Paraphrasis is a podcast dedicated to the art and practice of literary translation, brought to you by a team of graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard.
www.paraphrasispodcast.com (https://www.paraphrasispodcast.com?utm_medium=podcast)
What does a translator do when one Russian word summons an entire visual world while English barely has a name for it? Nadezhda, Sasha, and Philippa unpack the long Google Doc trail behind a tear-off calendar, a photo mural, and the quiet surrealism of office décor that says everything without saying much.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com (https://www.paraphrasispodcast.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
1 Dec 2025
Collaborative Translation of Girls and Institutions by Daria Serenko
To close out Season 2, we spoke with three translators—Sasha Karsavina, Philippa Mullins, and Nadezhda Vikulina—about their collaborative translation of Girls and Institutions (excerpt in n+1 (https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-48/fiction-drama/girls-and-institutions/), 2024), Russian writer and activist Daria Serenko’s polyphonic portrait of girls under late-state bureaucracy. From tangled pronouns to shifting registers, the trio walks us through their methods of translating a text where everyday office work gives way to flashes of levity and transcendence. Somewhere between the poetic and the prosaic, every sentence becomes a site of collective negotiation and female solidarity.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com (https://www.paraphrasispodcast.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
17 Nov 2025
Bonus: Annabel Kim on “What if”
What do we do with a word that means both “if” and “yes”? Annabel shares the experience of grappling with the ending poem of Plasmas, where conditional grammar runs up against an imaginative imperative. Annabel ultimately lands on a solution that preserves the tremble between if and yes.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.paraphrasispodcast.com (https://www.paraphrasispodcast.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
Who has been a guest on Paraphrasis Podcast
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Spencer Lee-Lenfield
Sandra Naddaff
Anton Hur
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 40 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
55
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
Contact Paraphrasis Podcast
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Paraphrasis Podcast?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
