Archive
Translation, Identity and Difference: Reading and Conversation with Dean Atta
Moderation: Dr. Bettina Burger and Dr. Hannah Pardey (HHU)
On 5 May 2025, Dean Atta will discuss the (in)visibility of Black LGBTQ+ authors in the contemporary publishing and translation industries. Moderated by Dr. Bettina Burger and Dr. Hannah Pardey, this event will feature a conversation about Atta's writing process, readings from his verse novel The Black Flamingo (2019), a discussion of its German translation and a Q&A with the audience. The event will be conducted in English.
Bio Note
Dean Atta is an award-winning Black British writer from London known for his heartfelt storytelling rooted in his Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage. He writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for all ages. For adult readers, his poetry collection, I Am Nobody's Nigger, was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize, and his memoir, Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body, received praise from Michael Rosen as "wonderfully original". His young adult verse novels are The Black Flamingo, Only on the Weekends, and I Can't Even Think Straight. The Black Flamingo won the Stonewall Book Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Jhalak Prize. Malorie Blackman praised the book, saying, “I loved every word.” Dean has also contributed to middle-grade anthologies like Happy Here: 10 stories from Black British authors & illustrators and the Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood. His picture book, Confetti, illustrated by Alea Marley, is a colourful celebration of love and life. Additionally, Dean is a screenwriter and executive producer of the animated short film "Two Black Boys in Paradise", which was selected for the BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival and numerous others worldwide.
Tales that Touch? – Afroperipheralism and Wayde Compton’s Short Story Cycle "The Outer Harbour"
My talk examines Wayde Compton's The Outer Harbour (2015) as a short story cycle and explores how the work’s polyphonic, multimodal, and speculative characteristics highlight the heterogeneity of the contemporary African Canadian experience. First, I investigate how Compton’s stories can be described as ‘tales that touch’, based on the genre-specific tension between centrifugal and centripetal narrative forces (Lundén 2014) that shape the recurrence of characters, locations, and narrative techniques in the short story cycle. The cycle’s polyphonic form presents the African Canadian experience as both localized and particular and collective and interconnected by including ten stories all set in Vancouver but each being focalized through a different African Canadian character. While centrifugal forces attend readers to the diversity of African Canadian experience, interconnections between individual stories add a collective dimension to its portrayal of Afroperipheralism on the macro-level of the cycle. Compton’s striking use of multimodality, moreover, points to contestations in dealing with Vancouver’s settler colonial past and in projecting its future by imagining encounters between descendants of white anglophone settlers and (mixed-race) Asian, African and Indigenous as well as more-than-human characters. The paper examines how Compton’s cycle engages with the genre of speculative fiction to redress forgotten histories and to highlight the complex negotiations of belonging for Vancouver’s black communities and (their interrelationships with) other minoritized groups.
Moderation: Prof. Dr. Birgit Neumann (HHU)
Farewell and Coming of Age Across Borders: My Memories of Old Beijing《城南舊事》through Film, Translation, and Cultural Rewriting
This talk explores how the themes of farewell and coming of age are reinterpreted across languages, media, and cultures, taking the 1983 film My Memories of Old Beijing (《城南舊事》) as a point of departure. It examines how the film reimagines Lin Haiyin’s 1960 short story collection and how selected English and German translations reflect shifts in tone and interpretation. Widely regarded as a classic, with some chapters included in Chinese language textbooks, the work holds an important place in modern Chinese literary and educational contexts. Drawing on intertextual and adaptation theory, the talk considers how meaning evolves through cross-cultural and cross-media rewriting. Special attention is given to the song Farewell (送別), featured in the film, tracing its transformation from the original English version to Chinese and Japanese adaptations. The film’s role in Chinese language education is also briefly addressed.
Tao Zhang is Professor of Chinese as a Foreign Language (ChaF) Didactics at the University of Göttingen. Her research focuses on intercultural language education and the use of media—especially film—in teaching Chinese. She also works in film and intercultural media studies, with a particular interest in Chinese-language cinema. Her work explores how visual and narrative forms support both language learning and cultural understanding. In addition to her academic research, she has translated several works of children’s literature. With a background in German Studies, Film Studies, and Sinology, she promotes culturally responsive teaching within a broader framework of transcultural learning.
Moderation: Dr. Yongli Li & Dr. Hannah Pardey (HHU)
Éxodos – Vidas take away / Exodus – Leben zum Mitnehmen
Event languages: Spanish and German
Wer sind die Menschen, die oft auch vergeblich versuchen, über Mexiko in die USA zu gelangen? Warum verlassen sie ihre Heimat? Und was erwartet sie auf dem Weg?
Das Stück ÉXODOS – Vidas take away stellt die Schicksale von drei Menschen auf der Flucht aus Venezuela, Honduras und Mexiko vor. Das Meraki Kollektiv aus Köln hat den dokumentarischen Text entwickelt, basierend auf Interviews in der Flüchtlings unterkunft Casa Fuentes in Mexiko-Stadt. Studierende der Fächer Literaturübersetzen, Romanistik und Transkulturalität der HHU haben das Stück gemeinsam deutsch übertitelt. Die Beteiligten berichten auch von ihrer Arbeit und der Lage vor Ort.
Teilnehmende: Eva Hevicke und Renata Solleiro mit dem Meraki-Kollektiv Köln; Studierende der Fächer Literaturübersetzen, Romanistik und Transkulturalität der HHU; Franziska Muche (Theaterübersetzerin)
Moderation: Prof. Dr. Vera Elisabeth Gerling (HHU)
The Ethics of Eco-Translation in Anglophone Postcolonial Contexts
In this workshop, the Anglistik V team will come together to discuss translation at the interface of ecocriticism and postcolonialism. What, we will ask ourselves, are the ethical implications of translating nature and how are literary descriptions of nature interwoven with colonial histories? What are strategies to make visible the colonial routes of ‘natural’ environments and what affordances do translations offer in this endeavour?
Please register via cts_dus(at)hhu.de.
Schedule
10:15-10:45 | Dr. Yvonne Liebermann The Ethics of Translating Nature Descriptions: Yvonne Owuor's Dust |
10:45-11:15 | Dr. Bettina Burger Translating Nature in Australian Gothic Short Stories |
11:15-12:15 | Lunch |
12:15-12:45 | Christina Slopek-Hauff “Keine andere Meer?” Nature and Gender in Claire of the Sea Light and Its German Translation |
12:45-13:30 | Discussion, Ideas, etc. |
Translation, Digital Technologies, and Mediated Witnessing: Entangled Re-membering in the Museum Space
Guest Lecture by Dr. Sharon Deane-Cox (Strathclyde) as Part of the Interdisciplinary Lecture Series “Translation 2.0”
Moderation: Dr. Hannah Pardey (HHU)
Drawing on the concept of 'mediated witnessing', this paper aims to set out the often complex ways in which translation and digital technologies come together in French memorial museums, shaping how lived experiences of the Second World War are communicated to English-speaking visitors. Selected case studies will illustrate how translated audio-guides in the physical museum space, as well as subtitled videos and other multilingual content in the virtual museum space, function to (re)position visitors in relation to the past on display. Particular attention will be paid to immediate questions of translation quality, voice and empathy, and to contextual issues of ideology and economics, in order to demonstrate how translation is entangled in and central to visitor engagement on cognitive and affective levels.
Sharon Deane-Cox is senior lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Strathclyde. Her current interdisciplinary research focus is on how translation mediates memory and trauma on textual, interpersonal, intersemiotic, and ethical levels. She has published on retranslation, Holocaust testimony translation, memorial museum audio-guide translation, and heritage translation. She is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory (2022) which includes her work on cross-sectoral collaboration in the heritage space, and of Translation, Interpreting and Technological Change: Innovations in Research, Practice and Training (Bloomsbury, 2024). She is also Associate Editor of the journal Translation Studies, as well as a member of the Young Academy of Scotland and the IATIS Regional Workshops Committee.
Please note that Dr. Sharon Deane-Cox will join us online. If you wish to participate online as well, please send an email to cts_dus(at)hhu.de.
Die Gegenwart als Übertragung der Vergangenheit – Eine historische Perspektive auf die Maschinenübersetzung
Gastvortag von Dr. Jan Wilm im Rahmen der interdisziplinären Vorlesungsreihe „Translation 2.0“
Moderation: Prof. Dr. Birgit Neumann (HHU)
Die Maschinenübersetzung ist das Gegenteil der menschlichen Übersetzung. Oder etwa nicht? Der Vortrag kontextualisiert die Geschichte der Maschinenübersetzung, die durch das Aufkommen von KI-gestützten Übersetzungssoftwares derzeit in aller Munde und aller Gadgets ist. Nach Beleuchtung der Ursprünge wird gezeigt, wie sich die Visionen von Maschinenübersetzung im Laufe der Geschichte gewandelt haben und was von den einstigen humanistischen Utopien um Universalsprachen und Übersetzungsmaschinen übrig geblieben ist. Schließlich wird der Literaturmarkt mit Blick auf Probleme und Chancen von Maschinenübersetzung untersucht und die Frage gestellt: Wie löchrig ist das Übersetzungs-Boot, in dem wir heute sitzen?
Jan Wilm ist Schriftsteller und Übersetzer. Er übertrug u. a. Werke von Maggie Nelson, Lydia Davis, Adam Thirlwell und Joshua Cohen. Er promovierte an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt mit einer Arbeit über die philosophischen Aspekte von J. M. Coetzee und veröffentlicht Essays und Rezensionen im deutschsprachigen und englischsprachigen Raum in Publikationen wie Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Republik und Granta. 2016 erschien das Sachbuch The Slow Philosophy of J. M. Coetzee, 2019 der Roman Winterjahrbuch, 2022 das Freundschaftsbuch Ror.Wolf.Lesen. Im August 2025 erscheint bei Matthes & Seitz der Essay Bärtierchen, 2026 der Erzählband Sachertorte und andere Fiktionen im Literaturverlag Droschl. Wilm lebt in Frankfurt am Main.
Rhythmus und literarische Übersetzung
Organisation: Institut für Romanistik (Romanistik IV: Romanistische Sprachwissenschaft – Französisch, Italienisch), Centre for Translation Studies
Jede „activité de langage“, jede sprachliche Aktivität, so die Ansicht des französischen Rhythmusforschers Henri Meschonnic, ist durchdrungen von Rhythmus. Für Meschonnic entsteht Rhythmus spontan, als Zusammenspiel aus Lexik, Syntax, Prosodie. Für weniger radikale Sprachforscher*innen dagegen ergibt sich Rhythmus geplant, als gestaltete Struktur, etwa durch das Wiederholen von Akzent- oder Silbenmustern, von Wörtern oder Konstruktionen, von Text-Bild-Relationen. Lassen sich diese unbewusst oder gezielt geformten Linien in einer anderen Sprache nachempfinden? Ist der Rhythmus eines Gedichts oder eines Comics übersetzbar? Zwei Vorträge formulieren mögliche Antworten, anschließende Workshops stellen ausgewählte Beispiele zum Jiddischen und Französischen mit deren deutschen Übersetzungen zur Diskussion.
Die Veranstaltung kombiniert theoretische Zugänge zum Thema Rhythmus in Sprache und Übersetzung mit einer übersetzungspraktischen Perspektive. Auf zwei Vorträge folgen jeweils kurze Workshops, in denen konkrete Fragestellungen bearbeitet werden sollen. Ziel ist eine Sensibilisierung für semiotisch wirksame Phänomene, die in literarischen, traditionellen und multimodalen Texten als Rhythmus gefasst werden können und bisher noch zu selten in der Translationswissenschaft zur Kenntnis genommen wurden. Die Veranstaltung ist offen für alle Sprachinteressierten und richtet sich insbesondere an Forschende, Dozierende und Studierende im Masterstudiengang Literaturübersetzen und in der Abteilung Jiddische Kultur, Sprache und Literatur sowie an die Mitglieder des Comicfoschungsnetzwerks icon. Jiddische und französische Sprachkenntnisse sind keine Voraussetzung.
Kurzvorträge und Workshops
Ass.-Prof. Dr. Marco Agnetta (Innsbruck): Zur Übertragung von Bild- und Textrhythmen in Comic-Übersetzungen
Marco Agnetta ist Assistenzprofessor am Institut für Translationswissenschaft an der Universität Innsbruck. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte sind u.a.: Semiotik der (multimodalen) Übersetzung, Übersetzungshermeneutik sowie Rhythmuskonzepte in Sprache und Translation. Er ist Mitherausgeber eines Bandes zu Meschonnics Rhythmusbegriff.
Prof. Dr. Efrat Gal-Ed (Köln): Aus dem Jiddischen ins Deutsche. Lässt sich Rhythmus bei Nahsprachen leichter übertragen?
Efrat Gal-Ed ist Malerin, Autorin und Jiddistin. Von 2010 bis 2024 lehrte sie Jiddistik an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität, seit 2016 als Professorin. Sie übersetzt Lyrik aus dem Hebräischen und Jiddischen ins Deutsche und hat sich besonders dem Werk des jüdischen Schriftstellers Itzik Manger gewidmet, über den sie 2016 eine Biografie veröffentlich hat.
Moderation: Apl. Prof. Dr. Martina Nicklaus (HHU)
Martina Nicklaus ist außerplanmäßige Professorin am Institut für Romanistik an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf. Sie lehrt romanistische Sprachwissenschaft (Italienisch, Französisch) und literarische Übersetzung aus dem Französischen und Italienischen ins Deutsche. Ihr Forschungsinteresse gilt u.a. der kontrastiven Linguistik, der forensischen Linguistik und der intralingualen Übersetzung in Leichte/Einfache Sprache.
TALE: Translational Approaches, Literary Encounters
Journal Launch with Student Presentations and Reception
Moderation: Dr. Bettina Burger, Lucas Mattila and Dr. Hannah Pardey (HHU)
We cordially invite all students and staff members in the Department of English and American Studies as well as all CTS members to the launch of TALE: Translational Approaches, Literary Encounters.
Based at the Anglophone Literatures/Literary Translation section, TALE is an Open Access online journal that publishes outstanding work on Anglophone literatures and translation practices. TALE does not discriminate between titled academics, early career researchers, and students, and aims to provide excellent excursions from different stages of academia as part of its guiding philosophy, with a special emphasis on student work. More particularly, regular student issues will be produced by students in the BA programme “English and American Studies” and the MA programmes “Comparative Studies” and “Literary Translation”.
TALE visibilizes academic papers related to particular seminars or other events such as conferences and workshops. Additionally, the journal provides a platform to share the results of student projects and other creative works, such as book comments and reviews, podcast episodes, interviews with authors and guest lecturers or creative writing, that emerge from the department's rich teaching offer and collaborative ties with the Centre for Translation Studies.
TALE seeks to publish two issues per year. Lecturers from other English and American Studies sections are warmly invited to guest edit a special issue at any time.
Bewegtes Archiv - Musik, Tanz und kulturelles Erbe
German-language event
Die Lecture-Performance mit anschließender Publikumsdiskussion macht kultur- und musikhistorische Wissensbestände erlebbar und thematisiert die diversen Übersetzungsprozesse und -praktiken, die hierfür erforderlich sind. Die künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit dem kulturellen Erbe des amerikanischen Komponisten Julius Eastman (1940-90), das im Zuge der Black Lives Matter-Bewegung aufgearbeitet wurde und inzwischen den Mainstream erreicht hat, bietet dabei konkrete Beispiele, um Fragen nach Relationalität und Macht, Wissenshierarchien und (Un-)Sichtbarkeiten in der Erinnerungs-kultur zu erörtern. Im Zentrum des dialogorientierten, interaktiven Events stehen die Musik- und Tanzeinlagen von Dr. Layla Zami und Oxana Chi, die das unvollendete Tonarchiv Eastmans in Bewegung und damit in die Gegenwart (über)setzen, um dessen transkulturelle Implikationen auf mehreren Sinnesebenen erfahrbar zu machen. Das Hauptziel ist es, am Beispiel Eastmans und in performativer Weise einen wichtigen Dialog zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart sowie Bezüge zu aktuellen gesellschaftspolitischen Debatten um soziale Ungleichheit, Migration und Integration oder kulturelle Praktiken des Erinnerns (und Vergessens) herzustellen.
Die Veranstaltung findet in deutscher Sprache statt, enthält aber auch einige wenige englische und französische Passagen; einsprachige Teilnehmende sind an diesen Stellen aufgefordert, die Signifikanz von Sprache in der Auseinandersetzung mit kultur- und musikhistorischen Prozessen zu reflektieren und die fremdsprachigen Elemente, ebenso wie die Musik- und Tanzeinlagen, mit mehreren Sinnen wahrzunehmen.
ÉXODOS - Vidas take away
German-language event
Das dokumentarische Theaterstück „Éxodos – Vidas take away“ (dt.: Exodus – Leben zum Mitnehmen) widmet sich dem hochpolitischen Thema Migration und Flucht mit dem Fokus Lateinamerika. In Kooperation mit der NGO „Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes“ in Tapachula (Mexiko), dem Grenzgebiet zu Guatemala, wird auf Grundlage von Gesprächen und Interviews mit von Flucht betroffenen Menschen vor Ort derzeit dokumentarisches Material entwickelt, dem die Schauspieler*innen auf der Bühne ihre Stimmen leihen. Erste Interviews führten die Dramaturgin Renata Solleiro und die Regisseurin Eva Hevicke bereits in Mexiko-City in der Flüchtlingsunterkunft „Casa Fuentes“. Flucht aus Venezuela und Honduras rücken hier in den Fokus.
Für Menschen, die nicht von Flucht oder Fluchtursachen betroffen sind, wirken Migrationsbewegungen häufig bedrohlich und sie reagieren mit Unverständnis und Hass. Mediale Überinformation schürt diese Konflikte und schafft emotionale Distanz zur Lebensrealität dieser Menschen.
Das vom Meraki-Kollektiv entwickelte Projekt möchte zum Perspektivwechsel für ein mögliches neues Miteinander beitragen, einzelne Migrationsgeschichten sichtbar machen und dadurch Nähe zu den Betroffenen und der Thematik herstellen. „Éxodos – Vidas take away“ soll ein Bewusstsein für die Herausforderungen und Erfahrungen von Migrant*innen schaffen, die in unserer Gesellschaft oft marginalisiert werden. Durch die Darstellung der individuellen Geschichten der Protagonist*innen sollen Vorurteile abgebaut, ein empathisches und verständnisvolleres Gemeinwesen gefördert und soziale Integration sowie gesellschaftliche Teilhabe gestärkt werden.
Darüber hinaus fördert „Éxodos – Vidas take away“ die Wertschätzung kultureller Diversität. Die Verbindung verschiedener Sprachen und kultureller Einflüsse sowie die repräsentierten Perspektiven von Menschen mit Fluchterfahrung auf der Bühne und der Perspektiven der Schauspieler*innen mit Migrationsgeschichte und -erfahrung tragen zur kulturellen Bereicherung bei und ermutigen zur Auseinandersetzung mit anderen Kulturen.
Die Texte werden im Rahmen von Prof. Dr. Vera Gerlings Masterseminar „Theater übersetzen und übertiteln“ vom Spanischen ins Deutsche übersetzt. 2025 wird „Éxodos – Vidas take away“ als Lesestück aufgeführt.
21st-Century Life Narratives in Transit and Translation: Refugee Tales and Beyond
In his guest lecture within the framework of Professor Doctor Birgit Neumann's seminar "Migration and Refugee Narratives: Self-Translation, Mis-Translation and Non-Translation", Professor Doctor Jan Rupp analyses life-writing as 'site of refuge' and 'hospitable form'.
Abstract
In the face of material and legal constraints for refugees to speak, their life stories are frequently facilitated by new networks of solidarity to protest hostile immigration regimes. These invariably complex constellations of telling – involving refugees, activists, lawyers, translators and go-between writers, among others – are haunted by scepticism over the question of who can speak as/for refugees and display elusive multidirectional linkages with earlier bodies of migrant literature. However, in the absence of rights and representation, life-writing offers an important site of refuge itself, resulting in innovative forms of fictional accommodation, emic and etic narratives, or auto- and heterobiography. Further mapping this growing network of what I call ‘hospitable form’, my talk will survey a broad spectrum of non-fictional to fictional(ized) life-writing, including of the multi-volume Refugee Tales (2016-21). I will then turn to a close reading of Behrouz Boochani’s prize-winning autobiographical account No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018), with a particular view to the role of media and translation. I will argue that refugee narratives cover important new ground for life-writing while registering the impact of refugee systems, as an emergent body of work yet to be fully accommodated.
About Professor Doctor Jan Rupp
Having served as an interim professor at the universities of Frankfurt, Giessen, Heidelberg and Wuppertal, Professor Doctor Jan Rupp currently is coordinator of the Research Centre for the Study of Culture at the Justus Liebig University Giessen. Learn more about his research here.
Übersetzer·innen als Verbündete | Macht · Asymmetrien · Teilhabe
German-language event
Dorothea Traupe gibt die diesjährige Keynote für die Summer School des Literaturübersetzen Studiengangs. In ihrer Keynote mit dem Titel "Übersetzer·innen als Verbündete | Macht · Asymmetrien · Teilhabe" wird sie u. a. über ethische Auftragsentscheidungen und das Übersetzen aus "kleinen Sprachen" sprechen.
Dorothea Traupe hat Politikwissenschaft, Englische und Polnische Literaturwissenschaft sowie Literarisches Übersetzen aus dem Englischen an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München studiert. Sie arbeitet als Dozentin, Moderatorin, Prozessbegleiterin mit Schwerpunkt inklusive Kommunikation, Diversität und Barrierefreiheit sowie als Übersetzerin für Englisch, Polnisch und Leichte Sprache. Im Rahmen von DÜF-Gastdozenturen hat sie sich in den letzten beiden Wintersemestern intensiv mit dem Thema „Literaturübersetzen in Einfache/Leichte Sprache“ beschäftigt. Mehr: www.dorotheatraupe.de.
Reading with Dr. Elizabeth Chakrabarty
Within the framework of this year's literary translation summer school, Doctor Elizabeth Chakrabarty reads from her novel "Lessons in Love and Other Crimes".
Doctor Elizabeth Chakrabarty is an interdisciplinary writer using creative and critical writing, besides performance, to explore themes of race, gender and sexuality. Her debut novel Lessons in Love and Other Crimes, inspired by experience of race hate crime, was published in 2021 by the Indigo Press, along with her essay, On Closure and Crime. In 2022 Elizabeth was longlisted for both the Desmond Elliott Prize, and also shortlisted for the LGBTQ Polari First Book Prize, for Lessons in Love and Other Crimes. She was also shortlisted for the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2022, and her story 'That Last Summer' was published in The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2022: Crime Stories by Comma Press. She was shortlisted for the Asian Writer Short Story Prize in 2016, and her story 'Eurovision' was published in Dividing Lines (Dahlia, 2017). Her poetry has been published by Visual Verse, and her short creative-critical work includes writing published in Gal-Dem, New Writing Dundee, Wasafiri, and the anthology Imagined Spaces (Saraband, 2020), and in translation, by Glänta and Deus Ex Machina. In 2023 she received the CrimeFest bursary for crime fiction authors of colour, and was the April writer in residence at Passa Porta, Brussels, besides being invited by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation to give a masterclass for their Gay Writes project. She lives in London.
Narrating/Translating China and the Chinese Experience Abroad
A Conversation with Sinophone Writer Yan Geling and Translator Lawrence Walker
Heine Haus Literaturhaus, Bolkerstraße 53, 40213 Düsseldorf
On 7 June 2024, Yan Geling, one of the most acclaimed Sinophone novelists and screenwriters, along with literary translator Lawrence Walker, will discuss the aesthetics and politics of narrating and translating China and the Chinese experience abroad. Moderated by Dr. Yongli Li and Dr. Hannah Pardey, this event will feature a conversation about their creative processes, readings from a selection of Yan’s writings and Walker’s translations, and a discussion with the audience. The event will be conducted in English.
Yan Geling 嚴歌苓 is one of the most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters in the Chinese language and a well-established writer in English. Born in Shanghai, she served with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during the Cultural Revolution, starting at age twelve as a dancer in an entertainment troupe. Ms. Yan published her first novel in 1986 and has been writing constantly ever since. Many of her works have been adapted for film and television, working with famous Chinese directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Feng Xiaogang, Ang Lee, Li Shaohong and Joan Chen. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ms. Yan holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. She has published over 40 books and has won over 30 literary and film awards. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages. Her literary and film work after March 2020 has been unofficially banned in China after she wrote an essay criticizing the Chinese government’s initial handling of the COVID-19 crisis. She resides in Berlin and is co-owner of New Song Media GmbH, which she and her husband Lawrence Walker founded to publish her work and produce her films.
Lawrence A. (Larry) Walker, born in California, worked as a US diplomat from 1980-1991 and again from 2004-2013, serving Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa and the United States. Between 1991 to 2004 he was managing director of the German American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco and worked in international business development for a dot-com and a venture capital company. He translated and published Yan Geling’s White Snake and Other Stories with Aunt Lute Books and her short story “The Landlady” in Granta. His translation of her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识 is to be published by Balestier Press. He is the managing director and co-owner with Yan Geling of New Song Media GmbH, founded to publish her work and produce her film projects. He holds a B.S. in Languages and Linguistics from Georgetown University; an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois; and a Master’s in Administration and Management from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, which he attended as a Rotary Ambassador Scholar.
Sponsored by Gesellschaft von Freunden und Förderern der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf e.V. (GFFU), Transcultural Studies and Centre for Translation Studies at HHU.
Moderation: Dr. Hannah Pardey (Centre for Translation Studies, HHU), Dr. Yongli Li (Transcultural Studies, HHU)
Kissed by the Original? Approaches to Literary Translation
01.03.2024
German-language event.
Buchübersetzungen entstehen nicht im luftleeren Raum, sie werden von Menschen gemacht. Wo können Sie dies studieren, wie gelingt Ihnen der Berufseinstieg und wie bilden Sie sich fort? Anlässlich der Mitgliederversammlung des Verbands der Literaturübersetzer:innen (VdÜ) in Düsseldorf kommen Vertreterinnen des Masterstudiengangs Literaturübersetzen und des Centre for Translation Studies mit Berufspraktikerinnen ins Gespräch.
Prof. Dr. Vera Elisabeth Gerling, Prof. Dr. Birgit Neumann (beide HHU)
Larissa Bender, Ricarda Essrich (Berufsübersetzerinnen)
Moderation: Dr. Friederike von Criegern
19:00, Haus der Universität
Translating Selves, Translating Media: Experimental Black Life Writing in Yrsa Daley-Ward's Work
16.01.2024
This lecture by Jennifer Leetsch explored the work of Black British writer and Instagram poet Yrsa Daley-Ward in order to tease out new experimental forms of black life writing in on- and offline media, and to activate critical engagement with questions of authorship and authority, identity and belonging.
Chair: Christina Slopek-Hauff
Read on
Creative Writing Workshop with Author Sumana Roy: "How Do You Create Space?"
27.10.2023
How does writing relate to architecture and how do you create space through writing?
On October 27, Indian author Sumana Roy teaches a workshop on creative writing with the topic "How Do You Create Space?"
To participate, send a short message to ma-litueb(at)hhu.de. Students from all disciplines are welcome.
Plastic Translation: Guest lecture by Professor Ranjan Ghosh
24.10.2023
This talk drew on Ghosh's trans-philosophy, his investment in the philosophy and poetics of _trans_, as a way of developing fresh modes in "critical thinking" and new critical humanities. Through what he calls trans(in)fusion that involves breaking into disciplines, opening up thought-regimes, he tries to introduce a fresh concept in "plastic translation". This is not simply about understanding cross-cultural translation; it directs us to what Ghosh has argued elsewhere as "conceptual translation". This, again, leaves us to negotiate the area of plastic reading. Following on his recent work on plastic theory, as related to trans(in)fusion, this talk will spell out a fresh discourse on how translation connects with plasticity and contributes eventually to the development of plastic humanities.
Professor Ranjan Ghosh is Alexander von Humboldt Visiting Professor at the Institute of English and American Studies/Anglophone Literatures and Literary Translation. He teaches in the Department of English, University of North Bengal. His many books include Thinking Literature across Continents (Duke University Press, 2016, with J Hillis Miller), Philosophy and Poetry: Continental Perspectives ed. (Columbia University Press, 2019), Plastic Tagore (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and the trilogy that he is completing to establish the discipline of plastic humanities: The Plastic Turn (Cornell University Press, 2022), Plastic Figures (Cornell University Press, 2024, forthcoming) and Plastic Literature (forthcoming).
Reading and Q&A with Sumana Roy
17.10.2023
Heine Haus Literaturhaus, 18:30
Sumana Roy is the author of How I Became a Tree, a work of nonfiction, Missing: A Novel, My Mother's Lover and Other Stories, and two poetry collections, Out of Syllabus and V. I. P: Very Important Plant. She is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ashoka University. She read from How I Became a Tree and other works.
(Neo-)Baroque Aesthetics in Literature: Verbal-Visual Configurations and Frame-Breakings
13.10.2023
This conference was dedicated to exploring the pronounced visuality that is a formative, yet understudied element of the (Neo-)Baroque aesthetics. The individual contributions examined verbal-visual configurations as an integral part of a locally and temporally specific (Neo-)Baroque aesthetics, while also tracing transcultural and transhistorical forms of (ex-)change.
The conference was generously funded by the DFG and the GFFU; it was part of a larger CHLEL project.
For more information, visit the conference website.
Summer School Literary Translation 2023: Translating Comics, Graphic Novels and Video Games
22. - 24.06.2023
This year's Summer School, organized by the MA Literary Translation, took place from June 22 to June 24 and dealt with theory and practice concerning the topic "Translating Comics, Graphic Novels and Video Games". The Summer School is open to everyone. You can find more information here.
Guest talk by Caryl Phillips: A House is not a Home
19.06.2023
Heine Haus Literaturhaus Düsseldorf
Novelist, playwright and essayist Caryl Phillips spoke about US-American author James Baldwin (1924-1987) and his experience of exile in France. Phillips maintained a friendship with Baldwin from 1983 until his death.
Translation and the Archive: International Symposium
31.05. - 02.06.2023
The symposium "Translation and the Archive: Performance, Practice, Negotiation" explores the interdependency of repositories of memory (archives) and processes of translation. After a PhD workshop and the keynote lecture by Ato Quayson, a programme of readings, performances and talks by international contributors will offer a wide range of cross-disciplinary perspectives.
You can find everything you need to know about the symposium, the guests, and the programme here.
Translating the Archive: Literary Series
31.05.2023
Esther Dischereit read and performed her work Flowers for Otello, which is concerned with right wing extremist crimes in Germany. Oxana Chi and Layla Zami performed I STEP ON AIR, a piece in memory of the Ghanaian-German poet, activist and scholar May Ayim. In his talk A House is not a Home, novelist, playwright and essayist Caryl Phillips spoke about US-American author James Baldwin and his experience of exile in France.
The literary series was part of the international CTS symposium Translation and the Archive.
Find more information on the website.
From Neoliberal Crime in "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" to Transcultural Solidarity in "Queen of the Desert": Guest lecture by Professor Guido Rings
24.04.2023
After his major success as New German Cinema director, e.g. with films like Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Nosferatu the Vampyre, Werner Herzog started very different cinematic experiments in Los Angeles, for which films like Grizzly Man, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Queen of the Desert are just a few examples. However, research on his more recent films is limited and there is no in-depth analysis of his cinematic development from the '70s to contemporary work, although his films are clearly linked through their robust critique of neoliberalism and (neo-) colonialism.
In his guest lecture, Professor Rings explored Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Queen of the Desert as key examples from both periods of Herzog’s oeuvre. In particular, he examined the continuities and discontinuities in the neoliberal and (neo-) colonial critique in these two films. Furthermore, he asked which alternatives are being suggested to break with the systemic violence of neoliberalism and (neo-) colonialism, and he analysed in how far the cinematic development correlates with a different take on humanity. Findings include numerous continuities in Herzog's robust critique of human tribalism, but also substantial discontinuities that seem to correlate with different conceptualisations of humanity.
Guido Rings is Emeritus Professor of Postcolonial Studies, co-director of the Anglia Ruskin Research Centre for Intercultural and Multilingual Studies (ARRCIMS), and co-founder of iMex and German as a Foreign Language, the first internet journals in Europe for their respective fields. Professor Rings has widely published within different areas of intercultural and postcolonial studies. This includes The Cambridge Introduction to Intercultural Communication (CUP 2022, with S. Rasinger), The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication (CUP 2020, ed. with S. Rasinger), The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema (Routledge 2018), La Conquista desbaratada (Iberoamericana 2010), and more than 50 refereed articles.