Written by Deborah Dawkin, Phd student

A translator’s creativity and originality can sometimes represent a threat to the integrity of a literary text, argued Professor Lance Hewson (University of Geneva) in the first lecture of the Translation in History Series 2015–16 on 8 October 2015. Professor Hewson is the author of the recently published An Approach to Translation Criticism (Benjamins, 2011), in which he re-evaluates the possibilities of translation criticism. This Translation in History lecture focused on the 1946 translation of Madame Bovary by Gerard Hopkins.

Hewson suggested that while it is easy to “to rubbish” a translation, translation criticism should engage with the translation and try to understand the choices made by the translator and their effect at the time. To do this, he suggested, we need a clear interpretive framework.

© Mary Hinkley/UCL

Hewson’s framework is indeed thorough, comparing the translated text with other translations as well as the original text, both on a macro- and micro-level. The emphasis of his work is on identifying how changes (shifts) made in translation affect the reader’s experience and open up or close off potential interpretations.

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Written by Marchu Girma and Dauda Barry

Professor Lewis Gordon speaks to attendees

It’s a Saturday, and yet the infamous Pearson Lecture Theatre at UCL (named after Karl Pearson, the ‘father’ of Eugenics) was filled with excitement. The long awaited conference and workshop on Frantz Fanon organised by the UK Sartre Society and Rethinking Existentialism project, was about to begin.

We were a widely diverse group from all walks of life and from near and far. To my right sat a sister who travelled all the way from Amsterdam just for this conference, while to my left was a brother and a student from the University of Leeds. We made this journey and sacrificed our Saturday to hear something new about Fanon.

The honoured guest, Professor Lewis Gordon, an expert on Fanon, was a very down-to- earth, softly spoken academic, wearing a t-shirt that said: “If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything.” He stood in the centre of the room, shoe-less, and spoke to us as if we were long lost friends.

The main topic of his lecture was Fanon’s thoughts on violence. At the age of 14, Fanon witnessed an autopsy of a dead woman. This became a defining moment in his life. For Fanon, it was not a corpse that was being dissected but a woman who was being violated. Later, when attending medical school, he found the act of performing an autopsy difficult. His professor’s advice was to think of it as if it were ‘a dead cat’.

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 Written by Erzen Llapashtica

How do you say scone? Is it a “skone’ or a “skon”? Or is that red, round, juicy fruit you make ketchup out of, a ‘tomaeto’ or a ‘tomatoe’. These were just a couple of the many questions raised by ‘Celebrating vernacular English’, a talk by Jonnie Robinson (Lead Curator, Sociolinguistics and Education, British Library) that was part of a joint conference organised by UCL, Oxford University and the British Library to celebrate English Grammar Day.

Well, as an answer to the question above, 65% of Brits pronounce scone as “skon’ with the remaining 35% enunciating the tea time treat as a “skone”, with the word having no right or wrong pronunciation due to the persons regional tongue or accent.

English Grammar Day 2015

Robinson further explored the wide variations of the English language, and how it’s spoken, whether it be grammatical, phonological or lexical, as well as its tolerance (and intolerance) within society. He spoke of how some individuals enjoy the diversity of vernacular English, while others hold a stiff upper lip against its use. Furthermore, he mentioned how the linguistic variations in how people speak – yet not write – English is “a reflection of shared and diverse identities” – as well as being a “source of mutual pride” among those who speak a particular regional dialect.

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UCL students and staff now have a brand new, flexible performance space in which to explore new ideas and take risks – with the only limit being their imaginations.

That’s how Simon Cane, Director of UCL Public & Cultural Engagement (PACE), framed the Bloomsbury Studio at its official launch on 17 June.

Simon Cane. Photo: Richard Davenport.

He described his PACE team as “the air moving between things” and “a unique offer in higher education” in the way that they bring together teaching, performance and museums at UCL.

As a result, the team is perfectly placed to manage the programme of the studio, which seats 60–80 people, and they will be looking particularly for performance and activity that puts the spotlight on UCL research.

Speaking at the launch event, President & Provost Professor Michael Arthur praised the Bloomsbury Theatre as “an integral part of our being and the student experience” and a venue at which he had seen dance, opera and musical theatre productions that were “spectacularly professional”.

So he was very pleased that the Transforming UCL programme had provided an opportunity to improve the Bloomsbury Theatre through the creation of an additional studio space – describing it as “a tremendous development for us” and “an opportunity to work with students to generate a vibrant cultural life”.

The studio will also provide a permanent home for popular events run by the Public Engagement Unit such as Science Showoff and Bright Club.

And as a Bright Club stalwart, Professor Sophie Scott (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) was the perfect choice to speak next about the benefits of being involved with public engagement activity.

Describing herself as someone who has “always been a massive show-off”, she admitted that when she first heard about Bright Club, she thought it was “the single worst thing I’d ever heard of”. However, a colleague egged her on to take part and, immediately after her first Bright Club, she said to herself: “I’ve absolutely got to do this again”.

She went on to explain how it had helped her not only to improve as a speaker – leading to radio appearances and talks at TED conferences – but also as a scientist in the way that interacting with the public had prompted her to ask different questions.

Professor Scott also mentioned how she encouraged the younger researchers in her team and we saw how this could bear fruit in the form of a short set by linguistics PhD student Nick Neeson, who gave us a witty, engaging introduction to his specialism, phonology – the study of sound patterns in speech.

The final speaker of the evening was comedian and presenter of Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage, Robin Ince.

Remarking on how he had been coming to the Bloomsbury Theatre for nearly 30 years and performing at it for 10, he hailed it as a place that had enabled him to combine “the ridiculous and the experimental”, while exuding “a fantastic sense of people working together”.

In particular, he said, it had given him the chance to work with UCL scientists such as Jon Butterworth and Andrea Sella while incorporating everything from bongo playing to tap dancing and wave particle dualities – often in the same evening.

As an example of just how eclectic the studio’s programme is likely to be, the launch event was rounded off by a performance from ukulele cabaret group, Martini Encounter.

Watch a slideshow of the event: