Paraphrasis Podcast

Spencer Lee-Lenfield brings us Biologicity (Black Ocean, 2024) by South Korean poet Shin Hae-uk, a collection with offbeat turns, twisted logic, and sudden switches in vocabulary. Spencer walks us through how to navigate deliberate fragmentation in the Korean word order, and the strange intimacy of rendering a poet who can comment on your translation in real time. We close with a glimpse into Spencer’s in-progress translation of Shin’s newest collection. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

What happens when a title becomes too familiar? Mark Harman defends his decision to ditch “The Metamorphosis” for “The Transformation”—a shift that scraps the Latinate gloss, restores fidelity to Kafka’s voice, and moves against cultural habit. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

Mark Harman, a renowned translator and scholar known for his acclaimed works on Franz Kafka, returns to discuss his latest collection, Selected Stories. He dives into the complexities of translating Kafka's unique voice, balancing fidelity and interpretation. The conversation highlights Kafka’s subtle humor, courtroom logic, and the reader's role in interpreting his themes. Additionally, Harman shares insights on the challenges of maintaining the essence of Kafka's Austrian-flavored German, making a case for why Kafka’s literature remains endlessly ripe for translation.

During the 2024-25 academic year, the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard celebrated its departmental anniversary—and Paraphrasis is launching a series of summer special episodes to commemorate the occasion. In our last edition of the series, guest host Esther K. Heller sits down with two Harvard University in Comparative Literature alumni, Prof. Andrea Bachner who graduated in 2007 and Dr. Michael O’Krent who graduated this spring (2025). Together, they reflect on their experiences in the Comparative Literature department at Harvard, examine how the field has evolved, and explore what lies ahead for the next generation of comparatists. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

What’s in a name? How do you translate a poet’s name that appears in multiple forms: sometimes in Hebrew as “the good name,” sometimes in various Spanish renderings, used by the poet himself for the sake of his rhyme scheme? In this bonus episode, Adam reflects on the quiet act of restituting “Shem Tov.” This isn’t a word puzzle, he tells us. It is a decision grounded in emotion. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

In this episode, Adam Mahler discusses his translation of Shem Tov Ardutiel’s Moral Proverbs and Other Old Castilian Poems of Jewish Authorship (forthcoming from the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library at Harvard University Press). This collection captures the flourishing of Jewish poetry written in Old Spanish during the medieval period. Adam delves into the linguistic texture of this Old Castilian verse, inflected by folk wisdom, Hebrew poetics, and Maimonidean philosophy. He discusses his choice to prioritize line length and communicability over rhyme scheme, and he recounts his decisions regarding a 900-line devotional poem to Joseph, each line ending hypnotically with the same name. At the end of the episode, Adam makes a case for endnotes as windows into these texts’ layered, associative meanings.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

During the 2024-25 academic year, the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard celebrated its departmental anniversary—and Paraphrasis is launching a series of summer special episodes to commemorate the occasion. In the second edition of the series, guest host Jess Jensen Mitchell sits down with two alumnae of the college, Professors Moira Weigel of Harvard University, and Pelin Kivrak of Emerson College. Together, they reflect on their career trajectories after Harvard, their memories of undergraduate life, and their ongoing roles as educators and mentors. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

What’s it like to tame an unruly stanza? And what happens when you’re tasked with translating an erratically rhymed Soviet-era poem, complete with dirt-caked children and a state-dispatched bath squad? In this bonus episode, Miriam Udel shares her translation of Boots in the Bath Squad by Leib Kvitko, a wacky tale of hygiene propaganda and childhood grime. She reflects on the joy of chasing rogue rhymes and the “almost-audible click” when a tricky stanza finally snaps into place. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

In this episode, Anna speaks with Miriam Udel about Honey on the Page (NYU Press), her 2021 anthology of Yiddish children’s literature from the 20th century. A project born of her roles as Yiddish scholar, teacher, and mother, the collection brings together folktales, fool stories, and bedtime parables for readers both steeped in Jewish culture and entirely new to it. Miriam walks us through the sticky-sweet meaning behind the book’s title—a nod to a ritual invitation to Jewish literacy. We also hear about her process of commissioning visual illustrations with the late artist Paula Cohen to recast vintage scenes in a contemporary key, both cartoonish and candlelit in equal measure. Along the way, we meet weary winds, bickering couples, and a whole lot of Jerusalem alley cats. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com

During the 2024-25 academic year, the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard celebrated its departmental anniversary—and Paraphrasis is launching a series of summer special episodes to commemorate the occasion. In our first edition of the series, guest host Lara Norgaard sits down with Spencer Lee-Lenfield and Sandra Naddaff, two members of the Comp Lit faculty who are also alumni of Harvard College. Together, they discuss the past, present, and future of Translation Studies at Harvard. Along the way, Spencer and Sandra speak to their own journeys into the discipline and how translation developed from something seen as a technical skill into a critical practice and dynamic area of study in North American academia. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com