TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — In an atypical collaboration, an assistant professor in The University of Alabama’s English department and a UA undergraduate have co-authored an article publishing in May in a top academic journal.
The research article by Dr. Emily Wittman and senior Katrina Windon proposes that the translation studies pilot class Wittman taught at UA serve as a model course required for English majors across the country.
“It’s really exciting that the hard work paid off,” said Windon, 21, an English and Spanish major from Montgomery. “It was definitely helpful to get to work with Dr. Wittman, to get her perspective and learn how to write for publication.”
College English accepted the article without revision, a rare occurrence for the journal which accepts only 5 to 10 percent of submitted articles, according to editor John Schilb.
The objective of Wittman’s translations studies course, taught in the spring of 2008, was to teach students how to read literature translations and give them the skills to attempt their own translations. Twenty-two students, both undergraduates and graduate students, took the course.
Few universities devote much attention to translation studies because of budget constraints and other course obligations, Wittman said.
“The course went really well, and I got great feedback from the undergraduates,” she said. “I wanted to write an article about teaching the course because I felt that English departments across the country could benefit from including a translation studies course in their undergraduate curriculum.”
Wittman asked Windon, who had excelled in the class as a sophomore, to work on the research paper with her. The two worked for a year combing over hundreds of books, articles and Web sites.
As news of the article being accepted for publication has spread, Wittman said several of her colleagues in the department of English have contacted her to discuss the possibility of co-authoring with students.
Their paper is proof that very important collaborative work can be done in the humanities, she said.
“There are a lot of questions we deal with as scholars of literature that can be tackled in an even more responsible fashion by two people rather than by one,” Wittman said. “That model isn’t always proposed to us, whereas in science you often have a professor working with four graduate students.”
The student wasn’t the only person to benefit from the collaboration, she said.
“It wasn’t just me mentoring her,” Wittman said. “She brought to the table a number of fields of expertise including, among so many others, knowledge of a number of languages and an advanced understanding of Web-based translation as well as copyright issues.”
The department of English is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.
Contact
Angie Estes, communications specialist, College of Arts and Sciences, 205/348-8539, ahestes@as.ua.edu