Wednesday, May 16, 2012

WritingatNight/EscribiendodeNoche is moving to WordPress

The end of the 2012 Spring semester marks the end of 17 semesters of teaching literature at the the JSM Institute for Labor Studies/CUNY. This Center, originally established as the Center for Worker Education in the 1970s, has had an illustrious connection to Queens College all these years. The undergraduate program in Urban Studies, Labor Studies, as well as the graduate program, are now transitioning to the School of Professional Studies/CUNY (at the same location, at 25 W. 43rd Street, 18th & 19th floors, Manhattan). For the next year or so, the undergrad program won't be offered here, but they'll be back! See the Murphy Institute here

It has been a great adventure to teach Latin American and Spanish Literature in English translation, as well as Ancient Texts/Global Lit, and Global Anglophone Literature, Spanish language courses, and a few other special courses.

Primarily, teaching Latin American literature in translation-- given that my first language is Spanish-- feels like stepping into a parallel world where both versions of the literature exist. The experience is recreated each time by the process of bringing that literature to English speakers, and that alone is fascinating in terms of expanding cognitive reality, and pedagogy. Really! I highly recommend it.

This semester, now drawing to a close, I have been teaching Ancient Texts/Global Literature, and my usual suspects-- The Popol Vuh, Oedipus, Aristotle's Poetics, the Tao Te Ch'ing, The Tale of Genji, Monkey: Journey to the West, and Arabian Nights-- have had a great run with another great group of students.

I will continue to write about teaching, writing, translating, and other subjects in between, of course. But I will be moving this blog to my WordPress site, Diario de una escribana so that future entries can be consolidated and, hopefully, more plentiful.

To read all of these previous entries, as well as future ones, visit http://marianaromocar.wordpress.com
It will be a pleasure to see you there!

Happy final exams and graduations to all students (and teachers)!

Mariana Romo-Carmona