Every year, more than a million pieces of electronic literature (e-lit) are produced. Much of it is noise, but within the ‘signal’ is the literature of this age, encompassing the contemporary human condition. Very often, these works do not lend themselves to print because necessary elements in their coding cannot be printed, nor can some switch beyond the platform in which they were created.
This research project will bridge this void by creating a validated theoretical model for translating e-lit. “Translating Electronic Literature”—a collaboration between the Rochester Institute of Technology (USA), the University of Paris 8 (France), the University of Coimbra (Portugal), Aarhus University (Denmark), and Kingston University (UK)—studies translation of digital textuality by focusing on e-lit. The project will focus on six case studies, five of which a work of e-lit that poses challenges and requires a new and novel methodology to assure an accurate and comprehensive translation. The sixth case study will focus on the translation/remediation of a work of ASL poetry into a French piece of animated e-poetry.
This effort will lead to multiple translations, including: linguistic translations of the works; translation of the digital codes underlying the works and the interface and other paratexts surrounding the works; translations of contexts and interpretative frameworks in the cultural field the works; and finally, consideration of the elements of untranslatability.
Søren Bro Pold, Arnaud Regnauld, Manuel Portela, John Cayley, María Mencía, Gabriel Tremblay-Gaudette.
