Play Translation and Cultural Transmission (DR 294)
Professor Claire Conceison, Spring , 2007

Prepared by Chao Chen, Reference Librarians, Tisch Library

chao chen
 

chao.chen@tufts.edu
 617-627-2057
Homepage

A. Literary Translation and Critical Biographies

1. Literary Translation
2. Critical Biographies


B. Drama Studies

1. Terms, Concepts, and Methodologies
2. Finding a Play
3. Books
4. Scholarly Journal Articles
5. Theatre Reviews in Trade Journals, Magazine and Newspaper Articles

C. More Library Services

A. Literary Translation and Critical Biographies
1. Literary Translation
Encyclopedia of literary translation into English (2 vols) Ref. PN241 .E53 2000 
Includes articles about translations of the works of specific authors and also more general topics pertaining to literary translation.

2. Critical Biographies
Dictionary of Literary Biography
Provides nearly 10,000 biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres; includes volumes on dramatists of different countries and time periods, literary critics and scholars, and cultural theorists, and ancient writers.

Contemporary Literary Criticism--Select
CLC--Select is an extensive collection of critical essays on contemporary authors. Each CLC--Select entry contains a biographical/critical introduction, listing of principal works, and sources for further study.

B. Drama Studies
1. Terms, Concepts, and Methodologies
Drama Dictionary. (Ref. PN1625 .H6)
Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis. (Ref. PN2035 .P313 1998 )
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre & Performance (Ref. PN2035 .O94 2003)
Modern drama scholarship and criticism, 1981-1990: an international bibliography. (Ref. PN1851.Z99 C37 1997)

Contemporary Dramatists 5th ed. (Ref. PR737 .C57 1993)

Critical Survey of Drama, 2nd revised edition (Ref. PN1625 .C68 2003)
Tip: Consult the latest volume of the set for its Geographical Index to Dramatists and Categorized Index to Dramatists

Drama Criticism (Ref. PN1601 .D59 2005)
Tip: Consult the latest volume of the set for its Cumulative Topic Index and Cumulative Nationality Index

2. Finding a Play
Play Index
Play Index provides citations to over 30,000 plays written or translated into English, from Antiquity to the present, published in collections since 1949: one-act plays, pageants, plays in verse, radio and television plays, and classic drama.

books 3. Books
Use Tufts Library Catalog and WorldCat to find books and other publications at Tufts and beyond.
Access to all catalogs and databases listed in this guide: from the Tisch Library Web Site [http://www.library.tufts.edu/tisch/], go to Databases and Articles.)

The Advanced Keyword search

catalog search

Search result:
catalog results

Among the 48 results are these two books::
catalog record

catalog record

A Subject Search in the Catalog on a playwright and his/her works:
Step 1. select to search by Subject;
Step 2. Enter the name of a playwright, Last name, First name.

Search Results—6 books and other publications under 5 sub-topics on the playwright and artist.

catalog results

Note: use keyword search for new or hard-to-find foreign playwrights, e.g., Maishe Maponya

4. Scholarly Journal Articles
Key Database
MLA International Bibliography 1963-
This modern languages and literatures database also includes topics such as literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater)

Basic Database Searching Technique—the Boolean Search Logic is applied here:

  • The * is a truncation symbol to include various forms of the word, e.g., theater, theatre, theatrical
  • (drama* or play or theat*) is searching for any or all of the terms
  • de= is searching for subject indexing terms in the database
  • la=is limiting search results to a specific language

Search Sample One— a broad search on the overarching research question of cultural factors in the translation of plays, drama and/or theatre:
mla search

Selected search results; note the range of discussions and variety of journals.
mla search results

Title

 

A Poetics of Grammar: Playing with Narrative Perspectives and Voices in Japanese and Translation Texts

Author

 

Maynard, Senko K.

Source

 

Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 115-41, March 1999
 

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Title

 

'God Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated!': On Two Brazilian Tempests

Author

 

Resende, Aimara da Cunha

Source

 

Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of Language and Literature, vol. 36, pp. 237-264, Winter 1999

 

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Title

 

Translation Strategies in a Rapidly Transforming Culture: A Central European Perspective

Author

 

Kwiecinski, Piotr

Source

 

Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 183-206, 1998

 

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Title

 

'Bless Thee, Bottom, Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated!': The Shakespearean Phase in South Africa: A Socio-Cultural Perspective

Author

 

Kruger, Alet

Source

 

Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif vir Literatuurwetenskap, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 408-28, December 1996

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Title

 

Caught in the Frame: A Target-Culture Viewpoint on Allusive Wordplay

Author

 

Leppihalme, Ritva

Source

 

Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 199-218, 1996

 

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Title

 

Shakespeare Translations as Cultural Exchange

Author

 

Ewbank, Inga-Stina

Source

 

Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespeare Studies and Production, vol. 48, pp. 1-12, 1995

 

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Title

 

The Real Nation? Michel Tremblay, Scotland, and Cultural Translatibility

Author

 

Harvie, Jennifer

Source

 

Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches Théâtrales au Canada, vol. 16, no. 1-2, pp. 5-25, 1995

 

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Title

 

Performing Culture(s): Extras and Extra-Texts in Sabina Berman's eXtras

Author

 

Bixler, Jacqueline E.

Source

 

Theatre Journal, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 429-44, Fall 2004

 

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Title

 

Italian Dramaturg in a Translation Process

Author

 

Basso, Beatrice

Source

 

Theatre Topics, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 161-63, March 2003

 

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Title

 

Multiple-Entry Visa to Travelling Theory: Retranslations of Literary and Cultural Theories

Author

 

Susam-Sarajeva, Sebnem

Source

 

Target: International Journal of Translation Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1-36, 2003

 

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Title

 

Theater and Cultural Translation: Translating Politics and Performing Absurdity in Vvedensky's Christmas at the Ivanovs'

Author

 

Listengarten, Julia

Source

 

Translation Perspectives, vol. 12, pp. 57-73, 2003

 

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Title

 

Beans, Haricots, Madesou: The Challenges of Postcolonial Translation

Author

 

Mac Dougall, Jill

Source

 

Translation Perspectives, vol. 12, pp. 109-20, 2003

 

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Title

 

A Phonomorphological Model for the Study of Intercultural Theatre

Author

 

Chwastyk, Maura; Wetmore, Kevin

Source

 

Metamorphoses: Journal of the Five-College Seminar on Literary Translation, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 225-36, Spring 2001

 

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Title

 

Nativizing Shakespeare: Shakespearean Speech and Indian Vernaculars

Author

 

Valentine, Tamara M.

Source

 

Upstart Crow, vol. 21, pp. 117-26, 2001

 

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Title

 

Culture in Translation: An Inquiry into Global/Local Negotiation

Author

 

Zhang, Benzi

Source

 

Studies in the Humanities, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 122-39, December 2000

 

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Title

 

Between Performative and Performance: Translation and Theatre in the Canadian/Quebec Context

Author

 

Godard, Barbara

Source

 

Modern Drama, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 327-58, Fall 2000

Other Subject Databases

Tip: Use more than one source/database (each with its own particular academic discipline/subject focus and extensiveness of coverage) for a comprehensive and in-depth research on your topic.

Example, your topics are of an interdisciplinary nature--drama/theater studies and cultural studies, to say the least. Or, you will be applying a special critic method or theory, such as feminist and women’s studies, in looking at your plays or playwright.

Example, journals may be included in one relevant database, but not another. Or different database covers different years of a shared journal. For instance, Asian Theatre Journal is covered in JStor from 1984 to 2003, while Expanded Academic ASAP offers indexing from 2000 to the current year.

 

Art and Humanities
citationsEssay and General Literature Index 1985-    
citationsArts & Humanities Citation Index  
citationsInternational Index to the Performing Arts  

Culture and Area Studies
citationsBibliography of Asian Studies
An index of Western-language articles, monographs, and book chapters published since 1971.

citations Index Islamicus
The Index Islamicus covers Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. It is produced by the Islamic Bibliography Unit of the Cambridge University Library and indexes articles back to 1906.

citationsPRISMA publicaciones y revistas sociales y humanísticas
full-text scholarly journals in the social sciences and humanities for the interdisciplinary academic study of Hispanic and Latin America, and the Caribbean Basin.

citationsHistorical Abstracts 1969-
Scholarly literature in European and world history and culture from 1450 to the present. Does not include the United States and Canada.

Multidisciplinary E-journal Collections and Database(s)
Searching in these sources offers a multidisciplinary look at your topic. For example, a search on Asian American Stage and Screen in JStor would find articles from journals in such disciplines as Language & Literature, Performing Arts, and Asian Studies, in addition to Film Studies.
cProject Muse and JSTOR  
 These are two digital collections of core journals in many disciplines. While Project Muse offers more recent issues, JSTOR has more earlier issues.

cExpanded Academic ASAP 

Periods
citationsInternational Medieval Bibliography (400 - 1500)
citationsIter: Gateway to the Renaissance (400 - 1700)


5. For Theatre Reviews in Trade journals, Popular Magazines, and Newspapers:

Online Sources
cExpanded Academic ASAP  
For movie reviews in magazines such as Time, Newsweek, The Nation, and the trade publication Variety, as well as film criticism in scholarly journals.
Note: Variety is indexed from 1980 on with full text starting 1997. Tisch also holds this indispensable trade journal from 1990 to the present at Current Periodicals and Microforms [Tisch Micro R348].

citationsInternational Index to the Performing Arts   
Note: The coverage of this database is not always very up to date. Some journals are two years behind the current time.

cLexis-Nexis    Search examples
For movie reviews in regional, national, and international newspapers.

cNew York Times Historical Archive, 1851-three years before current date
Find movie reviews in New York times in the earlier years that are not covered in Lexis-Nexis.

  

Print Indexes
New York Theatre Critics' Reviews (Ref. PN1601 .N4)
Complete reviews from popular media sources from 1944 to 1994. Continued by National Theatre Critics Reviews (Ref. PN 2000 .N3).
Tip: Use the Year End Index, either in the front or in the back page in the binder.


 



C: More Library Services
green Search and Request books from the Boston Library Consortium catalog
[http://www.library.tufts.edu/tulips/blccat.html]

green Use ILLiad to borrow books and request articles from other libraries.
[https://illiad.library.tufts.edu/illiad/logon.html]

green Evaluating Web Resources [www.library.tufts.edu/tisch/webeval.htm]