Translating the World

Today we introduce New Poetic Visions. In this new series, Professor Rainer Schulte presents 20th century modern poets whose works profoundly changed the way we interpret poetry and the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. In the second episode of this new series, Schulte discusses the influential Austrian writer, poet, novelist, and playwright Ilse Aichinger (1921-2016). Join us in the New Poetic Visions series, as we travel through the world of 20th century literary translation and poetry.

Listen to an invigorating conversation with award-winning publisher, translator, bookstore owner, writer, and literary arts advocate Will Evans. He is the founder and CEO of Deep Vellum Publishing, a nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013, dedicated to bringing the world into conversation through literature by publishing the world’s vital stories, and making our world a more literary place through creative programming and outspoken advocacy for the literary arts. In this episode he discusses what inspired him to get into translation and publishing, and the history of founding Deep Vellum Books, a bookstore in Dallas’s historic Deep Ellum, in 2015. Evans graduated from Emory University with degrees in History and Russian Literature, and received a Master’s degree in Russian Culture from Duke University. His translation of Russian writer Oleg Kashin’s political satire novel, Fardwor, Russia! A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin, was published by Restless Books in 2016. In October 2019, Will Evans was awarded CLMP’s Golden Colophon Award for Paradigm Independent Literary Publishing.

Our guest host for today’s episode is Shelby Vincent. Shelby Vincent is a Research Associate in the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, she is also managing editor of Translation Review, as well as a lecturer in the University’s School of Arts and Humanities, and a translator from the Spanish.

Today we introduce New Poetic Visions. In this new series, Professor Rainer Schulte presents 20th century modern poets whose works profoundly changed the way we interpret poetry and the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. In the first episode of this new series, Schulte discusses the influential French poet, critic, and acclaimed translator Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). Join us in the New Poetic Visions series, as we travel through the world of 20th century literary translation and poetry.

In this episode we discuss Improvisation with Kathy Lingo, a Theatre and Stage Film Actor and Director, Forensics Coach and is a Professor of Instruction teaching Acting for Screen, Improvisation, Reader’s Theatre and Oral Interpretation. She has taught at the University of Texas at Dallas for over 20 years and has been teaching for over 35 years. Her student, Kirtana Kalavagunta, a senior majoring in Computer Science and minoring with a Theatre degree, joins the conversation adding her unique perspective on how Kathy's improvisation class has improved her life. 

Listen to this exciting conversation to learn how improvisation can change cognitive ability, physical energy, listening skills, and teaches us to enjoy the moment and find peace in a noisy world. 

We often hear about a "crisis in the Humanities". In this last episode of the season, Rainer Schulte speaks with special guest Nils Roemer, the dean of the School of Arts, about the current state of the Humanities. Listen to this insightful conversation that highlights the importance of creativity and play in the Humanities and what we might expect for the future. 

Enjoy an illuminating conversation between writer and artist Kendra Greene and Rainer Schulte, as they discuss her latest book, The Museum of Whales You Will Never See (Penguin Books, 2020). Listen as they immerse into the fantastic world of museums, Giftschranks, and the wonders, that as Kendra writes, are “there for the taking, ready to be uncovered at any moment, if only we keep our eyes open.”

Listen to this insightful conversation with award-winning Brazilian writer Bernardo Kucinski, whose novel K garnered international critical acclaim. K is the story of a father who searches for his daughter, disappeared during the military dictatorship in Brazil. The first Brazilian edition sold out in a few weeks, and was shortlisted for many literary awards. In this episode Kucinski discusses how his novel deals with loss, memory, and the national amnesia that Brazil experiences vis-à-vis its military dictatorship past.  

In this new episode, Dr. Rainer Schulte and Dr. Sarah Valente speak with Dr. Thomas Hoeksema, professor emeritus at New Mexico State University, about Bible translation and literature. Hoeksema is a founding member of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and served as president of ALTA from 1989-1991. He has been a contributing editor and member of the Advisory Board of Translation Review since its inception at the University of Texas at Dallas in 1978. 

His interest in the translation history of the Bible in English began as a student at the Near East School of Archaeology in Jerusalem where he studied ancient cultures and languages. During that same period he was part of a team that excavated the archaeological site at Dothan in northern Israel. Starting in 1980, Dr. Hoeksema developed honors courses at New Mexico State University under the rubric of The Bible as Literature. These courses covered many topics including the translation history of the Bible in English, the literary forms and genres expressed in the Bible, and the influence of ancient cultures and their writings and rituals on Biblical texts.

In this episode, Hoeksema presents an insightful interpretation of the Bible in English translations and reflects on his extensive experience teaching courses on the Bible as Literature. In this thought-provoking new episode, you will learn about the role of translators in biblical translations as well as moments of controversies in mistranslations of the Bible. 

In this episode, we speak with German publisher and editor Christine Becker about the life and works of her late husband Jurek Becker, the author of highly acclaimed works of literature, who garnered international acclaim with his debut novel Jacob the Liar, the first comic novel on the Holocaust. Christine Becker  has edited many of Jurek’s works, including a most recent collection of postcards, Am Strand von Bochum ist allerhand los - Postkarten, which was highly praised by critics.

In this episode, guest host Dr. Shelby Vincent, research associate in the Center for Translation Studies and lecturer in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, interviews Colombian writer, art critic and curator, Juan Cárdenas and translator Lizzie Davis about Juan’s English-language debut novel Ornamental (Coffee House Press, 2020).

Juan was named one the thirty-nine best Latin American writers under the age of thirty-nine by the Hay Festival in Bogotá in 2017. He is the author of several novels including Zumbido, Los estratos, and Ornamento (2015). Juan is also a translator, who has translated the works of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Gordon Lish, Machado de Assis, and Eça de Queiros. He currently coordinates the Masters program in Creative Writing at the Caro y Cuervo Institute in Bogotá, where he works as a professor and researcher.

Lizzie Davis is a writer, translator from Spanish and Italian to English, and editor at Coffee House Press. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference and Omi International Arts Center for her translations. Lizzie is passionate about championing writing that takes risks and pushes boundaries thematically or formally. She has co-translated Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, an important book at this moment of crisis for unaccompanied minors at the US-Mexico border, and translated Juan Cárdenas’s novel Ornamental, which is the topic of this podcast episode.