Author: russellv

H is for Hawk

During the breaks at the ALTA conference in Tucson at the beginning of November, I found myself often answering questions about my Sea of Intimacy. This makes a lot of sense, as it was at the ALTA in Tucson in, I want to say 2021, that I first spoke about it with friends there, sitting… Continue reading H is for Hawk

My Roman History: A Review

Alizah Holstein’s 2024 book My Roman History: A Memoir (published by Viking Penguin) takes a long view of the author’s journey to a failed academic career as a historian of medieval Roman history. The journey is the main story, the drive and wonder behind it especially, including what otherwise might be esoteric questions of power,… Continue reading My Roman History: A Review

AI and Literary Translation: A Global Consideration

I’m just back from the 48th annual ALTA conference, in Tucson, AZ. At the panel I participated in (thank you to co-panelists Lisa Bradford and Steve Bradbury!), Amy Stolls, formerly of the NEA, suggested that a short guide to the use of AI in literary translation might be helpful to, as she put it, “people… Continue reading AI and Literary Translation: A Global Consideration

Propp at last

This only took us a little more than a decade. The image is linked to the publisher website (click on it to see more). And here’s the publisher’s description: Nearly seven decades after the English translation of Morphology of the Folktale, one of the most influential scholarly books on folklore, its sequel is finally available in… Continue reading Propp at last

Writing Above

Which is a way of translating “epigraph,” one of the genres I’ve been exploring as I write my Sea of Intimacy. In the process, I’ve come up with some rules to give myself some productive constraints. The constraints, I’m feeling, are needed because they — epigraphs, that is — are a little too fun to… Continue reading Writing Above

Teaching the Sea of Intimacy

Because I was already thinking in such terms, when a new “sustainability literacy” requirement was created at my institution last year, I created a new course, Sustainability in the Adriatic: Human–Nature In the Sea of Intimacy (SLAV-S365) and requested and received the designation to allow the course to count for the new requirement. It also… Continue reading Teaching the Sea of Intimacy

A Boost and Patience

I applied for and received an IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Fellowship for my Sea of Intimacy for the coming year. These are year-long awards with monthly meetings of the small group of awardees and the Associate VP in charge of the program (in the coming year there are eight of us), a week’s worth… Continue reading A Boost and Patience

Translating Atrocity

When I told my friend Mira Rosenthal that I’d taken on a translation job for a book on Jasenovac, she didn’t miss a beat. “And how are you protecting yourself?” she asked. Naive me hadn’t even considered this, even though I know the words and the scenes always seep inside you when you’re translating them,… Continue reading Translating Atrocity

Predicting Shoe Sizes in Higher Education

When I was a graduate student, I studied in the USSR as Gorbachev was beginning his first reforms, and I had the opportunity to witness first-hand the shortcomings of the command economy. This was the top-down model by which Soviet planners tried to provide for the needs of everyone equitably and without waste. It worked… Continue reading Predicting Shoe Sizes in Higher Education

Where Donkeys Go

Sea of Intimacy keeps surprising me. Sometimes it seems to be about more than what I thought. Other times, it zeros in on something narrow, specific, which then turns out to be more than what I thought. For instance, donkeys. I discovered the names of islands derived from donkeys in the Adriatic last summer while… Continue reading Where Donkeys Go