Category: Latest Post

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

Just Out at Bandcamp

Still love the name Bandcamp for a music streaming site. Anyway, pieces from the past couple of years that seem to go together: Squint Eye Specifically: Squint Eye (title piece 3:38), Prelude and Strut (5:23), Bolero Boogie (5:02), Samba Sailin (3:16), Exi Maxi (4:18), and Bells of Trieste (3:58). Just under 25 minutes all together.… Continue reading Just Out at Bandcamp

An Unpopular Passion

Earlier this week, I took part in an evening event called “On the Humanities in Dark Times.” There were about eight or nine of us, all humanities faculty at Indiana University. We’d been meeting to discuss the challenges of our moment, and someone suggested we read Hannah Arendt’s “On Humanity in Dark Times.” There was… Continue reading An Unpopular Passion