Professor Lawrence Venuti visits Workshop in Translation Class
By Clara Giorgis ‘21
On Monday, March 29th, Professor Lawrence Venuti of Temple University visited the Russian Department’s Workshop in Translation to give a short lecture and lead a discussion on translation theory. Working through a series of examples drawn from Biblical translations, Professor Venuti presented his argument for a hermeneutic model of translation, in which the process of translation is seen as an act of interpretation in and of itself, inherently resulting in a different text from the original. Professor Venuti also fielded questions on how to approach particularly tricky areas of translation, such as translating slang and absurdist poetry. The Workshop in Translation seminar is currently subtitling a film, and the advice and new perspectives shared by Professor Venuti are sure to help them along the way.
