Writing in the Expanded Field

Join us for a Yale Translation Initiative talk with poet and artist Alessandro De Francesco and translator Max Norman ‘18, on October 28 at 5 p.m.

Alessandro De Franceso is a poet, artist, and scholar, who has been blurring the boundaries between poetry and artistic practice for over fifteen years. His dense writing explores in unexpected ways the relations between history and nature, thought and meaning, images and feelings, language and space, often using sophisticated typography (what he calls “augmented writing”) as well as virtual reality technology and digital sound processing. From 2008 to 2015 Alessandro was an artist in residence and visiting professor at the European Graduate School. He is currently the professor of Creative Writing at the Turin Academy of Fine Arts as well as a visiting professor of interdisciplinary studio practice at the Institute of the Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB) and at the National Academy of Fine Arts “La Cambre” in Brussels. He holds a PhD from the University of Paris-Sorbonne.

Translator Max Norman ‘18 is a graduate student in the departments of Comparative Literature and Classics. He is an associate editor at “The Drift”, and writes about literature, art, and culture. He was formerly a culture correspondent for The Economist.

De Francesco and Norman will discuss the process of making E agglomerati, degli alberi o (And agglomerations, of trees or,), de Francesco’s new book of poetry, translated by Norman and released by Mousse Publishing in 2022. Expect a lively discussion of the relationship between poetry, philosophy, and technology, and problems of translating the avant garde.

A reception will follow.