This is a portfolio of translation and writing projects by Dinah Lensing-Sharp, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Translation Studies Concentration for the Bachelor of Arts at Smith College.
I became interested in the Translation Studies Concentration at the end of my first year at Smith, when I took the gateway course CLT 150: The Art of Translation. The lecture series introduced me to just a few of the myriad ways in which translation shapes the study of literature. I decided to pursue the concentration as a means of integrating my love of studying literature, my love of language, and my desire to write my own fiction. Although the translator’s role is not equal to that of the author, I do believe that translators deserve greater credit as individuals who make literature accessible in other languages as well as produce unique works that constitute something greater than a simple conversion from one language to another.
Translation is particularly important to me as a means of amplifying voices from the margins whose writing might not otherwise be read by a broader audience. This includes (in my future work, hopefully) queer people, people of color, and other disenfranchised groups. As a queer person and as a genderqueer person, texts that express gender ambiguity and queerings of sexuality hold particular interest for me.