lupanare

Lupanare is the Italian word for brothel. It was used in the poem I translated last night and is, I imagine, one of those words that makes serious translators go a little bit crazy. You see, the root of the word--lupa--means shewolf. And there's just no way to bring that into an English translation. It made me a little bit sad to let it go, but I did use "bordello" because it's more fun to say.

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I'm getting a slow start this morning because the one most time consuming thing on my to do list--the one I should have started already instead of blogging--is to read Conscripts of Modernity by David Scott. I hear it's a fascinating book. But it doesn't have anything to do with my interests. You think when you sign up for grad school that you will not have to take classes you don't want to take. Not so. Especially at UIC where two classes is a full load and there are typically only 4 grad seminars offered a semester but you have to take 3 workshops, which means you only have 5 other classes to take, and three of them are the core courses everyone takes, which means you get to choose 2 classes OR take more credits than you have to and even then there's no guarantee that you'll take a single class you like. So far, in my 3 semesters here, there's been ONE grad class on poetry and if you're a long time reader, you already know I hated it.

I cannot wait to start reading for my exams. At least then I'm the one picking the topics.

And...rant over.