Abstract:
Social concepts (such as translation, ethics, religion, theory) are widely variable across culture and language. How can academic disciplines be constituted without simplifying this variability and without becoming hegemonic? How can scholars avoid being trapped in the prison-house of their own language? How can scholarship break the confines of what has already been defined and developed? Juxtaposing contemporary research on memory in neurophysiology and insights on cognition from translation studies, Professor Tymoczko will address these fundamental questions. The broadest implications will be considered, but the talk with also address specifics relevant to the history and practice of translation in China.
About the Speaker:
Maria Tymoczko is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research and publications have earned her an international reputation in three fields: Translation Studies; Celtic medieval literature; and Irish Studies, with a specialty in literature in both Irish and English, including James Joyce. She is one of the leading theorists in Translation Studies, setting new directions for the field.
Her critical studies The Irish “Ulysses” (University of California Press, 1994) and Translation in a Postcolonial Context (St. Jerome Publishing, 1999) both won prizes and commendations, the former co-winner of the 1995 Book Award for Literary and Cultural Criticism from the American Conference for Irish Studies and the latter receiving the Michael J. Durkan Prize for the best book published in Irish language and cultural studfies from the American Conference for Irish Studies and selected by Choice magazine as one of the most important books published in 2000. Professor Tymoczko has edited several volumes including Born into a World at War (with Nancy Blackmun, 2000), Translation and Power (with Edwin Gentzler, 2002), Language and Tradition in Ireland (with Colin Ireland, 2003), Language and Identity in Twentieth-Century Irish Culture (with Colin Ireland, 2003; special issue of Éire-Ireland), and Translation as Resistance (2006, special section in the Massachusetts Review). Her most recent book is Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators (St. Jerome Publishing, 2007), a major reconceptualization of translation theory.
Articles by Professor Tymoczko have appeared in Target, The Translator, Babel, Meta, TTR, Éire-Ireland, Studia Celtica, Irish University Review, James Joyce Quarterly, Yeats Annual, Studia Celtica, Comparative Literature, and Harvard Magazine, among others. She has contributed chapters to recent anthologies including Translating Others (2007), Similarity and Difference in Translation (2004), Apropos of Ideology: Translation Studies on Ideology (2003), The Languages of Ireland (2003), Irish and Postcolonial Writing (2002), Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Models in Translation Studies (2002), Re-Organizing Knowledge, Transforming Institutions (2001), Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era (2000), and Post-colonial Translation (1999), as well as classics such as Translation, History and Culture (1990) and The Manipulation of Literature (1985). Her translations of early Irish literature are published in Two Death Tales from the Ulster Cycle (Dolmen Press, 1981).