Conference: Early Modern Translation, Washington DC, March 2011

There's a really great-looking conference on at the Folger Institute in Washington DC in a few days. 'Early Modern Translation: History, Theory, Practice' runs from Friday 4 March to Saturday 5 March. See the fantastic-looking programme here. One I'll be really sorry not to be able to attend.

Languages at War final conference, 7-9 April 2011 (registration deadline 18 February)

Students taking the Translating History unit may be particularly interested in this conference. The deadline for registration and payment has been extended to 18 February 2011.

The Conference's Provisional Programme and List of Abstracts are now available on line at:

http://www.reading.ac.uk/languages-at-war/lw-conference2011.aspx

A Special Event will be held at the Cabinet War Rooms at 7.30 pm on Friday 8th April 2011, including a guided tour of the Churchill Museum and underground Cabinet War Rooms as well as dinner at one of the historic war time rooms. The deadline for registration and payment for this special event is 18th February 2011, and you will be able to register for both conference and special event by using the same form.

Maureen Freely on Pamuk, Harvill Secker book draw

Reading a very interesting blog post by Maureen Freely, translator of the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, who talks about the political and economic repercussions of her work. (And reveals that astonishingly, UK university research departments still don't seem to have solved the problem of how to acknowledge translation among other scholarly work. Sigh.)

On a more festive note, in the same blog post, Harvill Secker, one of the UK's most assiduous and best-respected translation publishers, is holding a book draw to celebrate its 100th birthday this year. HS is giving away a library of 50 books to a lucky reader. To enter the prize draw, 'email your favourite piece of translated writing – fiction or non‑fiction – to review at observer.co.uk by Wednesday 1 December, putting "translation" in the subject field'.

PhD fellowships: Text and Event in Early Modern Europe

Readers considering PhD study in translation may be interested in these Erasmus Mundus Fellowships for PhD projects in early modern studies. 

TEEME - Text and Event in Early Modern Europe - is an international doctoral programme in early modern studies funded by the European Union. It is structured around a unique collaboration between university-based researchers in the Humanities and the cultural and creative sector in four EU countries:

* The University of Kent [(United Kingdom) Coordinating institution
* Freie Universität Berlin (Germany)
* Universidade do Porto (Portugal)
* Univerzita Karlova v Praze (Czech Republic)

^[1] Abraham Ortelius, world map (1570)

The need to make the past inform the present in new and substantially different ways is painfully evident in everyday public discourse. For instance, present debates about the ‘clash of cultures’ and the tensions between the local and the global dangerously ignore the experience of our early modern forbears who first ventured out beyond Europe to encounter other cultures, peoples, and religions. Close historical attention reveals that these early encounter stories cannot easily be reduced, as they often are in public perception, to any facile and clear-cut binaries such as the opposition between ‘colonizer’ and ‘colonized’, between Christians and ‘heathens’ (often actually Muslims, Hindus or Jews), or between mobile Europeans and static indigenous people. Instead, such historical encounters were frequently moments of exchange, interaction, and even mutual respect, in which both sides learned and benefited from each other. TEEME’s ambition is to rectify such historical distortions.


Through this central focus on the interface between past and present, the programme will both promote greater historical awareness of shared European origins, foster exchange among diverse European and non-European cultures, and offer a unique learning experience to both EU and international students. It will help control negative developments, such as violent nationalism or the radical distrust of foreign cultures, religions and peoples, that often emerge during economic crises and are exacerbated by the lack of nuanced historical understanding. At the same time the programme will enrich and improve current perceptions of European identities and their role in history, as well as engender the transformation of national cultural institutions through the input of knowledge and expertise from different cultures.

For the first edition of the programme, to be launched in September 2011, nine generously funded Fellowships are being offered for both EU and non-EU students. The deadline for applications is 16th January 2011. Further details about the programme and the Fellowships are available on the TEEME website: http://www.teemeurope.eu/index.html

Translating controversial Arabic literature (call for papers)

A flurry of interesting calls for papers recently, including this one (the questions may also be of interest to students taking the Translating History unit):

International Federation of Translators XIX World Congress
Bridging Cultures (Panel)
Date and Venue: August 1-4, 2011, San Francisco, CA
Proposals are invited for a panel on "Translating 'Controversial' Arabic Literature"

Arabic literature, declared Edward Said in 1990, "remains relatively unknown and unread in the West, for reasons that are unique, even remarkable." Twenty years later, it is hard to say that the situation has remained the same: there has certainly been an increase in the availability of Arabic literary works in several European languages, and more attention is being given to current Arabic literature. Yet, considering the great interest in the West (generated mainly by political events) in Arab and Muslim societies and the remarkable growth in Arabic literature (especially the novel) in recent years, translating and publishing Arabic literature in several Western languages is often seen as nothing less than a gamble.

Whether it is their illustrative social value, their exotic appeal, their connection with current trends (as in the case of Naguib Mahfouz, for example), their confirmation of established political views or representations, Arabic literary works often have to give (non-literary) justifications for their existence in Western languages. One very effective pass to translation has been the "controversial" or "subversive" status of a work in Arabic. Writings viewed as
subverting political, social, and religious establishments or defying moral codes (especially when accompanied by public outcries or bans of different kinds) have usually been given priority by translators and publishers in the West.

This panel seeks to explore, from various angles, the translation of works considered controversial or subversive in Arabic. Our aim is to examine the factors influencing the selection of works for translation, the choices and dilemmas facing translators and publishers in the process of transferring the work from Arabic, and the recent developments and current state of the field.

We welcome contributions that benefit from recent research in translation studies, especially those engaging critically with traditional paradigms in translation theory or scholarship on Arabic literature.

Some of the questions that the panel addresses are:

What defines a work as controversial or subversive, whether in the source Arabic or in the target culture? Are readers' expectations in the source and target necessarily compatible?
What types of controversy usually attract western translators and publishers?
Do translators sometimes highlight, or exaggerate, controversial aspects in the works they translate? And what strategies do they use in the process?
Generally speaking, the controversiality label can add interest to a work translated from any language. How significant is the work's controversial status to its selection for translation from Arabic? Is controversiality a major condition for selection, or only one among others?
Has there been any change in recent years toward more attention to the "intrinsic artistic value" of Arabic literature, rather than its social or political relevance?
Conversely, did recent political developments in the Middle East and the West (the 9/11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, the rise of fundamentalist movements, the Ghaza conflict), and the ensuing interest in the culture and politics of the Arab World, have any effect on the perception of Arabic literature and the conditions surrounding its translation?
How valid are the traditional paradigms of Orientalism and exoticism in understanding current translator choices and audience reactions in Western languages?
Does Edward Said's description of Arabic literature as "embargoed" still illustrate (if it did in the first place) the way Arabic literature is being treated by translators and publishers? Is there a deliberate intent somehow, as Said stated, to "interdict any attention to texts that do not reiterate the usual clichés about 'Islam,' violence, sensuality and so forth"?
What differences exist between Western countries in the conditions and modes of reception surrounding translations from Arabic?
To what extent can Arab institutions, intellectuals, and writers themselves be blamed for deficiencies in translating from Arabic?
To what extent can the conditions in which Arabic literature is translated and received in the West be compared to those governing the reception of literary works from other non-European, especially "Third World," cultures?

The submission deadline for 300-word proposals is December 1, 2010. Presentations should be in English. Contact: tarek.shamma at uaeu.ac.ae
Registration: http://www.fit2011.org.

job in news translation EN-ES

Just saw a job for a news editor/translator in Mexico advertised on journalismjobs.com. Since news translation is one of the things we talk about on the Translating History unit, some of you might find the spec interesting:

As a part of the World Spanish Service this editor will select, edit and distribute news on a variety of subjects in Spanish to clients worldwide. Responsibilities include monitoring news from bureaus in the U.S. and abroad and translating it from the English, editing and often rewriting it to make the best possible use of elements of interest to Latin America and U.S. clients. The translator-editor will edit stories originally written in Spanish by AP journalists in the United States and _ less frequently _ in Latin America. The translator-editor will translate photo captions from English into Spanish and moves the newly captioned photographs to clients. During work as shift supervisor, they will also plan and prioritize the news report, assign stories, review edited copy. The translator-editor will solve traffic issues with the Technology department, and occasionally report and write stories, according to needs. The translator will coordinate with international and domestic desks producing English copy. The translator will work flexible schedules, including frequent evening, weekend and overnight shifts.

More information here. There are other jobs with translation also advertised on the site - interestingly, most of them not under the label 'translator'.

translation controversy

A lively translation controversy has been unscrolling over the pages of the London Review of Books this spring. It began with Toril Moi's critical review of the new translation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and continued with ripostes from the translators, the publisher and other interested parties. A great illustration of the pressures that are exerted on ideas travelling between languages. Economic factors aside (if one can ever say that) I'm a big fan myself of heavily annotated translations - like good DVD extra features they puncture the illusion of transparency and lift us out of our absorption in the text to show us some of the scaffolding behind it. It will be interesting to see whether the rise in e-books will generate e-book extra texts, for those readers who want a sense of how the text turned out the way it did; could be very enriching for translation.

Languages At War seminar, Imperial War Museum, London, 28 May 2010

For those of you in the London area. It would probably be of interest to students taking the 'Translating History' unit in the summer - there's a block on translation, interpreting and conflict in that unit. As far as I can see the event is free but booking is required; see here for details.

Languages at War
MEETING THE ‘OTHER’ IN WAR: Two case studies
28 May 2010
Conference Room, Imperial War Museum, London

10.00: Welcome and coffee

James Taylor (Imperial War Museum); Prof Hilary Footitt (University of Reading)

10.30–11.30: Keynote paper

Prof Joanna Bourke (Birkbeck College): Does the enemy have a face?: combat narratives, speech acts and faciality, 1914–1975

11.30–11.45: Coffee

11.45–1.15: Case study 1: Western Europe 1944–47

Prof Hilary Footitt (University of Reading): Geographies of co-existence: fraternization revisited

Dr Simona Tobia (University of Reading): Interrogations: transnational encounters during and after the war

Discussants: Prof Anita Prażmowska (LSE); Dr Dan Todman (Queen Mary, University of London)

1.15–1.45: Lunch

1.45–3.15: Case study 2: Bosnia-Herzegovina 1995–2000

Prof Mike Kelly (University of Southampton): Kicking the jeep: how a little language goes a long way

Dr Catherine Baker (University of Southampton): Prosperity without security: locally employed interpreters in the Bosnian economy

Discussants: Dr Vanessa Pupavac (University of Nottingham); Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers (Roehampton University)

3.15–4.00: Museums and war

James Taylor (Imperial War Museum): Saying the unsayable: challenging history at the Imperial War Museum

Discussant: Samantha Cairns (Museums, Libraries and Archives London)

4.00–4.15: Coffee

4.15–4.45: Closing remarks

Nick Stansfield (Freelance international contractor): Language encounters on the ground

paying for translation and interpreting

Pro-bono translation and interpreting work isn't necessarily bad. Can be done well and professionally, can be useful for the translators/interpreters and their clients. When it's for a worthy cause I think it's a positive thing. But I'm perturbed by the assumption that translation and interpreting aren't worth spending money on, and that money spent on translation and interpreting is somehow wasted in a way which money spent on electricity, or lawyers, or equipment isn't. This is an assumption to which the Telegraph seems sadly prone (see here, here or here). And I just came across an call from Dorset County Council for volunteer interpreters for the Olympic sailing events which will be held there in 2012. Grand, and probably a useful experience for the volunteer interpreters involved, but I hope it doesn't herald a more generalised expectation that language support for the Olympics can be provided on a voluntary basis.
And here's hoping that the organisers of the Olympics don't put too much of their faith in automated translation technologies either. I was looking at a new site called Meedan, which offers an alternative source of news translation between Arabic and English. The site uses MT technologies supported by human translators and editors. It looks like a thoughtful and well-designed project and generates interesting reading, but the software (IBM TransBrowser) used to translate external content gives pretty uneven results. Try clicking on the grey 'English Translation' button against any story to make your own mind up.

Conference on translation, interpreting and the social, Manchester, 5 May

There's an interesting-looking conference coming up on translation and the social. Would also be of interest to Portsmouth MA students planning on taking the unit Translating History. (Tip: several of the speakers will be on your reading list...)

Going Social? Potentials and Paradoxes of the Sociological Study of Translation/Interpreting

A one-day symposium

5 May 2010 9.30-4.30
School of Languages, University of Salford

This one-day event seeks to critically engage with what has been achieved in the ‘social turn’ in translation studies and the potentials and paradoxes it involves, and in particular:

· The conceptual, theoretical and methodological orientations that sets the ‘social turn’ apart from earlier ‘turns’ in translation studies
· How the ‘social’ is delineated by the sociological approaches to translation
· What theoretical and methodological links have been forged between the sociological approaches and the two main methodologies in translation studies, i.e. the 'empirical' and the 'hermeneutic'?
· Sociological research in translation has so far been grounded on the work of a number of sociologists, including Bourdieu, Niklas Luhmann and Bruno Latour. What insights have been provided by their work and to what extent have these insights contributed to a better understanding of translation/interpreting phenomena?
· What are the theoretical and methodological limitations of sociologies of translation? Can these limitations be addressed by recourse to other disciplines?
· What potentials do the sociological approaches have for translation historiography?
· What contribution sociological approaches to interpreting studies have made to the illumination of aspects of social theory (e.g. human time-space geography; human embodiment) and even social policy?

Speakers:
Mona Baker, University of Manchester
Sameh Hanna, University of Salford
Theo Hermans, University College London
Moira Inghilleri, University College London
Rebecca Tipton, University of Salford
Michaela Wolf, University of Graz (Austria)

Venue: Mary Seacole G21
Time: Registration and refreshments 9.30 am
Registration fee (including lunch and refreshments): £30 (£20 for students).
Registration deadline: 30th March, 2010

Registration form is available at: http://www.esri.salford.ac.uk/esri/m/?s=4 or contact Mrs Debbie Hughes at d.hughes1@salford.ac.uk

For more information, please visit: http://www.esri.salford.ac.uk

Fraternizing/non-fraternizing with the enemy?

Seminar in Manchester next Monday. Anyone taking the unit 'Translating History' this summer and within reach of Manchester should find this seminar very interesting.

The seminar will take place at 2 p.m. on Monday 1 March in room A101, Samuel Alexander Building, the University of Manchester.

Fraternizing/non-fraternizing with the enemy? Uncovering the place of foreign languages in conflict.
Hilary Footit, University of Reading

This research starts from the observation that foreign languages are absent from the accounts of war traditionally produced by International Relations scholars, war studies specialists, and social and cultural historians of conflict. The project on which the paper is based (Languages at war: policies and practices of language contacts in conflict) aims to make the place of foreign languages more visible in war, and to argue that they are an integral part of the political economy of war and conflict.
This paper will raise some of the issues associated with the enterprise of making languages visible in conflict situations by looking at three specific cases – intelligence, preparing military personnel for operations in foreign countries, and encounters between soldiers and civilians ‘on the ground’ in conflict. Each of these, in the context of the Second World War, the paper will argue, poses different research problems related to sources and interpretative frameworks:
- a case in which language- related sources (both written and oral) exist in abundance, but have not thus far been explored
- a case in which foreign languages are not specifically named but are embedded in policy preparations
- and finally, a case in which foreign languages are a vital but unexplored part of the ‘on the ground’ meeting between armies and civilians.

Hilary Footitt is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Languages and European Studies at the University of Reading. She has written widely on discourses of women in politics (Women, Europe and the New Languages of Politics, Continuum, 2002), and on the army/civilian encounter in World War Two (War and Liberation in France. Living with the Liberators, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). She is currently Principal Investigator for the AHRC sponsored project Languages at War: policies and practices of language contacts in conflict (www.reading.ac.uk/languages-at-war/), led by the University of Reading, with the University of Southampton, and the Imperial War Museum, London.

Translation and literature resources online

Just browsing through some favourites and thought some of you might be interested in the very good site Three Percent, which is all about literature in English translation; the blog InTranslation, where aspiring literary translators can submit translations of unpublished writers for consideration; the Centre for Literary Translation at Columbia University. Of particular interest for student research, maybe, the database of translated literature at the Three Percent site, which will tell you all about who is translating what from what language in the US, and the PEN survey on translation and globalisation at the CLT site. Working literary translators may be more interested in the PEN translation fund details on the CLT site. American PEN have made available a useful-looking Handbook for Literary Translators for download. MATS students still looking for a good text for their Translation Project may like to have a look at the 'PEN Recommends' page, where PEN members recommend great and untranslated work by writers from many languages.

book piracy in Peru

I have been reading a very interesting piece in Granta about book piracy in Peru. Some vivid illustrations here. It's not translation-focused but there are lots of intriguing translational issues around the edges. Translations pinched while they are still in draft and released on the black market; books with plaintive stickers saying 'buy the original'. Why is there not more published research on translation piracy? Maybe an interesting essay topic for someone with contacts in Peru? (Possibly someone taking the Translating History unit this summer?)

Google legal opinions and interpreting/translation

I just came across the new Google 'legal opinions' search tool on Google Scholar, and thought it might be interesting to see what's out there relating to translation and interpreting in US law. The results are pretty fascinating. Try US v. Lopez, 937 F. 2d 716 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1991 on hearsay and the interpreter as conduit; United States ex rel. Negron v. State of New York, 434 F. 2d 386 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1970 on the right to an interpreter; Perez-Lastor v. INS, 208 F. 3d 773 - Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2000 on the linguistic and ethical complexities of courtroom interpreting. Food for thought.

Languages at War events

I have just seen the latest issue of the 'Languages at War' project newsletter. The project involves a series of conference presentations, seminars and workshops around the UK and abroad: see here for more details. These events might be particularly interesting for students taking the summer DL 'Translating History' unit.

Literary translation events in Bristol

There's a very interesting-looking lecture and colloquium on in Bristol in a couple of weeks which may appeal to anyone interested in literature, including classical literature. For Portsmouth DL students it also may be of interest to those of you taking the Translating History unit. As far as I know the events are free of charge and open to all.

Translation:
Plenary lecture and colloquium

School of Modern Languages; Department of Drama; BIRTHA; Bristol Institute for the study of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition; AHRC Penguin Archive Project

Tuesday 8 December

BIRTHA plenary lecture
BIRTHA Distinguished Lecturer Scheme award
Lecture Theatre 1, School of Humanities, 11 Woodland Road

17.15 – 18.15 Peter France – ‘Why retranslate?’

Peter France is editor of the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (2000) and the Oxford History of Literary Translation in English (2005-, 5 vols), both of which are seminal contributions to translation studies. He has translated extensively from French and Russian and has, in particular, published several volumes of poetry by the Chuvash poet, Gennady Aygi.

Peter France is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His exceptional contribution to European literature and the international literary scene has also been recognised by award of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour and his election as a Foreign Member if the Chuvash National Academy.

18.15 Reception

Wednesday 9 December

Colloquium and performance
Wickham Theatre, Drama Department, Cantock’s Close

10.00 – 10.30 Registration

10.30 – 12.20 Session 1
Chair: John Lyon

10.30 – 10.50 Sian Reynolds – ‘Adventures in the book trade: translators and their publishers’

10.50 – 11.10 Robert Crowe – ‘Translating Titles in Penguin Classics’

11.10 – 11.50 Tom Boll – ‘”Discussing Poems into English”: Penguin and César Vallejo’

11.50 – 12.20 Response and discussion

12.20 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 15.15 Session 2
Chair: Neville Morley

13.30 – 13.50 Richard Mansell – ‘From China to Spain: the long way round’

13.50 – 14.10 Genevieve Lively – 'Translation as Transformation: Tales from Ovid'

14.10 – 14.30 Mark Thompson – ‘The Other Side of Globalisation’

14.30 – 15.15 Response and discussion

15.15 – 15.45 Break

15.45 Grand-Guignol performance
Introduction: Katja Krebs