CONFERENCE: Key Cultural Texts in Translation
University of Leicester
April 29-30 2014
The conference will be the culmination of the AHRC-funded Key Cultural Texts in Translation project, which aims to enhance our understanding of the changes that linguistic and other symbolic representations of identity undergo in translation across times, spaces and media.
The conference will focus on the ways in which cultures define and re-define themselves through the representation in texts and other artifacts (films; paintings …) of their key concepts. What happens to the images of the initial and the receiving cultures when these representations of key concepts are translated? How are key concepts re-represented? What can we learn from this about how peoples can adjust mutually in times of meetings and migration? (Further information in appendix at the end of this announcement).
There will be two keynote speakers, selections of papers, and discussion sessions aimed at engaging audiences across a number of subjects.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Fransiska Louwagie, University of Leicester; Kirsten Malmkjær, University of Leicester; Adriana Serban, University Montpellier 3; Meifang Zhang, University of Macao.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Jens Erland Braarvig, Professor of History of Religion, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo.
Stella Sandford, Reader in Modern European Philosophy, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University.
OF INTEREST TO
Academicsin literary, historical, religious, social, cultural, linguistic and translation studies.
Policymakers, journalists and everyone engaged in public policy.
HOW TO BOOK
Book your place at the conference by going to https://shop.le.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=2&catid=65
and clicking on the “Book Event” button.
SUBMITTING PAPERS
Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words by e-mail to Professor Kirsten Malmkjær at km240@le.ac.uk no later than 1 October 2013. You will be informed by 6 January 2014 whether your paper has been accepted.
APPENDIX
Information about the AHRC-funded “Key Cultural Texts in Translation” network based at the Research Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies (RTISt), the University of Leicester, UK, with partners at the Département d’études anglophones, Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier 3, France, and The Department of English, University of Macao, P.R. China.
Title of Research Project: Key Cultural Texts in Translation
Principal Investigator: Professor Kirsten Malmkjær (Leicester)
Partners: Dr Adriana Serban (Montpellier); Professor Zhang Meifang (Macao)
Focus
The Network addresses the AHRC’s “Translating Cultures” theme, focusing primarily on the translation of texts, but also on intersemiotic translation in Jakobson’s (1966: 233) sense of “an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems” (or vice versa).
It will identify texts (broadly defined) to be collected in an e-repository accessible through the Website of the Research Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies (RTISt) at the University of Leicester, and bring together translation professionals and scholars from the UK, Europe and China to discuss and explore the relationships between
· the characteristics of texts and artifacts through which cultures establish, define, develop, maintain, promulgate and defend their identities
· the characteristics of translations and retranslations of these across times and spaces
· the complex matter of movements and relocations of peoples across national and cultural boundaries.
It seeks to disseminate its findings and outcomes widely within and beyond academia.