Close
From Borodino to Babel (and Beyond): In the Field of Russian-to-English Literary Translation
30 November 2020, 6:00 pm–7:30 pm
Join us for this event with Dr Muireann Maguire and Dr Cathy McAteer as part of the Russian Studies Seminar Series
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
SSEES
Location
-
Zoom
The Dark Side of Translation: 20th and 21st Century Translation from Russian as a Political Phenomenon in the UK, Ireland, and the USA” (RusTrans for short) is a project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 802437), and located at the University of Exeter. It is led by Dr Muireann Maguire (Principal Investigator) and Dr Cathy McAteer (Post-doctoral Fellow). The project investigates how individuals and governments exploit political aspects and resonances of writing and publishing (the so-called 'dark side' of translation) in order to gain cultural capital from literary translation. To study this process live and to observe how translated literary fiction fares in the contemporary publishing market, the RusTrans project has commissioned up to 12 new translations of contemporary Russian writing which will be marketed to publishers from autumn 2020 onwards. In this talk, Dr Maguire and Dr McAteer will discuss the wider research questions posed by the project, while outlining the challenges currently faced by Russian-to-English literary translators.
You can read more about the RusTrans project here: http://rustrans.exeter.ac.uk/about/
This event will be held on zoom, registration is free but essential.
About the Speakers
Muireann Maguire
Dr Muireann Maguire is Senior Lecturer in Russian at the University of Exeter and Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project “The Dark Side of Translation: 20th and 21st Century Translation from Russian as a Political Phenomenon in the UK, Ireland, and the USA.” She has previously taught Russian literature and language at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and at Queen Mary, University of London. Her academic specializations include the literary Gothic-fantastic, the representation of pregnancy and childbirth in literature, and the nineteenth-century Russian novel. Her book Stalin’s Ghosts: Gothic Themes in Early Soviet Literature was published by Peter Lang in 2012. She has published several literary translations, including a short story collection Red Spectres: Russian 20th-Century Gothic-Fantastic Tales (2012). A second collection, White Magic, is forthcoming in 2021. She is currently working on translating a novella by the poet Georgii Shengeli.
Cathy McAteer
Dr Cathy McAteer is Postdoctoral Fellow on the “Dark Side of Translation” project. She holds a PhD (2018) in Russian and Translation Studies from the University of Bristol, a Masters in Translation Studies (2011) and a first-class BA (Hons) in Russian (1996). Her main research interests lie in the field of classic Russian literature in English translation during the twentieth century, using archival material to shed new light on the people and processes behind historical commissions, specifically Penguin’s Russian Classics. Cathy has taught Russian-English translation for the MA Translation Studies programme at the University of Bristol since 2013. She has worked as a freelance commercial translator but has also translated the novella Timka’s Tale and a monograph on the Soviet sculptor David Yakerson. Cathy previously worked as an in-house translator in her role as Russia Co-ordinator at Nestle UK Ltd. Her academic monograph, Translating Great Russian Literature: The Penguin Russian Classics, is forthcoming from Routledge later in 2020.