In addition to an existing opportunity to earn course credit by interning at the Seattle Area German Language School, which you can read about here and here, this year the department of German Studies began offering a new community-based learning opportunity with Seattle’s Holocaust Center for Humanity. The Center’s archives contain many German-language letters and documents in need of translation into English for communities in and beyond the Seattle region. While translating some of these letters during his recent sabbatical, Professor Jason Groves realized that this translation work would make a meaningful community-based learning project, and he reached out to the Center, which responded very positively.
With the Center’s collection of letters digitized and now hosted in the cloud, students are able to complete translations off site and at their own convenience. The course also includes some introductory reading in Holocaust studies, translation studies, and their intersection. As Peter Davies observes in Witness between Languages: The Translation of Holocaust Testimonies in Context, “we cannot think the Holocaust without also thinking about translation” (2). And as the current exhibition at the Wiener Holocaust Library on Holocaust Letters demonstrates, letters hold considerable significance for our understanding of experiences of persecution and forced migration during the Holocaust.
Kudos to German Studies major Rachel Lundeen for being the first student to complete this new opportunity for German 446!
Eligibility: Undergraduate students who have completed German 203.
Duration: One quarter, renewable on a quarterly basis.
Credits: 2-5/quarter, up to 10 credits over the course of your undergraduate study.
Application Deadline: 2 weeks prior to the start of the quarter.
Contact: Prof. Jason Groves (jagoves@uw.edu). Inquiries welcome even after deadline.