Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
Approval for Dissertation Outline
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You must write a brief outline of your proposed dissertation. You should not repeat material used in your essays. Your outline should be in the region of 200-300 words, and should formulate a problem to be solved or an argument to be pursued, and should indicate the scope of the material to be covered. It should also be accompanied by an indicative bibliography containing at least 20 entries, 10 of which are annotated.
This outline should be approved by your dissertation supervisor (please ask your supervisor to sign at the bottom of this form), and then submitted to the Graduate Administrator no later than 5 June 2009.
Name of Student Natalia Karakulina
Name of MA Scheme MA in Literature
Name of Supervisor Leon Burnett, Philip Terry
Title (provisional) Abstracts and Extracts from a Very Average History. Creating Bridges between Cultures.
Outline of Proposed Dissertation
My dissertation is a creative writing work in which I collect and translate essays, sketches and diary entries of the Russian blog writer Hildegart. I chose her works because they represent the everyday life of Russian people, thus representing their customs and national heritage. These are the things that I believe form a crucial part in understanding other cultures, and that is why I would like to present her work to the English speaking world.
In my commentary I would like to address several topics. Firstly I will discuss the existing theories of translation, concentrating on where my particular translation fits in. Here I am mainly interested in discussing the possibilities for preserving what Lawrence Venuti called “domestic values” when translating from Russian into English.
The second part of my commentary concentrates on the author’s work. Since my dissertation concentrates on establishing connections between things which were once considered to have nothing in common, the genre and style Hildegart is writing in is particularly interesting to me, as it mixes memoir, fiction, autobiography as well as other genres in one work, and is itself similar to the so called Memory Maps project, which has recently become quite popular in the Western world.
Finally I find it significant that Hildegart publishes her work on the Internet – a resource easily available to everyone without regards for national borders, allowing her work to be accessible to anyone who has knowledge of the language. More than that, the medium of Internet creates a bridge between the writer and her audience, allowing the readers to comment on the author’s work and get a quick reply from the author.
To sum it up, in my dissertation I want to make visible the bridges which exist between different cultures as well as literary traditions and fashions, and I hope that my own translation of Hildegart’s work will serve as one more bridge between the two cultures.
List of Secondary Sources
Bassnett, Susan, “Culture and Translation”, in A Companion to Translation Studies, ed. Piotr Kuhiwczak and Karin Littau (Clavedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2007)
Benjamin, Walter, “The Task of the Translator”, trans. Harry Zohn, in Theories of Translation. A Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, ed. Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992)
In his essay Walter Benjamin approaches the more abstract theories about translation. He talks about the ‘universal’ language which lies in the base of each and every existing one. No single language can attain total similarity with this ‘universal’ one, but in comparison between one language and the other this universality can be represented. The task of the translator then is not to translate the original text into a same text in a different language, but to attain familiarity with the ‘universal’ language.
This essay will provide an important theoretical background to my dissertation, as recently it became very popular with academics looking into the issues of translation studies.
Billig, Michael, Banal Nationalism, (London: Sage Publications, 1995)
In this work Michael Billig discusses the notion of nationalism in twentieth century society. The book is an investigation of contemporary national identity. One of the most interesting arguments Billig makes states that nations are not formed by national borders, or, indeed, language barriers, but are in fact imaginary communities.
This idea seems very interesting to me, and I would like to apply it to my own research when defining the cultural background of the work I am going to translate. Particularly I would like to explore this idea in relationship to the Internet communities.
Castells, Manuel, The Rise of the Network Society. Second Edition, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000)
In this large volume Manuel Castells describes how networks created by media and global economy reflect and give birth to distinctive cultures, and how people become dependant on those new modes of informational flow.
Although Castells’ work is more oriented for research into economical and social issues connected to globalisation in general and rapid development of the Internet in particular, I still think that the work will be of use to me. Especially the chapters on the Internet and the sense of identity as well as the chapter on the culture of the network enterprise serve as useful insights into the particularities of Internet community.
Cronin, Michael, Across the Lines. Travel, Language, Translation, (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000)
This work explores the ‘nomadic’ theory of translation, comparing the translator to a nomad, who ventures into foreign lands. In this light the translator becomes an emblematic figure who straddles the borderline between cultures. The work focuses on the construction of identity, but in doing so it highlights the problems of mistranslation, loss of meaning, dangers of approximation, etc., which are of everyday concern to a translator.
I find Cronin’s work useful, not only because he envelops his ideas in a metaphor which is largely similar to mine (bridges across cultures), but because he addresses the simple questions which unavoidably rise as one attempts to translate from one language into the other.
Dillard, Annie, Teaching a Stone to Talk. Expeditions and Encounters (New York: HaprerPerennial, 1992)
In this volume Annie Dillard collects her short stories about her journeys (be it to the Pole or to the neighbouring house). She describes people she meets and events witnessed. This collection could be called “essays”, if it was not filled with vivid images created by narrator’s imagination.
Teaching a Stone to Talk is relevant to my work as I find Dillard’s way of writing very similar to that of Hildegart. In my commentary I would like to explore this similarity and connect both works to the Memory Maps project and its aims.
Fish, E. Stanley, “Interpreting the Variorum”, in Reader-Response Criticism. From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)
Holland N. Norman, “Unity Identity Text Self”, in Reader-Response Criticism. From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)
Iser, Wolfgang, “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach”, in Reader-Response Criticism. From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)
This essay focuses on the phenomenological theory of art. According to this theory a literary text is a combination of the actual text and the readers’ response to that text. Wolfgang describes different ways in which phenomenological analysis can be conducted, always focusing n the fact that literary work is not completely identical with the text, nor is it only the realisation of the text, but that its essence lies halfway between the two.
This essay is of interest to me, as it explores the relationships between the reader, the text and the author and provides me with a theoretical background for arguing how Blog publishing changed those relationships.
Jauss, Hans Robert, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982)
Jenkins, Henry, Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide, (New York: New York University Press, 2006)
Jenkins, Henry, Fans, Bloggers and Gamers. Exploring Participatory Culture, (New York: New York University Press, 2006)
In this book Henry Jenkins collects his essays which formulate his understanding of the interplay between the media industries and their consumers, with a focus on the increase of audience participation in the production of artistic works. Henry Jenkins especially focuses on the media of the Internet, highlighting how its use has changed the society in general and the operation of different media industries in particular.
Several topics raised in this book are of a particular interest to me. First of all the chapter on blogs will give me the theoretical background for discussing Hildegart’s LifeJournal page and publishing in the Internet blogs. This will lead to my next discussion about how the Internet made possible for the audience to influence the works of the publishers and how the ability to comment and contact the author directly changed the relationship between the reader, the product, and the writer.
May, Rachel, The Translator in the Text. On Reading Russian Literature in English, (Evanson: Northwestern University Press, 1994)
In her work Rachel May argues that translation reconstructs the source work on multiple levels: language differences, cultural divergences, questions of authorship, etc. Unlike many other translation studies theories which focus on one aspect of translation her work focuses on the dynamics of the translation reconstruction as a whole by closely analysing various English translations of Russian Novels.
May’s work is particularly interesting to me not only because it analyses various aspects of translation, but because its focus is on the translation from Russian into English, which is exactly what I am doing in my dissertation.
Nabokov, Vladimir, “Problems of Translation: Onegin in Engish”, in Theories of Translation. A Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, ed. Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992)
Newmark, Peter, Approaches to Translation, (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981)
Robinson, Douglas, Becoming a Translator. An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation. Second Edition (London: Routledge, 2003)
Sebald, Winfred Georg, The Rings of Saturn (London: Vintage Books, 2002)
Tomlinson, John, Globalisation and Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999)
This study focuses on the analysis of the relationships between the globalization process and contemporary culture change. One of the main claims Tomlinson makes in his work states that there is a general pattern of the dissolution of links between cultural experience and territorial location. He pays special attention to the relation of experience of first and third world societies and the special role of communication and media technologies in this process.
This work is of great value to me as it will provide insight into the role of the Internet in delivering the information and creating cultural communities.
Venuti, Lawrence, The Scandals of Translation. Towards an Ethics of Difference, (London: Routledge,1998)
This work explores the relationship between translation and the practices which (Venuti argues) both need and marginalize it. Moving between different languages, cultures, periods and case studies Venuti works towards the formulation of an ethics that enables translations to be evaluated with greater respect for linguistic and cultural differences.
This work will greatly help in my research as I work towards creating my own translation of Hildegart’s work. I am very interested in exploring the possibilities of preserving the cultural background of the work, while adapting it for the new audience.
Venuti, Lawrence, The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. Second Edition (London: Routledge, 2008)
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I have seen this outline, as well as the annotated bibliography accompanying this proposal, and agree to supervise the dissertation.
Signed by Supervisor Date
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