On Magicking a Mountain: World-Making in Literary Translation
2026 Ida Herz Lecture
Translation
IV Lisbon Spring School in Translation Studies
Schreiben für die Katz – Robert Walsers Feuilletons
Lukas Bärfuss, Susan Bernofsky, Ayşe Polat
Gespräch und Kurzlesungen
Moderation: Reto Sorg
Grußwort: Livia Leu, Botschafterin der Schweiz
Der Schweizer Autor Lukas Bärfuss, die amerikanische Literaturwissenschaftlerin Susan Bernofsky sowie die kurdisch-deutsche Filmemacherin Ayşe Polat stellen Robert Walsers Feuilleton-Texte vor – gemeinsam mit Reto Sorg, Leiter des Robert Walser-Zentrums in Bern. Anlass ist das Erscheinen von Walsers gesammelten Feuilleton-Texten in der »Berner Ausgabe« (Suhrkamp). Jahrzehntelang widmete Walser sich dem »Schreiben für die Katz« und verfasste mit „denkbar aufrichtigstem Vergnügen“ Beiträge für Blätter aller Art, von Bern bis Berlin, von Prag bis Wien.
Conversation / Gegenüber Talks
Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain with Susan Bernofsky & Veronika Fuechtner, sponsored by Goethe Institute Boston
Review / Morten Høi Jensen, The Master of Contradictions
“Thomas Mann’s Pessimistic Humanism,” a review of Morten Høi Jensen’s The Master of Contradictions, published in The Nation
Review / Han Kang, We Do Not Part
“Best Friends Forever,” a review of Han Kang’s We Do Not Part (translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris), published in Korean Literature Now
Day of Translation
Day of Translation panel: Interspecies Translation
What is gained in narrating from the perspective of a polar bear, a clam, or famously, a cockroach? This panel explores the idea of “interspecies translation” and how the languages of the animal, aquatic, and otherwise natural world inform the way we approach narrative and storytelling. Is it more freeing to be a clam than a woman? What happens to a polar bear’s voice when it’s translated both across species and across languages? Will we ever be able to understand animal language? Will they ever understand ours?
Join Susan Bernofsky (translator of Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear, New Directions), Bonnie Chau (All Roads Lead to Blood, 2040 Books), Anelise Chen (Clam Down, One World), and Kate Zambreno (Animal Stories, forthcoming from Transit Books) in a conversation about what translation can teach us about understanding the animal world and vice versa. Moderated by Dr. Elisha Cohn (Milieu: A Creaturely Theory of the Contemporary Novel, Stanford University Press).
Interview / Slow Travel Berlin
Interviewed with Katy Derbyshire by Kendra Atleework for Slow Travel Berlin
Tim
Translation of “Tim” by Sharon Dodua Otoo (co-translated with Sharon Dodua Otoo and Tyrell Otoo), published in The Baffler
One Novel – Two Days – Many Readings
A workshop on Susan Bernofsky’s new translation of Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain
For registration information, contact Department of German Studies, Dartmouth College
Longlist, Barrios Book in Translation Prize
Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel by Yoko Tawada has been named a semi-finalist for the Barrios Book in Translation Prize awarded by the National Book Critics Circle
Interview / taz
Interviewed by Simone Schmollack for taz (die tageszeitung)
