Margaret Carson
Associate Professor
Modern Languages
EMAIL: mcarson@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: S-601V
Office Hours:
Phone: +1 (212) 220-8000;ext=7247
Professor Margaret Carson (she / ella) has translated the stories, letters, automatic writing and dream narratives of the Spanish surrealist artist Remedios Varo. Her current research is focused on Varo’s notebooks and on understudied chapters of the artist’s life. An expanded edition of Varo’s writings in her English translation will be published in Spring 2024.
She has also written about the gender gap and other gaps in literary translation and co-founded a blog devoted to raising the visibility of women writers in translation (Women in Translation).
Before receiving her PhD, she was a longtime ESL and literacy instructor in adult education programs serving refugees and recent immigrants. She enjoys working with students at all levels to acquire and improve their Spanish, with an emphasis on learning by doing.
Expertise
Remedios Varo, Women Surrealists in Mexico City, Gender and Translation, 20th- and 21st-Century Latin American Literature, Spanish Language Education.
Degrees
- PhD, CUNY Graduate Center, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages, 2013.
Courses Taught
- This course is for students who have had no previous background in Spanish. Grammar is taught inductively and simple texts are read. Speaking, reading, and writing are emphasized students who have taken SPN 103 will not receive credit for this course.
Prerequisite: Departmental Placement - In this continuation of Spanish I, grammar, composition and oral comprehension are developed and supplemented by readings or Spanish texts. Students who have taken SPN 107 will not receive credit for this course.
Prerequisite: SPN 105 or Departmental Placement - Study in this course includes a review of grammar and reading plus discussion of selected works by modern authors. Self-expression through oral and written reports is emphasized.
Prerequisite: SPN 106 or SPN 121 or departmental approval - This course complies with the last semester of Spanish for Heritage Learners who are completing the basic language requirements. In this course, students will improve their writing skills and increase their vocabulary through readings of material written for native speakers of the Spanish language in order to become more confident in their ability to speak Spanish in public, as well as in reading and writing in their heritage language. Students are expected to read, write and discuss in Spanish the reading topics selected for class. The course will pay close attention at reviewing aspects of grammar, spelling and speech which are troublesome for students who do not fully master cultivated Spanish.
Prerequisite: SPN 210 or SPN 207 or departmental approval
Research and Projects
Am currently working on a revised and expanded edition of Remedios Varo’s writings in English translation.
Publications
Book-length Translations
- On Homo rodans and Other Writings by Remedios Varo. Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2024.
- Letters, Dreams & Other Writings by Remedios Varo. Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2018.
- Baroni, A Journey by Sergio Chejfec. Kolkata: Almost Island Books, 2017.
- My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec. Rochester: Open Letter Books, 2011.
- The Magic Lantern: Having a Ball and Christmas Eve by José Tomás de Cuéllar. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.
Articles
- “Snap! Or the Whys and Hows of Women in Translation” in Translating Women – Activism in Action, Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), 2020.
- “Gender Parity in Translation: What Are the Barriers Facing Women Writers?” In Other Words, 52, Winter 2019, 37-42.
- “Writing With WiT: The Gender Gap Seen Through Women-in-Translation Activism,” with Alta L. Price, philoSOPHIA, v. 9, issue # 2 (2019).
Selected Shorter Translations
- “To Sonsonate” by Mayamerica Cortez. BOMB Magazine, First Proof Literature. 8 June 2022.
- “Make Me Warm” by Carlos Morales. BOMB Magazine, First Proof Literature. 8 June 2022.
- “The Revenge of the Idyllic” by Sergio Chejfec, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, 54:2, 248-254, (2021). DOI: 10.1080/08905762.2021.1990714
- “Are You One or Two?” by Sergio Chejfec, [SLUG] #11, 5 February 2019.
- “Mirta Dermisache” by Sergio Chejfec. Review in 4Columns, 15 June 2018.
- Remedios Varo, “Letter to a Stranger.” Paris Review-The Daily, 14 Dec. 2018.
- “Three Letters” by Remedios Varo. Translation from Spanish, BOMB, Spring 2018 issue.
- Roberto Bolaño interviewed by Carmen Boullosa. In BOMB: The Author Interviews. New York: Soho Press, 2017
- “Simple Language, Name” by Sergio Chejfec, Asymptote, July 2015.
- “We Have No Recipes for the Foods of the Future” by Antonio José Ponte, emisférica 12:1 2015.
- “In Every Voice a Zapata: The Zapatista Movement Through Its Corridos” by Maria Luisa de la Garza and Claudia Isabel Serrano, in Dancing with the Zapatistas, edited by Diana Taylor and Lorie Novak. Duke UP/HemiPress, 2014.
- “Reverse Eclipse: Open Dome” by Mercedes Roffé, EOAGH, Issue 7.
Other
- Review of Leonora Carrington: Living Legacies, edited by Ailsa Cox, James Hewison, Michelle Man and Roger Shannon. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 2021. DOI: 10.1080/14753820.2021.1957260
- “Making Zoom a More Collaborative Place,” CETLS blog, March 19, 2021.
- Plume Interviews: Margaret Carson & Alta L. Price about the WiT Tumblr, Project Plume, 11 February 2021.
- “Leonora Carrington: The Story of the Last Egg,” Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, 53:1, 145-148, Spring 2020.
- “An Interview with Margaret Carson about Translating Remedios Varo’s Letters, Dreams & Other Writings,” Biblioklept, July 8, 2019.
- “Women in Translation: An Interview with Margaret Carson and Alta L. Price,” Words Without Borders, August 2017.
- Interview with Eugene Richie and Rosanne Wasserman, editors of John Ashbery’s Collected French Translations, part I and part II, Words Without Borders, February 15 and 16, 2017.
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- Keynote Speaker, 2019 Translating Women Conference, London, UK, 31 Oct.-1 Nov. 2019.
- Modern Language Association. Member of the January 2019-January 2022 Delegate Assembly.
- Nominee for BMCC Distinguished Teaching Award, 2019 and 2020.
Additional Information
Presentations, Talks, Public Conversations:
- “Remedios Varo and the piR₂ of Translation,” ISSS Surrealisms Conference, 10 Nov 2023.
- “Remedios Varo: Current Perspectives and New Directions,” ISSS Surrealisms Virtual Conference, 19 November 2022.
- “The Silver Linings of Teaching in the Pandemic.” MLA 2022 Conference, 9 January 2022.
- “A Conversation between Mary Ann Caws and Margaret Carson about Alice Paalen Rahon and Remedios Varo.” ISSS Surrealisms 2021 Virtual Conference, 11-14 November 2021.
- Surreal Tea Party featuring a presentation on Remedios Varo’s Letters, Dreams & Other Writings, 19 May 2019 at Makara Center for the Arts, Santa Ana, CA.
- Women in Translation tumblr (2015-2021)
Photo credit ©Beowulf Sheehan
