This year's Penn Humanities Forum focuses on the topic of Translation.
Read more on this year's theme and be sure to check out related events. Most notably, the Penn Museum's Language Is Culture Film Series will feature two of Penn Language Center's language offerings:
November 13: Quechua Language Program
Quechua: The Fading Inca Language (2010)—Dir. Gabina Funegra (19 min, Peru); and newly translated short Quechua dramas from YouTube
This series of shorts explores the recent resurgence of the Quechua language. One of the largest language groups in Latin America, Quechua, suppressed and maligned for hundreds of years, is now enjoying a revival of esteem and usage thanks to specific governmental policies and the enthusiasm of students from as far as Paris and Tokyo. Americo Mendoza-Mori, Quechua language lecturer at Penn, introduces the program.
February 12, 2017: Deaf Culture Program
Making Noise in Silence (2015)—Dir. Mina T. Son (19 min, United States); and excerpts from other short films on deaf culture and language
What are hearing people missing by not being able to sign with deaf people? What parts of deaf culture are hard to translate? What is an accent in American Sign Language? These and many other questions will be addressed in this program of short films. Filmmaker Mina Son attends the program, which is introduced by Jami Fisher, American Sign Language program coordinator in Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania. ASL interpreters will be on hand.