“… mijn trage reistocht door de nacht …” Herinneringen aan Raymond Van den Broeck

“… mijn trage reistocht door de nacht …”
Herinneringen aan Raymond Van den Broeck

Vrijdag 8 februari 2019
KU Leuven
Campus Antwerpen
Sint-Andriesstraat 2
2000 Antwerpen

Programma

13.00-13.30 uur
Onthaal

13.30-14.00 uur
Een vertaaltheorie in de conjunctief. Raymond Van den Broecks theoretische ambivalentie
Henri Bloemen

14.00-14.30 uur
De onvertaalbare Mallarmé
Paul Claes

14.30-15.00 uur
Denken door metaforen: Raymond Van den Broecks cruciale bijdrage tot de cognitieve vertaalwetenschap
Lieven D’hulst

15.00-15.30 uur
Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen
Erik Hertog

15.30-16.00 uur
Koffiepauze

16.00-16.30 uur
Over kritisch normbesef
Ton Naaijkens

16.30-17.00 uur
Therapie en vertaling
Winibert Segers

17.00-17.30 uur
“Zou jij je daar niet aan wagen, collega Waegemans?”
De receptie van Russische literatuur in de Nederlanden
Emmanuel Waegemans

De studienamiddag is gratis. Wel graag aanmelden bij Karen.Foelen@kuleuven.be vóór 14 januari 2019.

Job offer: Professor within Translation Studies focused on Cultural Transfer

Apply until 06/11/2018 23:59 CET
Discipline: Translation Studies Focused on Cultural Transfer
100% Assistant professor tenure track
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Reference number: 201809/LW/ZAP/005

 

The job offer can be seen on the intern and/or extern web page.

 

PROFILE

 

Knowledge/Experience

Candidates:

  • have high-level academic research experience in the field of Translation Studies focused on cultural transfer, which can be corroborated by publications in quality, peer-reviewed, academic journals and books;
  • should have demonstrable expertise in the department’s research field of translation and culture;
  • are capable of initiating and supervising academic research and collecting the necessary funds for this;
  • should possess the necessary didactic skills to help university students develop and achieve academic competences;
  • should be able to demonstrate experience in academic teaching
  • Should have a knowledge of Dutch and of one or more languages taught at the department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at C2-level.

 

In addition:

  • being internationally mobile, inter alia by taking part in research programmes at research institutions not linked to the university where the highest degree was obtained, will be considered an asset;
  • having positively evaluated experience in offering and/or organising academic training is recommended;
  • involvement in the professionalisation of education will be considered an asset;
  • having translated in the field of culture in general is recommended.

 

MORE INFORMATION

For further information regarding these vacancies, please contact Professor Veronique Hoste (veronique.hoste@UGent.be) at the faculty of Arts and Philosophy, department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication.

Vacature: Professor in vertaalwetenschap toegespitst op cultural transfer

Solliciteren tot 06-11-2018 
Vakgebied: Vertaalwetenschap toegespitst op cultural transfer
100% Docent tenure track
Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte
Referentienummer:201809/LW/ZAP/005

U kunt de vacature, afhankelijk van waar ze werd gepubliceerd, bekijken op de interne (na inloggen) en/of externe vacaturepagina.

OPDRACHT

In de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte is vanaf 1 februari 2019 een voltijds ambt van docent in het tenure track stelsel te begeven binnen de vakgroep Vertalen, Tolken en Communicatie, voor een opdracht die academisch onderwijs, wetenschappelijk onderzoek en wetenschappelijke dienstverlening omvat in het vakgebied Vertaalwetenschap toegespitst op cultural transfer.

Academisch onderwijs

U werkt mee aan het onderwijs op bachelor- of masterniveau binnen de vakgroep Vertalen, Tolken en Communicatie in een van de talen die in de vakgroep worden gedoceerd.

Wetenschappelijk onderzoek

U bouwt vernieuwend onderzoek uit in het domein van vertaalonderzoek toegespitst op cultural transfer.

Wetenschappelijke dienstverlening

U werkt mee aan de interne en externe dienstverlening van de vakgroep Vertalen, Tolken en Communicatie.

PROFIEL

Kennis/ervaring

    • U heeft reeds hoogstaand wetenschappelijk onderzoek verricht in het vakgebied Vertaalwetenschap toegespitst op cultural transfer zoals blijkt uit publicaties in kwaliteitsvolle wetenschappelijke tijdschriften en boeken met peer review;
    • U hebt aantoonbare expertise in vertaalonderzoek, toegespitst op cultural transfer;
    • U bent in staat om wetenschappelijk onderzoek te initiëren en te begeleiden en hiervoor de nodige fondsen te verzamelen;
    • U beschikt over didactische vaardigheden die gericht zijn op het ontwikkelen en realiseren van academische competenties bij universiteitsstudenten;
    • U kunt aantoonbare ervaring voorleggen in onderwijs op academisch niveau;
    • Het niveau van uw Nederlands en van één of meerdere vreemde talen van de vakgroep vertalen, tolken en communicatie is C2;
    • Strekken tot aanbeveling:
              • Internationale mobiliteit o.m. door onderzoekverblijven in onderzoeksinstellingen extern aan de instelling waaraan de hoogste academische graad werd behaald;
              • Positief geëvalueerde ervaring met verstrekt en/of georganiseerd onderwijs op academisch niveau;
              • Onderwijsprofessionalisering
              • Ervaring met vertaling in de culturele sector

 

MEER INFORMATIE

Nadere informatie betreffende deze vacatures kan verkregen worden bij Prof. Veronique Hoste (veronique.hoste@UGent.be) van de faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, vakgroep Vertalen, Tolken en Communicatie.

Call for papers – “Translation and Plurisemiotic Practices”

JoSTrans 35 (January 2021)

Special issue ‘Translation and Plurisemiotic Practices’

Guest editors : Francis Mus (Université de Liège – CIRTI) and Sarah Neelsen (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – CEREG)

This special issue of JoSTrans is a contribution to the current research on translating ‘multidimensional’ works that combine texts with other semiotic elements such as music, lighting, body movements or images, usually associated with the stage. Translators who have to transfer those plurisemiotic works face hybrid objects: as meaning is not only invested in words, translators must thus take into account this intersemiotic dialectics and create multidimensional works as well.

Contributions may address the following plurisemotic pratices: theatre, performance, music, poetry in sign language, plastic arts.

Some plurisemiotic practices have already been the object of academic research. This particularly applies to translation for the stage and audiovisual translation, two fields of research that have remarkably developed over the past two decades. Other areas are much less explored. Research on the interweaving of translation and music is much more recent, especially when popular music is involved. This is also the case for translation and plastic arts, the interconnection of which has rarely been the object of systematic research: can the translation of a text be shaped as an art object? What kind of translation does the circulation of plastic works require? Sign language has attracted a lot of interest of late, but is mostly studied as a language of translation rather than as a language of creation.

The 35th issue of JoSTrans will carry on developments already started in several previous issues, for instance ‘The Translation of Multimodal Texts’ (2013) and ‘Translation in the Creative Industries’ (2018), though in this forthcoming 35th issue contributions will be limited to plurisemiotic practices performed in front of an audience. Communication between artist(s) and audience(s) occurs through some form of ‘translation’, ‘localization’ or ‘adaptation’. Analyses can thus also tackle new professional fields of expertise as well as the development of new translation technologies, various topics that have already been addressed in several issues, particularly in issues n°23 (2015), 26 (2016) and 30 (2018).

Contributions should be thematically and methodologically related to one of the following areas of research:

1. While indeed some practices have already been studied in other disciplines (literary studies, semiotics, cultural studies, etc.), the focus will be here on Translation Studies. Proposals should belong, both thematically and methodologically, to an epistemological tradition in Translation Studies that provides tools to identify the specific nature of translation, while keeping in mind its intrinsically interdisciplinary dimension. Indeed, since some semiotic devices (for instance, can or should a tune or an image be translated?) and their interaction (for instance the relationship between text and image or between text and music) are often valued differently in different cultures, all translation will necessarily, to some extent, also be a ‘cultural translation’.

2. We aim at bringing together articles that go beyond case studies and achieve a cohesive whole in which several artistic disciplines are addressed and general hypotheses examined. We will also raise the question whether
there are challenges or translation techniques that apply to all artistic practices under scrutiny. Is it for instance possible to translate independently the various semiotic devices that concur in a work? How can translators ‘distribute’ (the translation of) those devices in the translation process itself? Should the ‘distribution’ in the target text be ‘equivalent’ to what it is in the source text? How can such an equivalence be defined? Can we talk here of a ‘compensation’ strategy? Finally, does the translation of plurisemiotic works
bring up some exceptional feature in translators’ activity, or does the very complexity of these works provide an ideal research object to illustrate some fundamental principles in any translation activity?

3. In this respect the part played by translators is essential. Since their translation must simultaneously take into account several semiotic systems, sometimes at the very moment when the practice occurs on stage, their
position is significantly changed / revalued. Indeed, the overlapping of technological developments over the second half of the twentieth century with the recognition and ever greater visibility of translators has extended the field in which the latter can perform their art. In Translation Studies too this new freedom has been recognized and studied since a prescriptive research tradition has yielded to descriptive approaches that do not only focus on
equivalence, but are also interested in the translators’ creative role. In this respect the study of plurisemiotic works will make it possible to better define the limits and the possibilities of translators as co-authors and to shed light on all sorts of collaborations they can develop (with directors, musicians, actors, etc.). The reception of works which include some form of translation can also be examined, notably from the perspective of co-construction of meaning by audiences and translators.

Contributions can be written in French or English and must not be over 7,000 words (footnotes and bibliographies included).

Publication schedule:
– Proposals (500-word abstract + biographical notice) must be sent by 1 February 2019 to the two guest editors: Francis Mus (francis.mus@uliege.be) and Sarah Neelsen (sarah.neelsen@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr)
– Full articles must be sent by 25 August 2019. The journal’s style sheet can be downloaded at www.jostrans.org/style.php

Full text in English: CFP_JosTrans 35_EN_DEF

Description en français : CFP_JosTrans 35_FR_DEF

Call for Papers – Paradoxes and Misunderstandings in Cultural Transfers

Van woensdag 22 tot vrijdag 24 mei 2019 organiseert de Katholieke Universiteit van Louvain-la-Neuve (UC Louvain) een internationale conferentie onder de titel “Paradoxes and Misunderstandings in Cultural Transfers”/”Les transferts culturels : paradoxes et malentendus”.

 

Introduced in Cultural History in the late 1980s to cover the dead angles of comparative studies, the notion of cultural transfer refers to diverse phenomena of circulation, transformation and reinterpretation of cultural and textual goods across geo-cultural areas. As a research method intended to override national  rameworks, Cultural Transfer Studies have inspired an increasing amount of interdisciplinary work in various fields such as Literary Studies (e.g., Lüsebrink 2008, Roland 2016), Translation Studies (e.g., Göpferich 2007, Roig-Sanz & Meylaerts 2018), or Cultural and Art History (e.g., Espagne 2013, Middell 2014). Beyond the sole idea of displacement between a source and a target culture, cultural transfers aim to do justice to the heterogeneity of each cultural zone and to the logics of intersection and hybridity by identifying enclaves, networks and vectors of exchanges. Inspired by the promises of  entangled history’/’Verflechtungsgeschichte’ (Werner & Zimmerman 2003) – which takes into account the reciprocity and multidirectionality of (re-)transfers –, recent studies have investigated the diversity, intertwining and non-linearity of a broad spectrum of transfer practices, including translations, thus giving voice to mediating activities and agencies largely ignored so far (e.g., D’hulst 2012).

Despite its conceptual relevance and the proliferation of case studies on mediators and border crossing phenomena, Transfer Studies seem to have reached a
turning point. On the one hand and as already pointed out by Werner and Zimmerman (2003), even entangled objects, entities and practices do not escape pre-established categorizations and the essentialist pitfalls they entail. On the other hand, the insistence on coincidence and the methodological flattening out of any pre-existing borders, sometimes at the expense of historicity, risk to precipitate the methodological framework toward unproductive relativism. As a result, and because of a certain lack of consensus among theorists (Joyeux 2003), the added value and the merits of Transfers vis-à-vis related concepts in e.g. Postcolonial Studies, Translation Studies, transnational historiography or transcultural studies have been questioned. What is the specificity of cultural transfers? Can it be thought outside the West European context? Can the notion of transfer help us to overcome disciplinary, national and linguistic borders? Or does it reaffirm them? How should we apprehend the (non-)linearity and asymmetry of transfer processes over various spaces and times? Is it possible to measure the impact of transfers and (how) can we evaluate their relative ‘success’? Facing these questions and paradoxes, this conference would like to (re)think the viability of the concept of cultural transfer, its current and future challenges as well as its tools, objectives and epistemological framework(s) in an interdisciplinary perspective. The main issues we would like to discuss are related, but not limited, to four topics: (1) linearity, (2) borders/boundaries, (3) competing/connected concepts and (4) impact/success.

1) (Non-)Linearity. Transfer is a continuous process involving various moving sources and targets, such as institutions, languages, cultures, agents. How can we adequately apprehend them across time within or outside the reductionist source-target binarity, with its hierarchical and often too unidirectional frames?

2) Borders/Boundaries. Do transfers and translations create (Pym 1998), enforce (Leerssen 2014) and/or surpass borders? What is the impact of the researcher’s position on the way he/she conceives boundaries?

3) Competing/Connected concepts. Transfer is an omnipresent cultural phenomenon linked to concepts from other disciplines (e.g. hybridity, métissage,
in-betweenness, transculturality, pluriculturality, translation, networks, third space, etc.). Do these related concepts go beyond purely conceptual discrepancies, and if so, can concepts from other disciplines bring insight to Transfer Studies, and vice versa?

4) Impact/success. (How) can we evaluate the function(s), impact and success of transfer processes over time? What can we learn from failed transfers? What are the consequences of misunderstandings and how to deal with them? How and when do researchers define a transfer as ‘successful’ or not?

 

We invite speakers to submit abstracts of maximum 200 words, methodologically and/or theoretically motivated. The conference languages will be English and French. Please send your abstract and short bio-bibliographical note to both Julie.crombois@uclouvain.be and elies.smeyers@uclouvain.be before 30 October 2018.

 

Confirmed keynotes/ conférenciers confirmés
– Elke Brems (KU Leuven)
– Diana Roig-Sanz (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)

Organizing committee/ comité d’organisation
– Julie Crombois (FNRS, UC Louvain)
– Dirk Delabastita (U Namur)
– Maud Gonne (FNRS, U Namur/UC Louvain)
– Hubert Roland (FNRS, UC Louvain)
– Elies Smeyers (FNRS, UC Louvain/U Gent)
– Stéphanie Vanasten (UC Louvain)

Scientific committee/ comité scientifique
– Marnix Beyen (U Antwerpen)
– Lieven D’hulst (KU Leuven)
– Jaap Grave (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
– Joep Leerssen (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
– Reine Meylaerts (KU Leuven)
– Lut Missinne (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
– Helga Mitterbauer (ULB)
– Francis Mus (U Liège)
– Arvi Sepp (VUB/U Antwerpen)

Call for papers – Paradoxes and Misunderstandings in Cultural Transfers (UC Louvain)

Université catholique de Louvain, 22-24 May 2019

 

Introduced in Cultural History in the late 1980s to cover the dead angles of comparative studies, the notion of cultural transfer refers to diverse phenomena of circulation, transformation and reinterpretation of cultural and textual goods across geo-cultural areas. As a research method intended to override national  rameworks, Cultural Transfer Studies have inspired an increasing amount of interdisciplinary work in various fields such as Literary Studies (e.g., Lüsebrink 2008, Roland 2016), Translation Studies (e.g., Göpferich 2007, Roig-Sanz & Meylaerts 2018), or Cultural and Art History (e.g., Espagne 2013, Middell 2014). Beyond the sole idea of displacement between a source and a target culture, cultural transfers aim to do justice to the heterogeneity of each cultural zone and to the logics of intersection and hybridity by identifying enclaves, networks and vectors of exchanges. Inspired by the promises of  entangled history’/’Verflechtungsgeschichte’ (Werner & Zimmerman 2003) – which takes into account the reciprocity and multidirectionality of (re-)transfers –, recent studies have investigated the diversity, intertwining and non-linearity of a broad spectrum of transfer practices, including translations, thus giving voice to mediating activities and agencies largely ignored so far (e.g., D’hulst 2012).

Despite its conceptual relevance and the proliferation of case studies on mediators and border crossing phenomena, Transfer Studies seem to have reached a
turning point. On the one hand and as already pointed out by Werner and Zimmerman (2003), even entangled objects, entities and practices do not escape pre-established categorizations and the essentialist pitfalls they entail. On the other hand, the insistence on coincidence and the methodological flattening out of any pre-existing borders, sometimes at the expense of historicity, risk to precipitate the methodological framework toward unproductive relativism. As a result, and because of a certain lack of consensus among theorists (Joyeux 2003), the added value and the merits of Transfers vis-à-vis related concepts in e.g. Postcolonial Studies, Translation Studies, transnational historiography or transcultural studies have been questioned. What is the specificity of cultural transfers? Can it be thought outside the West European context? Can the notion of transfer help us to overcome disciplinary, national and linguistic borders? Or does it reaffirm them? How should we apprehend the (non-)linearity and asymmetry of transfer processes over various spaces and times? Is it possible to measure the impact of transfers and (how) can we evaluate their relative ‘success’? Facing these questions and paradoxes, this conference would like to (re)think the viability of the concept of cultural transfer, its current and future challenges as well as its tools, objectives and epistemological framework(s) in an interdisciplinary perspective. The main issues we would like to discuss are related, but not limited, to four topics: (1) linearity, (2) borders/boundaries, (3) competing/connected concepts and (4) impact/success.

1) (Non-)Linearity. Transfer is a continuous process involving various moving sources and targets, such as institutions, languages, cultures, agents. How can we adequately apprehend them across time within or outside the reductionist source-target binarity, with its hierarchical and often too unidirectional frames?

2) Borders/Boundaries. Do transfers and translations create (Pym 1998), enforce (Leerssen 2014) and/or surpass borders? What is the impact of the researcher’s position on the way he/she conceives boundaries?

3) Competing/Connected concepts. Transfer is an omnipresent cultural phenomenon linked to concepts from other disciplines (e.g. hybridity, métissage,
in-betweenness, transculturality, pluriculturality, translation, networks, third space, etc.). Do these related concepts go beyond purely conceptual discrepancies, and if so, can concepts from other disciplines bring insight to Transfer Studies, and vice versa?

4) Impact/success. (How) can we evaluate the function(s), impact and success of transfer processes over time? What can we learn from failed transfers? What are the consequences of misunderstandings and how to deal with them? How and when do researchers define a transfer as ‘successful’ or not?

 

We invite speakers to submit abstracts of maximum 200 words, methodologically and/or theoretically motivated. The conference languages will be English and French. Please send your abstract and short bio-bibliographical note to both Julie.crombois@uclouvain.be and elies.smeyers@uclouvain.be before 30 October 2018.

 

Confirmed keynotes/ conférenciers confirmés
– Elke Brems (KU Leuven)
– Diana Roig-Sanz (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)

Organizing committee/ comité d’organisation
– Julie Crombois (FNRS, UC Louvain)
– Dirk Delabastita (U Namur)
– Maud Gonne (FNRS, U Namur/UC Louvain)
– Hubert Roland (FNRS, UC Louvain)
– Elies Smeyers (FNRS, UC Louvain/U Gent)
– Stéphanie Vanasten (UC Louvain)

Scientific committee/ comité scientifique
– Marnix Beyen (U Antwerpen)
– Lieven D’hulst (KU Leuven)
– Jaap Grave (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
– Joep Leerssen (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
– Reine Meylaerts (KU Leuven)
– Lut Missinne (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
– Helga Mitterbauer (ULB)
– Francis Mus (U Liège)
– Arvi Sepp (VUB/U Antwerpen)

Seminar : The Author’s Other Voice: Literary Translation in Theory and Practice (NeMLA)

Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
The 50th Annual Convention
Washington DC

March 21-24, 2019.

The interdisciplinary turn in the field of Translation Studies has raised a number of questions regarding the interweaving of theory and practice, the development of hybrid approaches to the target text, the power of translation to shape cultural relations, and the growing expectations of the reader for truth and clarity. In this context, the role of the literary translator becomes ever-more pertinent. His/her verbal dexterity as well as the ability to capture the narratological complexity of the source text define the subtle border between content and form and shape the identity of the translated work of art. Yet the literary translator’s most challenging task is to decide whether the creative use of language can be rendered possible without infringing the rules of linguistic acceptability. This question constitutes the starting point of our inquiry and calls for further research on both individual and collective variables that influence the translation process. Given the translator’s ability to question the singularity of literary traditions and offer a better understanding of the intrinsic pluralism of culture, this seminar seeks original approaches regarding the social utility and functions of the translated text.

Theoretical considerations and/or practical case studies can focus on either a descriptive, target-oriented, functional, and systemic analysis of literary translation (Gideon Toury 1985; Dilek Dizdar 2009) or towards a normative, source-text oriented, linguistic, and atomistic standpoint (Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast 2006). Other possible approaches can examine the social constraints that condition the reception of literary translation (Gisele Sapiro 2008), the enunciatory process of cultural translation and its relation to the concept of hybridity (Homi Bhabha 1994), the hermeneutic motion and the battle between literal and symbolic meaning (George Steiner 1975), the element of resistance and the irresolution of translation (Walter Benjamin 1921), the claim of aesthetic autonomy (Lawrence Venuti 2012), the ethical turn in translation studies (Mary Snell-Hornby 2006), and the place of translations both within a given literature and in the intersection between literatures (Theo Hermans 1985). Reflections on literary translation through the prism of philosophy, sociology, poetics, studies on the imaginary or any other related field are also welcome.

This seminar is part of the 50th annual Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) convention which will take place in Washington DC from the 21st until the 24th of March 2019. Scholars at any stage of their research are welcome to submit their abstracts (100-250 words) before the 30th of September 2018. Submissions for this seminar can only be sent via the convention’s website: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/17249

For further information you can contact the organizer: bezari.christina@gmail.com

Short Description:
This seminar welcomes original approaches with regard to the translation of poetry and prose. Scholars at any stage of their research are invited to reflect on the status of the literary translator, the social utility of the translated work of art, the emergence of new paradigms in Translation Studies, the interchange between theory and practice, and the contribution of literary translation in shaping cultural relations.

De kwaliteit van vertalingen. Een terminologie van de vertaalevaluatie

Winibert Segers en Gijs-Walt van Egdom, De kwaliteit van vertalingen. Een terminologie van de vertaalevaluatie.

Samenvatting
Wat is een goede vertaling? Wat doet een competente vertaler? De kwaliteit van vertalingen probeert hierop een antwoord te formuleren. De basistermen van de vertaalevaluatie worden op een bevattelijke manier uitgelegd. Daarnaast worden de termen met opmerkingen, voorbeelden en kruisverwijzingen in een context geplaatst. Uiterst geschikt voor beoordelaars in onderwijs en beroepscontexten, docenten en studenten vertaalkunde, vertalers en revisoren.

Over de auteurs

Winibert Segers is verbonden aan de KU Leuven en begeleidt de vertaalateliers Administratief vertalen en Medisch vertalen.

Gys-Walt van Egdom is als docent en onderzoeker verbonden aan de Zuyd hogeschool.

Meer informatie: https://www.pelckmanspro.be/de-kwaliteit-van-vertalingen.html

Exploring creativity in translation across cultures / Créativité et traduction à travers les cultures

This volume offers a rich overview of research in the field of translation conducted by scholars from different countries working with the English-French language pair. Creativity is looked at from a cross-cultural perspective, taking into account many diverse aspects and angles, which involve different processes and actors. Divided into two subsections and accompanied by a double preface in English as well as by a foreword and an introduction in both languages, the book is the result of demanding editing work.

More info : http://www.aracneeditrice.it/index.php/pubblicazione.html?item=9788825509601

Translating Cultural Memory in Fiction and Testimony – Memory Studies and Translation Studies in Dialogue

Translating Cultural Memory in Fiction and Testimony – Memory Studies and Translation Studies in Dialogue
International Conference

Organizers: Claudia Jünke (University of Innsbruck) and Désirée Schyns (Ghent University)

University of Innsbruck (Austria), 10-11 October 2019

A few years ago Sharon Deane-Cox (2013: 309) observed a “striking absence of dialogue between memory studies and translations studies”, two fields of research which with very rare exceptions (such as Brodzki 2007) did not have much contact with each other. This diagnosis is still valid today and has recently been confirmed by Siobhan Brownlie (2016: 12) who states that “the research concerning translation and memory […] has not been conceptualized as a whole”. The interdisciplinary conference aims at bringing together scholars from cultural memory studies and from translation studies without privileging one of the two disciplinary perspectives. In doing so, it wants to further explore the potential of a new research design that results from the intersections and the nterplay of these two areas of study. The focus of the conference will lie on a particular kind of memory: fictional and testimonial literature’s memories of traumatic pasts, i.e. memories of wars, genocide, dictatorship, colonial oppression, terror and other forms of politically and ethnically motivated violence. We propose to consider literary fictions and testimony that deal with these issues as media of ‘cultural memory’ in the sense of Jan Assmann (1992) and Aleida Assmann (2012), i.e. of collectively shared visions of the past which emerge from historical knowledge stored in and transmitted by cultural objects and practices and which circulate and are negotiated in the (trans)cultural sphere. What happens when texts that represent, perform and negotiate traumatic memories are translated into other languages and therefore into other cultural contexts? What is the importance of particular translation strategies, of paratextual framing, of different horizons of expectation and reception for the transmission of cultural reminiscence? Which role do the translations, the translators and other agents of translation play for memory’s transcultural, cross-border ‘travels’? Is there an ‘ethics of translation’ when it comes to the transfer of memories of past crimes? These are some of the question that the conference wants to address.

The far-reaching absence of dialogue between translation studies scholars and those cultural studies scholars interested in questions of translation seems to be mainly a consequence of the different concepts of ‘translation’ that are at play. On the one hand, cultural studies scholars advocate for a wideranging concept that understands ‘translation’ in a broad and metaphorical sense, referring for instance to the transfers between cultures, areas of knowledge or academic disciplines. This is for instance the case in Doris Bachmann-Medick’s work on the ‘translational turn’ in the humanities (see BachmannMedick 2009). On the other hand, translation studies scholars tend to criticize this conceptual widening and claim the importance of a more specific and narrow concept of translation that keeps ‘translation proper’ as its point of reference (see Dizdar 2009, Heller 2017). In focusing on memories of traumatic pasts in fictional and testimonial literature and in fostering a dialogue between memory scholars interested in questions of translation and translation scholars interested in questions of memory the conference wants to stimulate productive discussions that transcend the binarity of these two positions and that scrutinize the cross-fertilizations between the two academic disciplines.

Confirmed keynote speakers: Susan Bassnett (University of Warwick) and Lucy Bond (University of Westminster)

We encourage the proposal of papers both on theoretical and conceptual aspects and on particular case studies (on different genres such as narrative, poetry, drama, graphic novels, testimony, autobiography) that reflect on the intersections of memory and translation and that explicitly tackle the problems, questions and desiderata addressed in this description. The language of the conference is English; the presentations should not exceed 20 minutes as we want to have sufficient time for discussion.

—

Scholars interested in participating and presenting a paper are invited to send their abstracts (including short biographical information) of not more than 350 words to the organizers: claudia.juenke@uibk.ac.at, Desiree.Schyns@UGent.be

Deadline for the submission of abstracts of papers: 15 January 2019

Notification of the acceptance of the papers will be sent until the end of February 2019

References:
Assmann, Aleida, 2012: Cultural Memory and Western Civilization. Functions, Media, Archives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Assmann, Jan, 1992: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und Politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, München: C.H. Beck.
Bachmann-Medick, Doris, 2009: “Introduction: The translational turn”, Translation Studies 2/1, 2–16.
Brodzki, Bella, 2007: Can these bones live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Brownlie, Siobhan, 2016: Mapping Memory in Translation, Houndmills / Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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