Experiential Translation Online Seminar: Workshop on Translation Multiples with Kasia Szymanska

Please join us for the next meeting of the Experiential Translation Online Seminar. We're delighted to welcome Kasia Szymanska who will present her new book  Translation Multiples, (PUP 2025) and lead a workshop On the Plurality of Translation and Reading Multiples out of Context.

The seminar is free and open to all. 

More about the ETOS

Abstract

How can we read texts composed of multiple translations? What happens when translators, poets, and artists expose the act of translation by placing parallel translation variants next to one another in a standalone work of art, presenting each as a legitimate version of the original?
In the first part of this seminar, Kasia Szymanska will introduce a new genre of writing called “translation multiples” (based on her recently published book Translation Multiples, PUP 2025). She will discuss how, by experiencing the plurality of translation, the creators and performers of translation multiples manage to tell their own stories — personal, critical, visual, or political. The political and subversive aspect of translation multiples will also be underscored with special reference to their pluralist potential. Just like experiential translation aims to challenge authority and hegemonic values in broader terms, so does the gesture of multiplying translations undermine exisiting hierarchies, ideas around translation and language, as well as local monopolies on discourse around certain texts and authors.
Later in the session, we will also try to read and discuss 2-3 short examples of translation multiples together in a way that requires no prior knowledge of any language other than English. The main premise of the exercise is to look at the wide array of translation variants in their own right, “out of context” and without trying to guess the original work, which arguably imitates the reading experience of audiences who may not know the source languages at play. In reading “translation multiples” in such an experiential way, we will try to see how an original text can diverge into variants, how a halo of possibilities can be displayed and embraced, and how this comparative and procedural practice can redefine our approach to reading translations.