Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Symposium on Persian Language and Literature "Roads (Not) Taken: Literary Translation in Iran"


 Center for Persian Studies and Culture     Dec 7 2018 | 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM Humanities Gateway (HG) 1002

Please join us on Friday, December 7, 2018, 9:45 am - 5:30 pm in UC Irvine's Humanities Gateway (HG) 1002 for Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Symposium on Persian Language and Literature titled "Roads (Not) Taken: Literary Translation in Iran".

For more than two centuries literary translation has played a key role in Iran’s intellectual life and literary production. Literary translation has also impacted Iran’s political, social, and cultural trends. The participants in this conference are invited to analyze how literary translation has influenced or shaped Persian literature and culture, or they may wish to examine specific literary movements and/or cultural phenomena in relation to translation. Among other possible questions that might be raised are: which source languages (European as well as non-European) have dominated the terrain of literary translation in Persian? What role has relay/indirect translation played in the history of literary translation in Iran? How theories of translation inform translator’s choices and craft? How has literary translation been affected by censorship? Are there relations between development of literary genres and translated literature? The participants will also be invited to contribute to a volume of essays to be published after the conference.

Schedule:

9:45 am
Opening Remarks: Touraj Daryaee, Maseeh Chair and Director of the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture

10-11:15 am
Conceptual and Theoretical Frames
Chair: Nasrin Rahimieh, (University of California, Irvine)

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak (University of Maryland-College Park), “In Pursuit of the ‘Literary’ in Literary Translation”

George Lang (University of Ottawa), "Bringing Joseph Home: Theory and Pragmatics of a Translated Ghazal of Hafez-e Shirazi"

11:30 am -12:30 pm
Literary Translation Then and Now
Chair: Soheila Kian (University of California, Irvine)

Aria Fani (University of California, Berkeley), “The Daneshkadeh Literary Association as a Translation Laboratory in Early Twentieth-century Iran (1916-1919)”

Amir Ahmadi Arian (City College  of New York), “Period of Absorption: The Predicament of Contemporary Literary Translation in Iran”

12:30-1:30 pm
Lunch Break

1:30-3:00 pm
Politics of Translation
Chair: Jane O. Newman (University of California, Irvine)

Babak Tabarraee (University of Texas, Austin), “All Those Persian Salingers: An Autoethnographic Analysis of Unauthorized and Multiple Literary Translations in Iran”

Omid Mehrgan (Johns Hopkins University), “The Awakening of Persian from Its Uneasy Dreams: For Example, Kafka’s Maskh”

Mariam Rahmani (University of California, Los Angeles), “Does Queerness Translate into Persian?”

3:15-5:00 pm

Anomalies of Literary Translation
Chair: Liron Mor (University of California, Irvine)

Amy Motlagh (University of California, Davis), “Getting It Wrong: The Fecundity of (Mis)translation in Iran”

Babak Mazloumi (University of California, Irvine), “Reading Through Palimpsest: Relay Translation Revisited”

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This symposium has been made possible by the generous donation of Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute and its Founder and Chair, Dr. Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali.

This event is organized by Dr. Nasrin Rahimieh, Howard Baskerville Professor of Comparative Literature at UC Irvine.

This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

Venue's address: UC Irvine, Humanities Gateway Building (4100 Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697), Room HG 1002.

Closest parking structures are Mesa Parking Structure and Student Center Parking Structure. Parking permits are required at all time at UC Irvine's campus and daily or hourly permits could be purchased from manned or automated kiosks in the parking structures.