Michael E. Marmura Lectures in Arabic Studies 2024-25: Dima Ayoub

Paratexts in Arabic Translation (Or The Persistence of Othering)

Please join us for our next Marmura talk, with Dima Ayoub, who will analyze how translators rely on paratexts (introductions, forewords, afterwords, prefaces) to navigate the Orientalist legacies and political agendas that shape Arabic literature’s westward movement into the Anglophone world!

Abstract:
In this talks, Ayoub examines the key figures, institutions, and networks involved in the intellectual history and intellectual formation of the field of Arabic literature in English translation. She foregrounds a dense array of translators, publishers, and writers to explore the evolution of post-war Arabic-to-English literary translation and the interplay between some of Arabic literature’s foremost English translators and government, academic, and publishing institutions. She asks: How do translators rely on paratexts (introductions, forewords, afterwords, prefaces) to navigate the Orientalist legacies and political agendas that shape Arabic literature’s westward movement into the Anglophone world?

Bio:
Dima Ayoub is Associate Professor of Arabic and Chair of the Arabic Department at Middlebury College where she was also the C.V. Starr Junior Faculty Fellow in International Studies and former director of the Middle East studies program. Her book manuscript Paratext and Power: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation examines the key figures, institutions, and networks involved in the intellectual history and intellectual formation of the field of Arabic literature in English translation. Parallel to her book project, Dr. Ayoub is currently developing a digital archive of paratexts in modern Arabic literature in English, French, German and Spanish translation. Her most recent publications appeared in Critical Inquiry, Los Angeles Review of Books, Journal of Translation Studies, the Journal of Arabic Literature and Middle Eastern Literatures and in the edited collection, Multilingual Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury).

For zoom registration: https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/eE8dm1tFTsKR4pZ_ljfk4g

* See the event poster: 2024-25.3.marmura.ayoub.pdf