Monday, November 5, 2018

CfP: Conference "(Auto)traduction et mondialisation des imaginaires à l'heure de la rebabélisation du monde" (Nice & Paris)

CALL FOR PAPERS. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, 22nd-23rd May 2019 & CNRS, Paris, 24th May 2019

(SELF)TRANSLATION AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF IMAGINARIES IN A REBABELIZED WORLD

This interdisciplinary conference aims to discuss the cultural and scientific issues of (self)translation in the context of the globalization of imaginaries and the rebabelization of the world. In the early days of the World Wide Web, the share of English stood at 90 percent and has now passed below the 30 percent mark, thus multiplying the sources of untranslatability and incommunication. Translation has always played a considerable role in cultural, scientific and political transfers. Today, its place is key, in a period increasingly under the sign of what Salman Rushdie called “Translated men” in Imaginary Homelands. 
In the 1950s there were 25 million tourists worldwide. Today, they are more than 1.3 billion. The imaginaries of languages and cultures have, for better or for worse, come into contact with one another as never before in the history of mankind. Translating in order to understand the Other has become more necessary than ever; since it would be pointless to learn all the languages of the world, it seems increasingly self-evident, to rephrase Umberto Eco, that “the language of globalization is translation”. 

The main originality of this conference is threefold. First, it shall be argued that establishing a radical separation between translation and self-translation is an artificial one. The two are inseparable, not to mention the intermediary case of translation in collaboration with the author, which are all forms of the “work with multiple versions” (G. Genette) where text genetics has a seminal role to play. Second, and more important, it shall be argued that no clear-cut border may be drawn between literary (self)translation—a full session will be devoted to Nabokov—and scientific (self)translation. In order to be disseminated far and wide, sciences (and by this word are meant all sciences, not only Humanities and Social Sciences) cannot do without (self)translation either. In today’s globalized world, academics and researchers who have never had to resort to translation or (self)translation-except if they are native speakers of English-are becoming fewer and far between indeed. 
Last but not least, the new technologies of information and communication have made it less and less relevant to take the sole vector of the written word into account. The other forms of translation, and particularly their intersemiotic, multimodal dimension, must be brought into the picture, as well as the spectacular breakthroughs accomplished by “automatic” computer-assisted (self)translation. Some are now predicting the advent of a Star Trek-like “universal translator” that will make “human” translators and interpreters obsolete. The opposite is true—machines will not replace them, but will provide them with more opportunities, not less, while allowing the greater number to access texts, discourses and exchanges in foreign languages on an unprecedented scale. 

Languages  of the conference: English and French
Deadline for submission of proposals: 1st January 2019
Proposals are to be sent as abstracts (400-500 words) with a short bio-biblio note, in English, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or German to: 
Michael Oustinoff (michael.oustinoff@unice.fr) 
Anna Lushenkova-Foscolo (anna.lushenkova-foscolo@univ-lyon3.fr) 
and Paul Rasse (paul.rasse@unice.fr) 

Monday, October 22, 2018

Update bibliography on self-translation

The bibliography on self-translation has been updated. To download the pdf-file please click here. If you have any suggestions for further entries, please leave a comment. The next update is scheduled for 1st of January 2019.

Friday, October 19, 2018

Conference: Il Canada visto dal Friuli: identità e relazioni interculturali (23-25.10.2018, Udine, Italy)

Self-translation will be a topic at the conference "Il Canada visto dal Friuli: identità e relazioni interculturali", taking place from 23 till 25 October 2018 at Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy.
  • Felicia Mihali scrittrice, Montréal: De l’écriture à l’autotraduction. Parcours littéraires et aventures linguistiques
  • Valeria Sperti Università Federico II, Napoli: La valeur de l’écriture translingue et multiculturelle de Nancy Huston au Canada

Sunday, October 7, 2018

CERES/CETRA Fall Lecture: Denise Merkle on (self-)translation of multilingualism in Canadian literature

Date: Wednesday 17 October 2018, from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Location: KU Leuven – Campus Brussel, Room 6303, Hermesgebouw, Stormstraat 2.
Language: French (with simultaneous interpretation into Dutch)

Title
Traduire le plurilinguisme littéraire au Canada : l’(auto-)traduction dans Petites difficultés d’existencede France Daigle, La Trahison de Laurier Gareau, Kiss of the Fur Queen de Tomson Highway

Abstract
L’hybridité était perçue sous une lumière défavorable jusqu’à relativement récemment quand des chercheurs postcoloniaux ont réévalué la présence de l’hybridité et de plurilinguisme dans les soi-disant monocultures, et les rôles qu’ils y jouent. L’état-nation considérait sa langue, sa culture et sa nation comme indissociables, malgré l’existence patente de plurilinguisme et de pluriculturalisme, écartés comme étant impurs. Il est aujourd’hui généralement admis que la pure unicité relève du mythe, les cultures étant de nature plutôt plurilingue et hybride du fait d’avoir évolué depuis des siècles et des millénaires. Pourtant, les approches traditionnelles de la traductologie, dont la recherche de l’équivalence, sont ancrées dans le modèle de « une langue, une culture, une nation » (Meylaerts, 2010). Ce sont effectivement des traductologues, dont Sherry Simon (2011), qui ont remis en question ce modèle pendant les dernières décennies du xxe siècle, dans le cadre de leurs études sur le phénomène des langues et cultures en contact dans les contextes postcoloniaux. Dans cette conférence, nous examinerons des définitions de plurilinguisme, pluriculturalisme et hybridité, ainsi que des stratégies d’(auto-) traduction retrouvées dans quelques textes littéraires canadiens plurilingues, Petites difficultés d’existencede France Daigle, La Trahison de Laurier Gareau, Kiss of the Fur Queen de Tomson Highway. Afin de saisir les enjeux du plurilinguisme, du pluriculturalisme et de l’hybridité dans ces textes, il nous faudra d’abord les situer dans leur contexte sociolinguistique respectif.

Source: https://receptionstudies.be/2018/09/19/ceres-cetra-fall-lecture-denise-merkle-on-self-translation-of-multilingualism-in-canadian-literature/

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Cfp: Self-Translating as Creative Act

Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2018
Full name / name of organization: Mona Eikel-Pohen, Syracuse University
Contact email: meikelpo@syr.edu

“Self-Translations are No Translations at All” was the title of a roundtable discussion at the 2018 NEMLA in Pittsburgh, where participants discussed both their own self-translations and those by renown self-translating authors such as Nabokov and Miłes and also spatial metaphors occurring in theories of self-translation. This creative session would build upon that discussion and in this specific format allow participants to focus on presenting their own experiences with self-translation and expound phenomena and examples of their own writings and translations to be shared with other creative writers and/or (future) self-translators.
Topics to be discussed could include: 
a. Decision-making in self-translation: What decisions are self-translators confronted with, and how do their decision-making processes evolve?
b. Revising, rewriting, or rewrising? How do self-translators conceive of their creative products: as revisions, rewritings, or a mixture of both? Does that stance account for all their writing or vary from text to text?
c. Voice(s) and identitie(s) in self-translation: Do self-translations create new identitie(s) in the creative writing process? How does that happen and what does that mean?
d. Transposing metaphors: What factors determine how self-translators approach the transposition of culturally charged metaphors?
e. (What) Readers in mind: Do self-translators have (ideal?) readers in mind? Who is their target audience?
This session invites creative writers and/or (future) self-translators to present and discuss final projects as well as work on the progress of their own experience with self-translation. Participants can expound phenomena and examples of their own writings and translations to be shared with other creative writers and/or (future) self-translators. The session also allows for discussion on a range of topics such as decision-making, revising, rewriting, voicing, and writing and self-translating for specific audiences.

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/08/09/self-translating-as-creative-act

Friday, August 3, 2018

Jhumpa Lahiri on self-translation

In a very interesting interview with Victoria Livingstone for Asymptote (16th April 2018), Jhumpa Lahiri talked about various aspects of translation, including translating other authors, being translated and translating herself. Here is a short quote about her plan to self-translate her current novel:
"I’ve just written a new novel in Italian and so my energy will go towards translating that myself. [...] I recently translated one of my short stories into English, which appeared in The New Yorker a couple of months ago. I now have more of a sense of what it will involve to translate myself. But we’ll see. That was a very short story that I had written four years ago in Italian. It was ten pages long. Translating it into English was weird, but it was also brief. I don’t know what it will be like to translate a novel, but I feel that it’s important to try. If it doesn’t feel satisfying, I may have to reconsider the choice. Right now every project I’m doing has its own set of needs and I can’t really say until I’m inside of it how I feel about it."
Please click here to read the full interview.

Monday, July 30, 2018

Cfp: Transnational Voices in Self-Translation (2019 NeMLA Roundtable)

NeMLA at Columbia, United States,  March 21, 2019 to March 24, 2019

Abstract:

While much has been published on the practice and process of non-authorial translation (George Steiner, Walter Benjamin, and Jacques Derrida, among others), until recently, comparatively fewer critical works have focused on the phenomenon of self-translation. Though self-translation is, in its most basic sense, the process of transposing one’s own writing into another language, a number of scholars have begun to study the extent to which it can also be viewed as a creative mode of revision that is connected to specific cultural, linguistic, aesthetic, and psycholinguistic processes. Indeed, over the past decade, “self-translation studies” (see Anselmi 2012) has emerged as a new and growing field of interest in academia. In the wake of such recent texts as Self-Translation: Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture (2013), Self-Translation and Power: Negotiating Identities in European Multilingual Contexts (2017), and On Self-Translation: Meditations on Language (2018), the “Transnational Voices in Self-Translation” roundtable panel will present some innovative perspectives on this intriguing literary phenomenon.

 What is at stake when authors translate their own work? How does self-translation engender a certain sense of semantic creativity and rewriting? Can self-translation be (re-)defined? If a more complete understanding of the word “self-translation” is to be established, it will be the result of an ongoing, interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars. The panelists on this roundtable will therefore offer some preliminary answers to this growing critical debate. Panelists may focus on texts from any language or genre.

 Description:

This roundtable panel will offer new perspectives on the literary process and practice of self-translation. Panelists will present their work on this topic while engaging in an interdisciplinary conversation about authors who transpose their own writing into another language. Participants will address the following questions: What is at stake when writers translate their own work? How does self-translation promote a certain sense of linguistic creativity and rewriting? And how can one (re-)define self-translation? Professors, translators, comparative literature scholars, and graduate students are invited to participate in this roundtable.

Please submit a 200-word abstract & C.V. to genewaite@gmail.com by September 15, 2018.


Contact Info:
Genevieve Waite

Contact Email:
genewaite@gmail.com

Source: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/2021432/transnational-voices-self-translation-2019-nemla-roundtable 

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Update Bibliography on self-translation

The bibliography on self-translation has been updated. To download the pdf-file please click here. If you have any suggestions for further entries, please leave a comment. The next update is scheduled for 1st of  October 2018.

Friday, June 8, 2018

Conference: Le Kala Pani dans les littératures féminines de la diaspora indienne

Self-translation is a topic at the conference "Le Kala Pani dans les littératures féminines de la diaspora indienne", which will take place Tuesday, 19th June, 15h00-17h00, at the University de La Réunion.

Laëtitia Saint-Loubert (Université de La Réunion) : « Traduction et kala pani : passages obligés, passages interdits » (16:00-16:30)

Abstract:
Cette communication s’attachera principalement aux travaux d’Ananda Devi en tant qu’écrivain-traductrice. Elle portera essentiellement sur sa traduction en français du roman de David Dabydeen The Counting House (1996) et sur son auto-traduction de Pagli (2001) vers l’anglais. Le caractère défectif associé à la condition ancillaire du traducteur, et, bien souvent, de la traductrice, sera mis en parallèle avec la traversée des eaux impures du kala pani afin de montrer en quoi les pratiques (auto)traduisantes d’Ananda Devi s’inscrivent dans la transgression créatrice et offrent une véritable poétique relationnelle de la traduction. Cet art du passage observé chez Ananda Devi consistera à rétablir des liens transocéaniques par-delà des codes convenus, guidés par le motif de la trace et rappelant les « arcs-en-mer » d’Edouard Glissant.


Source: http://www.univ-reunion.fr/fileadmin/Fichiers/communication/3_Newsletter-evenementielles/2018_06_04/KALA_PNAI_programme-seminaire-dire-19-06-2018.pdf

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Conference "Corresponding with Beckett The Epistolary in Literary Research"

Self-translation was the topic of one talk given at the conference "Corresponding with Beckett. The Epistolary in Literary Research" which took place in London, 1-2 June 2018.

Ioanna Kostopoulou (Humboldt University of Berlin) “Translation, Self-Translation and Emerging Poetics: Samuel Beckett’s Correspondence in French (1941-56)” 

Abstract: In the immediate post-war years, Beckett’s writing is shaped by his use of French. What is known as the chosen language for his literary work is also unsurprisingly the language of the majority of his correspondence in the period 1941-56. This particular proficiency in French can be seen as a result of increasing confidence and everyday contact with “standard” French; it relies also on a deeper connection with other (French-speaking) writers and thinkers, made possible by epistolary-based friendship and trust. On the other hand, moments of “invented” French and the development of different epistolary styles hint at a process of translation, self-translation and the emerging of poetics in the letters and literary works—such as the “Trilogy”—alike. Bearing Beckett’s words to Simone de Beauvoir in mind—“You are giving me the chance to speak only to retract it before the words have had time to mean anything” (25 September 1946; LSB 2, 42)—the letters seem to reveal poetological decisions on when to start or end a text as well as conditions for speech and its (im)possibilities of meaning production. The correspondence with art critic Georges Duthuit reveals Beckett’s thoughts on translation and documents the struggle with the “burden”, but also the necessity of selftranslation into English. At the same time, Beckett’s encounter with Henri Michaux’s prose poetry raises the question of translation as influence, corresponding in a metaphorical sense and Übertragung crucial for Beckett’s (literary) writing in the years after Transition, Forty-Eight, No. 4. This paper aims to locate, in the exchange of concepts, (un)words and views on art, a possible correspondence with Beckett’s translation practice of around 1948 and the conditions under which notions of speech, language and silence flow into novels such as L’Innommable, or in Textes pour rien.

Source: https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences/corresponding-beckett

Friday, June 1, 2018

Conference "Translating Cultures" Wolfenbüttel, 26-27 June 2018

Self-translation is a topic of one of the talks presented at the conference Translating Cultures. Translation, Transmission and dissemination of printed texts in Europe 1640-1795, taking place from 26-27 June 2018 in Wolfenbüttel in Germany.

  • Luc Borot (Montpellier): ‘Translation and self-translation in the 17th century: the case of Thomas Hobbes.’
To see the complete conference program, please click here.

Information retrieved from: http://www.hab.de/files/programm180516.pdf 

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Conference: Drama Across Borders: The Politics & Poetics of Contemporary Theatre in Translation

Self-translation was a topic of one talk at the conference "Drama Across Borders: The Politics & Poetics of Contemporary Theatre in Translation" which took place at Cornell University and The Cherry Artspace, May 11–12, 2018.
  • Burcu Seyben (Bennington College): “The Personal, Political and Linguistic: The Dynamics of Self-translation,” with a reading from Beauty Spot, written and performed by Burcu Seyben
For more information on the conference, please click here.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

CfP "A host of tongues.. Multilingualism, lingua franca and translation in the Early Modern period"

Call for Papers "A host of tongues.. Multilingualism, lingua franca and translation in the Early Modern period" (13-15 December 2018), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nova University of Lisbon


In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the linguistic situation in Europe was one of remarkable fluidity. Latin, the great scholarly lingua franca of the medieval period, was beginning to crack as the tectonic plates shifted beneath it, but the vernaculars had not yet crystallized into the national languages that they would become a century later, and bi- or multilingualism was still rife. Through the influence of print capitalism, the dialects that occupied the informal space were starting to organise into broad fields of communication and exchange (Anderson 2006: 37-46), though the boundaries between them were not yet clearly defined nor the links to territory fully established. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, languages were coming into contact with an intensity that they had never had before (Burke 2004: 111-140), influencing each other and throwing up all manner of hybrids and pidgins as peoples tried to communicate using the semiotic resources they had available. New lingua francas emerged to serve particular purposes in different geographic regions or were imposed through conquest and settlement (Ostler 2005: 323-516). And translation proliferated at the seams of such cultural encounters, undertaken for different reasons by a diverse demographic that included missionaries, scientists, traders, aristocrats, emigrés, refugees and renegades (Burke 2007: 11-16).

This fascinating linguistic maelstrom has understandably attracted the attention of scholars from a variety of different backgrounds. Cultural historians have studied the relationship between language, empire and mission, processes of cultural transmission and the influence of social, political and economic factors on human communications. Historical linguists have investigated language contact, codification and language change (Zwartjes 2011). Translation studies specialists are interested in how translation was conceptualized and practised during the period (Kittel et al. 2007), and literary scholars have looked at how multilingualism is represented in plays and poems of the period (Delabastita and Hoenselaars 2015). There have also been postcolonial engagements with the subject, given the often devastating effects of Western European language ideologies on precolonial plurilingual practices (e.g. Canagarajah and Liyanage 2005), as well as gendered perspectives, centring on women’s language in different cultural spaces.

This conference hopes to attract specialists from all of these areas and beyond in an attempt to generate a truly interdisciplinary debate about linguistic behaviour in the Early Modern period. Proposals are invited for 15-20 minute papers on any language-related topic dealing with the period 1400 to 1800. Thematic panel proposals are also welcome (2-hour sessions involving 3-4 speakers).

Subjects may include:

  • Multi- or translingual practices in particular parts of the world;
  • Translational activities, including interpreting, cultural translation, self-translation, intersemiotic translation and paratranslational processes;
  • Lingua francas in particular regions and domains;
  • The historical development of national languages and subnational varieties;
  • Language contact and its (cultural, political, ideological, linguistic) consequences;
  • The linguistic practices of specific social groups (e.g. traders, missionaries, scientists, women);
  • Hybridity and code-switching in public and private spaces;
  • Literary heteroglossia and macaronics;
  • Processes of cultural transmission (science, philosophy, religion, art, culture of everyday life etc);
  • The linguistic effects of conquest, settlement, diaspora and migration;
  • Language and education;
  • The effects of technology;
  • The economy of linguistic exchange;
  • Language ecologies;
  • Language and empire.

Keynote speakers

  • Peter Burke (Cambridge University);
  • Hugo Cardoso (University of Lisbon);
  • Antje Flüchter (University of Bielefeld);
  • Theo Hermans (University College, London);
  • Joan-Pau Rubiés (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona);
  • Otto Zwartjes (University Paris-Diderot VII).

Individual papers and panels submission
An abstract of up to 250 words (for individual papers) or 1000 words (for panels) should be submitted to host.of.tongues@fcsh.unl.pt accompanied by a brief biosketch (up to 50 words) by 30 June. You will be notified 31 July of your paper’s acceptance.

Organizing Committee
Karen Bennett (FCSH/CETAPS);
Angelo Cattaneo (FCSH/CHAM);
Gonçalo Fernandes (UTAD/CEL);
Rogério Puga (FCSH/CETAPS/CHAM).

Conference website: https://ahostoftongues.wordpress.com/

Conference "Staging the literary translator", Vienna, 17-19 May 2018

Self-translation was a topic of two talks at the conference "Staging the literary translator" which took place from 17 May till 19 May 2018 in Vienna.
  • Hannah Felce: Tomi Ungerer: Using self-translation to explore language and identity
  • Joëlle Feijen: "Möglichkeit und Paradox des Übersetzenden: Mitspielend, läßt er sich aus dem Spiel". Peter Handke als Autor-Übersetzer und Selbstübersetzer

For more information on the conference, please click here.

Monday, May 14, 2018

Conference on self-translation in Rome 18-19 May 2018

Autotraduzione: motivi, studi, strategie // Self-Translation: Teloi, Studies, Strategies
Convegno internazionale 18-19 maggio 2018 a cura di Bruno Berni e Alessandra D’Atena

Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici Villa Sciarra-Wurts sul Gianicolo. Via Calandrelli, 25 / Viale delle Mura Gianicolensi, 11. Roma

Venerdì 18 maggio 2018
15.00 Saluti istituzionali: Roberta Ascarelli
          Apertura dei lavori: Bruno Berni e Alessandra D’Atena 
          Modera: Rossana Sebellin
15.30 Simona Anselmi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Piacenza):
          Le ragioni  dell'autotraduzione/Self-translators' Teloi
16.00 Eva Gentes (Heinrich Heine Universität - Düsseldorf)
          An Introduction to Self-translation Studies
16.30 Discussione Pausa Modera: Gabriella Catalano
17.00 Bruno Berni (Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici) «
          Pura pedanteria e annotazioni inutili»: Holberg traduttore di Holberg
17.30 Alessandra D’Atena (Mediatori e Traduttori Europei, Università di Roma Tor Vergata)                        L’autotraduzione poetica in Stefan George
18.00 Discussione

Sabato 19 maggio 2018
Modera: Alessandra D’Atena
10.00 Thomas Wisniewski (Harvard University)
          Karen Blixen Between Writing and Rewriting: Aesthetics and Self-translation in the Early
          Work
10.30 Rossana Sebellin (Mediatori e Traduttori Europei, Università di Roma Tor Vergata)
          Samuel Beckett e l'autotraduzione teatrale
11.00 Lucia Salvato (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano)
          Scelte linguistiche e strategie comunicative nell’autotraduzione tedesca: Ruth Klüger e                        Wolfgang Hildesheimer a confronto
11.30 Discussione
12.00 Bruno Berni Conclusione dei lavori

Solo di recente l’autotraduzione si è profilata quale campo di ricerca con una propria e
avvincente peculiarità all’interno dei translation studies. Il convegno a carattere internazionale e interdisciplinare, nato dalla collaborazione tra l’Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici e il gruppo di ricerca Mediatori e Traduttori Europei dell’Università di Roma Tor Vergata, si propone di indagare l’autotraduzione da più prospettive facendo dialogare fra loro approcci critico-letterari e linguistici.
Al centro della riflessione saranno posti gli sviluppi degli studi dedicati al fenomeno, i motivi che spingono gli autori a tradurre le proprie opere, nonché i processi di autotraduzione con le rispettive strategie traduttive.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

NeMLA 2018 roundtable on self-translation


At the 49th annual convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association (April 12- April 15, 2018) a roundtable "Self-translation is Not Translation at All" took place with the following contributions:
  • “Self-translation: When Herman Melville becomes Marcel Proust and the White Whale becomes a Cookie” Yves Cloarec, Queens College, CUNY
  • “Oscillations: Translation and Re-translation in It’s Out Now” Mona Eikel-Pohen, Syracuse University
  • “Self-translation as a Compositional Method” Piotr Gwiazda, University of Pittsburgh
  • “Why in French?” Sultana Raza, Freelance writer, editor, and educator
  • “Lolita in Russian: Translation or Revision?” Zhanna Yablokova, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY

Monday, April 16, 2018

Update Bibliography on self-translation

The bibliography on self-translation has been updated. To download the pdf-file please click here. If you have any suggestions for further entries, please leave a comment. The next update is scheduled for 1st of  July 2018.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

CfP: CSIS Panel on self-translation: Perché autotradursi? (Why should one self-translate?)

Deadline for submission: February 25, 2018

** CSIS Annual Conference in Ottawa, Canada (May 11-13, 2018)  http://canadiansocietyforitalianstudies.camp7.org/Conference-2018

Panel on self-translation: Perché autotradursi? (Why should one self-translate?)

Self-translation has always been present in the Italian literary scene, although this practice has rarely been acknowledged and its study has been most often neglected.
In the past, self-translations by Italian writers have been offered, at various times, and in different language combinations  (e.g., Italo Calvino, Beppe Fenoglio, Carlo Goldoni, Luigi Pirandello). More recently, a high level of bilingualism due migration, exile, or transnational lifestyles triggered by post-colonial and post-war developments has produced a new wave of self-translations, within and outside Italy. We are inviting proposals to reveal and dissect the practice of self-translation both as a process – of linguistic mediation, cultural negotiation and/or creative “transmutation” (Octavio Paz) – and as a product, with all that concerns publication trends, market-related restrictions, readers’ response and critics’ reception.

The reasons that lead a writer to self-translate (or not to self-translate, as Tim Parks argues) his/her work are manifold and often overlapping. It is striking, however, that publishers are rarely keen to advertise their publications as self-translations. Again, the reasons behind this reticence are manifold and require further study.

This panel offers the opportunity to explore the question of its title  – “Perché autotradursi?” – in the widest possible way, embracing any historical time-frame and from any specific point of view, be it that of:

- the emerging or already established writer;
- the independent or trade publisher;
- the monolingual or bilingual (if not multilingual) reader;
- the literary critic or the scholar;
- the language combination itself, and its relation to the socio-linguistic web of global power dynamics.

Please submit an abstract in English, Italian, French or Spanish and a short bio to Arianna Dagnino, The University of Ottawa,  adagnino@uottawa.ca,  by February 25, 2018.




Saturday, January 6, 2018

Update Bibliography on Self-translation

The bibliography on self-translation has been updated. To download the pdf-file please click here. If you have any suggestions for further entries, please leave a comment. The next update is scheduled for 1st of  April 2018.

Panel discussion: Translating a self-translation: Epic Annette 8th February

Epic Annette: Podium Discussion with Anne Weber (German-French self-translator) and Tess Lewis (translator of the novel into English),  orga...