A Poetry Anthology in English Translation of Poets from Qatar and the Arabian Gulf: Funding Undergraduate Creative Research

By Jeff Lodge and Patty Paine.

Published by Journal of the World Universities Forum

Format	Price
Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

In 2007, the Qatar National Research Fund of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development initiated the Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP). The Foundation’s aim is to fund projects that involve undergraduate researchers, working with university mentors, on projects that address the needs of Qatar. The majority of UREP grants have been awarded to proposals in the sciences, medicine and engineering and have used primarily quantitative empirical research. For the fourth cycle, however, two faculty and four students at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar submitted a proposal based in the humanities proposing creative rather than quantitative research. Responding to a student-identified need for a poetry anthology representing the voices closest to them, a research project was proposed in which students, working with faculty mentors, would 1) seek out and select Qatari and Arabian Gulf poets whose poetry merits an international audience; 2) work with each of the selected poets to choose either new or previously published poems for translation into English; and 3) collaborate with the poets and the faculty mentors in the process of translating the poems into English with the intent of facilitating their publication in various English-language literary magazines, and ultimately, collecting them into an anthology itself suitable for publication. In June 2008, the proposal was accepted, funding was awarded, and the project began. To date, the progress on the project indicates that this type of research provides value to students, faculty, and institutions, and suggests that institutions could benefit greatly by following Qatar Foundation’s lead.

Keywords:	Undergraduate, Creative Research, Funding, Translation, Arabic, Humanities

Journal of the World Universities Forum, Volume 2, Issue 3, pp.125-132. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 1.120MB).

Jeff Lodge

Assistant Professor of English, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

Jeff Lodge is the author of the novels Where This Lake Is (White Pine Press, 1997) and The History of My Misfortunes (forthcoming) and, with John A. Brown, a work of nonfiction, A Prayer for Foxes and Hens (forthcoming). He has published fiction, poetry, and essays in GSU Review, Persona, Pleiades, Squib, and other publications, and has written dozens of book reviews for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Style Weekly. He is a founding and contributing editor of Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts and co-editor of the online poetry magazine diode. He is currently an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, where he teaches writing and literature.

Patty Paine

Assistant Profesor, English Department, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

Patty Paine is the author of Elegy & Collapse (Finishing Line Press, 2005) and her poems have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Southern Poetry Journal, Gulfstream, The Journal, The Ledge, and many other journals. She is the editor of diode poetry journal and is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Doha, Qatar.

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