The book I've spent nearly the last three years working on with my friend and colleague Daniel Michon, of Claremont McKenna College in California, has finally been published. To Serve God in Holy Freedom: The Brief Rebellion of the Nuns of the Royal Convent of Santa Mónica, Goa, India, 1731–1734 is primarily a translation of a lengthy complaint to the authorities in Rome and the King of Portugal about Ignácio de Santa Teresa, the archbishop of Goa. There's also an introduction written mostly by Daniel, a preface by Timothy Coates, who translated the well-known Portuguese treatise Diálogo do Soldado Prático into English, and a transcription of the original text, which I frankly am shocked that we managed to translate as well as we did. It's a wildly idiosyncratic writing style even by contemporary standards.
Alas, since this is an academic book, it bears an academic price tag. You can order it here, but I don't blame you if you don't. Books should never be that expensive, even those aimed at institutions and libraries instead of individuals. At some point in the next few months we'll make it open access, but for now, dear reader, you're stuck paying through the nose.
I'll write more about Soror Magdalena, the archbishop, and 18th century Goa later. Take it easy, folks.
Yours,
DAS
Showing posts with label Convent of Santa Monica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Convent of Santa Monica. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2020
Thursday, August 01, 2019
A brief update, and happy birthday to Herman Melville!
Sorry for the radio silence, folks. I've been pretty busy lately, so I don't even have an off-the-cuff translation to share at the moment. In the near future I hope to put up another of Pessanha's elegias chinesas, though.
So what have I been up to? Meeting with a Chinese tutor again, only partially because I'll be visiting Taiwan in the fall. Grinding my way through the cases of 包公 Judge Bao in Chinese. Reading Erik Davis' awesome High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, about which I'll jaw more in another post. I'm about to start Paul Swanson's translation of the magisterial Tiantai Buddhist text 摩訶止観, which he calls Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight, and getting back into deeper Buddhist practice in general.
On the translation front, two things. I had the honor of talking to Goan poet Vimala Devi on the phone a while back, too, which was awesome. She gave me the rights to translate her first volume of poetry, Súria, which I'm working on right now. I don't know when it'll come out, or who will publish it, but I hope to do her justice. She's pushing 90, and I'd like the translation to come out before she leaves this world.
The book about the Santa Mónica nuns I mentioned a while back is going to be published in the near future, probably 2020, and that's been eating up most of my time. Me and my colleague are pretty stoked, even if revising our translation is a total drag. The working title is To Serve God in Holy Freedom.
I turn forty this month, but who cares about my birthday when today, August 1, 2019, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of someone who reflects America in all its complexity and, no matter how often his work might appear on high school or college syllabi, will never get the respect and understanding he deserves: Herman Melville.
So go read Moby-Dick, or The Confidence-Man, or Clarel, or any other Melville work, and I'll catch you again soon, caro leitor.
DAS
So what have I been up to? Meeting with a Chinese tutor again, only partially because I'll be visiting Taiwan in the fall. Grinding my way through the cases of 包公 Judge Bao in Chinese. Reading Erik Davis' awesome High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, about which I'll jaw more in another post. I'm about to start Paul Swanson's translation of the magisterial Tiantai Buddhist text 摩訶止観, which he calls Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight, and getting back into deeper Buddhist practice in general.
On the translation front, two things. I had the honor of talking to Goan poet Vimala Devi on the phone a while back, too, which was awesome. She gave me the rights to translate her first volume of poetry, Súria, which I'm working on right now. I don't know when it'll come out, or who will publish it, but I hope to do her justice. She's pushing 90, and I'd like the translation to come out before she leaves this world.
The book about the Santa Mónica nuns I mentioned a while back is going to be published in the near future, probably 2020, and that's been eating up most of my time. Me and my colleague are pretty stoked, even if revising our translation is a total drag. The working title is To Serve God in Holy Freedom.
I turn forty this month, but who cares about my birthday when today, August 1, 2019, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of someone who reflects America in all its complexity and, no matter how often his work might appear on high school or college syllabi, will never get the respect and understanding he deserves: Herman Melville.
So go read Moby-Dick, or The Confidence-Man, or Clarel, or any other Melville work, and I'll catch you again soon, caro leitor.
DAS
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
The Corpse lives.
It should be pretty evident, dear readers, that your humble Corpse has been bereft of things to say for the past couple-three months. The 千字文 / Thousand Character Classic project is as dead in the water as 李白 Li Po. When I can browbeat myself into writing heavy metal reviews, they're earmarked for Enslain magazine, though I haven't exactly been cranking those out, either.
Since I last posted, much of my time has been spent translating an 18th-century letter of complaint written by nuns of the Convent of Santa Monica in Goa. "Letter" is not really the word for a rambling and often repetitive document of 40-odd handwritten pages, mind you, but it's been a fascinating process, mainly due to the fact that working with the excellent dude who roped me into it has been fun, educational, and promising in terms of future collaboration. I've learned to read old Portuguese handwriting, delved into the lives of Catholic nuns (who were not there because their cruel parents decided to dump them at the convent door, as is so often believed), and I'm helping to make available to the world a document written by, and about, women at a time when women's voices were only fleetingly heard.
More recently, I've started translating Leonor Figueiredo's biography of Sita Valles, the Angolan communist executed after the grim events of May 27, 1977. Valles' parents were from Goa, which is why I first heard of her. Figueiredo's written a good book, and I think making it available in English will prove useful. I'll discuss this project, as well as the Santa Monica convent one, in further detail at a later date.
That's it for now, alas. I've gotta eat dinner and get to Portuguese class. Later this week, perhaps, I'll find some time to write some more. Later, folks.
Since I last posted, much of my time has been spent translating an 18th-century letter of complaint written by nuns of the Convent of Santa Monica in Goa. "Letter" is not really the word for a rambling and often repetitive document of 40-odd handwritten pages, mind you, but it's been a fascinating process, mainly due to the fact that working with the excellent dude who roped me into it has been fun, educational, and promising in terms of future collaboration. I've learned to read old Portuguese handwriting, delved into the lives of Catholic nuns (who were not there because their cruel parents decided to dump them at the convent door, as is so often believed), and I'm helping to make available to the world a document written by, and about, women at a time when women's voices were only fleetingly heard.
More recently, I've started translating Leonor Figueiredo's biography of Sita Valles, the Angolan communist executed after the grim events of May 27, 1977. Valles' parents were from Goa, which is why I first heard of her. Figueiredo's written a good book, and I think making it available in English will prove useful. I'll discuss this project, as well as the Santa Monica convent one, in further detail at a later date.
That's it for now, alas. I've gotta eat dinner and get to Portuguese class. Later this week, perhaps, I'll find some time to write some more. Later, folks.
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