Studying literature (and translation) in New York City has an indisputable advantage over many a metropole for here the editors of enviable publications are members of a larger community of which you are suddenly a part. I spent this Friday and Saturday at the French Embassy sitting in on French & American Journals: A Literary Salon, a flyer passed around after a roundtable at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge tipped me off several weeks before, where subjects very near and dear to me as a student of literary translation were addressed by the writers and editors very much involved in literature and its role in an increasingly globalized and digitized world.
Of greatest interest to me was Panel 3, composed of the founders of La Vie des Idées, Public Books and a contributing editor for Jacobin because La Vie des Idées and Public Books are in medias res a collaboration on the Picketty Effect. The two publications are in many ways mirror images of the other: their ambition is to present scholarly work on a digital platform so that its a) more accessible to the laymen/women and b) gives scholars another outlet aside from academic journals whose editorial process is often “glacial.” (Sharon Marcus’ word). Post-Capital, a much-discussed french novel by Thomas Picketty translated into English under the same title, editors Lucie Campos and Florent Guénard (La Vie des Idées) and Sharon Marcus and Caitlin Zaloom (Public Books) found in each other a likely partner to expand the discussion about capital, labour and inequality. Here, at the salon, they finally got to meet each other in person; the entirety of the collaboration (which involved a fair amount of translation) was done online, per the spirit of the novel and the spirit of our age.
Telecommuting was something that was brought up several times over across the board. The Believer doesn’t have an office (I know, me too, I’d imagined that their office had a communal turtle, colorful drafting tables, probably a few plants…) which means that the staff has to exchange ideas, images, articles, etc., online. Several other editors spoke of the internet with marked frustration. The transition for the more established journal came with growing pains, and the unedited content that fills the internet (this piece included) seemingly overwhelms professional articles.
The internet, this medium (and that’s just it: is it a medium? Is it a space? Is it thought?) allows journals to publish at little to no cost, but so can everyone else, and without a physical good to sell (a printed journal with a codex and binding) how can a journal sustain itself financially? Lucie Campos (La Vie des Idées) acknowledged that the journal was part of a larger institution, le Collège de France. The college and several other governmental institutions carry the brunt of the costs. The same can be said for Socio, Diacritics, Open Letters Monthly… many, many other journals of course that weren’t represented at the salon. Other revues, Inculte and Labyrinthe never intended to make money.
What the internet has allowed, je reprenne La Vie des Idées and Public Books, is in my opinion well worth the economic models’ upset. The transatlantic collaborative is the perfect example of what I hope to follow more and more frequently. Literary Journals could become a major benefactor of translated works. Every issue of The Believer is translated into Le Believer, and Socio’s editor-in-chief Atlani-Duault petitioned the translators in the audience to consider translating their issues.
Every panel ended with a list of novels or texts that the panelists hoped would be translated, whether it be from French to English or from English to French. Keep tabs on frenchculture.org where the list of recommendations will be posted bientôt.
French and the city 