The world may be more connected than ever in some ways, but communicating across languages can remain a challenge — especially with creative works like novels, plays and poetry.
A literary translation course in Emory College of Arts and Sciences this spring introduces students to the art of preserving the original meaning when translating creative works, even when definitions cannot be exactly replicated. The literary translation workshop combines creative writing, high-profile guest lectures and a capstone project.
Led by German studies faculty Miriam Udel and Didem Uca, the course kicks off with readings in canonical translation philosophy and theory. Students then choose a literary text that interests them — in any source language of their choice — and use class strategies, revision and workshop feedback to translate the text into English.
“People talk a lot about what has been lost in translation,” says Udel, a scholar of Yiddish and the Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies. “One of the emphases in this course is what can be found through translation.”
Balancing translation and literary trade-offs
This spring marks only the second offering of the course. The 12 students currently enrolled are encouraged to translate from a wide array of source languages, including German, Cantonese, Latin, Spanish, French and Hindi.
Udel and Uca first instruct students to dig into both a favorite word and a seemingly untranslatable word from their source language. Students then complete two creative writing assignments to find a way to allude to the word’s meaning. Then, they submit a proposal for an individual, major translation project they will complete over the next several weeks.
Any language works, as long as the student has pre-existing proficiency. When a language is less familiar to Udel and Uca, they turn to other Emory College faculty for help.
“There are amazing resources and really generous colleagues who have been helpful in guiding the students with their own language-specific questions,” Uca says.
Professor Miriam Udel, left, says this course emphasizes what can be found through translation.
Jokes can also be a challenge to translate, as moving between languages often eliminates double entendres and ambiguity. Teaching students to strike a balance between translation and innovation is a primary goal of the class, Udel says.
“The process of bringing a text from one language into another always involves some trade-offs,” Udel says. “There’s a polarity between whether the translator is in a subservient position to the original author or if they become a co-creator. The perspective that [Professor Uca and I] are trying to impart to students is to land on the side of empowerment and textual co-creation.
“There are going to be sacrifices,” Udel adds, “but there are also moments of incredible problem solving, when you figure out, as a translator, something that feels equivalent or feels like it has an equivalent impact to what the original words do.”
Gaining expert perspectives
The course also features guest speakers who work in translation and translation studies.
Teaching professor of Spanish Lisa Dillman, who has earned multiple recognitions for her translations of work from Pilar Quintana, met with students to discuss interpretation and intertextuality: how to maintain the relationship between two literary works when they have been translated from source material.
Emory alumni who have continued to pursue translation as a career have led virtual meetings with students in the course. Jake (Yankl) Krakovsky 14C and Yide (John) Cai 23C are two current playwrights, translators and theater practitioners who shared their views on the intersection of adaptation and translation.
While not an Emory alum, students also recently heard from Emily Wilson, the first woman to execute a full translation of “The Odyssey” in English. During Wilson’s virtual visit, she detailed how she made word choice and meter decisions while translating Homer’s epic tales. Before they had the opportunity to ask Wilson questions, students engaged with various translations of Homer’s text in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.
Uca says translation can ultimately be understood as an extended metaphor.
“Translation is watching somebody do a dance across the room and you have to get to the same point, but you can’t use any of the same moves,” she says. “You’re including cultural information that helps the text retain its specificity and does justice to the author’s lived reality and the character’s lived reality — while also creating a path for the reader in the language into which it’s being translated.”
A negotiation of meaning and identity
Grayson Culliford, a sophomore majoring in finance and German studies, enrolled in the course after being in Uca’s other classes. Culliford’s capstone project — which is partly inspired by her experiences speaking German at home with her grandmother — seeks to translate three previously untranslated folk songs from German into English.
Professor Didem Uca, left, credits fellow Emory professors for lending their expertise and helping enrich the translation experience.
“What surprised me most about the project is how every element of the songs, like the repetition and the rhyme and the particular sounds of the words are so intentional,” she says. “It’s easy to overlook those elements sometimes.”
Culliford adds that the intimate nature of the workshop has helped her keep up with revising and adapting her project each week. Although she plans to pursue a career in finance, she hopes this experience will strengthen her cross-cultural communication.
“I wouldn’t have expected how translation can really be a part of everything,” Culliford says.
Samuel Shafiro, an alumnus who graduated in December 2024, took the class when it was first offered in spring 2023. As a heritage Russian speaker, Shafiro translated Russian children’s poetry into English for his capstone project.
He now works in national security, and he credits the class with furthering his passion for translation, including a current effort to translate his grandfather’s Soviet memoirs for his family.
“I can think about three classes at Emory that I took that I still think about once or twice a week. This is one of those classes,” Shafiro says.
Shafiro adds that while the class was a challenge, concepts like foreignization (preserving elements from a source language) and domestication (adapting elements from a source language) are ideas he still applies in his daily life and interactions.
“[Poetic translation] is a skill that I don’t think I used in any other class — but has now stuck with me.”
Photos by Sarah Woods, Emory Photo/Video.