Professor Emeritus
Professor Balcom began studying Chinese several decades ago in a summer intensive language course at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. He has lived and worked in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and joined the MIIS T&I faculty in 1993. As a translator he has worked in-house and as a freelancer. Balcom is a past president of the American Literary Translators Association and co-chaired the first Salzburg Global Seminar on literary translation. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, including an NEA Translation Fellowship, his translations have won or been nominated for many awards: his Taiwan’s Indigenous Writers: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Essays and There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night by Cao Naiqian both won Northern California Book Awards; his translation of Huang Fan’s Zero won the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award; and his translation of Ya Hsien’s Abyss was a finalist for the PEN Poetry in Translation Award and a Northern California Book Award.
TICH 8641
Advanced Trans II to EnglishCourse Description
This course is the counterpart to Advanced Translation I. Students are expected to translate texts of considerable difficulty and complexity and to cope with the types of operational challenges that are likely to be encountered in professional translation settings, such as working in teams or coping with multiple technologies. Emphasis is on particular text categories and subject-matter knowledge that are pertinent to current market demand for the specific language combination and direction in which the course is being taught. The frequency, nature, and structure of course assignments are at the discretion of the instructor(s) of record, but will include projects that simulate, as closely as possible, the professional translation environment, as well as at least one midterm and one final exam.
Prerequisite: Advanced Translation I or similar background.
Terms Taught
The translation of literary and philosophical texts; modern and contemporary Chinese poetry and fiction; Modernism and the international avant-garde; Taiwan studies; comparative literature studies; translation studies.
Professor Balcom has been teaching at the Institute since 1993.
| by Emily Cipriani
From surrealist poetry translations to curriculum strategies for language teachers, see what members of the Institute community have recently published.
| by Jessie Raymond
From poetry on climate change to translations to the future of the global nuclear order, see what members of the Institute community have recently published.
| by Eva Gudbergsdottir
Professor John Balcom of Chinese T&I just published a new book of translated poetry by the Taiwan poet Wu Sheng titled My Village: Selected Poems, 1972-2014.
