Olivia McCannon
Doctoral Student in Creative Writing - Olivia’s thesis is entitled ‘The Living Translations of Poetry: Ownership and the Co-operating Mind’.
Research project title
The Living Translations of Poetry: Ownership and the Co-operating Mind
Supervisors
Dr Tara Bergin, Prof Sinéad Morrissey and Dr Pauline Henry-Tierney
Contact details
Email: O.R.Mccannon2@newcastle.ac.uk
Twitter: @oliviamccannon
Research interests
- the “Anthropocene”
- 1970s feminist and environmental activism in poetry
- translation and science fiction
- contemporary poetry in French and English
- Translating Women
A brief outline of my research project
What might the language of an ‘archaeology of the future’ look and sound like? How can translated language transform relationships between words and worlds in the present? What future is there for the ‘poetry of the past’?
My research approaches these questions from three directions. I am writing a long poem made of the future remains of human and nonhuman life and technology.
I am translating Quèbecoise poet Louky Bersianik (1930–2011), who (in L’archéologie du futur), wrote of wanting to “break the sequence’ of the archaeological past and to ‘slide into the fissure the beginning (the renewing) of a viable world.”
Finally, I am writing a series of essays exploring the inventive regeneration and world(re)making potential of poetry translation.
- “Où est le centre du monde?” An ‘otherworldly conversation’ with Marie Darrieussecq’s Tristes Pontiques, L’Esprit Créateur, Johns Hopkins U.P. (autumn 2020)
- chair, NCLA translation duel, National Poetry Day, October 2018
- tutor for NCLA Spring School, Strange Meeting: Poetry’s encounters with the world around us, April 2019
- reader at the Idea of Europe symposium, Kings College London, November 2019
- paper at Language Acts and Worldmaking Conference: Languages Future, Kings College London, April 2020 (postponed)
Research groups
- co-convenor of PGR/ECR network of the Anthropocene Research Group - anthropocenepgr@newcastle.ac.uk
Outreach Projects
- co-judge, Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation, 2017–19
My academic background
- MA Arts and Cultural Leadership, Paris III, La Sorbonne Nouvelle
- BA Joint Honours, French/German, The Queen’s College, Oxford