Two Upcoming GW MEMSI Events

GW MEMSI, the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute, promotes and provides a venue for intellectual inquiry and debate for faculty and students. Headed by English Prof. Jeffrey Cohen, MEMSI sponsors a number of yearly events–including some geared toward the wider community of students and scholars. Here are two upcoming MEMSI events of particular interest:

Ecological Movement: A panel co-sponsored by the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute and the Program in Graduate Studies in English at GW
Friday, February 24, 2102
Rome 771, 5:30 p.m.

Speakers: Stacy Alaimo (University of Texas at Arlington)
Lowell Duckert (GWU)
Jennifer James (GWU)
Eileen Joy (Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville).

More information about speakers may is here.

Cultural Translations: Medieval / Early Modern / Postmodern: A GW MEMSI Symposium

9:30 am – 4:00 pm, Sunday, March 25, 2012

Location (on GW campus) TBA

Texts travel. Empires are lost and won, and stories are marred and rediscovered through cultural translation–the transformation of genres, manipulation of ideas, and linguistic translation. Cultural translation is one of the most significant modes of textual and cultural transmission from medieval to modern times. Estrangement and transnational cultural flows continue to define the afterlife of narratives. Translation, or translatio, signifying “the figure of transport,” was a common rhetorical trope in early modern Europe that referred to the conveyance of ideas from one geo-cultural location to another, from one historical period to another, and from one artistic form to another.

Over the past decade “translation” as an expansive critical concept has greatly enriched literary and cultural studies. In response to these exciting new developments, this one-day symposium brings together leading scholars from the fields of medieval and early modern studies, history, film, English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and comparative literary studies to engage in transhistorical and interdisciplinary explorations of post/colonial travel, globalization, and the transformation of texts, ideas, and genres.

Schedule: Sunday March 25, 2012
Venue: TBA
9:20 – 9:30 am Coffee and Tea

Medieval
Chair: Jonathan Hsy (GW, English)
9:30-9:50 am Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Toronto, English and Medieval Studies): Translating the Past: World Literature in the Medieval Mediterranean
9:50-10:10 am Marcy Norton (GW, History): Parrots in Translation: The Amerindian Contribution to the European Pet
10:10-10:50 am Discussion
10:50-11:10 am Coffee

Early Modern
Chair: Lowell Duckert (GW, English)
11:10-11:30 am Barbara Fuchs (UCLA, English and Spanish & Portuguese): Return to Sender: “Hispanicizing” Cardenio
11:30-11:50 am Christina Lee (Princeton, Spanish & Portuguese): Imagining China in a Golden Age Spanish Epic
11:50 am -12:30 pm Discussion
12:30 – 1:30 pm Lunch

Postmodern
Chair: Alexa Alice Joubin (GW, English)
1:30 – 1:50 pm Peter Donaldson (MIT, Literature): The King’s Speech : Shakespeare, Empire and Global Media
1:50 – 2:10 pm Margaret Litvin (Boston, Arabic and Comparative Literature): What Can Arab Shakespeares Teach the Field of World Literature?
2:10 – 2:50 pm Discussion
2:50 – 3:00 pm Coffee

Roundtable
Chair: Lynn Westwater (GW, Italian)
3:00 – 4:00 pm Roundtable on Cultural Translations
Suzanne Miller (GW, History)
Peter Donaldson (MIT)
Barbara Fuchs (UCLA)
Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Toronto)