Holocaust Writing and Translation

关于大屠杀的文章，无论是目击者证词、自传还是文学作品，几乎都是翻译阅读的，对这些作品的批判性讨论几乎总是指已出版和未出版的翻译。然而，很少有人对这些文本的翻译所引起的问题进行批判性讨论。证言和自传写作经常被讨论，要么是关于证人的真实性，要么是关于不可能用语言呈现大屠杀的经历并将其传达给其他人。其他借鉴后结构主义理论的更具哲学性的方法认为，作为文明灾难的大屠杀带来了一场普遍的语言危机，在没有不可接受的意识形态解释或沦为庸俗的情况下，真正的意义不再可能实现。考虑到这些讨论在很大程度上与语言理论有关，令人惊讶的是，翻译问题从未引起如此少的批判性关注。本项目源于这样一个假设，即翻译研究的见解对大屠杀写作的研究具有新的和重要的意义。与会者将调查以下问题：为什么对大屠杀写作的批判性讨论花了这么长时间才开始研究翻译；翻译过程如何影响对大屠杀写作的阅读和接受；翻译策略如何受到大屠杀在所考虑的文化中地位的变化的影响，以及翻译本身是如何影响大屠杀的；翻译研究可以告诉我们大屠杀是如何以不同的方式写入国家、文化、群体和个人身份的。该项目的重点将放在第一代作家的文本上，即那些对大屠杀有直接亲身经历的人；正在考虑的文本体裁将是目击者描述、自传体文本以及处理大屠杀的小说和诗歌作品。还将审议涉及大屠杀代表性问题的理论著作，这些著作经常以翻译形式阅读。语料库将包括安妮·弗兰克、普里莫·莱维、伊莉·威塞尔、露丝·克鲁格和保罗·西兰等作家的知名和有影响力的文本，以及不太知名的作家的作品和仅以选集出版的目击者描述。该项目的目的是建立一个由多个研究领域的学者组成的网络，这些领域包括翻译研究、大屠杀研究、生活写作和大屠杀文学学者，以广泛的语言。该项目将由一个核心小组管理(Peter Davies，爱丁堡；Andrea Hammel，苏塞克斯；Piotr Kuhiwczak，Warwick；Jean Boase-Beer，UEA；Marion Wters，Heriot-Watt)，他们将协调一系列研讨会，收集书目资源，并与伦敦维纳图书馆等机构组织公众参与活动。讲习班将使网络中的参与者聚集在一起，以便讨论和制定一个理论框架和文本语料库，并努力争取一个重大研究项目。计划举办四个研讨会：2010年4月，爱丁堡大学：“大屠杀写作和翻译：术语和创伤问题导论”；2010年7月，苏塞克斯大学：“自传、生活写作和翻译”；2010年12月，伦敦大学：“大屠杀写作中的体裁问题及其对翻译的影响”；2011年4月，伦敦日耳曼和罗曼史研究所：“目击者记述和翻译”。

Writing about the Holocaust, whether consisting of eyewitness testimony, autobiography, or literary works, is almost always read in translation, and critical discussion of these works almost always refers to published and unpublished translations. However, there has been very little critical discussion of issues arising from the translation of these texts. Testimonial and autobiographical writing is often discussed either in terms of the authenticity of witness and the direct and unmediated rendering of experience in language, or in terms of the impossibility of rendering the experience of the Holocaust in language and communicating it to others. Other, more philosophical approaches that draw on post-structuralist theories assume that the Holocaust as a catastrophe of civilisation has brought about a general crisis of language in which authentic signification is no longer possible without unacceptable ideological interpretations or descending into kitsch. Considering how much of this discussion is concerned with theories of language, it is striking that the issue of translation has never attracted so little significant critical attention.This project proceeds from the assumption that the insights of Translation Studies have something new and significant to bring to the study of Holocaust writing. The participants will investigate the following issues: why it has taken so long for critical discussion of Holocaust writing to begin to investigate translation; how processes of translation affect the reading and reception of Holocaust writing; how translation strategies are affected by, and themselves affect, the changing status of the Holocaust in the cultures under consideration; what the study of translation can tell us about the different ways in which the Holocaust is written into national, cultural, group and individual identities.The project's focus will be on texts written by 'first generation' writers, that is, those who had direct personal experience of the Holocaust; textual genres under consideration will be eyewitness accounts, autobiographical texts and fictional and poetic works that deal with the Holocaust. Also under consideration will be theoretical works that deal with the issues of Holocaust representation, and which are often read in translation. The corpus will consist of well-known and influential texts by writers such as Anne Frank, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Ruth Kluger and Paul Celan, as well as works by lesser-known writers and eyewitness accounts published only in anthologies.The aim of the project is to establish a network of scholars from several fields of study: Translation Studies, Holocaust Studies, and scholars of Life Writing and Holocaust Literature in a broad range of languages. The project will be managed by a core group (Peter Davies, Edinburgh; Andrea Hammel, Sussex; Piotr Kuhiwczak, Warwick; Jean Boase-Beier, UEA; Marion Winters, Heriot-Watt), who will coordinate a series of workshops and gather bibliographical resources, as well as organising public engagement events with bodies such as the Wiener Library, London. The workshops will bring together the participants in the network in order to discuss and develop a theoretical framework and a corpus of texts, and to work towards a bid for a major research project. Four workshops are planned: April 2010, University of Edinburgh: 'Holocaust Writing and Translation: Introducing Issues of Terminology and Trauma'July 2010, University of Sussex: 'Autobiography, Life Writing and Translation'December 2010, UEA: 'Questions of Genre in Holocaust Writing and the Impact on Translation'April 2011, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, London: 'Eyewitness accounts and translation'This workshop will include a public event run in conjunction with the Wiener Library.