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Freeth, Peter J. (2024) Race and ethics in the translation classroom: reflections on teaching the Amanda Gorman’s translators controversies as a white British lecturer. In: Teaching translation: contexts, modes and technologies. Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, UK, pp. 69-87. ISBN 9781032571850, 9781003440970 (Ebook)
This chapter serves as a critical reflection on using the controversies and debates surrounding the Dutch translation of Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb as a pedagogic case study on translation ethics. It argues that more discussions of race and translation ethics are required within British translation studies programs and reflects on my own approach to teaching the Gorman’s translators controversies in a practical translation class as an attempt to meet that need. In providing this critical reflection, the chapter raises four major questions that must be considered when using the controversies in the translation studies classroom. The first is the question of what we are seeking to teach when including the controversies in our curricula, arguing that a focus on discourses of who can/should translate who reframes the controversy through a white racial lens that fails to address the racial injustice and white privilege at the core of the initial controversy. The chapter than concludes with self-reflective discussions on how to present the controversies to students, the types of classes in which we teach ethics, and how to handle the Dutch-language primary sources in a British higher education context. In presenting this critical reflection on my own teaching practice, I seek to encourage reflexivity from others who use the controversies as a case study within their pedagogy and caution against the framing of the debate through a white racial lens, as to do so serves as a further injustice for the Black voices marginalised throughout the original controversy.
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