Susan Bassnett

Susan Bassnett (born 1945) is a translation theorist and scholar of comparative literature. She served as pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Warwick for ten years and taught in its Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, which closed in 2009. As of 2016, she is a professor of comparative literature at the Universities of Glasgow and Warwick.[1] Educated around Europe, she began her career in Italy and has lectured at universities in the United States.[2] In 2007, she was elected a Fellow at the Royal Society of Literature.[3]

Susan Bassnett
Born1945
Partner(s)Clive Barker
Academic background
Academic work
DisciplineTranslation studies
Comparative literature
InstitutionsUniversity of Warwick
University of Glasgow

Notable works

Among her more than twenty books, several have become mainstays in the field of literary criticism, especially Translation Studies (1980) and Comparative Literature (1993). A book on Ted Hughes was published in 2009. Another book edited by Bassnett is Knives and Angels: Women Writers in Latin America.[4] Bassnett's collaboration with several intellectuals in a series of book projects has been received well. In 2006, she co-edited with Peter Bush the book The Translator as Writer. In addition to her scholarly works, Bassnett writes poetry which was published as Exchanging Lives: Poems and Translations (2002).[5]

Critical ideas

Foregrounding translation

In her 1998 work Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation (written with André Lefevere), Bassnett states that "the shift of emphasis from original to translation is reflected in discussions on the visibility of the translator. Lawrence Venuti calls for a translator-centered translation, insisting that the translator should inscribe him/herself visibly into the text".[6]

Comparative literature as a literary strategy

In a 2006 essay titled Reflections on Comparative Literature in the Twenty-First Century, she engaged with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who argues in Death of a Discipline (2003) that the field of comparative literature must move beyond its eurocentrism if it is to stay relevant. While she agrees with Spivak that eurocentrism has marginalised literatures from the non-West, she also argues that Spivak's argument puts comparatists from Europe, who are familiar with its literatures, in a precarious position. To Bassnett, the way out for European comparatists is to critically investigate their past. Bassnett also recanted her previous stance that comparative literature is a dying subject that will slowly be replaced by translation studies. Rather, she argues that comparative literature and translation theory continue to be relevant today if taken as modes of reading that literary critics can use to approach texts.

Personal life

Clive Barker, Bassnett's long-term partner and a theatre studies academic at Warwick, died in 2005.[7]

References
  1. Panda, Aditya Kumar (2016). "An Interview with Susan Bassnett". Translation Today. 10 (II). Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  2. Susan Bassnett faculty page at the University of Warwick
  3. Bassnett at RSL Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Knives and Angels: Women Writers in Latin America. Ed. Susan Bassnett. London: Zed Books, 1990.
  5. Bassnett, Susan (1 September 2002). Exchanging Lives: Poems and Translations. Peepal Tree Press Ltd. ISBN 978-1900715669.
  6. Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation
  7. Baz Kershaw Obituary: Clive Barker, The Guardian, 19 April 2005
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.