This course investigates the contexts of literary translation. These contexts are various: literary, of course, but also poetic, aesthetic, social, political or ideological, "cultural", and so forth. For the most part we will be dealing with modern societies, especially in English and Chinese speaking countries, but if students are interested we can consider the translation of premodern texts, which requires us to ask questions like: What is 'literature' (noun)? What is 'literary' (adj) translation? We will read short theoretical texts on literary translation but for the most part the "theory" will be part of the background to the critical articles by local and international scholars we will read. This is also a practical course, what's called a "translation workshop". We'll discuss our own translations in class, mainly fiction, but depending on student interests we can also work on prose, poetry and drama. If student interest justifies it, I can arrange talks by practicing literary translators (some of whom actually make a living just doing literary translation!) and may be even by scholars of literary translation. Sometimes we'll get out of the classroom and try to go figure out what the literary translation community in Taiwan is up to.