We’ll also see what happens when the original or source is not a text but a sensation — how that might push up against the limits of language, or require a new use of it...

Artists, in many ways, are natural translators. Art makes the world unfamiliar so we can see it anew. Artists are naturally sensitive and attuned to enchantment, estrangement, and sensation — qualities that make them skilled at transmitting meaning across boundaries.

Translation is traditionally understood as between languages — in The Philosophy of Translation , Damion Searls traces translation back to its Latin root translatio , meaning “to carry across.” The Renaissance later introduced traductio , or traduction , shifting the emphasis from simple transport to a holistic transformation — one that preserves... See more

“all writing is

translation” — from the perceptual into language. Similarly, we’ll

look toward the senses to expand our use of language and to

strengthen our writing voices