What's the Word? The MLA radio show has a lot of
interesting programs available online for the language- and the literature-minded person. Here are some of the topics:
Literary Translations
Challenges specific passages posed for translators; translating the writings of Samuel Beckett, Pablo Neruda, Paul Celan, Gabriel García Márquez.
Participants: John Felstiner, Gregory Rabassa, Marilyn Gaddis Rose
The Bible as Literature: Translations and Interpretations Problems of translation.
Participants: Robert Alter, Steven Knapp, Debora Shuger
Parody
What parody is, how it works, and what it tells us about the thing being parodied; parody in Vladimir Nabokov's work.
Participants: Vladimir Alexandrov, Donald Gray, X. J. Kennedy
Looking It Up?
How important reference works have been created; Samuel Johnson's Dictionary; Diderot's Encyclopédie; how dictionaries are compiled today and how decisions to add new words are made.
Participants: David Barnhart, Gwin T. Kolb, Philip Stewart
Stories about Words
The changing meanings of words over time; the use of words that are meant to mislead.
Participants: Paula Blank, Roland Greene, William Lutz
Recent Nobel Prizewinners
Naguib Mahfouz, José Saramago, Derek Walcott.
Participants: Robert D. Hamner, Luiza Moreira, Edward W. Said