University of Texas at Dallas Names Centre in Honor of Dr. Rainer Schulte
University of Texas at Dallas alumnus Richard Kurjan MA’82 recently made a significant gift to name the Center for Translation Studies in honor of its founder, Dr. Rainer Schulte, Founders Professor of arts and humanities.
The Rainer Schulte Center for Translation Studies is part of the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology. Kurjan said the gift acknowledges the world-renowned expert in literature translation whom he credits with deeply impacting his life and career.
“Rainer instilled in me the inseparability of source and context (in translation),” said Kurjan, a retired financial services consultant. “He taught me how to think in that manner, and it enabled me to relate to my clients and prospects and to understand their needs.”
In 1975 Kurjan was searching for a university graduate program in the humanities and visited Ohio University. Schulte, then an Ohio University professor of literature and foreign languages, spent an entire day recruiting Kurjan, who became convinced this was the person with whom he wanted to study. The only problem was that Schulte had just accepted a position as a professor of language and translation studies at UT Dallas.
“‘Do you want to go there?’” Kurjan recalled Schulte asking him.
“This makes me think about the power and the associations that are inside a word. That’s what I have tried to cultivate with my students, and Richard Kurjan was one of my students who understood the importance of learning the internal creativity of words.”
Dr. Rainer Schulte, Founders Professor of arts and humanities
Kurjan did indeed follow Schulte to Texas, eventually earning a master’s degree in comparative literature and Spanish. In 1978 Schulte founded the UT Dallas Center for Translation Studies, which grew to become a leading program in the U.S. for the professional development of students and academics in the field of literary translation.
“This makes me think about the power and the associations that are inside a word,” Schulte said at the ceremony celebrating the gift. “That’s what I have tried to cultivate with my students, and Richard Kurjan was one of my students who understood the importance of learning the internal creativity of words.”
Schulte is an expert in comparative literature, in contemporary international literature, and in interdisciplinary studies in the arts and humanities. He has translated poetry and fiction of writers from Latin America, Germany and France.
He co-founded The American Literary Translators Association, a national nonprofit organization that supports the work of literary translators and advances the art of literary translation. Schulte is also the founding editor of Translation Review, a journal dedicated to the critical and scholarly aspects of translation studies.
In 2009 Schulte received the Linda Gaboriau Translation Award in honor of his significant contribution to the art of literary translation and to literature in North America from the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.
In 2021 Kurjan and his wife established the Trish and Richard Kurjan Fund for the Center for Translation Studies to support Schulte’s continued work and the education of students in the field.
“Alumni are our most prized stakeholders,” said Dr. Nils Roemer, Bass School dean and the Arts, Humanities, and Technology Distinguished University Chair. “An educator’s true measure of success is different from the number of awards or accolades earned. The true measure of success is our students and their commitment to serving their communities, collectively and individually.”
“A story like the one of Mr. Kurjan and Dr. Schulte is one that every educator dreams of being able to tell, and that’s why I am eternally grateful to our dedicated faculty who selflessly dedicate most of their waking hours to uplift the next generations,” said Roemer, who also directs the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies and is the Stan and Barbara Rabin Distinguished Professor in Holocaust Studies.