Translating the margin: Lost voices in the aesthetic discourse

CFP: InVerbis Special Issue (2018) TRANSLATING THE MARGIN: LOST VOICES IN THE AESTHETIC DISCOURSE
Guest Editors: Alessandra Rizzo (University of Palermo) and Karen Seago (City, University of London) Copy-editor: Maila Enea (University of Roehampton)

With extensive work mobility, mass migration and globalisation, translation and interpretation in cultural institutions, digital contexts and open public spaces have assumed a pivotal role in the negotiation of a wide range of lingua-cultural transactions across a variety of media, genres and platforms. Cultural and linguistic fluidity has encouraged the growth of scenarios of multilingual and multicultural encounters, where translating and languaging practices in facilitating communication across cultures and languages have become central but they too often still occupy marginal positions. This is particularly the case when we go beyond the purely linguistic role of translation and we look at it as a communicative bridging device or a highly culturally- and linguistically-specific form of knowledge translation. This special issue aims at investigating and presenting concrete examples of translation as a linguistic and cultural expedient that reveals migrant and refugee experiences as counternarratives. The objective is to demonstrate, on the one hand, how translation is involved in the production and dissemination of counter-narratives aiming at the re-telling of experiences of displacement as a result of conflict, persecution, and famine. And, on the other hand, how the migrant presence in the receiving country acts as a stimulus to the creation of an international network of filmmakers, musicians, artists and activists who are capturing and responding to individual stories of struggle and success in the migrant and refugee communities. Migration and change are indissolubly linked, not only for the migrant but also at the point of arrival, generating changing contexts, the reshaping of cultural landscapes and artistic contacts in the visual and performing arts. Artistic interventions such as installations, museum exhibitions, video art, documentaries and theatrical performances engage and interrogate the experience and impact of migration. Maya Ramsay’s art exhibition Countless, Porto M in Lampedusa, Yasmin Fedda’s documentary Queens of Syria, Sue Clayton’s documentaries Hamedullah. The Road home and Calais children: A case to answer, Kevin McElvaney’s #RefugeeCamerasproject, Gabriele Del Grande et al.’s On the Bride’s Side, Francesco Rosi’s Fire at Sea, to list but a few, articulate counter-narratives to the dominant image of “the Migrant” constructed in the media. Most of these stories are narrated through the arts, including ink jet prints, sewn works of text on canvas (e.g. Odisseo Arriving Alone), multichannel sound installation of conversations (e.g. Nel Mezzo del Mezzo, Arte Contemporanea nel Mediterraneo), moments shared, and stories retold through English translations and interpretations (e.g. individual and collective experiences in refugee camps and centres in Calais, Lampedusa, Idomeni). In these environments of marginality and diversity, translation emerges as a force in the mediation of counter-narratives and extends its massive potential for intervention in the aesthetic and
cultural fields to the political sphere. Translation as the practice of language and culture transfer interprets migrant stories, renders labels and panels in migrant museums and art exhibitions, and subtitles the voice of migrants in documentaries and videos, where lost voices can speak from the edge, gain visibility and become “subjects of power”. The aim of this volume is to shed light on the role of translation in the depiction of the margin from a metaphorical viewpoint, but also from a practical perspective, in order to point out how marginal realities shift from liminal spaces into niche places of arrival. Contributions are invited to rethink translation as a form of interpretation, adaptation, de- and re-contextualization, transcreation and recreation of popular and artistic genres that give voice to underrepresented languages and cultures.

The principal areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

-Aesthetic forms in contexts of crisis (past and present) -Marginality and liminality, urban spaces, centres -Creative cultural industries vs. media discourse -Films, documentaries, TV programmes, web blogs, video art -Museum texts, installations, exhibitions -Popular genre-specific translation strategies and constraints -Translation as re-narration, re-creation, re-voicing -Translation as a social activity, difference and power - Translating regionalised voices, dialects, minority languages -Fansubbing, amateur translation, abusive translation, activism, creative subtitling -Prosumer, self-mediated translation vs. mass-mediated translation -Visual and verbal diversity in language variables -Linguistic and cultural issues in the interpretation of art texts.

Deadlines
15 September 2017 Submission of proposal (approximately 700 words excluding references) and short bio-bibliographical profile to:
Alessandra Rizzo (University of Palermo), alessandra.rizzo@unipa.it Karen Seago (City University London), karen.Seago1@city.ac.uk
30 September 2017 Notification of accepted / rejected proposals
1 December 2017 Submission of article to guest editors
2 March 2018 Feedback from peer review to authors/revision
31 March 2018 Submission of revised articles to guest editors
Final acceptance of articles is subject to double blind peer-review process.
June 2018 Publication