In this seminar, Marcela Sulak (Bar Ilan University) and Adriana X. Jacobs (Oriental Studies) will explore the possibility of translation as “afterlife” through a discussion of the Hebrew poets Orit Gidali and Hezy Leskly. Marcela Sulak’s talk is entitled “Translating Ghosts and Unborn Souls: When Love Poetry is Political”. Adriana X. Jacobs talk is “Hezy Leskly’s Zombie Memories”.

Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT)

Translation as Afterlife

Looking specifically at Modern Greek, Polish, Dutch, and Swedish, this event interrogates what it means to translate and publish marginalised and minor European languages into English. Translations from French, German and Spanish (and more recently, non-European giants such as Arabic and Chinese) dominate the contemporary literary scene. Arranged in a “conversazione” format, four translators discuss what it means to assert and champion the forgotten voices of minor and marginalised European languages. With Peter Mackridge (Oxford); Antonia Lloyd-Jones; Paul Vincent (UCL); Sarah Death Chair: Kasia Szymanska (Oxford).

“Forgotten Europe”: Translating Marginalised Languages

With Adriana X. Jacobs (Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature), Kasia Szymanska (Junior Research Fellow in Slavonic Studies, University College), chaired by Kate Costello (DPhil candidate in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature). In Michaelmas 2016 the OCCT Discussion Group will follow a new format: we’ll be focussing on key issues in the methodology of comparative study. The sessions will begin with a short conversation between two senior members moderated by a graduate representative, followed by a discussion of the recommended readings. We hope to encourage graduates to think about their research within a comparative context, and contribute to creating a vibrant OCCT graduate community.

Between Languages: Working in and out on Translation

With Professor Ben Morgan (Professor of German) and Peter Hill (Junior Research Fellow in Arabic Literature, Christ Church College), chaired by Karoline Watroba (DPhil candidate in German and Comparative Criticism).

Literature Beyond Literary Studies: Intermediality and Interdisciplinarity

Matthew Reynolds and Mohamed-Salah Omri discuss comparative literary criticism. Chaired by Valeria Taddei. Matthew Reynolds, Professor of English and Comparative Criticism, Mohamed-Salah Omri, Professor of Modern Arabic Language and Literature and Valeria Taddei, DPhil candidate in Italian and Comparative Literature.

Comparative Criticism: What Is It and Why Do We Do It?

Laura Lonsdale (Queen's College, Oxford): 'Barbarisms: Multilingualism and Modernity in Narratives of the Spanish- speaking World’. Respondent: Jane Hiddleston (French/Oxford)

Intercultural Literary Practices

Peter Garratt (Durham): ‘Mind Bloat and The Lifted Veil’ Helen Small (English/Oxford): 'On the Verification of Mental Experience'. Chaired by Ben Morgan.

Fiction and Other Minds

Joyelle McSweeney (University of Notre Dame), Johannes Göransson (University of Notre Dame), Dr Adriana X. Jacobs (Oriental Institute), give a talk for the OCCT Translation and Criticism strand.

Extremist Translation and the Deformation Zone

Cultural journalist and a writer.Antonio Armano in conversation with Valentina Gosetti. Conversation with Antonio Armano, a cultural journalist and a writer. He was the editor of Saturno, and he regularly contributes to Italian national newspapers and magazines, including Il Fatto Quotidiano, and Treccani.it. He is the author of Maledizioni. Processi, sequestri, censure a scrittori e editori in Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi, anzi domani (Aragno 2013, BUR, 2014), which was shortlisted for the Viareggio prize in 2014. This lunch conversation was held in Italian and English and focused on the contemporary history of censorship in literature, mainly after WWII, which is also the subject of Antonio Armano’s book. This is a history that goes beyond the Italian context, and that Italy shares with many other western countries.

Lunchtime talk with Italian journalist Antonio Armano

Ekphrasis finds words for paintings and other visual phenomena; translation finds words for other words. But how secure in this distinction, given that language has visual form, and that the visual arts can employ language-like elements? This seminar explores the interplay between translation and ekphrasis.

Translation and Ekphrasis: Dante and the visual arts

Hanan al-Shaykh gives a talk on 'Intercultural Literary Practices', with responses by Professor Marina Warner and Claire Gallien, chaired by Prof. Mohamed-Salah Omri (Oriental Studies). Part of the Intercultural Literary Practices OCCT Strand.

Intercultural Tales

Laura Salisbury, Sowon Park (English), give a talk about Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. The chair is Ben Morgan (MML). Part of the Fiction and Other Minds OCCT Strand.

To the Lighthouse

Short presentation by Dr Martyn Harry (Music) followed by discussion. This seminar launched the Languages of Criticism project which brings together experts in literature, film, visual art and music to pursue a comparative investigation of criticism’s practices, their intellectual basis, and the potential for re-grounding and enriching them. We used examples from a variety of art forms to initiate questions regarding the creative possibilities of criticism. Among those present were Céline Sabiron, Ben Morgan, Mohamed-Salah Omri, Emma Ben Ayoun, Bryony Skelton, James Bond, Kamile Vaupsaite, Ellen Jones, Giovanni Mezzano, Xiaofan Amy Li, G. Lawson Conquer, Mia Cuthbertson, Junting Huang, Rafe Hampson, Joseph Jenner, Gail Trimble, Scott Newman, Julia Bray, James Grant, Robert Chard, Simon Palfrey, Philippe Roussin, Laurent Châtel, Emily Troscianko, Natasha Ryan, Charlie Louth, David Bowe, Lucy Russell, Jane Hiddleston, Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzly, Anita Paz, Harriet Wragg, Benedict Morrison, Kate Leadbetter, Katerina Virvidaki, Sarah Leyla Puells A, Thomas Toles, Lianjiang Yu, Carole Bourne-Taylor Andrew Klevan, University Lecturer in Film Studies, played a clip from The Magnificent Ambersons, read out a passage of criticism about it, and then explained why he felt the passage of criticism had value, paying attention especially to its style. Matthew Reynolds, a lecturer in the English Faculty, explored the borderline between perception and invention in literary criticism, discussing in particular Keats’s ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ and a passages by Ali Smith and William Empson. Jason Gaiger, Head of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, conducted a thought experiment in which works from Tate Modern were given away to people to keep in their homes. He asked what role criticism can play when a work’s context and situation are more significant than its intrinsic qualities. Martyn Harry, composer and lecturer in the Music Faculty, explored how pieces of music can themselves function as works of criticism Discussion probed many of the arguments made in the talks and raised new points, such as the relation between criticism and translation, and between criticism and commentary, and the different practices that might be thought of as criticism in different cultures.

OCCT event - The Creativity of Criticism part four

Short presentation by Dr Jason Gaiger (Ruskin School) followed by discussion. This seminar launched the Languages of Criticism project which brings together experts in literature, film, visual art and music to pursue a comparative investigation of criticism’s practices, their intellectual basis, and the potential for re-grounding and enriching them. We used examples from a variety of art forms to initiate questions regarding the creative possibilities of criticism. Among those present were Céline Sabiron, Ben Morgan, Mohamed-Salah Omri, Emma Ben Ayoun, Bryony Skelton, James Bond, Kamile Vaupsaite, Ellen Jones, Giovanni Mezzano, Xiaofan Amy Li, G. Lawson Conquer, Mia Cuthbertson, Junting Huang, Rafe Hampson, Joseph Jenner, Gail Trimble, Scott Newman, Julia Bray, James Grant, Robert Chard, Simon Palfrey, Philippe Roussin, Laurent Châtel, Emily Troscianko, Natasha Ryan, Charlie Louth, David Bowe, Lucy Russell, Jane Hiddleston, Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzly, Anita Paz, Harriet Wragg, Benedict Morrison, Kate Leadbetter, Katerina Virvidaki, Sarah Leyla Puells A, Thomas Toles, Lianjiang Yu, Carole Bourne-Taylor Andrew Klevan, University Lecturer in Film Studies, played a clip from The Magnificent Ambersons, read out a passage of criticism about it, and then explained why he felt the passage of criticism had value, paying attention especially to its style. Matthew Reynolds, a lecturer in the English Faculty, explored the borderline between perception and invention in literary criticism, discussing in particular Keats’s ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ and a passages by Ali Smith and William Empson. Jason Gaiger, Head of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, conducted a thought experiment in which works from Tate Modern were given away to people to keep in their homes. He asked what role criticism can play when a work’s context and situation are more significant than its intrinsic qualities. Martyn Harry, composer and lecturer in the Music Faculty, explored how pieces of music can themselves function as works of criticism Discussion probed many of the arguments made in the talks and raised new points, such as the relation between criticism and translation, and between criticism and commentary, and the different practices that might be thought of as criticism in different cultures.

OCCT event - The Creativity of Criticism part three

Short presentation by Dr Matthew Reynolds (English) followed by discussion.

OCCT event - The Creativity of Criticism part two

The discipline of Comparative Literature is changing. Its Eurocentric heritage has been challenged by various formulations of ‘world literature’, while new media and new forms of artistic production are bringing urgency to comparative thinking across literature, film, the visual arts and music. The resulting questions of method are both intellectually compelling and central to the future of the humanities. To confront them, our research programme brings together experts from the disciplines of English, Medieval and Modern Languages, Oriental Studies, and Classics, and draws in collaborators from Music, Visual Art, Film, Philosophy and History.

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Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT)

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