Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication
Director
David M. Bellos
Executive Committee
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Philosophy, University Center for Human Values
David M. Bellos, French and Italian, Comparative Literature
Sandra L. Bermann, Comparative Literature
William Bialek, Physics, Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics
James A. Boon, Anthropology
Caryl G. Emerson, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature
Rubén Gallo, Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures
Adele E. Goldberg, Council of the Humanities, Linguistics
Daniel Heller-Roazen, Comparative Literature
Joshua T. Katz, Classics
Martin Kern, East Asian Studies
Paul B. Muldoon, Lewis Center for the Arts, Creative Writing
Daniel N. Osherson, Psychology
Alan W. Patten, Politics
Robert E. Schapire, Computer Science
Kim Lane Scheppele, Woodrow Wilson School, University Center for Human Values, Sociology
Jeffrey L. Stout, Religion
C. K. Williams, Lewis Center for the Arts, Creative Writing
Michael G. Wood, English, Comparative Literature
Associated Faculty
Nigel Smith, English
Sits with Committee
Christiane D. Fellbaum, Computer Science
Issues of translation and intercultural communication arise everywhere in the contemporary world: in literary texts, on the Internet, in television and film, in business, in science, and in questions of human rights. How does one translate the language of a poem? How does one translate a legal system or concepts such as democracy, or happiness, or scapegoat, or hero from one culture and language to another? How does the brain perform translation? What are the languages of artificial intelligence? How do we translate meanings across disciplinary as well as international borders—from genomics to dance, from philosophy to film?
The Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, an affiliate of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, seeks to allow students to develop skills in language use and in the understanding of cultural and disciplinary difference. Translation across languages allows access to issues of intercultural differences, and the program will encourage its students to think about the complexity of communicating across cultures, nations, and linguistic borders. For this reason, all students in the program must have proficiency in a language other than English, and must also spend time living in a country where that language is spoken.
Though the program takes linguistic translation as its base, and has a strong international flavor, it also encourages students to study other forms of discourse, the languages of different scholarly disciplines, for example, and seeks to foster lively debates among the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, material sciences, engineering, and the arts.
Requirements for Admission
In order to enter the program, a student should normally have completed at least two courses at the 200 level or above in a language other than English.
Program of Study
All students enrolled in the certificate program are required to successfully complete the following:
1. The program’s two core courses: TRA 200 Thinking Translation: Language Transfer and Cultural Communication and TRA 400 Senior Seminar in Translation and Intercultural Communication
2. Translation Practices. At least one course selected from a small roster of courses in different areas. For 2008–09, students may choose from among the following courses:
ANT 413 Cultures and Critical Translation
COS 402 Artificial Intelligence
CWR 305 Advanced Creative Writing (Translation) (also COM 355)
CWR 306 Advanced Creative Writing (Translation) (also COM 356)
LIN 216 Language, Mind, and Brain (also PSY 216)
PHI 317 Philosophy of Language
PSY 208 The Brain: A User’s Guide
3. Three additional elective courses selected from a list of approved courses (see below); substitutes must be approved by the program director. Students will be closely guided in their individual choices, and departments will be invited to make their own suggestions for their contributions to this certificate.
4. International Experience. Students wishing to achieve a certificate in the program will spend a year, a semester, or six weeks of the summer in a Princeton-approved course of study or internship program in an area where the chosen non-English language of proficiency is spoken.
5. Senior Thesis. Students in the program will write a senior thesis that incorporates issues of translation in one or more of its several senses. In departments where this option presents a difficulty, a student may petition to have another piece of independent work meet the requirement. Such projects may be completed, for instance, during a summer stay abroad.
Certificate of Proficiency
Students who fulfill all requirements for the program will receive a certificate of proficiency in translation and intercultural communication upon graduation.
Core Courses
TRA 200 Thinking Translation: Language Transfer and Cultural Communication (also COM 209) — Fall LA
An introduction to a wide range of issues arising in the many acts of translation that constitute the modern world. Built on a central thread of reflection about translating between languages—What is a language? What is meaning? What is meant by “equivalence”?—the course looks at issues in political theory, anthropology, artificial intelligence, cinema studies, the United Nations, literary publishing, and advertising that involve the boundaries of interlingual translation and intercultural communication to acquire a better understanding of the problems and practices of translation in the modern world. One 90-minute lecture, one 90-minute preceptorial. D. Bellos
TRA 400 Senior Seminar in Translation and Intercultural Communication (also COM 409) — Fall LA
Required for all students pursuing the certificate in translation and intercultural communication. This course returns to many of the questions raised in TRA 200, and incorporates the experiences of individual seminar members in their contact with different languages (in the broadest sense) and in developing their senior theses. Selected key texts in literature, film, politics, and philosophy will provide a shared ground for weekly discussions. Prerequisite: TRA 200. One three-hour seminar. M. Wood
Approved Electives
The following courses are currently approved as electives. Please check with the program director for an up-to-date listing.
ANT 413 Cultures and Critical Translation
*ANT 419 Reading Contemporary Ethnography
ARC 374 Computing and Representation
*ART 443 Global Exchange in Art and Architecture (also LAS 443)
COS 436 Human-Computer Interface Technology (also ELE 469)
EAS 447 Introduction to Japanese Linguistics
ECS 330 Communication and the Arts
ECS 340 Literature and Photography (also COM 340)
FRE 407 Prose Translation
GER 373 Modernist Colloquies: Photography and Literature
*HIS 355 Transformation of the Ancient World: Byzantium 500–1200 (also HLS 355)
ITA 307 Advanced Language and Style
JRN 447 Politics and the Media
LIN 306 The Structure and Meaning of Words
NES 202 Contemporary Arabic Literature in Translation
NES 214 Masterworks of Hebrew Literature in Translation (also JDS 214)
POL 364 Political Systems of the Middle East
PSY 309 Psychology of Language
*SLA 317 Russian Fiction, Foreign Film
SPA 307 Advanced Spanish Language and Style
*SPA 308 Spanish Islam, A.D. 711–A.D. 1492 (also NES 308/COM 343)
*THR 331 Special Topics in Performance History and Theory: Multicultural Theater Practices
VIS 342 The Cinema from World War II until the Present
VIS 343 Major Filmmakers
WWS 309 Media and Public Policy
*WWS 470 Special Topics in Public Affairs: Comparative Constitutional Law (also POL 391/CHV 470)
*One-time-only course