Sips & Scholars: Lauren K. Wolfe on "What is Translation?"

Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with Brooklyn Institue of Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: "What is Translation? A Brief History of the Translator’s Task" will be led by Professor Lauren K. Wolfe.

What exactly do literary translators do? What is the nature of the literary work? And how is this shaped by—and how does it shape in turn—the social and political environments in which the work is done? This talk will survey the past 300 years of translation in the Western tradition, exploring, as we go, how translators themselves have conceived of their task; how and why the linguistic community became synonymous with the national, and to what effect; and how inter- and multi-lingual practices—ever present within monolingual worlds—necessarily challenge commonplace conceptions of authorship and originality, the literary artifact and its social function, and what even counts as a language and its literature.  

Everyone is welcome! Come ready to learn and open to discuss interesting questions together. Advanced reading is not required, but we encourage you to check out the suggested booklist. 

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PARTICIPANT

Lauren K. Wolfe is Associate Faculty and Program Director at Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She received her PhD from New York University, her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her BA from Grinnell College. Her interests are in 20th and 21st century Austrian and German literature and the practice and theory of translation. A working translator, she is a founding editor of Barricade—A Journal of Antifascism and Translation; her translations have been published by Dalkey Archive Press, University of Minnesota Press, MIT Press, Review of Contemporary Fiction, and elsewhere.