translation studies

World literature has a tremendous capacity to broaden literary canons, but, when taught without a focus on translation, can succumb to cultural deracination, philological bankruptcy, and “the worst tendencies of capitalism” (Damrosch and Spivak 456). The World Literature Pedagogical Spaces seminar addresses these concerns by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and teachers in literary studies, comparative literature, and translation. This roundtable’s goal is to diversify and exchange ideas on world literature in theory and practice, while developing sensitivity to translation in cross-cultural literary study and giving equal attention to scholarship, pedagogy, and praxis.

The ever-growing distribution of Bollywood films worldwide, and in Europe, brings into focus the translational practices of dubbing and subtitling as crucial elements that affect the reception of this cinema abroad, as well as the role they play as cultural filters of one culture to another. In the past few years, the use of Indian accents in Bollywood cinema have caused dissent on the way specific linguistic cultures have been depicted and translated, problematising the use of multilingualism and its nuances in India. Thus, is cinema a universal language?

Ancient Greece and Rome have had a profound influence on subsequent literature. While our analyses of Classical literature, philosophy, and art often focus on the characters and stories they depict, these works often served as a means to examine the aesthetic process itself. One of the earliest surviving Greek texts, Homer’s Iliad, goes so far as to depict its protagonist Achilles singing of ancient heroes and strumming his lyre as a means of determining the effect of being remembered in epic.

Is World Literature the new, upgraded version of Comparative Literature (Comp Lit 2.0) or rather an attenuated, impoverished version of the latter? What unites us, and what divides us, especially considering that many World Lit faculty are drawn from Comp Lit backgrounds?  How do we, practitioners in these fields, rethink these disciplines for the era when humanities as such are under constant attack? In this session, we hope to discuss our shared ground and our shared challenges.  This roundtable is organized by the NeMLA World Literature Working Group as a yearly forum for discussing theoretical and historical issues, pedagogy and curriculum, and new directions in the field of World  Literature.

American Comparative Literature Association 2019
Annual Conference CFP:

Does the Untranslated Travel?: Towards a Regional
World Literature

Organizer: Dr. Arka Chattopadhyay, Assistant Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences,
IIT Gandhinagar (arka.chattopadhyay@iitgn.ac.in)

Co-Organizer: Dr. Sourit Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor, Humanities and Social
Sciences, IIT Roorkee (souritfhs@iitr.ac.in)