For my final project, I decided to focus on the value of translated texts in our course, specifically The Odyssey, the Old Testament, and the Epic of Sunjata. I did this through an interactive presentation on Prezi. 

None of the texts we read in our course originated in modern English; all had to be translated into a format that we could understand. As great as it is to understand the general structure of each text, we lose many of the elements that make the story so great. For The Odyssey, which originated as an epic, we lose the poetic qualities in the original style of writing, along with the difficulties of translating words that simply may not exist in English. The Epic of Sunjata originated as an oral history performance describing the coming to power of King Sunjata Kieta of the Mali Empire. Even the Old Testament has differences in translation that affect how we understand certain events.

Join me for a journey across the map and through the ages to learn about the value of translated texts!

Anna Fellman ‘23 is a philosophy and economics double major at Colgate University. She is from Wilmette, Illinois.