Women and the Politics of Translation in/of the Middle East: Encounters, Dynamics, and Prospects, 19-20 October 2023, KU Leuven (Brussels Campus)

Along with an emerging body of scholarly research on the role of translation in the Middle East, this conference
focuses on the intersections of Middle Eastern women, translation, and relational views on culture across regional
and global levels. The dialogic convergence of those disciplinary territories allows for an in-depth examination of
strategies of resistance by and/or representation of Middle Eastern women through the lens of translation, both as a
means of domination and as a space of dialogue or a trajectory for thinking and speaking ‘otherwise’.
By taking a situated approach to translation, this conference will provide a scholarly forum to discuss how on the
one hand, women in the Middle East fulfill their transformative roles as authors, translators, publishers, and/or
social (political) activists by means of translation, and on the other hand to reflect on the (mis)representation of
Middle Eastern women in Western media (i.e. news, literature, movies, etc.). Taking an interdisciplinary approach,
this conference will challenge the victimized image of Middle Eastern women in Western media and spark a much

needed lively discussion on their active role in the dialectics of the nation-states, identity formation,
ideological/political power, and resistance through the lens of translation.
The conference organizers invite contributions from wide range of disciplines working at the intersection of Women
and Translation in the Middle Eastern Context. The main topics includes but not limited to:

• Locate translation (literally or metaphorically) by/of Middle Eastern women in a larger social, political, and
ideological dynamics;
• Discuss how the production and circulation of meanings associated with translation can be approached as a
modality of power, subject to generating multiple relations of domination and subordination;
• Foreground the concept of ‘translation as representation’. On the one hand, how “the other” has been
represented in the work of female translators in the region. On the other hand, how Middle Eastern women
have been portrayed and represented in the Western world;
We hope the discussions bring regional and global scholars into dialogue and, in doing so, contribute to the
expansion of critical understandings of translating as representing “the other” and challenge the legacies of
hegemonic (mis) representation of Middle Eastern Women.

Deadline for submissions: 30 April

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