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Fourth Annual Rutgers Translate-a-thon

Do you speak, or are you learning, a non-English language? Join us for the fourth annual Rutgers Translate-a-thon (watch video here!), scheduled for Friday, February 25th, 2022. The translate-a-thon is dedicated to bringing together students and speakers of many different languages around short-term translation projects that benefit the RU community and beyond. Bring your language skills and your curiosity to join us for a variety of translation/interpretation projects, workshops, and showcases. This year’s event includes both in-person and online projects. See the provisional schedule below for details!

To register for the event, click here: https://rutgers.instructure.com/enroll/8XPPFB.

IMPORTANT: If you want to come in person to the Translate-a-thon and are not affiliated with Rutgers, please fill out this form so that we can register you as a visitor. This is exclusively for purposes of contact tracing. Proof of vaccination (1 or 2 doses depending on the vaccine, and booster) and a Photo ID will be required at the entrance.

 

Translate-a-thon 2022: Schedule of Workshops & Projects (check this space for further updates!)

11 AM – 12 PM: Workshop for monolingual and multilingual speakers of all languages: What Are We Doing When We Translate? Coordinator: Simon Wickhamsmith (sw703@english.rutgers.edu). In-person (Language Center, 1 Spring Street). Register here.

    • In this workshop we will consider the nature of translation, and specifically what we are doing – with our lived experience, with language, and with other people – when we do translation. To think about what the reader needs in the target language to understand the words and ideas of a source text teaches us about how we use language to express our individual experience. We will use this understanding to translate several short texts and to think deeply about language as a whole, as well as about our own language(s). Speakers of any and all languages welcome!

Boxed lunches will be available for all participants from 12 PM on!

Afternoon projects, showcases, and workshops:

12:00 PM: Theater in Translation: scene from Griselda Gambaro’s La Malasangre. Spanish <-> English. Coordinators: Jacqueline Loeb and Nela Navarro (Rutgers Writing Program/RELI), jloeb@english.rutgers.edu  and nnavarro@english.rutgers.edu . Register here.

    • This workshop will feature a live dramatic reading and spontaneous translation of a scene from Argentine playwright Griselda Gamboro’s untranslated play, La Malasangre. Students will explore questions such as: How does the work of translation affect how we read, understand, interpret and spectate? How do translations of plays inform performance? How might a theater translation limit or embrace a particular linguistic or cultural lens?

11-4 PM: Interview translations for the project sovietsurvivors.com, Russian <-> English. Coordinators: Emily Van Buskirk, Jochen Hellbeck, and Chloë Kitzinger (emily.vanbuskirk@rutgers.edu). In-person and virtual. Register here.

12-2 PM: “Subtitling for K-dramas: The Case of Squid Game,“ Korean <-> English. Coordinators: Young-mee Cho and Jae Won Chung ( yucho@rutgers.edu, jchung@alc.rutgers.edu). In-person. Register here.

1-4 PM: Malú y los acertijos: Videogame translation, Spanish -> English. Coordinator: Laura Ramirez, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese (ramirez.laura@rutgers.edu). In-person and virtual. Register here.

1-4 PM. Revising the first audio tour in Spanish by https://revolutionarynj.org/, English -> Spanish. Coordinator: Laura Ramirez and Marcy Schwartz, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese (ramirez.laura@rutgers.edu). In-person and virtual. Register here.

1-4 PM: Translating texts and videos on environmental collapse, French <-> English. Coordinator: François Cornillat (fracorn@french.rutgers.edu). In-person. Register here.

1-4 PM: “Tracing the Spotted Lanternfly in Chinese Literary Imagination and Local Wisdom,” Chinese <-> English. Coordinator: Xingming Wang, Program in Comparative Literature (xw367@complit.rutgers.edu). In-person and virtual. For details, click here! Register here.

    • The invasive population of Spotted Lanternfly (lycorma delicatula) has posed a serious threat to U.S. vineyards and gardens. But as a native species in East Asia, the spotted lanternfly has been a source of Chinese literary imagination. This project traces the presence of spotted lanternflies in Chinese literary works, especially focusing on classic and modern poetry. Participants will work on translations of seven poems from the Tang Dynasty to the Republican era, most of which have no extant translation. The translation of this literature illuminates the cultural imagination of this attractive bug while offering local wisdom of dealing with its potential damage, introducing an ancient Chinese cosmology where a species could be aestheticized into a poetic metaphor and anthropomorphized as a human company. In this sense, this project contributes to the study of human-nature perception in ancient China and illustrates a special type of interspecies relations. All participants are welcome! We can divide into groups: those with reading knowledge of Mandarin can work together with those who are interested in the subject without the reading skill. The translated work will be published online with credits to each contributor.

1-4 PM: ¿Cachai? ¡Sí, po! Translating Chilean Spanish Survival Guides, Spanish <-> English. Coordinator: Nicole Houser, RELI (nmh101@english.rutgers.edu). In-person and virtual. Register here. Join Rutgers English Language Institute (RELI) and our partners at the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH) in hybrid workshop translating Chilean Spanish survival guides created by USACH students. Participants will be invited to share and contribute their own versions of slang across languages and cultures.

2-3 PM: Workshop for speakers of all languages: Is Everything Translatable? Coordinator: Josué Rodríguez (jdr187@rutgers.edu). In-person and virtual. Register here.

    • In this workshop students will explore how translation works to find equivalents — that is, words or concepts that seem “equal” or similar to each other across languages and registers. When do we expect translations to “copy” meaning and why does this expectation become frustrated? How do we, in our day-to-day adaptations of unique words across cultures, already theorize and address this fundamental issue? Beginning with recent podcasts, images, videos, and other modes in addition to text, students are invited to identify, translate and share what they define as “untranslatable” in their daily linguistic and cultural experiences. Together we will generate alternative ways of approaching meaning-making as we reflect on questions of audience, reception, medium, and language. Speakers of any and all languages welcome!

4 PM: Closing reception and raffle. Coffee and wrapped cookies served!

… And more! Check this space for further updates, and write to any of the project coordinators for further information (or to the event coordinators at: chloe.kitzinger@rutgers.edu, ramirez.laura@rutgers.edu)

 

Translate-a-thon 2022 is generously supported by the Center for European Studies, the Program in Comparative Literature, the Language Center, the Spanish/Portuguese Translation Program, the Rutgers English Language Institute/Rutgers Writing Program, and the Departments of Spanish & Portuguese, German & Russian, History, English, French, AMESALL, and Asian Languages & Cultures. Heartfelt thanks to all our sponsors!