Conference 2010

Tentative Program

The 2010 ALTA Conference Committee invites you to join us in Philadelphia, October 20-24, for a fabulous conference! In addition to its role in the birth of the United States, Philadelphia has a long history of hosting immigrant communities and has a vibrant range of historical sites, art museums, theaters, ethnic neighborhoods, and diverse educational institutions. Best of all, the weather in October is bright and crisp, perfect for strolling.

Themed “Drama in Translation,” this year’s conference will feature a concentration of panels and roundtables devoted to dramatic translation, while other panels will illustrate the general power of translation to convey energy, draw in an audience, and create community involvement.

The 2010 keynote speakers are the eminent dramatic translator Phyllis Zatlin, Professor Emerita of Spanish at Rutgers University, and prominent translation theorist and scholar Lawrence Venuti, Professor of English at Temple University. Performance artist and comparative literature scholar Shonni Enelow will present “My Dinner with Bernard Frechtman” on Thursday evening, October 21 (Frechtman was Jean Genet’s translator from French into English), and on Saturday afternoon, October 23, there will be a script-in-hand performance of Phyllis Zatlin’s version of José Luis Alonso de Santos’s play “Visiting Hour” at Society Hill Playhouse. Of course, you will also find the usual ALTA favorites: the bilingual reading series, ¡Declamación! on Friday evening, and the ALTA Fellows reading midday on Saturday. Forty-five panels and roundtables promise to provoke, inform, delight and tempt you.

The conference will be held in the Philadelphia Marriott Hotel on Market Street, just steps from Chinatown, the Reading Terminal Market, and a range of restaurants – from inexpensive to world-renowned. The city is pedestrian friendly, as well as easy to reach by train, bus, car, or airplane. Public transportation and an abundance of taxis make it easy to venture beyond the hotel once the day’s program is done.

Click Here to register for the conference.

Conference Hosts:
Chair: Sibelan Forrester: sforres1@swarthmore.edu or 610-328-8162
Anna Barker: BarkerAnna@mchsi.com
Sharon Marie Carnicke: carnicke@usc.edu
Ruth K Crispin: rkcrispin@verizon.net
Reinhard Mayer: rmayer@skidmore.edu
Adam J. Sorkin: ajs2@psu.edu

We look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia this fall!