Date and Venue: Wednesday 30 July 2025 @ Dragon Hall, 115-123 King Street, Norwich, NR1 1QE
- Symposium: 2-4pm
- Women Translating Men Translating Women: Sappho 31 & Catullus 51 – A Translation Tag: 4.30-5.45pm
Event 6 began with a roundtable discussion which focused on the goals of feminist translation. Whom is feminist translation for? Is there an appetite among readers or theatre-goers or publishers for feminist translation? Panellists were Josephine Balmer,, Jennifer Ingleheart, Eva Megias, Fran Olivares and Sophie Stevens, and the discussion was chaired by Cecilia Rossi.
Following the symposium, Josephine Balmer and Jennifer Ingleheart played ‘translation tag’ with two of the most famous ancient love poets: Sappho and Catullus. Towards the end of the Roman republic the Veronese poet Catullus wrote a Latin version of what was then already the most iconic of Greek love poems, now known as Sappho’s fragment 31. Ingleheart and Balmer discussed their own versions of the poems, and reflected on the many issues raised by the dialogue between this pair of poems, and the history of their translations, expurgations, and bowdlerisations by feminists and non-feminists through the centuries. The translation tag was chaired by Elena Theodorakopoulos.
Dr Josephine Balmer is a poet and translator whose published works include an acclaimed translation of Sappho’s poems and fragments, and her translation of the Roman love poet Catullus. Professor Jennifer Ingleheart has published widely on the reception and translation of Latin poetry, and on the history of sexuality, and is currently working on queer classical translations. This event was part of the International Summer School in Literary Translation and Creative Writing at the British Centre for Literary Translation in Norwich and was organised in collaboration with the National Centre for Writing.
(Pictured L-R: Josephine Balmer and Jennifer Ingleheart)