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Teaching in Translation

Exploring Italian Language, Rap, and Migration through Translation

By Donatella Melucci

In my Italian translation course at Georgetown University, advanced students of Italian learn about translation theory and practice (English-Italian, and vice versa) of different genres, including newspaper…

Notes from the Classroom: On Teaching Translation

By Jenny McPhee

I am old enough to remember when creative writing was something you “couldn’t teach” and was considered by the academy to be a less than legitimate area of study. (Journalism didn’t…

From One to Many for One: Teaching Translation through Multiple Translations

By Martha Collins

Martha Collins is the coeditor, with Kevin Prufer, of Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf Press, November 2017).Some years ago, I was asked to teach a two-week summer workshop about…

Translation vs. Creative Writing Workshops: Structural Differences

By Roger Sedarat

As a track within the MFA Program at Queens College, literary translation tends to follow the pedagogical models of creative writing in poetry, fiction, and drama. Operating on the principle that better…

The Playlist: Teaching Translation, Curating Texts

By Richard Lee Pierre

In teaching undergraduate courses on literature in translation at the University of Michigan, I encourage students to engage with our readings in creative ways. I periodically like to treat class time…

Stealth Methods: Teaching Translation

By B. J. Woodstein

I admit it: I’m sneaky when it comes to international literature. I try to sneak translated texts and even just the awareness of language and translation into all of my classes. And why not? Literature…

Exploiting the Translator’s Mind Palace: Contemporary German Fiction 101

By Katy Derbyshire

As a single parent of a teenager, I am constantly on the lookout for ways to earn extra money without doing less literary translation work, which I love and which provides about half of my income. I am…

The Advanced Language Class as Translation Workshop

By Jason Grunebaum

A wonderful, and perhaps underappreciated, way to bring international literature into the classroom is through transforming advanced language classes into translation workshops. While language classes…

Teaching in Translation: The Translation Workshop

By Becka Mara McKay

I was hired in 2009 to teach translation in Florida Atlantic University’s MFA program—something that had never been offered in the MFA curriculum. To encourage as many students as possible…

Teaching in Translation: Poet as Translator

By Malena Morling

Editor's note: This essay was delivered at the panel “Teaching Translation in the Workshop,” organized by Douglas Unger and with presentations by Jason Grunebaum, Becka McKay, Malena Morling,…

Teaching in Translation: Teaching the Sagas

By Richard North

I started teaching the Icelandic Sagas just over twenty years ago. I had read some of them as a student, and though they didn’t feature in my research when I did my doctoral thesis, I was glad to…

Teaching in Translation: These Pines

By Adriana X. Jacobs

With this post we launch our new series on teaching in translation. Whether teaching in their areas of specialization or shouldering introductory world literature courses, teachers at all levels face…

Translation and the Teaching of Literature

By Russell Scott Valentino

In my first post, I suggested that translators' efforts in the sphere of education might have a transformative effect on the understanding and appreciation of the work of translation. In my second,…

Translation and Proficiency Language Teaching

By Russell Scott Valentino

In a previous post, I suggested that the covers of books make for rather poor soil in which to cultivate an appreciation for translated contemporary literature among the general English-reading public.…

Teaching in Translation

By Russell Scott Valentino

The general membership meeting of the American Literary Translators Association's annual conference in October of this year went smoothly until the final item of business. The members present were…