A Lecture by Shaul Bassi (Ca’Foscari, University of Venice)
Monday, October 17th, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Rubenstein Library 249
Category: Events
The Global Jewish Modernism Lab hosted Ann Goldstein on September 8, 2022. At this event, the celebrated translator read selections from a few of her many translated pieces and answered questions regarding her work. She began her reading with the beginning of the chapter “Hydrogen” from Primo Levi’s text The Periodic Table. This was followed by a section from Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend, and she finished with a selection from the workReturn to Latvia, an autobiographical text by Marina Jarre whose translation is forthcoming.
Several professors and graduate students across various departments at Duke then posed pre-circulated questions related to the intricacies of translation. Aarthi Vadde asked Ms. Goldstein what a translator must do differently when working with texts which stray from normalized or standard forms of the respective language being translated (citing A Clockwork Orange or Ulysses as salient cases). To this, Ms. Goldstein alluded to the difficulties she has faced in translating dialect from Italian to English, utilizing her translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Street Kids. For passages rife with dialect, she strove to make English appear more informal to differentiate it from the more formalized aspects of the narrative itself, though she avoided utilizing “slangy” language (her wording), as it can quickly date a translation. According to Ms. Goldstein, “Books don’t age, but translations do.”
Saskia Ziolkowski inquired how Goldstein’s view of Jewish Italian culture, literature, and tradition has developed through the process of translating certain Jewish Italian authors, such as Primo Levi, Jarre, Morante, Sonnino, and Piperno. Ms. Goldstein answered that much of her understanding about Jewish Italian culture came from the act of translation, though she had read translations of Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table and If This is a Man in English before learning Italian. She noted the Italian Jewish phenomenon that many of the authors she has translated did not consider themselves to be Jewish or place much importance upon their Jewishness until they had to register with authorities as such during the Second World War (she cited Jarre being forced to register as half-Jewish as one such example, but noted that Jarre was ultimately more interested in her Waldensian heritage than her Jewish heritage). Additionally, for some authors, such as Sonnino, the cultural dissonance he experienced as a southern Italian who moved to Genoa was more striking than any perception of difference as a Jew. Ms. Goldstein reiterated how her translation work has provided her with a deeper sense of the importance of Jewish Italian culture.
Members from the audience also posed questions for the translator, often related to concrete aspects of her work, such as the drafting process. One such question centered around how Ms. Goldstein is able to transfer the soundscapes of Italian into English, though the two languages are so different. She replied that her primarily principle as a translator is to stay as close to a literal translation of the text as possible, as this allows the rhythm of the target language to best replicate the rhythm and tone of the original. Another related question was how Ms. Goldstein knows which words to retain in the Italian for the the English translation. The translator answered with an example of the term stradone, which often appears in Ferrante’s texts. Utilizing an English term like “main street” or “big street” as the equivalent would be too reminiscent of an American city, which would take the reader out of the world of the novel. Ms. Goldstein stated how important it is for the reader to retain the feeling that they are in Italy as they read the text. Thus, with words such as these, she feels the need to briefly introduce the term in her translation, then retain the Italian word to maintain the correct tone and connotation.
The final question, by Alyssa Granacki, related to Ms. Goldstein’s foray into Italian, to which she replied that her exposure to Dante in college left a lasting impression. She decided some years later to learn Italian so that she would be able to read Dante in the original, and Dante eventually led to modern authors such as Ferrante.
Speakers: Paul B. Jaskot (Duke University), Karen Auerbach (UNC Chapel Hill), Shaul Bassi (Ca’ Foscari, Venice).
The second dialogue from our “What is…” series explores historical, geographical, and cultural representations of the ghetto, ranging from 16th century Venice, through Eastern Europe inter-war period and Nazi Germany, all the way to modern Chicago. By shedding light on countless misconceptions and misrepresentations of communal spaces throughout history, our invited speakers think beyond the commonplaces surrounding ghettos and, collectively, advocate for the need to re-imagine and re-claim their depiction.
Paul Jaskot’s intervention is centered around the spatial qualities of ghettos, which are often overshadowed by the cultural and ideological connotations they carry. As an attempt to re-imagine the specific, urban model of ghettos, he challenges their widely accepted characterization as spaces that are segregated, compulsory, and enclosed by offering a revised model that accounts for exceptions he situates in Nazi Germany, for instance. These three defining terms are transformed into functional processes that allow for a broader, more inclusive representation of ghettos: sorting, as a way of dividing communities without entirely segregating them from all others; policy, as ghettos are not always a result of enforced law, but also of governmental and societal guidelines; spatial, as ghettoization always requires some sort of spatial expression that is active rather than definitive.
Karen Auerbach reframes the initial question of “What is a ghetto?” by focusing on the journey of the term, which underwent notable transformation between the period preceding World War II and that of German-occupied Europe. The use of the word ghetto to signify Jewish suffering reduces its meaning to the horrors of the Holocaust, casting a shadow over inter-war Eastern European Jewish communities among which ghettos provided a place in society and a sense of belonging. An example of this reality can be observed in a series of documentaries about the Jewish population in various cities of Poland, directed by Jewish brothers Saul and Yitzhak Goskind. The narrative offered by the brothers-directors depicts a vibrant, communal life of the ghetto, a word that was used to encompass the collective ethos of Eastern European Jewish culture in 1939.
To conclude, Shaul Bassi provides six possible working definitions for the word ghetto, using Venice as main example. 1) Ghetto as a place of misunderstanding, where the incompatibility of individuals is negotiated, while creating a plethora of misconceptions throughout history; 2) ghetto as a palimpsest, whose opaqueness invites the superimposition of other Jewish or non-Jewish narratives; 3) ghetto as a screen, onto which one can project one’s own feelings, memories, and narratives; 4) ghetto as a performative space, where national celebrations of political and civic identity take place, as well as theatrical performances; 5) ghetto as a creative and educational space, allowing for the creation of temporary communities of scholars, artists, and students; 6) ghetto as a thinking machine, functioning as a space in which educational and performative practices can reactivate ghettos’ cultural capital that has been largely forgotten.
ReJoyce 2022: 100 Years of Multi-lingual Play
Trieste-Zurich-Paris 1914-1921 is the last line of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and the signature of this experimental novel, published first in France in 1922. As we mark the centenary of Ulysses, we celebrate its multi-lingual play.
The small pop-up exhibit in the Perkins Circulation area invites you to discover some of Joyce’s works in the collections of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
On February 8: an opportunity to discover the pop-up exhibit with colleagues.. Come enjoy something of the sounds of Ulysses’ inventiveness in English, français, italiano, + a song and maps too. The event is planned in person.
February 8, 12:00-1:30 PM, Carpenter Conference Room, Rubenstein Library 249
(It’s never too late to celebrate a birthday…)
Thursday, February 3rd, 4:00-5:30 p.m. “What is a ghetto?”
The second event in the “What is…” series of the Global Jewish Modernism Lab. Each dialogue involves the examination of one term and its representation and use in diverse geographical and historical contexts. Each conversation will involve at least two scholars, one from Duke and one from another institution. Our Fall 2021 dialogue was “What is Jewish Modernism?” and our Spring 2022 dialogue is “What is a ghetto?”
Speakers: Karen Auerbach (UNC Chapel Hill), Shaul Bassi (Ca’ Foscari, Venice), Paul B. Jaskot (Duke).
When: Thursday, Feb. 3, 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Where: https://duke.zoom.us/j/94543659670
