Translation and Translatability

Translation at Bard

Broadly defined, translation is a mode of critical thought, a means of communication, an art form with a rich history, a transnational sociopolitical phenomenon, and a practice undertaken at the horizon of the impossible. The Bard Translation and Translatability Initiative (BTTI) brings together scholars, practitioners, and students to explore translation and its discontents. Translation at Bard is read in both the narrower interlinguistic sense of moving meaning between two languages, as well as through an interrogation of the broad hermeneutic conditions at stake in questions of translatability. This interdisciplinary approach aims to elicit new collaborative insights, develop curricular initiatives, and stimulate experimentation and debate across the Bard network and the community at large.

Our Mission

The goal of the BTTI is to facilitate the recognition of translation as a supralinguistic experience that permeates and shapes modern-day language and thinking. Our aim is to implement translation in a variety of cross-disciplinary approaches to teaching as a mode of reflection that emphasizes interactions between different fields of knowledge.

Photo by China Jorrin '86

What We Do

The BTTI encourages curricular initiatives that promote translation, particularly from a multicultural or multidisciplinary perspective, and aims to bring together scholars, teachers, writers, and artists from the United States and other countries. The BTTI also works with Bard faculty members to elicit new interdisciplinary insights, develop new curricula, strengthen communication, and stimulate experimentation among the College’s four divisions and across its network of international liberal arts and graduate studies programs.

Our Location

The BTTI, located in Aspinwall 302 on the Annandale campus, provides a welcoming space for meetings, workshops, and ongoing informal conversation related to translation. For information about events and activities contact:

Susan Gillespie, BTTI Fellow
914-388-3506
[email protected]
[email protected]

Upcoming Events

11/01

Tuesday

Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Valerie Barr, Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Translation is omnipresent within computer science given that data in human consumable forms (pictures, music, text) is stored in completely different internal representations. Furthermore, the software that allows us to see, hear, and manipulate that data has itself been translated so that the hardware can execute it. Yet the notion of and need for "translation" only increases when we also consider two additional questions: what is it that those using computation should know about computing in order to be effective, and what should all students understand about computing (the good, the bad, the ugly history) in order to actively critique and challenge the current pace and impact of technological change?

5:30 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
11/16

Wednesday

Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Jana Mader, Lecturer in the Humanities
Olin, Room 203 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5
When we see, feel, and think of nature, it is never just an objective encounter with an outside world. Rather, landscapes carry meaning like a complex language, spoken and written in land, air, and water. Humans are storytellers in dialog with landscapes, influenced by their past, present and imagined future. When a group of German farmers who had fled famine and persecution settled along the Hudson, they were reminded of their river back home, the Rhine, and founded Rhinebeck. In a broad sense, then, they translated their home into their new place. This talk examines two river landscapes, the Hudson River Valley and the Rhine Valley in Germany, the contradictory narratives they were shaped by and the cultural translation of landscape, from the visual into the textual and what that entails. To what extent is our perception filtered through experience and our collective history?

5:30 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Olin, Room 203

Sui Generis

Sui Generis was first published in 1997 as an initiative of the Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures faculty at Bard. It has been published once every spring since and has grown to include new languages that entered our curriculum, such as Arabic and Japanese. The primary goal of this publication is to encourage students to produce original creative work in a foreign language, or to translate the work of other authors. Sui Generis also offers language students new opportunities to work closely with our faculty and Foreign Language Exchange Tutors.