Courses in Translation and Related Topics at Yale
Graduate Courses
CPLT 5004
Proseminar in Translation Studies
W 1:30 – 3:25, Jayne Tylus and Robyn Creswell
This graduate proseminar combines a historically minded introduction to Translation Studies as a field with a survey of its interdisciplinary possibilities. The proseminar is composed of several units (Histories of Translation; Geographies of Translation; Scandals of Translation), each with a different approach or set of concerns, affording the students multiple points of entry to the field. The Translation Studies coordinator provides the intellectual through-line from week to week, while incorporating a number of guest lectures by Yale faculty and other invited speakers to expose students to current research and practice in different disciplines. The capstone project is a conference paper-length contribution of original academic research. Additional assignments throughout the term include active participation in and contributions to intellectual programming in the Translation Initiative.
CPLT 4150/HUMS 1480/NELC 3260/NELC 6330
The Quran and Its Interpreters
T TH 11:35-12:50, Shawkat Toorawa
We spend the first third of the course reading the Quran, studying its written compilation and redaction; its narrative structure; its rhetorical strategies; its major themes; its connections to and departures from other Scripture; translation and the problems associated with it. In the next two thirds we engage with the rich tradition of commentary, exegesis, and interpretation it has occasioned—legal, literary, theological, and visual, from classical readings and materials all the way up to the modern period and present day. We also look at the ways the Quran has been interpreted in different media, notably the visual arts. We pay special attention to certain surahs (chapters), including The Heifer (2, Baqarah), Joseph (12, Yusuf), The Cave (18, Kahf), Ya Sin (36), and several prominent short surahs. Topics include the Devil; Jesus and Mary; Moses and the Children of Israel; the nature of the Divine; the status of women and men; the impact of the Qur’an on political and religious thought; and its influence of the Qur’an on literature.
MDVL 8103/REL 7103
The Medieval Bible
M 1:30-3:20 Leppin/Dillon
The Bible has been transformed throughout its history. Commentaries helped believers understand the text according to the standards of their time, sermons applied Biblical doctrine to the existential needs of the faithful, and images made it visible. Translations even changed the text remarkably at times. The course traces the Bible’s trajectory in the Middle Ages, including a guided journey into the Latin originals that opens up access to language and concepts even for those who never learned ancient languages. The course includes visits to the Beinecke and the Yale University Art Gallery to kindle a feeling for the material basis of medieval Biblical culture.
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
CPLT 0040/ITAL 0040 First Year Seminar
Faithful Or Traitor? Introduction To Translation Studies
MW 4-5:15, Serena Bassi
This first-year seminar introduces key concepts in Translation Studies, an interdisciplinary area of study that thinks critically about the job of translating and interpreting; language and textual transformation; multilingualism and multiculturalism. While their essential work is rarely acknowledged, translators and interpreters make it possible for us to move, create, trade, consume, and communicate across languages and cultural borders. Throughout history, translators and interpreters have been represented as language nerds, reckless explorers, cultural diplomats, bridge-builders, war heroes, counterfeiters, traitors, spies and enemies within. But in a globalizing society, translation is not just a job for some; it can also name a diffused state of cultural hybridity, flux and permanent change. In this class, we look at translating as both a real-life job and a popular metaphor for negotiating for meaning; mediating between cultures; and co-existing through differences. You learn about debates in Translation Studies in a highly interdisciplinary way: by discussing some of the seminal texts in translation theory from the Middle Ages to today; by reading novels and watching films with translators and interpreters as characters; by engaging with the biographies of real-life cultural mediators throughout history; by learning to think about translation as an ubiquitous philosophical concept in our day and age; by leading creative translation workshops at Yale University Art Gallery; by asking topical questions about the critical role of translation and translators in spite of the rise of AI and in the war-torn world we live in.
Enrollment is limited to first-year students. This class is ideal for students with an interest in global languages, world literature, and transnational cultural history.
CPLT 0200/FREN 0120
World Literature After Empire
T 1:30-3:25, Jill Jarvis
An introduction to contemporary French fiction in a global perspective that will transform the way you think about the relationship between literature and politics. Together we read prizewinning novels by writers of the former French Empire—in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean—alongside key manifestos and theoretical essays that define or defy the notion of world literature. Keeping our focus on questions of race, gender, imperialism, and translation, we ask: has literature gone global? What does that mean? What can we learn from writers whose texts cross and confound linguistic and national borders?
Enrollment limited to first-year students.
No previous knowledge of French is required.
REL 5581
The Gospel Of Mark
M 9:20-11:10, Y. Lin
Through reading and analysis of the Greek text of the Gospel of Mark, this course aims to familiarize students with the cultural-historical context of the gospel and critical text and translation issues. Secondary readings and class discussion also focus on literary, theological, and explicitly contextual interpretations of the text. Greek reading components available to interested students. Area I.
ASL3151
ASL Theatre And Production Arts
Wed 11:35-12:50, Julia Silvestri
ASL Theatre and Production Arts examines Deaf performance traditions and the role of theatre and media in shaping cultural expression and community engagement. The course builds advanced ASL through performance and collaboration, asking students to analyze, shape, and explain their linguistic and artistic choices across genres. Coursework includes dramaturgy, translation, and adaptation, drawing on archival materials and historical sources to develop original ASL performances. Students explore rhythm, movement, and visual patterning as tools for expressive control and audience engagement. Across a series of public-facing productions, meaning is examined as it is constructed and interpreted across languages, modalities, and performance contexts. During this process, students collaborate and co-create with Deaf artists and audiences to situate their performances within contemporary Deaf cultural contexts.
ENGL 3708
Nineteenth Century Literature in the Age Of Empires
TTH 11:35-12:50, Olivia Lingyi Xu
This course situates nineteenth-century British literature within a context of global transimperial geopolitics, a period when empires (including but not limited to the British) were competing, collaborating, and colliding with one another. While British imperialism reached its height in the long nineteenth century, it did so in constant negotiation with other imperial formations, including French, Ottoman, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, as well as anti-colonial resistance movements across Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Rather than treating “Victorian literature” as a self-contained national tradition, we read it as embedded within networks of trade, migration, war, diplomacy, and translation that reshaped the modern world. Possible authors include Thomas De Quincey, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and H. G. Wells.
BLST 1918/ER&M 2549/PSYC 3536/SOCY 1703
Is That Racist? Theory And Methods for Diagnosing and Demonstrating Racism
instruction and times vary by section
How do we know when something is racist? And how do we prove it to those who are skeptical? This course is designed to allow students to go beyond armchair pontificating about racism by exploring a broad range of ways social theorists have defined the term and methods they have used to demonstrate it. Together, we have the opportunity to read, critique, and synthesize scholarship from across disciplines, with the goal of refining our own definition of the term. To accomplish this, we examine the stakes of calling something racist, who benefits and who suffers from a given definition, and how racism functions across contexts (mostly) within the United States. We also learn about popular methods for demonstrating that an idea, feeling, behavior, person, or institution is racist and evaluate how evidence about racism (or lack thereof) can obscure a diagnosis of racism—or lead to an erroneous one. Throughout the course, we take opportunities to translate the theoretical and methodological lessons we learn to the world we live in today, from popular culture to dinner table conversations.
While there are no statistical prerequisites, students will be asked to think about the logic of statistical analysis and should be comfortable reasoning about numbers.
FREN 3300/HUMS 4364
The World Of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables”
T 1:30-3:25, Maurice Samuels
Considered one of the greatest novels of all time, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862) offers more than a thrilling story, unforgettable characters, and powerful writing. It offers a window into history. Working from a new translation, this seminar studies Hugo's epic masterpiece in all its unabridged glory, but also uses it as a lens to explore the world of nineteenth-century France—including issues such as the criminal justice system, religion, poverty, social welfare, war, prostitution, industrialization, and revolution. Students gain the tools to work both as close readers and as cultural historians in order to illuminate the ways in which Hugo's text intersects with its context. Attention is also paid to famous stage and screen adaptations of the novel: what do they get right and what do they get wrong? Taught in English, no knowledge of French is required.
FREN 4950
The Senior Essay in the Intensive French Major Translation Concentration
Dominique Brancher (DUS plus a faculty advisor)
First term of a yearlong research project completed under the direction of a ladder faculty member in the Department of French and resulting in a translation of considerable length (roughly 60 pages), from French to English, with a critical introduction of a length to be determined by the student in consultation with the advising ladder faculty member. Materials submitted for the translation concentration cannot be the same as the materials submitted for the translation courses. For additional information, consult the director of undergraduate studies.
HUMS 1280/CPLT2000/NELC 1280/NELC 5280
From Gilgamesh To Persepolis: Introduction to Near Eastern Literatures
TTh 1:05-2:20, Kathryn Slanski
This course is an introduction to Near Eastern civilization through its rich and diverse literary cultures. We read and discuss ancient works, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, and “The Song of Songs,” medieval works, such as A Thousand and One Nights, selections from the Qur’an, and Shah-nama: The Book of Kings, and modern works of Israeli, Turkish, and Iranian novelists and Palestianian poets. Students complement classroom studies with visits to the Yale Babylonian Collection and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, as well as with film screenings and guest speakers. Students also learn fundamentals of Near Eastern writing systems, and consider questions of tradition, transmission, and translation. All readings are in translation.
JAPN 1600
Reading Stories in Modern Japanese
TTH112:35-12:50, Luciana Sanga
Spanning texts from the end of the Nineteenth Century to the present day, this course bridges the gap between reading Japanese literature in a language class environment and reading Japanese literature with fluency for academic purposes and indeed, for pleasure. Students learn best practices for carefully reading and translating texts in Japanese, such as how to pay attention to aspects of form and style, the effective use of physical and digital dictionaries, and how to understand editorial annotations and translator notes. As students continue to build reading competencies and speed, they also encounter different approaches to literary works: methods of close-reading, the importance of historical context, bibliographic methods, and the relevance of author biography. Readings are in Japanese with discussion in English.
AMST 3304
Ethnography and Journalism
W 4-5:55, Madiha Tahir,
While each is loathed to admit it, journalism and ethnography are cousins in some respects interested in (albeit distinct) modes of storytelling, translation, and interpretation. This methods course considers these shared grounds to launch a cross-comparative examination. What can the practies of each field and method—journalism and ethnography—tell us about the other? How do journalists and ethnographers engage ideas about the truth? What can they learn from each other? Students spend the first four weeks studying journalistic methods and debates before shifting to ethnographic discussions, and finally, comparative approaches to writing; data and evidence; experience and positionality.
CPLT 2320/FREN 3400
Paul Celan
M 1:30-3:25, Thomas Connolly
An undergraduate seminar in English exploring the life and work of Paul Celan (1920-1970), survivor of the Shoah, and one of the foremost European poets of the second half of the twentieth century. We will read from his early poems in both Romanian and German, and his published collections including Der Sand aus den Urnen, Mohn und Gedächtnis, Von Schelle zu Schelle, Sprachgitter, Die Niemandsrose, Atemwende, Fadensonnen, Lichtzwang, and Schneepart. We will also read from his rare pieces in prose and his correspondence with family, friends, and other intellectuals and poets including Bachmann, Sachs, Heidegger, Char, du Bouchet, Michaux, Ungaretti. A special focus on his poetic translations from French, but also Russian, English, American, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and Hebrew. Critical readings draw from Szondi, Adorno, Derrida, Agamben, and others. Readings in English translation or in the original languages, as the student desires. Discussions in English.