The Fabricant: Symposium on the Figure of the Translator

This gathering seeks to explore the critical role of translator as the mediator between cultures. In today’s political landscape, the translator is often called upon to be the go-between different peoples, spaces—both real and fictional— academic fields, and cultures. Even as the Executive Order has banned immigrants of numerous countries to the United States, the literary translator is one of the artistic professionals that enables communication between countries. The translator, as a transcultural ambassador, is the figure who creates thresholds in the globalized world of today.

The aim of the symposium is to incite a truly interdisciplinary dialogue, hence the potentiality of the word fabricant. We want to emphasize the creative capacities (fictional, poetic, intellectual, and political) of the translator, in other words a constructor that can transfer/relocate theories, epistemologies, genres and imaginary spaces. To do so, we will bring together translators and academics from a variety of disciplines and languages.

Planned activities:
10:00 – 10:30 AM – Inauguration Ceremony

10:30 – 12:00 PM – Session one: The Usual Suspect, the Translator: Transgressing Languages, Politics and Literary Canons

12:15- 1:15 PM – Keynote Address by Distinguished Professor Suzanne Jill Levine, “The Voice of the Translator”

2:45 – 4:15 PM – Session two: Challenging Intention, Gender and Meaning in Translation

5:10 – 6:20 PM – Keynote Address by Jerome Rothenberg, “Toward a Poetry and Poetics of the Americas: A Transnational Assemblage in Progress”

Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Associated Students Bookstore, College of Letters and Science, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Graduate Division, Humanities and Fine Arts, Multicultural Center Translation Studies Program