Science Fiction Translation Workshop in Amman, Jordan: ‘Faster than Light’

This month, the MMAG Foundation is hosting “Faster than light: A science fiction translation workshop”:

According to organizers:

MMAG Foundation invites you to participate in a translation workshop exploring the worlds of fantasy and science fiction, instructed by researcher and architect Ali As’ad.

Over the course of seven sessions of this multi-media workshops, we will attempt to uncover the hidden dragons that lurk within the worlds of fantasy and science fiction writing in the Arabic language.

It asks questions beyond word-to-word transfer between languages, including:

The Faster Than Light translation workshop will attempt to project beyond the caveats of conventional translation practice with a critical awareness of the spatial implications and cultural distinctions that expanding speculative fiction could have within the Arabic-speaking narrative. We will explore how science fiction is culturally deciphered within the Arabic language, and why we continue to resort to other languages to indulge in its practices.

Those who want to apply should send a bio with a letter of interest and a sample of their work as one file to mail@mmagfoundation.org by March 8, 2018.

Workshop leader Ali As’ad is “a researcher and architect whose work investigates the cognitive role of architecture, interrogating its ability to serve as a window through which readings of thought and reality in a given society are translated or enacted.” More on the workshops on Facebook.