Susan Gillespie
Übersetzerin, Literaturwissenschaftlerin
Vice President, Founding Director of Institute for International Liberal Education, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
Susan H. Gillespie has spent her life exploring the possibilities of translation — inter-lingual, cultural, and educational. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College of Harvard University and attended the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, where, confronted with the European response to the Vietnam War, she learned that the value of international study consists not only in its educational content, but also in the ability it confers to hear oneself as others do — to translate oneself into another culture and language.
After a period of anti-war activism, Gillespie embarked on a career in fundraising for the New York Zoological Society, the New York Public Library, and Bard College, where she was named Vice President for Development and Public Affairs in 1985. In 1998, at the invitation of President Leon Botstein, she founded the Institute for International Liberal Education at Bard. The Institute’s mission is to advance the theory and practice of liberal education through international educational partnerships based on the principles of mutuality and equality and the ideals of liberal education, and awarding dual degrees. Bard offers dual B.A. degrees in collaboration with leading universities in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Palestine, among other programs. In addition to the dual B.A. degree, the Al-Quds Bard Partnership also offers the region’s first Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) degree.
A noted translator from German to English, Gillespie has published translations of works by philosopher Theodor W. Adorno and poet Paul Celan, among others. For further information please visit: http://iile.bard.edu/ and http://www.bard.edu/civicengagement/international/.