Lotsawa Translation Workshop Opening Remarks
Marcus Perman2022-11-16T23:40:41-07:00Conference organizers Holly Gayley (University of Colorado, Boulder) and Dominique Townsend (Bard College) welcome participants and mentors. Holly thanks Tsadra Foundation for supporting the conference, and shares her inspiration for facilitating sustained dialogue about various genres of Tibetan literature. Dominique introduces the venerable speakers for the opening keynote.
Marcus Perman, Director of Research for Tsadra Foundation, encourages translators in their work by articulating the relevance of translated publications for the Western Tibetan Buddhist audience. Ending with a moment of silence for two bright translators who recently passed away (Chris Stagg and Gen Tsering Dhundup Gongkatsang), Marcus helps start the workshop with […]
Linguistic Hospitality
Migmar Lama2022-11-16T23:40:44-07:00Dominique Townsend (Bard) and Lucas Carmichael (University of Colorado, Boulder) present Paul Ricoeur’s essay, “On Translation“, as a starting point for discussion of linguistic hospitality. After a brief introduction to the essay, small group discussions on the ethics of translation, the dynamics of retranslation, and “resistance to the foreign” focus the conversation. The small groups then share a summary of their exploration and find that Ricoeur’s optimism in his encouragement to give up the idea of a perfect translation became the basis for small group conversation and further discussion.
Reflections on the Translation Process
Migmar Lama2022-11-16T23:40:44-07:00Jules Levinson (Independent), John Canti (Padmakara, 84000), Dominique Townsend (Bard), Lama Jabb (Oxford), Sarah Harding (Tsadra Foundation), and Nancy Lin (84000) share their reflections about the process of oral and written translation from some of the first instances of Tibetan language being rendered into English in the United States through the first Lotsawa Translation Workshop in 2018. The discussion weaves through topics like facing the fear of “imposter syndrome” as part of the process of translation, the importance of “kindness to the reader”, and how translators relate to the concept of form. The speakers create a gentle, encouraging, and humorous […]
Lotsawa Translation Workshop Closing Remarks
Migmar Lama2022-10-26T05:24:17-06:00In this short session, Dominique Townsend (Bard), Holly Gayley (University of Colorado, Boulder), Marcus Perman (Tsadra Foundation), Janet Gyatso (Harvard), Kurtis Schaeffer (UVa) and Lama Jabb (Oxford) offer their gratitude and brief reflections to responders, participants, and sponsors. Four participants of the workshop share their impressions of the weekend including having developed a deeper understanding of what is at stake in, and the challenges of, the practice of translation, and the importance of one’s disposition as an ambassador of a text’s content and context. Overall, attendees expressed appreciation of the collaborative process and how the community of translators of Tibetan […]
Working Together: Approaches to Collaboration and Negotiation
Marcus Perman2022-11-16T23:34:10-07:00This discussion session was designed for maximum audience participation and covered topics provided by the audience, as well as touched on issues of collaboration with native speakers of either source or target language, competition between individuals and within groups, negotiation (with collaborators, but also with and between author and audience, translator and reader), and other questions of restriction, qualification, and inclusion. Some of the topics brought up by the audience included: differing intentions within groups, networking and connecting with a team, how to work together with one’s own guru, agreeing on hierarchies of correspondence, large-scale collaborations, and online forums.
