The Translator Made Corporeal: Translation History and the Archive
8th May 2017 8:45am-6:00pm
The Translator Made Corporeal: Translation History and the Archive
British Library Knowledge Centre (Euston Road, London)
Monday 8th May 2017, 08:45 - 18:00
Registration is open: http://www.bl.uk/events/the-translator-made-corporeal-translation-history-and-the-archive/
Full Price: £45.00 / Students and concessions: £32.00
This conference will explore the current progress in studying the human translator in an historical and cultural context. The translation scholar Theo Hermans suggested that while we have recognised that there can be no translated text without the human translator, translators are still expected to remain ‘hidden, out of view, transparent, incorporeal, disembodied and disenfranchised’. If we are to get a deeper understanding of translators as cultural agents, Anthony Pym describes the need to look at the ‘flesh-and-blood’ translator. D’Hulst suggests that we ask ‘Qui? – who is the translator?’ A question which requires a look into the translator's social, cultural and economic background in a historical context. More recently, Jeremy Munday, Outi Paloposki and others have suggested that we should research translators’ archives to reveal their everyday lives, struggles, networks, and even friendships.
This conference will explore current progress in studying the human, flesh-and-blood translator in an historical and cultural context. Among those translators revealed will be: a court interpreter and part-time criminal in 18th-century Ireland; translators who risk exile or even their lives for their beliefs; WWII Japanese interpreters convicted as war criminals; blind translators in Poland today; and pre-1980 Soviet Union literary translators negotiating and arguing over censorship with their editors.
The varied research showcased here challenges our notions of who translators are and broadens our understanding of their social and cultural agency. The conference also features a presentation of the photographic project The Translator Made Corporeal: Through the Lens by Julia Schönstädt.
A full programme is available at http://www.bl.uk/events/the-translator-made-corporeal-translation-history-and-the-archive/
Organised in partnership between the British Library, University College London and the University of Essex. The conference is open to all but advance registration (via the above url) is necessary.
Please check your availability and commitments before signing up to this event. Booking and then cancelling may deny opportunities to others and also wastes money, food and other resources.