“Between the language of the universe and the universe of language, there is a bridge, a link: poetry. The poet, says Baudelaire, is the translator” (Octavio Paz). "The true goal of the mind is translating: only when a thing has been translated does it become truly vocal” (Franz Rosenzweig). This course introduces students to the art of translation in the context of global literature and publishing. It will also give them the opportunity to work on their own translations and creative projects. It is open to graduate and undergraduate students working in any language, media, or genre, so long as they have reading proficiency in their source language and fluency in the target language (English). Readings may include such authors and translators as Susan Bernofsky, Franz Kafka, Mahmoud Darwish, Patrick Chamoiseau, Ann Carson, Khaled Alesmael, Daniel Saldana Paris, and Vladimir Nabokov. We will consider translation as a mode of 1) reading and interpretation; 2) constrained writing; 3) cultural contextualization and cross-pollination; and 4) interrogating the tension between linguistic idiom and creative idiosyncrasy. Throughout, we will ask the difficult question, posed by the Formalists, of what makes a text literary, and then we will think as a group about how this literariness can be represented beyond the text's original language. This course fulfills the Literature Seminar requirement for SPE MFA and Writing and Democracy Honors students, and the Reading for Writers (RFW) or Secondary Genre requirement for Eugene Lang College Literary Studies majors.