Shoshana O
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at Stanford University
Expertise
Literature, Poetry, Translation, Gender Studies
Bio
I'm a literary scholar with a focus on modern and contemporary poetry and translation. My research considers language as not simply a tool for expression, but as a way of doing things in the world. More specifically, I'm interested in poetry as a particular kind of language that can be used to construct a self in the world. Through my research and writing, I show how poetry can be a mode of performing complex, intersectional identities. In addition to my scholarship, I'm a writer, editor, and a translator from Yiddish and Hebrew into English. I'm passionate about feminist writing, American poetry, and the arts more generally. I'm especially interested in putting different artistic disciplines into conversation with each other to explore issues like feminism, migration, and AI.Project ideas
Feminist Poetry for the 21st Century
For this project, the student would compile an annotated anthology of 25 influential feminist poems written since 2000. The project would involve in-depth research across both 20th and 21st century feminist poetry, as well as essays on feminist theory and poetics, and consultation with existing anthologies to determine what has already been covered and what gaps remain. Once the selection of poems is completed, the student will focus on writing an introduction that delineates their own feminist poetics for the 21st century. The introduction would also provide contextual information, including criteria for selection, organizing principles, and choices related to how the poems are ordered, etc. Each poem will be accompanied by a mini-essay that will introduce the poet and the work, and provide some critical analysis/commentary. The outcome will be that the student created an antholo
Translating Translations
Many great poems have been translated many times over, and no two translations are identical. Too often, we assume that there are better translations and worse translations, and that the goal is to render the "best" translation of any given work. But what if we approached translation, instead, as a mode of commentary or critical analysis, where more is always better? For this project, the student will select 5-10 iconic poems from a range of literary traditions and periods, and seek out as many existing translations as possible. Through close readings of each translation, and deep research into each poem, the student will create their own translations that build on existing translations. The precise method may vary by poem, with some including all existing translations in a single composite version, and others perhaps including lines drawn from different versions. The result will be a chapbook of world poetry in translation.