From 26–27 November 2026, the Ghent Centre for Afrikaans and the Study of South Africa (www.afrikaans.ugent.be) will host the colloquium INTER-BREYTEN. Breytenbach in Context. The programme includes a panel discussion with the French, British and Dutch translators of Breytenbach’s poetry.

On 14–16 September, the ATLAM doctoral project is organising the stream “Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, Practices” as part of the CESSMIR conference Looking Back, Moving Forward: Migration Studies in Times of Societal Transformation. The conference programme is available via this link.

On 21–22 September, the Doctoral School course Participatory & Creative Methods in Migration Research: Audiovisual Storytelling and Public Engagement will be held at Campus Mercator (UGent) as part of the doctoral project ATLAM. The workshops will explore, among other things, how to make research accessible to a non-academic audience through storytelling, film and other creative methods. Registration is possible via this link.

This autumn marks ten years since Leonard Cohen’s death and fifteen years since he performed for several sold-out nights at Ghent’s Sint-Pietersplein. We are celebrating these anniversaries from 6 to 8 October with an international conference at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University, a special exhibition at the Book Tower featuring manuscripts, notes, correspondence and other unique Cohen items, and a tribute evening at the Handelsbeurs featuring live music by Lara Chedraoui, interviews and a documentary film.

You can find more information about this initiative in this interview. A very warm welcome!

Jointly organised by the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on 2 October, World Translation Day brings together literary translators, writers, scholars, students, and readers to reflect on, and valorise, the role of literary translation in the world. This year’s theme will be Translation, Literature, and the Machine.

On 17–18 September, the VUB Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) is hosting the conference Violence, Translation and Testimonial Authority: Ethics and Transmediality in Life-Writing. The programme is available here.

Marking ten years since Leonard Cohen’s passing, the conference Leonard Cohen: Global Perspectives on a Multi-disciplinary Artist aims to foster an interdisciplinary scholarly dialogue on his life, work, and legacy.

The conference will take place from 6 to 8 October 2026 at Ghent University. Keynote speakers are Robert Lecker (McGill University) and Sherry Simon (Concordia University).

The organisers invite participants to submit a 300-word proposal to cohen2026@ugent.be by April 30, 2026. The call for papers and further information can be found on the conference website.

The Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University is looking for a full-time (100%) PhD candidate in Translation Studies. The doctoral researcher will be affiliated with TRACE, the department’s research group on Translation and Culture.

We invite applicants to propose an original research project on translation between English and Spanish (in either direction: English–Spanish or Spanish–English). The proposal should fall within the broad field of translation and culture. We particularly welcome projects engaging with one or more of the following areas:

• Philosophy
• The novel of ideas from the twentieth century onwards
• Film and ideology
• Feminism and post-feminism
• Other relevant themes

The supervisors of the project are Prof. Jeroen Vandaele and Prof. Lieve Jooken.

Read the full vacancy and practical details for applying here. Applications are due by 18 November 2025.

On 23 and 24 October 2025, research group TricS (Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies) will organise Pornographie à Babel/Pornography in Babel, a bilingual conference on the translation of pornographic literature, sexualities and the obscene, at the University of Antwerp. You can find the call for papers here in French and here in English or via the following link: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/pornography-in-babel/. Please share this call for papers within your network. We would be delighted to receive your proposals on this still largely unexplored theme.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 30 June 2025.

Should you have any queries, do not hesitate to contact Philippe Vanhoof (philippe.vanhoof@uantwerpen.be).

On 5 December 2024 (USquare, 6 p.m.) Vrije Universiteit Brussel welcomes the award-winning German Jewish author Esther Dischereit. The author will read from her new book Ein Haufen Dollarscheine (2024) and engage in a discussion about uncomfortable truths that linger in official sites of documentation, in family archives and, last but not least, in the memory of individuals that can be at odds with dominant narratives about the past.

This event is part of the Ties that Bind Us Series and realised in cooperation with the recently launched Chair Traces of the Resistance. To register for the evening with Esther Dischereit, follow this link.