A Translation Seminar with Johannes Göransson

In this talk, I will discuss how translating Swedish poet Aase Berg caused me to question the assumptions about translation I'd absorbed as a student in American academia - the model of the idealized original reader, the idea of translation as a replication of an original message - and prompted me to begin to think of both poetry and translation in terms of process, circulation and deformation. I now think of poetry as forming a zone of affect I like to call - after a Berg poem - a "deformation zone."

Johannes Göransson is the author of six books of poetry and the translator of six books from Swedish, including works by Aase Berg, Henry Parland and Johan Jönson. He edits Action Books and teaches at the University of Notre Dame. 

Professor Göransson’s talk is open to the IU community and the general public.

Coffee, tea, and cookies will be served.