ALTA40: REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS

ALTA40: REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
October 5-8, 2017, in Minneapolis, MN

Join us for a celebration of ALTA's 40th Anniversary!

Keynote Speakers: Lydia Davis & Tim Parks

Translation necessarily reflects a dual culture, that of its source and its destination. Yet it is never a perfect mirror reflection, instead refracting off a multitude of distinct or connected histories, values, expectations, and languages as it moves between and across cultures. Somewhere within that web of bouncing light lies the creativity and agency of the translator, as well.

2017 marks the 40th anniversary of ALTA, an opportunity to celebrate our enduring commitment to literary translation, and to ponder the changes in the environment of our practice and discipline. Our theme of REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS proposes many avenues of thought: How can translations channel, transmit, or alter the expressive capacities of language? How do ideological or theoretical prisms intermediate what gets translated, or how translations are produced and read? Does a retranslation, like a refraction, open the original to new readings? Can translation, in light of these themes, provide new ways of learning and discovery in the classroom? Our conference aims to explore, complicate, refine our understanding of these themes.

The annual American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference is the largest gathering of literary translators all year. In a different city each fall, hundreds of literary translators, editors, students, professors, and others come together for three days of panels, workshops, roundtables, readings, and meetings with editors.

**Editors attending the conference strictly as a representative of their press or publication may contact Managing Director Elisabeth Jaquette (elisabeth @ literarytranslators.org) to confirm eligibility to receive a coupon code for this reduced registration fee.