In a recent article published in The Guardian and in an upcoming book, author Pankaj Mishra argues that we are now living in the age of anger. While anger seems to be spreading globally, it often seems to result from and in fear and / or disenfranchisement. Questions such as ‘who speaks together, who breathes together, who translates?’ (Apter, 2009: 204) are in the foreground of almost every form of public discourse, shaping political concerns, new forms of identification, and redefining ways of living.
Modern-day fear and the resulting sense of vulnerability seem to breed an unassuageable anxiety over security: ‘Security obsessions are inexhaustible and insatiable […] [T]hey produce, on a constantly rising scale, their own reasons, explanations and justifications’ (Bauman, 2011: 60). Arguably, fear and the anxiety over security are the source of innumerable narratives that are already shaping the lives of millions on a global scale. Political, economic, literary, cinematic, artistic narratives about fear are thriving, feeding on anger and a sense of powerlessness that seems to inhabit present-day experiences of the world. In this context, translation often plays an ambivalent role, itself a battleground between different uses: at the service of identity and warmongering, on the one hand, and embodying a promise of mediation and (re)conciliation, on the other.
This is, however, nothing new. Historically, translation has been a heterogeneous locus, where both utopian peace efforts and the exertion of violence (co)exist, and hence it becomes a practice that often mirrors and / or shapes fear. Highlighting how translation has contributed to shape (and fight off) fears in the past may well help us to better understand how translation is a double-edged activity, as both translation and untranslatability have been used as potential (and at times very effective) ways of silencing others or of resisting hegemonic practices.
This conference aims to discuss how fear is a pervasive human experience, and as such is widely and diversely represented in various discursive practices, from the political to the literary. We argue that fear seems to be at the heart of both present-day and past forms of anger, an anger that is produced in and by discourse and in and through translation.
Thus, we will welcome scholars who are willing to discuss whether, and how, fear can be verbalized and translated – i.e., carried across continents, languages and cultures – and how different discursive practices (re)produce fear and violence. As Arjun Appadurai points out, ‘large-scale violence is not simply the product of antagonistic identities but […] violence itself is one of the ways in which the illusion of fixed and charged identities is produced’ (2006: 7). Thus, violence can be seen as the negation of translatability understood as a form of mobility and of upsetting fixidity.
Being culturally produced, fear of other(s) can, arguably, be read as a form of externalizing experiences of displacement and unbelonging and translating a nostalgia for stability as fixidity. We would like to discuss how fear is (re)produced in the translation of political speeches, literature, newsreels, television shows, advertisements, etc.
Papers on the following topics are welcome:
Translation and terror(ism)
Translating / producing fear in the news
Translation and repression
Fear, globalization & translation
Translating fear in literature and the arts
Thrillers and the translatedness (or untranslatability) of enemies
Ethics and partisanship in translation
Asymmetries in / of representation in translation
Language politics, war and translation
Otherization as resistance to and / or promotion of fear
Translation, identity and violence
Translation and vulnerability
Translation as utopia
Untranslatability as resistance
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Michelle Woods (SUNY New Paltz – USA)
Isabel Capeloa Gil (Universidade Católica Portuguesa – CECC)
The conference languages are English and Portuguese. Speakers should prepare for a 20-minute presentation followed by questions. Please send a 250-word abstract, as well as a brief biographical note (100 words) to Maria Lin Moniz (lin.moniz@gmail.com) and Alexandra Lopes (mlopes@fch.lisboa.ucp.pt) by March 10, 2017.
Proposals should list the paper title, name, institutional affiliation, and contact details. Notification of abstract acceptance or rejection will take place by April 16, 2017.
Fees:
Early bird (by May 30th):
Participants – 75€
Students (ID required) — 50€
After May 30th but no later than July 1st:
Participants – 100€
Students (ID required) – 80€
The registration fee includes coffee breaks and lunches on the two days of the conference, as well as conference documentation.
Organizing Committee:
Teresa Seruya
Maria Lin Moniz
Alexandra Lopes
Scientific Committee:
Teresa Seruya (CECC / University of Lisbon), President
Margarida Vale Gato (CEAUL / University of Lisbon)
Peter Hanenberg (CECC / Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
Rita Bueno Maia (CECC / Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
Alexandra Lopes (CECC / Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
Maria Lin Moniz (CECC – Research Centre for Communication and Culture)
Brigitte Rath (University of Innsbrück)
Tom Toremans (University of Leuven)
Guest editors:Anna Strowe (University of Manchester)Richard Mansell (University of Exeter)Helle V. Dam (Aarhus University)This special issue focuses on the normative expectations around translators, including norms around translator identity, as well as around hiring or selection processes and understandings of competence or expertise. By applying the concept of norms to the area of translators and translatorship, we hope to connect conversations about the multiple intersecting systems of values that underpin those norms, often silently, ranging from beliefs about education, language skill, and qualification, to understandings of professionalism, economics, and translation itself, while continuing to explore the dimensions and qualities of translator identity and presentation. The norms themselves are at the centre of the topic, along with the values from which they emerge and with which they engage, but as with investigation of other types of norms, they must be extrapolated from available forms of data, for example texts by and about translators, or trends in hiring or training.As scholarship in translation studies has broadened, first from linguistic approaches to cultural and sociological approaches, and then to a focus on the translator, we have increasingly come to understand that we must view translation as a socially-situated practice or set of practices, carried out by agents whose behaviour and choices are influenced by a variety of external as well as internal factors. A large part of the focus has been on using this perspective to better understand the choices that are made in translating – that is, the specific textual decisions made by translators – but interest has also grown significantly in questions that move beyond textual choices and comparative textual analysis. There are significant threads of scholarship for example on the cultural or structural aspects of non-professional translation and interpreting (e.g. Antonini et al. 2017; Pérez-González and Susam-Saraeva 2012), the relationships between translation and activism (e.g. Boéri 2024; Gould and Tahmasebian 2020; Tymoczko 2010), and the impact of emerging technologies and digital spaces on perceptions of translatorship (e.g. Zhang et al. 2024), among many others.Norms have long been a productive tool for translation studies, but existing articulations and uses have focused on the translational norms that we understand as governing micro- and macro-level translation choices. Meylaerts (2008) discusses individual translators and their identities and profiles in relation to the norms of translation and the profession, following Simeoni (1998) in connecting these to Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. However, behaviour around translator identities and characteristics, such as hiring or self-presentation, can also be examined in terms of norms. In a recent article, Strowe (2024) suggests considering translator selection as norm-driven could help us better recognize the values and decisions around translator recruitment and deconstruct assumptions around translator choice and identity.These norms are reflected in patterns in hiring trends, the translation industry, job advertisements, and translators’ websites or blogs, for example, but they also inform a variety of aspects of how translatorship is constructed. The self-image and presentation or representation of translators is informed by beliefs about what responsibilities, tasks, and capacities are involved in being a translator, areas that intersect both with culturally constructed notions of what constitutes and delimits translation itself (see Tymoczko 2007) and with what forms of social, cultural, and legal understandings we have about various agents’ forms of responsibility for texts (see Bantinaki 2020; Pym 2011).The special issue will collect both empirical studies that explore areas related to translator norms, and articles exploring either the theorization of translator norms or the methodological possibilities of this kind of work. Potential questions to explore include (but are not limited to) the following:How might we theorize norms around translator identity, self-presentation, hiring etc.?What kinds of translator norms can be identified within the LSP industry or in other contexts in which translation is done?What differences are there in translator norms across different contexts or domains, and how do these differences affect practices of translation?How can we understand projections of translator image as a form of representation of translator norm? • How are translator norms changing in the face of developments in digital technology?What kinds of research methods facilitate the exploration of translator norms?This is an open call, and the editors particularly welcome proposals from researchers whose workintersects with translator identity or self-presentation;looks at industry expectations around translators and hiring practices;seeks to describe and delimit the spaces of human agency and identity around translation amidst the growing presence of AI.Submission Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted by November 24 to Anna Strowe by email (anna.strowe@manchester.ac.uk). Once invited to do so by the editors, selected authors will be asked to submit an article of between 7000 and 8000 words, including references, through the journal’s online portal no later than May 30, 2026.A full schedule of dates plus the bibliography is available here: https://benjamins.com/series/ts/callforpapers.pdf
Life Writing and Translation Thursday 18 – Friday 19 June 2026 University of Geneva Abstract of no more than 250 words (bibliography excluded) in English or French are now invited and should be submitted to lifewritingtranslation@unige.ch by 16 November 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be distributed at the beginning of February 2026. Please find more information on abstracts on the Conference website: https://www.humanmovement.cam.ac.uk/events/translating-conflict-and-refuge-language-displacement-and-politics-representation
APTIS25 Online Conference at the UCL Centre for Translation Studies (3–4 November 2025) “Better together: how can industry and academia collaborate to empower future language professionals?” The UCL Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS) is looking forward to hosting the APTIS25 online conference. The APTIS25 conference (“Better together: how can industry and academia collaborate to empower future language professionals?”) will take place on 3–4 November 2025 via Zoom Webinar. We encourage submissions from both academic and industry speakers. Please see our Call for Contributions as well as the Types of Contributions section to know more about the contributions that APTIS25 will be welcoming. If you would like to contribute to APTIS25 by presenting a talk or a roundtable, please visit the Submit a Proposal section, where you will find the link to send your abstract. Please kindly refer to the Key Dates to know more about submission and registration deadlines. https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/aptis25ucl
APTIS25 Online Conference at the UCL Centre for Translation Studies (3–4 November 2025)“Better together: how can industry and academia collaborate to empower future language professionals?”The UCL Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS) is looking forward to hosting the APTIS25 online conference. The APTIS25 conference (“Better together: how can industry and academia collaborate to empower future language professionals?”) will take place on 3–4 November 2025 via Zoom Webinar.We encourage submissions from both academic and industry speakers. Please see our Call for Contributions as well as the Types of Contributions section to know more about the contributions that APTIS25 will be welcoming. If you would like to contribute to APTIS25 by presenting a talk or a roundtable, please visit the Submit a Proposal section, where you will find the link to send your abstract.Please kindly refer to the Key Dates to know more about submission and registration deadlines.https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/aptis25ucl
Hieronymus is the first Croatian journal dedicated exclusively to publishing research and professional articles in the field of translation studies and terminology. The journal has the following key goals: (1) to promote translation studies and terminology in Croatia and the broader region, where these two disciplines are not always recognized; and (2) to enhance local researchers’ visibility in the international translation studies community. For the Research Section of the journal, we welcome empirical studies with clear goals and well-defined methodology in any area of translation studies or terminology. In addition, papers presenting and discussing any area of professional translation or terminological practice are invited for the Professional section. Contributions by early career researchers (pre-Ph.D. or recently obtaining a Ph.D.) as well as young professionals are gladly accepted. In both sections of the journal, contributors from Croatia and the broader region are particularly welcome, in line with the journal’s mission outlined above. The preferred languages are English and Croatian. We accept submissions throughout the year, but for consideration in issue 12 (to be published in December 2025), submissions need to be sent by 30 March 2025 at the latest. Submissions will first be considered by the Editorial Team and, if they pass this initial screening, they will be forwarded for a double-blind peer review. Authors whose papers are accepted for publication must certify that their work has not been previously published. All papers are published in Open Access under the Creative Commons 4.0 open license. For information on citation style and formatting, please consult our Contributors page and Submission Guidelines. Please send your contributions to the following addresses: knikoli@ffzg.unizg.hr sveselic@ffzg.unizg.hr If you have any queries regarding this call, please do not hesitate to contact us
