'The Bearer-Beings': Portable Stories in Dislocated Times
Convened by Marina Warner, Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative European Literature, 2016 and President of the British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA) and Prof. Matthew Reynolds, Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT). This initiative is kindly supported by the Metabolic Studio.
The workshop began with presentations from Tamim Al-Barghouti on the rhythms and structures of Arabic poetry, and from Kate Clanchy on her trans-lingual creative writing teaching at Oxford Spires Academy. It then opened into sessions of collaborative translation from the Arabic: stories from the Arabian Nights (including verse passages), folklore, literature from Sicily from the time when Arabic was one of the island's languages, and poetry byTamim al-Barghouti. Foreshadowing the larger Bearer-Beings event the next day, this workshop looked at the act of translation as a form of transmission.
Videos of the presentations, readings and discussion are available here.
See also the second Bearer-Beings event here.
These Oxford-based workshops feed into a 3-day workshop in Sicily, 26-28 September 2016, that will engage with the expression, circulation, translation, and re-telling of stories in contemporary refugee and multicultural communities.
