DIHSR UNIL - Colloque

Maya Burger (Maya.Burger@unil.ch)

Nicola Pozza (Nicola.Pozza@unil.ch)

In choosing the topic of transmission through translation, this symposium calls upon its speakers to examine in historical perspective the criteria - implicit and explicit - that have until today determined the selection of Indian literary works, their translations and the impact of these translations on the construction and transmission of knowledge about India.
While this symposium is mainly centred on Hindi literature and its translation into other Indian and foreign languages, it will also create the opportunity for the participants to question the privileged role of this literature and its relation to other languages of the Subcontinent, be it in the Indian context or in the context of departments of Indian Studies at European or American universities. The periods and contexts will cover the time from the "medieval" (or early modern) period up to contemporary productions.
    The aim is twofold: Firstly, a historical and critical reflection on the past and present role played by scholars as interpreters of culture in the transmission and representation of Indian cultural references through the medium of Hindi writing. Secondly, a prospective reflection on the means to be adopted in order to provide a realistic and plural picture of Indian culture, apart from stereotyped clichés concerning spirituality or technology, and at the same time allowing this knowledge to reach a wider public, through representative translations.
From a methodological point of view, the symposium opts for a multidisciplinary approach and for an opening up of closed categories (such as religion, politics, literature, etc.) through a critique of how they are employed.

    The theme can be developed in different topics, such as:

    -a study of the criteria (past and present, historical and personal) used in the selection of Hindi works by publishers, translators and/or scholars

    -"canonisation" of some Hindi texts in India and abroad

    -the role these texts - or other forgotten ones - have played in the historiography of cultural India and in the histories of Hindi literature

    -visibility of Hindi vis-à-vis other Indian languages through its predominant presence in western departments of Indian Studies

    -cultural and political issues relating to the translation of Hindi works

    -their impact on the representation of Indian culture in the American and the various European cultures

    -import, and export, of cultural symbols, concepts, characters, movements, etc. through these texts

    -their use and representation in the media and in cinema

The language of the symposium will be English. The organizers intend to publish the collected papers in a volume after the Symposium.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Palais de Rumine (6, Place de la Riponne)

7:00 pm - 8:15 pm

Public Lecture (Hindi, French) with Geetanjali Shree and Annie Montaut on the occasion of the publication of the French translation of Geetanjali Shree's Mai

N.B. La lecture publique aura lieu en français et en hindi.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7

UNIL, Amphimax, room 414

9:30 am - 10:00 am Welcome Address

10:00 am - 10:30 am Maya Burger (Univ. of Lausanne)
"Encountering Translations"

10:30 am - 11:00 am Purushottam Agrawal (Union Public Service Commission of India; New Delhi)

"Translating Kabir and his 'Biography'"

Tea-Break

11:30 am - 12:00 am Florence Pasche Guignard (Univ. of Lausanne)
"Go West, Mira! Prudish Translations and Global Mysticism"

12:00 am - 12:30 am Panel discussion, Chair: Danielle Feller (Univ. of Lausanne)

Lunch

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Thomas de Bruijn (Leiden Univ.)
"Lost Voices: the Creation of a Monologic Image of Indian Literature through Translation"

3:00 pm - 3:30 pm Ulrike Stark (Univ. of Chicago)
"Selected Texts, Neglected Texts: What Book History Can Teach Us"

Tea-Break

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm Sudhir Chandra (Historian, New Delhi)
"Translations and the Making of Colonial Indian Consciousness"

4:30 pm - 5:00 pm Galina Rousseva-Sokolova (Sofia Univ.)
"Behind and beyond the Iron Curtain: Reception of Hindi Literature in Eastern and Central Europe"

5:00 pm - 5:30 pm Panel discussion, Chair: Peter Schreiner (Univ. of Zürich)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

UNIL, Amphimax, room 414

9:30 am - 10:00 am Annie Montaut (INALCO, Paris)
"India, rather than Bharat... Translation as a Claim for Opening to Others a Literary Truth rather than a Product to the Cultural Market"

10:00 am - 10:30 am Rainer Kimmig (Univ. of Tübingen)
"The Savage Silence of Different Languages or Translating from South Asian Literatures"

Tea-Break

11:00 am - 11:30 am Nicola Pozza (Univ. of Lausanne)
"Translating for and from India: 'Agyeya' as an Emblem of the Situation of Modern Hindi Literature"

11:30 am - 12:00 am Panel discussion, Chair: Philippe Bornet (Univ. of Lausanne)

Lunch

2:00 pm - 2:30 pm Susham Bedi (Columbia Univ., New York)
"Looking in from the Outside: Writing and Teaching in the Diasporic Setting"

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Geetanjali Shree (Writer, New Delhi)
"The Translating-Writing Dialectic: A Literary Trajectory"

Tea-Break

3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Madan Soni (Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal)
"Before the Translation"

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm Panel discussion, Chair: Martine Hennard Dutheil de Rochère (Univ. of Lausanne)

4:30 pm - 5: 30 pm Closing discussion, Chair: Maya Burger and Nicola Pozza

N.B. All papers are in English. With the written contribution by Girdhar Rathi (Writer, New Delhi): "Compunctions in the Act of Translation".

Purushottam Agrawal, Union Public Service Commission of India, New Delhi

Susham Bedi, Columbia University, New York

Philippe Bornet, University of Lausanne

Maya Burger, University of Lausanne

Sudhir Chandra, Historian, New Delhi

Thomas de Bruijn, Leiden University

Danielle Feller, University of Lausanne

Martine Hennard Dutheil de Rochère, University of Lausanne

Rainer Kimmig, University of Tübingen

Annie Montaut, INALCO, Paris

Florence Pasche Guignard, University of Lausanne

Nicola Pozza, University of Lausanne