Gallimard, part of chapter 9. It will be made available in advance to any attendee who requests it (armine@illinois.edu).
The purpose of this workshop is to bring out the processes we employ when we translate, as inevitable differences in the choice of words, syntax, etc., will occur and prompt lively discussions to explain them. The problem areas in the text will make each translator reflect on the kinds of mental processes used to arrive at solutions; the sharing and comparing of those reflections will enhance each translator’s experience, including those who participate from the audience.

Moderators

Armine Kotin Mortimer

Panelists

Jeff Diteman

Graduate Student, Teaching Assistant, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Literature in French, Spanish, German; Translation theory; Critical theory; Linguistics; Ancient languages and civilizations, Proto-Indo-European, Zoroastrianism; Caravaggio, Schiele, Escher; Zeuhl, math rock, Shostakovich; Foucault, Judith Butler; Queneau & Oulipo

Ghada Mourad

Samuel N. Rosenberg

Friday October 30, 2015 2:00pm - 3:15pm MST
Canyon B

Workshop

3:45pm MST

Hooray! All Is Lost!

"Hooray! All Is Lost!" addresses the aspirational idea that what we “lose” in translation when we conceive of our practice in decolonial political terms is—potentially—precisely what needs to be lost: colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, the dominance of dominant languages. We do not believe that translation alone can “lose” these brutalities, nor that they are all successfully or completely lost in all translations—nor even in translations that overtly attempt to lose those things. Rather, we propose to tackle these issues head-on (or askance) as they relate to our practices as thinkers, writers and translators making political and literary decisions in the course of our work.

Moderators

Antena

Panelists

Antena (Jen Hofer and John Pluecker)

Stalina Emmanuelle Villareal

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Sabino

Panel

3:45pm MST

The Making of Originals: Translation as a Form of Editing

When is translation a form of editing? For various reasons—multiple versions of texts, different standards in editing, needs of publishers—translators often find themselves in the position of revising and shaping the original text. Seasoned translators discuss their experiences in rewriting and editing, collaborating with authors, and establishing definitive texts, and suggest approaches to producing a “new original.”

Moderators

Susan Harris

Editorial Director, Words Without Borders

Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words without Borders www.wordswithoutborders.org and coeditor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of Eco Anthology of Internatinoal Poetry.

Panelists

Karen Emmerich

Edward Gauvin

Alex Zucker

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Pima

Panel

3:45pm MST

Trafficking in meaning: the importance of context

What do translators need to know about the historical, cultural, societal, geographical, and literary spaces in which writing occurs to render meaning effectively? Three translators analyze the role of understanding context as part of the process of translating literature. Each panelist will talk about a different author and different circumstances. Mary Berg, editor/co-editor as well as translator for three anthologies of Cuban short fiction, discusses her recent translations of work by Adelaida (Laidi) Fernández de Juan. The author’s writing about her experiences as a Cuban doctor in Zambia and her experimentation with minicuentos are both part of the contextual challenge. Elizabeth Lowe, translator of works from Portuguese (Euclides Da Cunha, Backlands: The Canudos Campaign, Penguin, 2010 and Happy People in Tears, by João de Melo, Tagus, May 2015) discusses navigating the context of the Azorean diaspora during the period of the Salazar dictatorship and the Portuguese wars in Africa in the translation of the Azorean writer João de Melo’s most recent novel. Anne Fountain, translator of works by José Martí, both poetry and prose, discusses what she found in looking at recent translations into English of Martí’s works, and gives example of how considering texts out of context, whether through a restrictive critical lens or from lack of background information can create distortions.

Moderators

Mary G. Berg

Panelists

Anne Fountain

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

3:45pm MST

Translating Computational Literature

Electronic literature, also called “digital” or “computational” and sometimes abbreviated “e-lit,” uses the capabilities of the computer in ways that are essentially connected to literary art. Works in this category include hypertext fiction, interactive fiction, poetry generators, literary bots, and digital concrete and visual poetry. E-lit is not actually closely related to e-books; the idea of the e-book is a publisher- and distributor-driven one, to repackage print literature for digital distribution. E-lit involves innovations in form, functioning, and interactivity to allow for new styles of reading (not just new method of distribution) and is driven by authors, innovating with design and computation. As challenging as it is to construct electronic literature, it can be even more complex and interesting to translate work of this sort to a new language, particularly when computation in a particular project works below the sentence level. Translating often involves not just mapping texts to texts, which can of course be challenging enough on its own, but also developing new code to model aspects of the new language. It requires new types of translation work and reveals new aspects of the relationship between computation and literature.

Moderators

Nick Montfort

MIT & SfPC

Nick Montfort's computer-generated books of poetry include #!, the collaboration 2×6, Autopia, and The Truelist, the first in the new Using Electricity series from Counterpath. Among his more than fifty digital projects are the collaborations The Deletionist, Sea and Spar Between... Read More →

Panelists

Leonardo Flores

Professor, University of Puerto Rico: Mayagüez

Leonardo Flores is a Full Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico: Mayagüez Campus and the Treasurer for the Electronic Literature Organization. He was the 2012-2013 Fulbright Scholar in Digital Culture at the University of Bergen in Norway. His research areas are electronic... Read More →

Rita Raley

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

3:45pm MST

Vernaculars as the Substantiation of Traffic: A Challenge for Translation

Traffic within/across languages is substantiated through vernaculars. They attest to the spatial and temporal movements taking place. This panel discusses the ways in which translators navigate through dialects and vernaculars. The languages discussed in this panel are Arabic, French, Farsi, Montenegrin, and German. Literary works written in Arabic increasingly include the author’s vernacular. The same goes for Maghrebi francophone literature that often includes elements absent from mainstream French. Also, how to translate vernacular Afghani Farsi expressions when the translator has access only to mainstream Farsi? Finally, knowing that Swiss German and Austrian German have different vernacular expressions, how a translator translates these various Germans into English?

Moderators

Ghada Mourad

Panelists

Diana Arterian

Doctoral Candidate, USC PhD in Lit & Creative Writing

Diana Arterian was born and raised in Arizona. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she is pursuing her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She holds an MFA in poetry from CalArts, where she was a Beutner Fellow. Diana is a Poetry... Read More →

Paula Gordon

translator, editor, doing business as Plan B

Silvia Kofler

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Canyon C

Panel

3:45pm MST

Bilingual Readings 9: Francophone

3:45 Madeleine Campbell
3:55 Nancy Naomi Carlson
4:05 Allison Charette
4:15 Jean Anderson
4:25 Karen McPherson
4:35 Christiana Hills
4:45 Jake Syersak

Panelists

Jean Anderson

Madeleine Campbell

Nancy Naomi Carlson

Allison M Charette

Christiana Hills

Contributor, Intralingo

Karen McPherson

Professor of French, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Romance Languages

I am a poet and literary translator, co-coordinator of the Translation Studies Working Group at the University of Oregon, and a member/editor in the Airlie Press poetry collective. My book Skein of Light, published in 2014, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award for poetry... Read More →

Jake Syersak

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

3:45pm MST

Trafficking Noir

Akashic Books launched a series of Noir anthologies. Each book collects all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Over 20 of the more than 90 planned or published collections are translated from languages other than English. These playfully dark voices upend all sorts of assumptions about how to write, and translate, about a city. Because the collections include only previously unpublished writing they have become a useful reference for translators and publishers for interesting new voices. The roundtable brings together an editor (Zagreb Noir) and translators who have worked on the Zagreb, Moscow, Petersburg and Helsinki collections to talk about the series and the experience of working as a translator for the project.

Moderators

Ellen Elias-Bursac

Panelists

Yardenne Greenspan

Lola Rogers

Ivan Sršen

Laura Wideburg

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Madera

Roundtable

3:45pm MST

Russian Translation Workshop

Workshop organizers Lisa Hayden and Sibelan Forrester will solicit examples of tricky Russian phrasing to combine into a handout on which the workshop participants will concentrate. Topics already suggested include verbal aspect, gerunds and participles.

Moderators

Lisa Hayden

Friday October 30, 2015 3:45pm - 5:00pm MST
Canyon A

Workshop

6:30pm MST

Jerome Rothenberg Keynote

Friday October 30, 2015 6:30pm - 8:00pm MST
Crowder Hall (University of Arizona)

Special Event, Keynote

8:30pm MST

Offsite Bilingual Readings 2: Café Latino

8:30 Dick Cluster
8:40 Pamela Carmell
8:50 Jeffrey Barnett
9:00 Angela McEwan
9:10 C. M. Mayo
9:20 Suzanne Jill Levine
9:30 Christina Vega-Westhoff
9:40 Erin Finzer (cancelled)
9:50 Mary Berg
10:00 Maggie Messerschmidt
10:10 Julie Hempel
10:20 Catherine Jagoe
10:30 Jesse Lee Kercheval

Panelists

Jeffrey C. Barnett

Mary G. Berg

Pamela Carmell

Dick Cluster

Julie Hempel

Catherine Jagoe

Translates from Spanish and Catalan. ATA certified EnglishSpanish.

Jesse Lee Kercheval

Suzanne Jill Levine

C. M. Mayo

Angela McEwan

Maggie Messerschmidt

Christina Vega-Westhoff

Christina Vega-Westhoff is a poet, translator, and aerialist and the author of Suelo Tide Cement, which won the 2017 Nightboat Poetry Prize. She teaches writing and movement with The Bird’s Nest, the Geneseo Migrant Center, Just Buffalo, and Young Audiences of Western New York... Read More →

Friday October 30, 2015 8:30pm - 11:00pm MST
Café Passé (415 N. 4th Ave.)

Reading, Bilingual Reading

8:30am MST

ALTA Book Exhibit

Saturday October 31, 2015 8:30am - 3:00pm MST
Ventana

Other

9:30am MST

General Membership Meeting

Saturday October 31, 2015 9:30am - 10:45am MST
Madera and Pima

Special Session

11:15am MST

A Question of Style

It can be easy to forget that the style of a translated author is in fact the style of his or her translator. This sort of confusion highlights the importance and power of style, and reveals the intriguing position it occupies in the world of translation. How does a translator attempt to convey an author's style? What kind of techniques and substitutions are most effective? Where does the author's style end and the translator's begin? Does it matter? Translators in different genres will address this subtle and slippery aspect of their work.

Moderators

Sarah Stickney

Panelists

Curtis Bauer

Michelle Gil-Montero

Aviya Kushner

Orlando Menes

Diana Thow

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Madera

Panel

11:15am MST

Approaching Wholeness in Another Language: Translating Poetic Fragments

Panelists representing ancient Greek, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish will consider case studies in the translation of poetic fragments—from the ancient and unintentionally fragmented, to aphorisms, to contemporary texts that resist wholeness and allow for multiple interpretations. How can we inhabit ambiguity to open up the possibility for meaning without muddling clarity? What techniques allow minimal words to reverberate with maximum potential? How can we transfer meaning from one language to another in a text whose very “illegibility is an inexhaustible necessity”? We will probe the craft of translation on a micro level, where every word must count for more than itself, a deep and concentrated exploration with valuable insights for prose and poetry translators alike.

Moderators

Lucina Schell

Panelists

Susan Bernofsky

Keyne Cheshire

Emily Goedde

Ghada Mourad

Yvette Siegert

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Sabino

Panel

11:15am MST

Balkan Crossings

This panel explores issues of translating Balkan languages and cultures. The theme of the session is Trafficking and across the Balkans words and material cultures have spread across borders. The inter-mixing of these languages and cultures has led to a perceived "Balkanness". Each paper explores regional crossings and then, crossing into English.

Moderators

Christina E. Kramer

Panelists

Grace Fielder

Sibelan Forrester

Plamen Gaptov

Wayne Miller

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Boardroom

Panel

11:15am MST

Editing Translation

Three pairs of editors and translators will discuss the specifics of a recently published project. How did the editing process work? Was there much collaboration with the author? Did the editor and translator make changes to the original text? How much editing is too much editing?

Moderators

Chad W. Post

Panelists

Heather Cleary

Chris Fishbach

Anna Rosenwong

David Shook

Editor, Phoneme Media

Kaija Straumanis

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Pima

Panel

11:15am MST

Translating Contemporary Latin American Poets and Writers: Embracing, Resisting, Escaping the Magnetic Pull of the Capital

Indisputably, in any given Latin American country much of the best poetry and prose is being produced in the capital. But equally indisputably, some of the most interesting and accomplished work is coming out of provincial cities and villages, the US-Mexico and other border regions, and even from abroad, in places as farflung as Houston, New York and, yes, Hungary. How to find, select, and work with contemporary Latin American poets and writers? Is it really more challenging outside the capital or, in some cases, is it easier?

Moderators

C. M. Mayo

Panelists

Jeffrey C. Barnett

Patricia Dubrava

Clare Sullivan

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Canyon C

Panel

11:15am MST

Translating Russian Poetry: The Challenge of Form

In Russia, poetry has traditionally been regarded more highly than prose. The presenters, who have translated widely in the field of 19th- and 20th-century poetry, will explore the challenges that the translator faces, in particular with regard to the formal features of Russian poetry. To the present day Russian poetry tends towards strict rhyme and meter that require creative solutions if the poems are to “work” for a contemporary English-speaking audience. The poets discussed cover the entire span of the great tradition, from Alexander Pushkin, the "founding father" of the Russian tradition, to the modernist Vladislav Khodasevich and two more contemporary poets, Mikhail Eremin and Oleg Okhapkin, who managed to resurrect the tradition during the late years of the Soviet regime.

Moderators

Josephine von Zitzewitz

Panelists

Inna Caron

Alexander Cigale

Adrian Wanner

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

11:15am MST

Bilingual Readings 10: Chinese

11:15 Edward Morin
11:25 Christopher Lupke
11:35 Chu Dongwei
11:45 Ann Yu Huang
11:55 Philip White
12:05 Jennifer Feeley
12:15 Eleanor Goodman
12:25 Steve Bradbury
12:35 Ting Wang

Panelists

Steve Bradbury

Chu Dongwei

Jennifer Feeley

Eleanor Goodman

Ann Yu Huang

Author & Poet, White Sails

A MFA graduate from Vermont College of Fine Arts, I am the author of two poetry books, Love Rhythms and White Sails. Currently, I am working on translating poems of Li Shang-Yin from classical Chinese to English.

Christopher Lupke

Professor, Washington State University

I teach Chinese language, literature and culture at Washington State University. I am engaged in a long term project translating the poetry of contemporary Chinese author Xiao Kaiyu into English.

Edward Morin

Ting Wang

Philip White

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Canyon A

Reading, Bilingual Reading

11:15am MST

Bilingual Readings 11: Germanic

11:15 Amy Kepple Strawser
11:25 Gregory Divers
11:35 Jennifer Marquart
11:45 Scott Denham
11:55 Ruth A. Gentes Krawczyk
12:05 Leah Zazulyer
12:15 Ellen Cassedy
12:25 Sebastian Z. Schulman
12:35 Laura Wideburg
12:45 Roger Greenwald

Panelists

Ellen Cassedy

Scott Denham

Davidson College

Teaching translation. Translating Jagoda Marinić. http://www.jagodamarinic.de/

Gregory Divers

Roger Greenwald

Ruth A. Gentes Krawczyk

Jennifer Marquart

Sebastian Z. Schulman

Amy Kepple Strawser

Interim Chair, Modern Languages & Cultures, Otterbein University

I translate German poetry and prose into American English. My primary authors are Ursula Krechel (poetry) and Anna Seghers (prose).

Laura Wideburg

Leah Zazulyer

Saturday October 31, 2015 11:15am - 12:45pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

1:00pm MST

2015 ALTA Mentorship Presentations and Readings

Presentations and readings by winners and mentors of the 2015 ALTA Mentorships

Saturday October 31, 2015 1:00pm - 2:00pm MST
Café Passé (415 N. 4th Ave.)

Reading, ALTA Curated Reading

2:15pm MST

Membership Open-Forum

Here is your opportunity to be heard, to get involved, to get something off your chest, or to propose the next big thing for ALTA programming and services. Join us as we listen and think together, offer suggestions, constructive advice, and bold innovative ideas. What is ALTA doing well? What can ALTA do better? What are the ways to encourage more of you to get invested in the mission and future of our organization?

Moderators

Aron Aji

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Madera

Other

2:15pm MST

ITALIAN TRAFFIC (JAMS)

What makes it through the international causeway between Italy and the Anglophone world, and what gets left by the wayside? This panel will focus on the successes and failures in translation between Italian and English on the contemporary literary scene and reflect on the discrepancies between literary contexts in different countries and reading communities. Panelists will share their experiences and expertise as readers, translators, and publishers of Italian writing.

Moderators

Jamie Richards

Panelists

Geoffrey Brock

Elizabeth Harris

Chad W. Post

Olivia Sears

Diana Thow

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Pima

Panel

2:15pm MST

Text, Context, & Politics Intersections in Translation

This panel will consider the various ways in which the political, sociocultural, and historical particularities of source text and/or translation context can intersect and influence the act of translation. The presenters in this panel offer their perspectives based on current projects translating poetry, prose, drama, and fragments from a variety of different languages and cultural traditions, including contemporary Egypt, post-1848 Switzerland, ancient Rome, modern Puerto Rico, […].

Moderators

Mohammed Albakry

Panelists

Hans Gabriel

Joseph McAlhany

Pablo Peschiera

Karen Rauch

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

2:15pm MST

Theater of the Translated

Translators who traffic in multiple genres including drama will discuss how translating plays for the stage and radio aligns with and differs from their work with poetry and prose. How have they found their projects? What specific considerations and expectations have framed their process of translating for viewers and listeners rather than—or in addition to--readers? If they’ve been involved in the production process, how have they collaborated with playwrights, dramaturgs, and performers? How have they grappled with questions of influence, context, adaptation, and cultural translation? How have their translation choices in other genres been informed by their choices working with drama, and vice versa?

Moderators

Jennifer Zoble

Panelists

Sean Bye

Marguerite Feitlowitz

Fatemeh Madani

Teaching Assistant, Arizona State University

Anne Posten

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Sabino

Panel

2:15pm MST

Bilingual Readings 12: ATTLC/LTAC (Literary Translators Association of Canada)

2:15 Hugh Hazelton
2:25 Maria Jose Gimenez
2:35 Lida Nosrati
2:45 Phyllis Aronoff
2:55 Howard Scott

Panelists

Phyllis Aronoff

María José Giménez

Enter Name

Lida Nosrati

Howard Scott

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Canyon A

Reading, Bilingual Reading

2:15pm MST

Bilingual Readings 13: South Asia

2:15 Sami Rafiq (cancelled)
2:25 Mohammad Shafiqul Islam (cancelled)
2:35 Ray Chandrasekara
2:45 Annie Tucker
2:55 Byoung K. Park
3:05 Yuri Komuro

Panelists

Ray Chandrasekara

Yuri Komuro

Byoung K. Park

Annie Tucker

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

2:15pm MST

Uruguay Rising: A Conversation Between the Translators

The prominence of Uruguayan poetry stretches from the Uruguayan-born Isidore Ducasse (1846-1870), an inspiration for the French surrealists, to the work of strong early women poets such as Juana de Ibarbourou (1885-1979) and Delmira Agustini (1886-1914). Julio Herrera y Reissig’s (1875-1910) work influenced the development of Spanish-language poets from César Vallejo to Pablo Neruda. In spite of this legacy, Uruguayan poetry has been scarcely translated. This panel features some of those artists who work to change this. Representing multiple generations of writers, the translators responsible for bringing Mario Benedetti (1920-2009), Circe Maia (1932-), Karen Wild Díaz (1984-), and many other contemporary voices to prominence will discuss their commitment and the challenges of their craft.

Moderators

Christopher Schafenacker

Panelists

Jesse Lee Kercheval

Louise B. Popkin

Ron Paul Salutsky

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Boardroom

Roundtable

2:15pm MST

When 3% Felt Like 30: a Roundtable on Literary Translation in the’60s and ’70s

While the percentage of literary translations was probably not much greater back then than it is today, the Sixties and Seventies were, in many ways, a golden age for literary translation. Many of the great translators of the period and the authors they represented, both classical and contemporary, East and West, were household names, the books they brought to life among the most popular and influential of the postwar era. How can we account for this popularity and influence? This is the question we hope to answer. We welcome you to join what will no doubt be a lively debate.

Moderators

Steve Bradbury

Panelists

Stephen Kessler

Andrew Schelling

Marian Schwartz

Saturday October 31, 2015 2:15pm - 3:30pm MST
Canyon C

Roundtable

4:00pm MST

Mentorship Meetings, by invitation only

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Boardroom

Other

4:00pm MST

Barter & Compromise: Translating Poetry from Indigenous Languages via Spanish

Almost without exception, Mexican indigenous poets who write in Native languages are also translators since that is the only way their work can reach beyond their specific language group. When they translate their poetry to Spanish they risk losing subtleties of sound, imagery and cultural reference. What happens when we take one step further and translate their Spanish texts to English? What are some of the ethical, linguistic and cultural dilemmas that face us in this process? How can we recapture in English some of what was lost in the transformation from the Native language into Spanish?

Moderators

Clare Sullivan

Panelists

Wendy Call

Irma Pineda

David Shook

Editor, Phoneme Media

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Sabino

Panel

4:00pm MST

CANCELLED The Voice of Mirta Yañez

This panel will focus on the challenges and joys of recreating the voice in English of the prose and poetry of the internationally known Cuban author Mirta Yañez. Sarah E. Cooper will direct her remarks to her translation of prose passages from The Bleeding Wound/Sangra por la herida. The usual issues in capturing Yáñez’s word play and humor are compounded in this novel by its twelve narrators, three time frames, and extensive intertextuality with world literature. Elizabeth Gamble Miller will discuss her efforts to recreate the tone, rhythm, images, and personal voice in the poetry of Un solo bosque negro, (A Single Dark Wood), a compilation of Mirta’s poems written through the years, some of which are published for the first time.

Moderators

Elizabeth Miller

Panelists

Sara Cooper

Editor in Chief, Cubanabooks

Cuban women writers, proposed projects for new bilingual editions

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Canyon A

Panel

4:00pm MST

Easy and Hard in Translation

There is much conventional wisdom about which sorts of text are easy or hard to translate. But is that wisdom right? Is it true that in general poetry is harder to translate than prose, ASSUMING ONE KNOWS HOW TO WRITE POETRY? Is it true that broken syntax and/or neologisms are harder to translate than a colloquial, idiomatic voice? — The panelists have been asked: “What’s the easiest text you’ve translated and why did you find it easy; what’s the hardest and why?” Many factors will play into the responses, from linguistic features of source texts, through their similarity to or difference from a writer-translator’s own favored styles, to a translator’s particular gifts (e.g., some people have a knack for rhyme, while others lack it). Adequate time will be left for discussion.

Moderators

Roger Greenwald

Panelists

Geoffrey Brock

Nancy Naomi Carlson

Cynthia Hogue

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Madera

Panel

4:00pm MST

Sentence vs. Line: Trafficking in the Units that Compel in Prose and Poetry

Masterful writers often thwart the reader’s expectations, whether with a sentence that takes an unexpected turn rhythmically or a deftly-employed line break that causes a grammatical shift in how meaning unfolds. We will discuss our own strategies as translators to negotiate these subtle and precise effects of the sentence versus the line. How does one make a long, sinuous sentence work in English? What strategies can one use to test the integrity of the line and heighten its counterpoint to divisions of grammar and sense? Can these distinctions complement the idea of the poetic use of language to guide literary translators of any genre? We will tease out the possibilities of the sentence and the line as important—perhaps the most important—tools at our disposal and investigate the intuitive choices we make.

Moderators

Mira Rosenthal

Panelists

Curtis Bauer

Katherine Silver

Marci Vogel

Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow, University of Southern California

Marci Vogel is the author of DEATH AND OTHER HOLIDAYS (Melville House, 2018), winner of the inaugural Miami Book Fair/de Groot Prize, and AT THE BORDER OF WILSHIRE & NOBODY (Howling Bird Press, 2015), winner of the inaugural Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize. Her poetry, prose, translations... Read More →

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Canyon B

Panel

4:00pm MST

Teaching Translation to Monolingual Students

This panel discusses strategies for teaching the art and craft of literary translation, understood broadly, to students with varying levels of readiness and linguistic expertise. Articulating the value of the literary translation course as a form of general education, panelists identify the importance of helping a diverse student body understand the nature of the translation process and translated works in a variety of media. Presentations offer adaptive and transferrable pedagogies tailored for students who may not know another language.

Moderators

Janelle Adsit

Panelists

Robin Davidson

Piotr Gwiazda

Thalia Pandiri

Nataša Ďurovičová

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Pima

Panel

4:00pm MST

Bilingual Readings 14: Brazil

4:00 Ellen Dore Watson
4:15 Eric M. B. Becker
4:30 Laura Cesarco Eglin
4:45 Owen Rowe
5:00 Alexis Levitin

Panelists

Eric M. B. Becker

Laura Cesarco Eglin

Alexis Levitin

Owen Rowe

Ellen Dore Watson

Director of Poetry Center, Poetry Center at Smith College

Poet and translator Ellen Doré Watson’s fifth collection of poems, pray me stay eager, is new from Alice James Books, which also published her first two books, We Live in Bodies and Ladder Music, winner of the New England/New York award. This Sharpening and Dogged Hearts were... Read More →

Ex Voto.5poems.Eng&Portuguese pdf

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Conference Room 224

Reading, Bilingual Reading

4:00pm MST

Curated Readings (Words without Borders and Archipelago)

This curated reading will feature highlights from works recently published by Words without Borders and Archipelago. Join in this celebration of these wonderful presses and the ALTA translators that they’ve published!

Saturday October 31, 2015 4:00pm - 5:15pm MST
Canyon C

Reading, Press Curated Reading

5:30pm MST

Offsite Bilingual Readings 3: Café Français

5:30 David Ball
5:40 Rachel Tapley
5:50 Wendy Hardenburg
6:00 Siobhan Anderson
6:10 Maria Snyder

Panelists

David Ball

Wendy Hardenburg

Siobhan Mei

Maria Snyder

Associate Professor of French & German, Central College

I'm interested in contemporary German, Francophone, and French literature. I also have a background in early modern literature and occasionally translate texts from the 16th and 17th centuries. I've participated in a workshop at the British Center for Literary Translation. I have... Read More →

Rachel Tapley

Saturday October 31, 2015 5:30pm - 6:30pm MST
Café Passé (415 N. 4th Ave.)

Reading, Bilingual Reading

7:00pm MST

Closing Event: Mario Bellatín & Valeria Luiselli

Saturday October 31, 2015 7:00pm - 9:00pm MST
Madera, Pima, and Sabino

Special Event