The residency centers translated literature and highlights translators as creative agents who make it possible to encounter literature from around the world.
Since its founding in 2019, the Translation Studies Hub (TS Hub), through the support of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, has served as a platform for discussion about the theories, histories, and practices of translation at the University of Washington and the broader Seattle community. Its core goal is translation literacy—the critical foregrounding of the power dynamics, social processes, and linguistic interplay that lie at the core of translation as a cultural enterprise. TS Hub is currently developing a graduate certificate and an undergraduate minor in Translation Studies.
In 2024, TS Hub launched the Literary Translator Residency program. The week-long residency, held during the Spring Quarter, hosts an internationally known translator and includes workshops, a masterclass, and a large public lecture. The residency centers translated literature and highlights translators as creative agents who make it possible to encounter literature from around the world.
The inaugural translator-in-resident was Anton Hur, a prolific literary translator of Korean literature whose translation of Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny was a finalist for the National Book Awards 2023 for Translated Literature. When asked why Hur was chosen as the first invited translator, Sasha Senderovich (Slavic Languages & Literatures), one of the organizers of the program, mentioned Hur’s presence as a consummate advocate of literary translation who not only speaks to the importance of literary translation but also speaks to the process of it.
Hur zeroed in on the process of finding the narrative voice of each project and the disorienting feeling caused by the swift assumption of a project’s narrative voice, what he calls “translator jetlag.” “I am in a completely new time zone that is a text and I am now expected to sound like I lived in that neighborhood my entire life,” He said.
The 2025 translator-in-resident will be Sawad Hussain, an award-winning translator of Arabic literature. Her public lecture on May 6 will focus on editing in translation, most specifically how Arabic titles have been edited to be suitable for Anglophone mass consumption.
The residency is made possible by the generosity of Lee Scheingold, a strong advocate for the Humanities at the University of Washington and cherished member of our community. Scheingold’s support provides invaluable annual opportunities for major literary translators to engage directly with students, faculty, and audiences from across the Pacific Northwest.
The Translation Studies Hub is led by Sasha Senderovich, Aria Fani (Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures), Amanda Doxtater (Scandinavian Studies), and Nancy Bou Ayash (English).