I was thoroughly impressed by Peter Constantine. I can't believe he knows and feels so comfortable in so many languages! I had fun in his lecture and learned a great deal about dialect. His knowledge really helped me in solving some things for my capstone project. Would love to hear another one of his talks!
Carlos Roja's take on categorizing literature in primarily national terms fascinated me. These last past few years, I've been wondering the same thing, what makes a book part of a community? Why do we feel the need to categorize books in national terms? What happens to those books that are multicultural? Why do we have such a hard time accepting that there are books that won't fit our categories? In the end, I think it's because if we don't categorize literature, we won't have any discourses that help keep and reinforce nationalistic values and identities. So nations won't be able to gatekeep. What will happen then? Will we finally accept that we are all citizens of the world? That we're all equal? I wonder what will happen next, such an exciting thought.
Regarding Rojas' translations, I like how he glossed over some terms, striking a balance between foreignization and domestication. We've seen other translators do the same, such as Julia Sanches. I think in most cases (but it also depends on the case), and if it's possible, that's the way to go because the translator reminds the reader that the text is not the source text; it's something foreign, but at the same time they provide the reader with something accessible, a word or concept which the reader can identify with.
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