Rosemary Arrojo

Professor of Comparative Literature

Curriculum Vitae

Rosemary Arrojo, Professor of Comparative Literature, has a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University (Humanities Center, 1984), two Master degrees from the same university (one in humanities [1982], and another in Spanish [1983]), as well as an M.A. in Literary Translation (1977) from the University of Essex, England. Her undergraduate education was completed at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, with a B.A. and an advanced teaching degree in Languages and Literatures (1972). She joined the Department of Comparative Literature in January of 2003 and directed the Translation Research and Instruction Program until June of 2007. Before that, from 1984 to 2002, she taught English and Translation Studies at the State University of Campinas (Brazil), and also worked as a free-lance translator.

Her work has focused primarily on translation studies with an emphasis on its interface with contemporary thought (deconstruction, psychoanalysis, postcolonial and gender studies). She has published extensively on translation studies, translator training, and Latin American literature, both in Portuguese and English. Her main publications in Portuguese include the following books: Oficina de Tradução: A Teoria na Prática, first published in 1986 and currently in its 5th edition; O Signo Desconstruído: Implicações para a Tradução, a Leitura e o Ensino (1992), as the editor and main contributor; and Tradução, Desconstrução e Psicanálise (1993). Her publications in English include chapters in several book collections, essays in all the main journals specializing in translation studies, as well as book reviews.

The following are some of her most recent publications: "The Power of Fiction as Theory: Some Exemplary Lessons on Translation from Borges's Stories," in Transfiction – Research into the Realities of Translation Fiction, K. Kaindl and K. Spitzl, eds., John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2014; "The Relevance of Theory in Translation Studies," in The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies, C. Millán and F. Bartrina, eds., Routledge, New York, 2013; "Thinking Translation beyond Deconstruction and Postcolonial Studies," in The Translator, vol. 19, number 2, 2013; "Philosophy and Translation," in Handbook of Translation Studies, Vol. 1, Y. Gambier and L. V. Doorslaer, eds., Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2010.

She is currently preparing a book on representations of translation in fiction, which will include pieces on Borges, Kafka, Poe, Saramago, Cortázar, Calvino, Scliar and Kosztolányi, among others. Samples of her work have been translated into German, Spanish, Catalan, Turkish, Hungarian, and Chinese.