What does it mean to translate creatively in an age of AI? A new Master’s in Creative Translation at Oxford puts human imagination, interpretation, and cultural understanding at the heart of translation.
Combining rigorous academic study with hands-on creative practice, the course will explore everything from ancient texts and literature to theatre, film, and experimental media, while asking what human translators can do that machines cannot. We asked course leader and Schwarz-Taylor Chair of German Language and Literature Professor Karen Leeder to tell us more.
What do you mean by “creative translation”, and how will this Master’s differ from other language or translation courses?
The title “creative translation” highlights a growing appreciation for translation as both a field of research, but also a creative discipline that requires not only linguistic skill, but also imagination, interpretation, and cultural sensitivity. Because of that, it also places emphasis on the human. That term creative embraces not simply the kind of straightforward translation that AI, for example, offers, but opens the door to meaningful adaptation, experimentation and movement across genres. In the UK most translation Masters are vocational or technical or involve interpreting. We are proud that this one highlights the imaginative skills of the human translator and translation as a creative practice. And compared to other courses in Oxford this involves both academic study but also hands-on translation work which is something entirely new.
The course involves both academic study but also hands-on translation work which is something entirely new.
Why is this the right moment to launch the Master’s course in Creative Translation?
The human role in translation is more important than ever. Artificial intelligence now plays a major role in basic translation – from machine-assisted software to Large Language Models. While these tools are powerful, they also raise questions about authorship, ownership, meaning, and creativity. All forms of art and creativity are under threat from AI. The course will encourage students to critically engage with these technologies while also recognising their limits and learning to identify what makes for ‘good’ translation: including things like cultural context, nuance, humour, rhythm, stress, metaphor, idiom, poetry – that is what makes literature literature really. And the joy and excitement that comes with human translation that is palpable as one reads.
All forms of art and creativity are under threat from AI.
What kinds of texts, languages and creative practices will students encounter during the course?
The course is open to students with interests in all the modern languages we teach at Oxford and they all have the opportunity to learn a new language while here too. They will be introduced to the history of translation from ancient texts to AI: the first translations of the Bible, cultural transformation in the middle ages, updating classical texts across cultures; different genres, comics, song, right up to translating for the stage or film and moving between text and experimental media.
We also think about the history of the field right up to queer or postcolonial approaches and different ways of considering the role of the translator from ideas of invisibility to theories of translator as fixer or cannibal. That kind of rigorous background is helpful in allowing students to understand precisely what they are doing when they themselves sit down to translate.
How will the programme balance academic study with practical and collaborative work?
The course has a rigorous methods seminar at its heart which runs across two terms. The students will work together as a cohort there, as well as pursuing their own language-specific interests in their submissions. In the first term there is also a cohort-wide special subject. This year it will be on Translating for Performance which involves looking at how classics can be adapted and translated for the contemporary moment. This is taught by an experienced theatre practitioner and I’d be surprised if that didn’t contain some practical work. In Hilary Term students choose a specialist subject from a range on offer and work in small groups. In Trinity Term they complete an independent translation and a reflection on their creative practice which is a more solitary assignment but closely supervised by a language specialist.
What opportunities will students gain through the course’s connection with the Queen’s Translation Exchange, and how will these experiences enrich their learning?
I am very pleased to be working with the QTE on this new Masters. Students will benefit hugely from the fantastic creative resources in Oxford, from the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Literature to workshops as part of OCCT, Oxford Translation Day, and the wonderful new summer school. We are collaborating with QTE on a series of seminars with creatives and industry specialists and have some fantastic speakers lined up – so watch this space. Students will also be able to go along to the QTE events, join the reading groups, and even work with QTE to become Ambassadors. This kind of practical exposure to all aspects of the business will help them develop their own creative practice.
Who is the course designed for, and what backgrounds or experience might applicants bring?
The course is designed for a wide range of people: those who have studied Modern Languages in the UK or abroad and want to pursue translation as an academic and creative subject; those with heritage languages who have studied literature maybe but never really got to know how to move between the creative traditions; those involved in the creative industries who want to gain a qualification; those already translating who want to fill in the background and take the next step, maybe towards a doctorate or towards translation as a profession.
In the next few years I hope we can open the course to people who working in a wider range of languages, including Asian and Middle Eastern languages, but also crucially to those who want to study part-time. This means that those already working in the creative sector might decide to come and gain a qualification. But there are also many people who have perhaps finished another career, and have languages in their background, or who have acquired languages along the way, and have a hankering to work in depth in this area.
What do you hope students will be able to do, or think differently about, by the time they graduate?
The course will give students the chance to think in rigorous terms about aspects of translation theory, to move between different cultural traditions, to analyse translations and understand why particular choices are made in particular contexts. It will also give them an opportunity to offer a sustained piece of translation and reflect on the creative practice involved. It will teach them to read very carefully and very closely, but also to stretch their imaginations. It will sensitise them to the choices we make every time we choose between registers, turns of phrase, idioms, symbols; but also how those apparently small choices can have huge impacts, sometimes for generations.
I hope this course will not only prepare graduates to make a real impact in our creative industries, as creative thinkers, collaborators, and innovators, but will allow them to imagine and interpret across a range of different kinds of texts or films in new ways. Ultimately it will allow them to return to English in new ways too. A knowledge of other languages, cultures and times, and the pathways we create between them, tells you a great deal about your own world today.
How does the course reflect the changing role of the translator, not simply as someone who transfers words between languages, but as a writer and creative collaborator?
Certainly, one of things we will do is reflect on the history of the perception of the translator, including recent interpretations as cannibal or war-zone fixer. But vital to this course too is that students will take part in a seminar where industry specialists come and talk about the realty of professional life: journal editors, prominent practitioners, publishers, film and game-subtitlers, professional organisations for translators, sessions where they can practice pitching. In the summer we also host the new summer school Oxford Translates at St Edmund Hall. They can sign up for that and I am hoping also to build that into the course in future. Ultimately, I hope it gives them a powerful sense of the translator as a creative and translation as a creative act.
I hope it gives them a powerful sense of the translator as a creative and translation as a creative act.
What might surprise prospective students about studying creative translation?
I think that students might be surprised by how much more there is to say than the tech companies with their Large Language Models and AI resources out there at the moment think. How historical nuance, humour, play, can change things completely. How all art is actually translation in the most fundamental sense. And how people thirst for human connection. I hope that they surprise themselves finding a way to render ancient and contemporary texts in new and sometimes experimental contexts.
What do you hope this course will contribute to the wider cultural and creative landscape?
I hope it contributes to the next generation of creatives, collaborators, and innovators and feeds into all aspects of everyday life, reminding everyone that the ability to imagine, interpret, and connect across languages and cultures remains a distinctly human endeavour.
The ability to imagine, interpret, and connect across languages and cultures remains a distinctly human endeavour.
Header image credit: Benjavisa
