I was mesmerized by Susan Harris and Chad W. Post! It was such a pleasure to meet with them and talk. I got to ask them so many questions, and they always answered with the best disposition and huge smiles on their faces. Their passion for publishing is contagious. It was so refreshing to get to know more about the behind-the-scenes business side of the translation industry. I was still surprised to learn that even decades later, in the US, few translations are published. I applaud Harris' and Post's efforts to publish more translators, to reward them more justly, and to connect them with readers, although there's still so much more to be done. I wonder how we can reach younger generations and teach them about translations? How can we make them aware of what a translation is? Maybe creating TikToks? Who knows...
On other topics, I found Huda J. Fakhreddine's article very interesting. As a historian, I've also wondered about the arbitrariness of historical periodization, especially in literature, where there appear to be so many "golden ages of literature." Each country has its own, having a golden age in literature appears to be another way of cementing the nationalistic discourse of 18th and 19th-century nations. But I've always wondered who named the golden ages golden and what did they consider to be "literary literature." What happens, like the author writes, to the literature that didn't get seen? To that literature that was destroyed, censored, or forgotten because of its authors? or because of war? or x or w? Can't "nations" have more than one golden age of literature? How can works be compared? I find these questions to be puzzling and I wish we can discuss them in class.
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