2008 Call for Papers:

International Translation Day

Modern Languages & Cultural Studies

University of Alberta

September 30, 2008

Keynote Speaker: Katherine Silver, Translator

 

The Translator as Theorist?

 

Our sixth celebration of translation will focus on the person of the translator, her (or his) point of view, mindset, outlook, perceptual paradigms. In a field where theory has always emerged out of practice, this “curiously placeless place of the translator” (Kelly and Johnston) seems a fertile and not-often-discussed perspective, an approach from the inside-out rather than the more commonly discussed issues of the role of the translator or translation from the outside looking in. Beyond the biographical and anecdotal we invite contributions from translators and translation scholars interested in reflecting upon, or looking on, contemplating, in the etymological sense of theory, translation activities. Topics might include, but are not limited to, the translator's particular approach to the other--of respect and awareness of separateness yet communality; the translator's tendency for passive empathy; the layered inter-subjectivity of the translation process; in fact, the "humanist" worldview a translator necessarily holds, consciously or not.

 

Please send 250 word proposals to a member of the organizing committee by July 30, 2008:

Odile Cisneros, cisneros@ualberta.ca

Sathya Rao, sathya.rao@ualberta.ca

Chantal Wright, chantal.wright@ualberta.ca