Mark Polizzotti Author, Director of the Publications Program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Mark Polizzotti has translated more than fifty books from the French, including works by Gustave Flaubert, Patrick Modiano, Marguerite Duras, André Breton, and Raymond Roussel. A Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the recipient of a 2016 American Academy of Arts & Letters Award for Literature, he is the author of eleven books, including Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995; revised ed., 2009), which was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Best Nonfiction; Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados (British Film Institute, 2006); Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (Bloomsbury, 2006); and Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto (MIT Press, 2018). His essays and reviews have appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, ARTnews, The Nation, Parnassus, Partisan Review, Bookforum, and elsewhere. He directs the publications program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His new book, Sympathy for the Traitor, will be published in April, available on Amazon. (https://www.amazon.com/Sympathy-Traitor-Translation-Manifesto-Press/dp/0262037998/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1519858504&sr=8-18&keywords=polizzotti) Participant In: French Surrealism: A Revolution of the Mind Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:30-4:00 pm Past Event Watch the video » French Surrealism is probably best known for its paintings–images of floppy watches or men in bowler hats and topcoats falling from the sky. But just as central to the movement was the poetry produced from the beginning by André Breton, Robert Desnos, Benjamin Péret, Louis Aragon, René Char, and a host of others. We will… read more » Translation Matters Saturday, November 21, 2015 2:30-4:30 pm Past Event Watch the video » Why is translation, which formerly referred to a set of restricted technical procedures taking place between two languages, now widely understood to be the basis of all human culture? What is it about this dynamic principle of displacement, exchange, and creative renewal that also links it to the exercise of political power and the possession… read more » Boredom 2:30pm to 4:30pm, Saturday, April 21st, 2018 Past Event Watch the video » Schopenhauer described boredom as “a tame longing without any particular object,” Dostoevsky as “ a bestial and indefinable affliction,” and poet Joseph Brodsky as “time’s invasion of your world system.” Unsurprisingly, not many can describe boredom even though most have felt it, and it is one of the central preoccupations of the age. The most… read more »
French Surrealism: A Revolution of the Mind Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:30-4:00 pm Past Event Watch the video » French Surrealism is probably best known for its paintings–images of floppy watches or men in bowler hats and topcoats falling from the sky. But just as central to the movement was the poetry produced from the beginning by André Breton, Robert Desnos, Benjamin Péret, Louis Aragon, René Char, and a host of others. We will… read more »
Translation Matters Saturday, November 21, 2015 2:30-4:30 pm Past Event Watch the video » Why is translation, which formerly referred to a set of restricted technical procedures taking place between two languages, now widely understood to be the basis of all human culture? What is it about this dynamic principle of displacement, exchange, and creative renewal that also links it to the exercise of political power and the possession… read more »
Boredom 2:30pm to 4:30pm, Saturday, April 21st, 2018 Past Event Watch the video » Schopenhauer described boredom as “a tame longing without any particular object,” Dostoevsky as “ a bestial and indefinable affliction,” and poet Joseph Brodsky as “time’s invasion of your world system.” Unsurprisingly, not many can describe boredom even though most have felt it, and it is one of the central preoccupations of the age. The most… read more »