Co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies, the Institute for Research in the Humanities, the Anonymous Fund, the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, the Department of French & Italian, and the Center for Interdisciplinary French Studies
Free and open to the public
2025 Burdick-Vary symposium organized by Professor Anne C. Vila, open-topic senior fellow (2021–2025), Institute for Research in the Humanities; Ernesto Livorni, Professor of Italian; and Florence Vatan, Professor of French
Translation—especially literary translation—is a tool and an art that may seem obsolete and unnecessary in the world we live in. In an environment that claims to be global and transnational, and that values rapid communication and maximum efficiency, it might be tempting to transfer the labor of translation to artificial intelligence. However, literary translation is, at its best, a highly creative act that remains beneficial, indeed crucial: it allows readers to become familiar with fundamental works of literature; it exemplifies linguistic and cultural diversity; it creates bridges with lesser-known languages; and it gives access to unknown or overlooked works. For poets and other writers who are translators themselves, the encounter with a linguistic or poetic “other” might also open a path to poetic (self)-discovery. Translation is also central to many areas of scholarship, particularly those that explore the ways in which words, ideas, and literary styles “migrate” across national, cultural, and institutional boundaries.
This one-day symposium aims to bring together a group of translators and scholars who reflect on the act and challenges of translation. Taking the global Francophone and Italophone contexts as a point of departure, we welcome contributions that explore the issue of translation in general terms or that focus on specific case studies.
This event will address questions such as these:
- What is literary translation and why is it relevant today?
- How has the practice of translation evolved over time and across the world?
- What is a “good” translation?
- How can we imagine the future of literary translation? To what extent will the new technologies impact the craft of the literary translator?
- What are the ethical and aesthetic implications of literary translation?
- What sorts of politics does literary translation entail?
- To what extent do existing theories of translation illuminate our understanding of specific translations? To what extent can they be challenged?
Program (Click here for the full downloadable PDF):
Opening remarks, 9:15–9:45 am: Grant Nelsestuen, Professor and Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities, College of Letters and Science; Grazia Menechella, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of French & Italian; Anne Vila, Professor, Department of French & Italian, senior fellow at Institute for Research in the Humanities.
Session 1, 9:45 am–12:30 pm: “What Matters in Translation” (Moderator: Nevine El-Nossery, UW–Madison)
- Martin Rueff (University of Geneva), “How and Why Translation Matters”
- Kaiama L. Glover (Yale University): “‘Blackness’ in French: Race Matters in Translation”
- Ernesto Livorni (UW–Madison), “Cesare Pavese: Translator of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick“
- Diego Alegría (UW–Madison), “Creative Criticism as Literary Translation: Cortázar’s Reading of Keats’s ‘Ode’”
Session 2, 1:45–3:30 pm: “Translation and Literary Creation” (Moderator: Michael Bernard-Donals, UW–Madison)
- Michael F. Moore (scholar, translator, and interpreter), “Faithless Love: In Praise of Difference in Translation”
- Jess Dubie (UW–Madison), “Salvatore Quasimodo’s Hermetic Translation of The Odyssey”
- Florence Vatan (UW–Madison), “Dying Flies and the Life of Translation: Robert Musil and Philippe Jaccottet”
Session 3, 3:45-6:00 pm: “Translation as Transnational and Transdisciplinary Mediation” (Moderator: Josh Armstrong, UW–Madison)
- Stefania Buccini (UW–Madison), “Carlo Goldoni Meets the Wisconsin Idea: The 1912 Translation of La locandiera“
- Caroline Warman (Oxford University), “The Literary Translation of a Scientific Work: A Contradiction in Terms?”
- Peter Russella (UW–Madison), “Translating Graphic Novels: The Case of Thoreau: A Sublime Life”
- Anne Vila (UW–Madison), “My Life as an Accidental Translator: What I Discovered by Translating François Roustang (from Casanova to Hypnosis)”
