Dr. Robert Byrd, School of Religion, who in preparation for his talk consulted, among other things, several (!) websites dedicated to translating the Bible into Klingon, will deliver a presentation on the subject of biblical translations, especially as they have a bearing on teaching the Bible in the classroom.

Members of the School of Humanities Faculty will consider the problems and opportunities connected to the use of translation in the classroom, speaking to such issues as the writer as translator, the limitations placed on learning by the selectivity of translations, the challenge of translating philosophical texts, and the question of modernizing earlier forms of English.

Danielle Alexander, English Department, will read from her translation of two French short stories by Algerian writer Leila Sebbar. She will also discuss the different philosophies she considered in approaching the task of translation, especially the dual translation problem posed by the use of a “literary” language also associated with a nations colonial past.

Members of Belmont’s Writing Faculty will discuss various means by which writers “translate” experience in the process of composing fiction, memoir, and orally-transmitted stories.

Open Invitation

Sponsored by the Max Kade Foundation

Dr. Eva Hoffman, child of Holocaust survivors and an immigrant from Poland herself, will discuss the experience of emigration and the many kinds of translation and self-translation that requires; she will also consider issues of translating traumatic events of the past in terms of the language of the present, the subject of her most recent book, After Such Knowledge.

Dr. Roger Ames, author of a new translation of the Tao te Ching, will consider the problem of rendering accurate translations of philosophical works, specifically whether it is more important to strive for literal renditions of the language or to refashion the text for the target audience.

Dr. Aviram, who after twenty years teaching is returning to school to study of problem of why we can’t make good translation machines, will offer examples of bad translations before engaging the problem of developing programs capable of context-dependent disambiguation.

Following a viewing of Bill Murray’s comedy about working overseas, Dr. Cochran, School of Business, will lead a discussion of the challenges and benefits of living and conduction business in a global environment.

Members of the planning committee bring our third Humanities Symposium to a close with insights gained on translation and other acts of cultural interpretation.