Fellows

Literary [Machine] Translation?

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In current translation studies, algorithm-based translation methods (machine translation) are almost invariably regarded as incompatible with the complex requirements of literary translation. This project wants to challenge this axiom. Building on an investigation of experimental translation practices and theories of the twentieth century, it aims to identify scenarios of algorithmic translation procedures for literary translation and to devise speculative forms for its varied areas of application. To this end, recent discussions on literary translation in cultural and media studies will be put into conversation with the latest developments in the field of computational linguistics and translation technology. Moreover, the project seeks ways to incorporate in such a study artistic research practices which explore the potential of algorithmic translation within a literary context.

CV

Anna Luhn studied Comparative Literature, French Philology, Law, and German Literature at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and the Université Paris IV – Sorbonne, supported by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. Following a traineeship at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin, she worked for HKW’s Anthropocene Project and as coordinator of HKW’s interdisciplinary research project Technosphere. She obtained her doctoral degree at the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, where she researched figures and metaphors of the »acrobatic« within modern and avant-garde European literature. Since April 2020 she has been pursuing a professional-track postdoctoral project on experimental concepts of translation and digital literary practice at the Cluster of Excellence Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Publications

Überdehnung des Möglichen. Dimensionen des Akrobatischen in der Literatur der europäischen Moderne, Göttingen 2022; »Literary/Machine/Translation: Übersetzungstechnologien und avancierte Übersetzungstheorie als Modelle literarischer Zirkulation, ca. 1960–1975«, in: Michael Gamper, Jutta Müller-Tamm, David Wachter, Jasmin Wrobel (Hg.), Der Wert der literarischen Zirkulation / The Value of Literary Circulation, Heidelberg 2022; »›Das Naturgesetz soll sich im Alkohol besaufen‹. Zum Formrausch in Carl Einsteins Bebuquin«, in: Expressionismus 09/2019.