No More Than a Page: Elise Robbins

a headshot of a woman with medium length brown hair, blue eyes, and bright red lipstick smiling
March 9, 2022
4:00PM - 6:00PM
Hagerty Hall 198 or via Zoom

Date Range
2022-03-09 16:00:00 2022-03-09 18:00:00 No More Than a Page: Elise Robbins Translating Mothers in Early Modern English Biblical Literature with Elise RobbinsElise Robbins is a second-year PhD student in the Department of English at Ohio State University. She studies early modern English literature, with focused interests in devotional poetry, theology, women’s writing, and translation. Her current research focuses on early modern issues surrounding Bible translation, translation authority, and the circulation of translations, in theory as well as in practice.  Abstract: What is the relationship between a mother and her translation? Much ink has been spilled regarding the gendered connection between creation and procreation in women’s original literary works. In her chapter “Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor: Gender Difference in Literary Discourse,” (1989) Susan Stanford Friedman argues, “the women’s birth metaphor suggests that her procreative powers make her specially suited to her creative labours.” The current paper considers whether something similar can be said of translation, particularly biblical translation/imitation, for early modern women writers. If we consider the literal meaning of translation, the Latin translatio ‘to carry across,’ childbirth is a physical act of translation, with the mother as the translator carrying the child from womb to world—as Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, carried God from Word to womb to world. I examine evidence from writers Mary Sidney and Aemilia Lanyer to see where women’s mothering (and here I distinguish, as Adrienne Rich does, the distinction between institutional “motherhood” and the experience of “mothering”) informs how they carry across the word of God to their audience. I propose that, in the patriarchal milieu of early modern English Protestantism, such translations assert the embodied experience of mothering as a spiritually generative, perhaps authoritative, position. All events sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion are free and open to the public.A copy of Elise's NMTAP document can be sent by request. Please email religion@osu.edu to receive a copy.Please continue to monitor this page for event updates.The Zoom livestream of this event will be presented with automated closed captions. If you wish to request traditional CART services or other accommodations, please contact religion@osu.edu. Requests made by about 10 days before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.Effective 08/02/2021, students, faculty, staff and visitors to all Ohio State campuses and medical facilities are required to wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. Masks continue to be required outdoors for unvaccinated individuals when they cannot maintain physical distancing. Fully vaccinated people are not required to mask outdoors. Hagerty Hall 198 or via Zoom America/New_York public

Translating Mothers in Early Modern English Biblical Literature 

with Elise Robbins

Elise Robbins is a second-year PhD student in the Department of English at Ohio State University. She studies early modern English literature, with focused interests in devotional poetry, theology, women’s writing, and translation. Her current research focuses on early modern issues surrounding Bible translation, translation authority, and the circulation of translations, in theory as well as in practice.  

Abstract: What is the relationship between a mother and her translation? Much ink has been spilled regarding the gendered connection between creation and procreation in women’s original literary works. In her chapter “Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor: Gender Difference in Literary Discourse,” (1989) Susan Stanford Friedman argues, “the women’s birth metaphor suggests that her procreative powers make her specially suited to her creative labours.” The current paper considers whether something similar can be said of translation, particularly biblical translation/imitation, for early modern women writers. If we consider the literal meaning of translation, the Latin translatio ‘to carry across,’ childbirth is a physical act of translation, with the mother as the translator carrying the child from womb to world—as Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, carried God from Word to womb to world. I examine evidence from writers Mary Sidney and Aemilia Lanyer to see where women’s mothering (and here I distinguish, as Adrienne Rich does, the distinction between institutional “motherhood” and the experience of “mothering”) informs how they carry across the word of God to their audience. I propose that, in the patriarchal milieu of early modern English Protestantism, such translations assert the embodied experience of mothering as a spiritually generative, perhaps authoritative, position. 

All events sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion are free and open to the public.

A copy of Elise's NMTAP document can be sent by request. Please email religion@osu.edu to receive a copy.

Please continue to monitor this page for event updates.

The Zoom livestream of this event will be presented with automated closed captions. If you wish to request traditional CART services or other accommodations, please contact religion@osu.edu. Requests made by about 10 days before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Effective 08/02/2021, students, faculty, staff and visitors to all Ohio State campuses and medical facilities are required to wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. Masks continue to be required outdoors for unvaccinated individuals when they cannot maintain physical distancing. Fully vaccinated people are not required to mask outdoors.