Christina Elizabeth Kramer is

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of Slavic and

Balkan The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

languages and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

and

Chair A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...

of the university's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures which is part of the Faculty of Arts and Science.

Education and career

* 1975: B.A. (Russian and comparative literature Retrieved on May 28, 2007),

Beloit College Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1846 when Wisconsin was still a territory, it is the state's oldest continuously operated college. It has an enrollment of roughly 1,000 undergradua ...

, Beloit, Wisconsin * 1980: M.A. (Slavic Languages and Literatures),

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

* 1983: Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kramer worked as a translator for Berlitz Translation Service for some time, translating documents from Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. Since 1986 Kramer has been a member of the

faculty. She was promoted to full professor in May 2001.

Scholarly work

Kramer is a specialist on Balkan languages and semantics, specifically on South Slavic languages. Her research focus on synchronic linguistics,

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies unde ...

, verbal categories, language and politics. Kramer

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

ed ''Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students''. The book – first published in 1999, revised and expanded in 2003 and 2011 – is the most recent English- Macedonian textbook. She is a noted translator of literature from Bulgarian and Macedonian, receiving a Literature Translation Fellowship from the NEA in 2018. Kramer co-invented the language "Lavinian" for Nicolas Billon's play ''Butcher''.

Key publications

* Christina E. Kramer (2003): ''Macedonian (= Makedonski jazik): A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students.'' Revised and expanded third edition. University of Wisconsin Press. September 2011. * Christina E. Kramer/Brian Cook (1999): ''Guard the Word Well Bound: Proceedings of the Third North American-Macedonian Conference on Macedonian Studies.'' Slavica Pub: ''Indiana Slavic Papers'', vol. 10 (1999). * Eran Fraenkel (Author), Christina Kramer (Editor) (1993): ''Language Contact-Language Conflict (Balkan Studies).'' Peter Lang Publishing. * Christina E. Kramer (1986): ''Analytic Modality in Macedonian.'' (Slavistische Beiträge) Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner. * Christina Kramer (1985): ''Makedonsko-Angliski Razgovornik''. Skopje: Seminar za makedonksi jazik.

Translations

Christina E. Kramer's translations of several Bulgarian and Macedonian novels (by Luan Starova, Goce Smilevski, Lidija Dimkovska, and Aleko Konstantinov) have been published by the

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a Non-profit organization, non-profit university press publishing Peer review, peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic comm ...

and

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

Awards

Kramer received the ''2006 Book Award'' from the

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) is an academic organization founded in 1941. AATSEEL holds an annual conference each January and publishes the '' Slavic and East European Journal'' (SEEJ), a pee ...

for best contribution to language pedagogy for her book ''Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students''. In 2014, Kramer was awarded a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

grant to fund her work on translating a novel from Luan Starova's Balkan Saga cycle, ''The Path of the Eels'' (or the ''Pyramid of Water''). This was the first time ever a NEA grant was awarded to support a translation from Macedonian to English. Her translation of Lidija Dimkovska's "A Spare Life" made the long list for the Best Translated Book of 2017 Award. In 2022, Kramer's translation of ''The Summer You Weren’t There'' by Petar Andonovski, from Macedonian to English, won a PEN Translates Award from

English PEN Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' associa ...

References

External links

Personal Website

Interview with Christina Kramer on SBS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Christina Linguists from Canada Academic staff of the University of Toronto Beloit College alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Macedonists Place of birth missing (living people) Canadian people of American descent Canadian women linguists Sociolinguists