Do you want to increase your awareness about what to expect when teaching in another country? If so, why not join university students, pre-service teachers, teachers, principals and other educators who are interested in learning more about teaching abroad by enrolling in the Preparing to Teach Internationally Program.

Offered over five days this spring, Preparing to Teach Internationally is a professional development initiative offered by the International Education Office in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education.

Designed to help participants gain insight into education, as well as a better understanding of themselves as educators, the program provides the skills participants need to make informed decisions about what to expect when embarking on an international education role. At the end of the program, successful candidates will receive a professional development certificate from the Faculty of Education.

Preparing to Teach Internationally is open to all university students from 91��ɫ and beyond, along with educators who are considering teaching in an international setting, including teaching English as a second language. Some of the topics explored in the program are: international education systems and schools; issues and politics; skills and strategies required to teach in an international setting; and how to plan and prepare for the role.

Registrations are now being accepted for the spring session, offered April 28, May 5, 12, 26 and June 2, in five-hour classes on 91��ɫ’s Keele campus. The deadline for registration is March 31. Registrations can be submitted online by way of the website.

For more information, visit the website, or contact the International Education Office at 416-736-2100, ext. 20052, or by e-mail at international@edu.yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Cultures meet here in Canada, says Agnès Whitfield. Literary translation is an essential means of sharing heritages, yet it is a field too often overlooked and undervalued.

That situation is about to improve with the launch of the first volume in a new series called Vita Traductiva. A joint initiative of the Research Group on Literary Translation in Canada at 91��ɫ and , a small Quebec press Whitfield and her husband, artist Daniel Gagnon, have taken over, the series will be published in French and English, and focus on literary translators and translating around the world.

Cover illustration for Vita Traductiva, by Daniel Gagnon

“One of our goals is to bring into English or French important studies on translation from other languages,” says Whitfield. “These kinds of opportunities for international exchange are sadly lacking.”

“Another issue for translation scholars is getting research circulating quickly,” says Whitfield. “Traditional presses have long wait times, library budgets are declining and scholarly books are expensive.”

For this reason, the international peer-reviewed series will be published via the Internet on Open Access sites for scholars, as well as in traditional book form.

Agnès Whitfield

These days, “if a librarian in Canada wanted to organize an exhibition on Romanian culture, she would have a difficult time,” says Whitfield. She wouldn’t know where to find Romanian works translated into English or French, or works written by Canadian writers of Romanian origin, or how the translations were done.

On a broader level, the new series is important because “literature provides a rich source of knowledge about human activity and aspirations, and literary translation plays an essential role in building understanding between communities with different languages and cultures,” argues Whitfield. “Vita Traductiva aims to make an important contribution to the creation, promotion and dissemination of such vital cultural knowledge.”

Following her 2009 study, Whitfield helped found , an international research group based at the University of Oslo, focusing on the different voices in the translation process. Those voices will be expressed in Vita Traductiva.

The name is a reference to the Latin term vita activa (active life) to reflect the active, empirical orientation of the collection and its aim to generate and share more knowledge about translation – particularly between smaller countries – and greater intercultural understanding and respect, says Whitfield.

As series editor, she plans to solicit essays on literary translation and translators from scholars all over the world. Such international reach will be guaranteed with editorial and advisory boards representing 15 countries – from Finland to New Zealand, Portugal to Turkey. Whitfield also draws on 91��ɫ expertise; English Professor Priscila Uppal and humanities and translation studies Professor Susan Ingram are on her editorial and advisory boards.

The first volume of essays will appear this summer and two more in the fall.

The summer volume will focus on the translation of Polish, Czech and Romanian literature for Canadian audiences – and vice versa – and how to find works by Canadians of Polish, Czech and Romanian heritage.

The fall volumes, edited by European colleagues, are based on proceedings of recent Voice in Translation conferences. The first highlights the challenges of capturing narrative voice when translating between Arabic, Polish, English, Finnish, German, Spanish and French.

Whitfield with Voice in Translation group in Copenhagen

The second will probe the role of authorial and editorial voices in translation. It will include a piece by Whitfield on how small Canadian English presses edit and revise translations.

As a new international peer-reviewed publication series, Vita Traductiva is a perfect fit with 91��ɫ’s strategic goal to improve its participation in emerging international research networks and enhance its reputation as a research-oriented university, says Whitfield.

She has played a leading role in compiling previously unavailable bio-bibliographical data on eminent Canadian Francophone and Anglophone literary translators as editor of Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006) and Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, Collection du CRILCQ, 2005), shortlisted for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize. (See YFile, April 11, 2006) She was also the editor of L’écho de nos classiques (Éditions David, 2009) on the international translations of two great Canadian novels, Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute) and Hugh McLennan’s Two Solitudes.

Whitfield is former president of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies and was bilingual joint chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University in 2009-2010.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Britzman, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education, defines how fundamental Freudian concepts such as the psychical apparatus, the drives, the unconscious, the development of morality and the transference have changed throughout Freud’s oeuvre. Freud and Education concludes with new Freudian-influenced approaches to the old dilemmas of educational research, theory and practice.

Right: Deborah Britzman

“People have very strong views about Freud and psychoanalysis. People are also passionate in their views about what education is and what it should be,” Britzman says, reflecting on her reasons for writing the book. “This book introduces Freud and psychoanalysis as well as education without the superstitions traditionally associated with these subjects.

“What happens to education if we begin with the idea that the subject is unconscious and begins in sexuality?” Britzman asks. “Freud insisted that human sexuality begins at birth and that the human is affected by its unconscious life.”

The book inspires critical thinking on such questions as: Why consider contemporary education through psychoanalytic theories? What does Freud teach is about the problems of dependency, aggression and group psychology in educational institutions? What did Freud think about the problem of education?

One key insight, Britzman says, comes from an essay, "Some Reflections on Schoolboy Psychology", which Freud wrote when he was 60.

“Freud said he did not know what affected him more: how teachers were as people, or what they know as teachers,” Britzman says. “Both are operative in learning environments. We often forget that, even in the university setting, personality matters.”

Freud and Education draws on Britzman's background. She trained as a psychoanalyst and is widely known for bringing psychoanalysis to discussions of contemporary pedagogy, teacher education, social inequality and problems of intolerance and historical crisis.

Part of the Routledge Press Key Ideas in Education series, the book’s back cover says Freud and Education “seeks to shape ongoing discussions in the field of education by putting the field’s contemporary luminaries in dialogue with its foundational figures and critical topics.”

Through her previous books – , , , , – and other scholarly writings, Britzman has won many awards for her contributions to education and psychoanalysis.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Owston's presentation was part of a leadership symposium hosted by (ABEL), which supports the effective use of new and existing information communications technologies to encourage innovation. ABEL is jointly sponsored by 91��ɫ and the .

ABEL's annual one-day symposium prepares leaders to embrace the needs of the 21^st century learner and the role that technology plays in supporting effective instructional practice.

The presentation runs for approximately 40 minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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