Postclassicisms 2018-1019: Translating Antiquity

Session 5: Translation Nation

We will be reading the introduction, ninth chapter (“Phoenician Islands”), and conclusion from Josephine Quinn’s book In Search of the Phoenicians (Princeton UP, 2017), as well as two articles by Gonda van Steen on the political resonances of the translation of Aeschylus in two different moments in modern Greek history: “Enacting History and Patriotic Myth: Aeschylus’s Persians on the Eve of the Greek War of Independence” (2007) and “‘You Unleash the Tempest of Tragedy’: The 1903 production of Aeschylus’ Oresteia” (2007). Readings can be found here.

Lunch will be provided but please RSVP to Eileen Robinson.

Though we hope for participants’ regular attendance, we encourage everyone in the Princeton community who is interested in a given session’s topic to attend. Please come prepared for intensive discussion of the texts.