CFP: Special Issue of JoSTrans 'Suspicious Minds, Crime in Translation'

JoSTrans, The Journal of Specialised Translation, is an electronic, peer-reviewed journal bringing non-literary translation issues to the fore (see www.jostrans.org). Published bi-annually, it includes articles, reviews and streamed interviews by translation scholars and professionals. The journal is pleased to announce a special issue on crime in translation in July 2014 (issue n°22), guest edited by Karen Seago, Jonathan Evans and Begoña Rodriguez.

Crime fiction and its translation is experiencing a boom: Scandinavian Noir and Eurocrime feature regularly on the bestseller lists and in 2005, a special prize for translated crime fiction was created after the Gold Dagger had been won by non-English language crime authors three years in a row. Mysteries, thrillers and crime series occupy a prime spot in film and on television and recent screen adaptations of classic crime fiction such as Sherlock Holmes are an indication of our continuing fascination with the genre. But it is not only in fiction that translation meets crime. The police and the courts rely heavily on public service interpreters and translators. Translation itself is criminalised in various ways, e.g. in relation to copyright infringement, legal proceedings against translators of ‘problematic’ texts and various forms of piracy. This issue aims to explore the different facets of translation and crime.

Contributions might relate to, but are not limited to:

•    The characteristics and challenges of translating crime fiction
•    The constraints of formula fiction and how they impact on translation
•    Transmedial adaptations of crime narratives
•    True crime, its translation into text and across languages and cultures
•    Specialist knowledge, research and documentation in crime fiction translation
•    Subtitling and dubbing thrillers
•    Coherence and ambiguity in crime translation
•    Crime, translation and the law
•    The role of translation and interpreting in criminal justice
•    Translation by and for criminals
•    Translation as a crime
•    Translation and forensic linguistics
•    The representation of translation and interpreting in crime fiction and film

We welcome contributions of full length papers (between 4000 and 7000 words including endnotes and references), reviews (500-800 words) and shorter, more practical pieces for the Translator’s Corner section of the Journal. The journal style sheet can be downloaded from http://www.jostrans.org/style.php.

All contributions will be peer-reviewed.

Please send contributions to guest editor Karen Seago at karen.seago.1 [at] city.ac.uk with the Subject line JoSTrans Issue 22 by November 30th, 2013.

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Selected papers from the Portsmouth Translation conference on Translation and Crime will be published in this issue of JosTrans.

The 2013 Portsmouth Translation Conference on Saturday 9 November 2013 aims to bring the different facets of translation and crime together in an interdisciplinary one-day conference, allowing exchange of ideas between translators, criminologists, interpreters, literary scholars and translation researchers.

The organisers invite proposals for 20-minute papers and 60-minute practical workshops on any area connecting crime and translation or interpreting. Enquiries and/or 300-word abstracts should be sent to translation [at] port.ac.uk by 15 June 2013.

For more information on the Portsmouth conference and the Call for Papers, please visit the Conference Website: http://www.port.ac.uk/research/translation/events/translationconference/