Gonzalez-Arias Presents at Instituto Cervantes Symposium
Francisca Gonzalez-Arias, part-time lecturer in Spanish, delivered a paper titled, “Translating Emilia Pardo Bazán in the United States: Women of the American fin-de-siècle; Fanny Hale Gardiner and the Isabellas’,” at the recent Translation Symposium Observatorio de la Lengua, Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University.
From the abstract:
“It is an intriguing fact that translations of six works by Emilia Pardo Bazán appeared in rapid succession at the end of the nineteenth century in the United States, between 1890 and 1892, produced by three women. After a brief overview of the five novels translated by two of these: Mary Springer and Mary Jane Serrano, the presentation will focus on the translation process of Fanny Hale Gardiner, translator of La revolución y la novela en Rusia (Russia, its People and its Literature), a process illuminated by research at the Newberry Library of Chicago which holds letters from Gardiner to her editor. This study will trace her life, highlighting her contacts with Spain, as well as her activism in women’s groups, notably the Queen Isabella Association, of which she was a co-founder at the time of the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The paper will also explore the story of the “Isabellas,” and their objectives, which included the founding of local chapters to empower women professionals throughout the United Sates.”