LaWiseWoman writes:
I wanted to let you know that the Swiss-British Society in Basel, Switzerland, is having a lecture by Allan Turner, University of Newcastle, on “The Lord of the Rings – translating into film” on Thursday, 16th January 2003 at 6.15 pm, room 3, Nadelberg 6, Basel, Switzerland (for those view of you who actually live near there… 😉 ).
Here’s the text of the flyer:
“By now the second part of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy will have hit the screen and no doubt broken a few more records. Meanwhile it continues to meet with a mixed reception from Tolkien fans, as some love the special effects, while others feel that, in spite of Jackson’s evident commitment to the book, he has sacrificed too much of its essence for the sake of Hollywood clichés. This talk clears away the razzmatazz to see how a highly complex work of literature has been transformed into a different medium, and compares it with the translation of the literary text into another language, bearing in mind that both of these processes need to be seen as commercial enterprises.
Allan Turner decided that he wanted to be a philologist after reading Tolkien in his early teens, and has since fallen into all the cracks between diachronic linguistics, synchronic linguistics and literature. For ten years he was Lektor at the English Seminar in Basel. At present he works in Newcastle and is completing a Ph.D. dissertation on the problems of translating the philological element in Tolkien.
Members of the Swiss-British Society: free entry; Members of the British Circle and Anglo-Swiss Club&Students: CHF 5.–; non-members: CHF 7.