As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m teaching a new course this semester, with a title I have borrowed (with permission) from Benjamin Paloff at the University of Michigan. “How to Translate Anything” is a course I have been threatening to teach for many years, and I’m finally doing it, beginning on Monday of… Continue reading How to Translate Anything
Category: Latest Post
Those Taciturn Swedes
Prepping for my spring course “How to Translate Anything,” I came across this insight from David Bellos in his Is That a Fish In Your Ear?: Filmmakers dependent on foreign-language markets are well aware of how little spoken language can actually be represented in on-screen writing. Sometimes they choose to limit the volubility of their… Continue reading Those Taciturn Swedes
Box No. 26
As I mentioned in my legacy post last week, some of the books in the Heim collection are labeled with both Michael’s and Priscilla’s names, often with a date. Others have Mike’s name only. Quite a few, it turns out, have only Priscilla’s name in them. Their home library was a collective affair, with titles… Continue reading Box No. 26
Teaching Russian Culture: weeks 1-3
In an earlier post I explained a revised approach to a course I’ve taught for many years, Introduction to Russian Culture, a general survey for undergraduate students, many of whom have little background with the topic and most of whom are fulfilling a world civilizations requirement. This is a course I’ve taught at two institutions… Continue reading Teaching Russian Culture: weeks 1-3
Legacy
Priscilla Heim, Michael Henry Heim’s widow, was looking for a place for his books, and I volunteered to take them and find homes for them. Seventy-six boxes showed up last week, and I started going through them on Friday. As some readers of this blog will know, Mike was my teacher at UCLA, a mentor… Continue reading Legacy
Tolstoy versus God on Humor
I’ve been thinking lately that Tolstoy’s relative lack of a sense of humor might have something to do with his habitually assuming the perspective of God. This is unlike Dostoevsky, whose humanism includes at least some of the absurdity of our place on earth in it. This can be funny (“funny Dostoevsky” — kha, kha,… Continue reading Tolstoy versus God on Humor
Translation, Exile, and ALTA
The annual American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference, the virtual portion of which is taking place this weekend, always makes me think deeply about translation. After a roundtable today organized by Diana Thow and Jamie Richards, which left me feeling stimulated but also isolated and nostalgic for the in-person ALTA conferences of the past, I… Continue reading Translation, Exile, and ALTA
Kin praise from the music world
A friend from across the country sent me a note today to say that Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna’s NPR music newsletter had plugged my translation of Jergović’s Kin, which made me say what!? Here’s what seems to have happened. They contacted a handful of their favorite musicians and asked them to tell them about… Continue reading Kin praise from the music world
Topping 5000 listens, and a new album!
Ba Ren Chi hit 5000 listens earlier this week, a little less than a year from when I started using Jamendo as its main distribution platform. The other one I use is LANDR, which puts the music into a lot of other places (Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, AppleMusic/iTunes, YouTube Music) but doesn’t seem to get as… Continue reading Topping 5000 listens, and a new album!
Autumn Hill Books’ new website and new titles
Our hosting platform was out of date and non-secure (didn’t have the “s” by the “http” in the URL), so we needed to remake it. The site just went live yesterday, and we’re still working out the bugs, but please have a look at the new features and the new books in the past couple… Continue reading Autumn Hill Books’ new website and new titles
