Calls for papers

Amid a massive wave of digitisation and the development of digital methods, many millions of pages from periodicals have recently begun to become truly accessible to scholarship, establishing an archival foundation for wide-ranging research questions which had previously been difficult to ask, and nearly impossible to answer. An upsurge of scholarly interest in periodicals, magazines, newspapers and reviews has resulted. However, even as research has been decisively reconfigured, the numerous acts of direct and indirect cultural translation that composed and defined periodicals have remained underexplored. Such neglect ignores the centrality of translated content to the cultural impact of periodicals, and to the generation and (re)composition of publishable matter. This neglect is even more striking for para-literary texts; that is, commercial, popular, or genre fiction, serialised fiction, or criticism which exert tremendous cultural force but generally remains understudied. This thematic issue of Perspectives attempts to turn the page on this double hiatus, forging links between translation and periodical studies in order to examine para-literary periodical translations. The issue particularly hopes to bring together a series of papers that proceed from focused case studies to broader methodological and conceptual conversations. Its aim is to consider a range of approaches on a wide cross-section of languages and periods; seizing on the momentum of the transnational and medial turn, its specific interest is in (1) defining periodicals as transnational print media ecologies to examine their interaction with other media forms, as well as the materiality of publishing translations in periods of scissors-and-paste journalism and the use of syndicated content; (2) considering the sociability and complexly multiple authorship, in particular in regard to translation, that is key to understand the periodical’s dynamics within a wider web of social institutions; and (3) investigating translation in low- and middle-brow periodicals that make up the bulk of periodical output. The key question which this volume seeks to ponder is whether periodical translation can be argued to have distinct qualities that distinguish the practice from other forms of translation. Suggested topics for papers include: theoretical contributions, defining translation in periodicals and sharpening terminology methodological contributions, in particular focusing on Digital Humanities tools for Translation Studies research transnational networks and periodicals the limits of the transnational paradigm translation as cultural mediation in periodicals visual analyses of translation in periodicals in/visibility of translation and translators in periodicals migrant/diaspora periodicals translation in children’s magazines archival examinations of editorial practices sociology of translation, identifying translators and other actors involved in periodical publishing translators’ periodicals and translation discourse in periodicals translational and localization practices of comics transnational periodicals as furnishers of content for local or regional periodicals syndicated fiction readers’ responses to translation (readers’ letters etc.) Deadline for abstracts: 1 September 2023 For more information, click here

Vulnerability is often defined as “being at increased risk of harm or having reduced capacity or power to protect one’s interests” (Mackenzie 2013, 34). Vulnerable people are considered as such because of disparities in physical, economic, social, and health status when compared with the dominant population (Rukmana 2014) which make them more prone to situations of neediness, dependence, victimhood, or helplessness, and more in need of “special safeguards, supports, or services to protect them or enable them to protect themselves” (Scully 2013, 205). Along these lines, as Mackenzie (2013, 34) posits, some authors study the notion of “vulnerability” in contrast to the concept of “autonomy” by associating the latter with “ideals of substantive independence and self-determination.” Similarly, another conception of vulnerability is linked to a population’s access to social protections afforded by the State—the weaker these protections, and the more difficulty a population has in accessing them, the more vulnerable the population becomes (Castel 1995). Castel argues that vulnerability is not synonymous with exclusion from a dominant population, but rather a state which occurs through the gradual disaffiliation of individuals and populations from a state of dominance through the erosion of protections. Considering these definitions, some of the vulnerable populations identified in relevant literature are children (Bagattini 2019); people with disabilities (Scully 2013); people with mental illnesses (Atkinson 2007); patients with dementia, elderly people, refugees and asylum seekers (Strokosch & Osborne 2016; Grubb & Frederiksen 2022). Mackenzie, Rogers and Dodds (2013) posit that, as social and affective beings, we are emotionally and psychologically vulnerable to others in myriad ways: to loss and grief; to neglect, abuse, and lack of care; to rejection, ostracism, and humiliation. As sociopolitical beings, when our capacities for participation (in various parts of our lives) are restricted, we are vulnerable to exploitation, manipulation, oppression, political violence, and rights abuses (Strokosch & Osborne 2016; Fleming & Osborne 2019). In the context of social-ecological systems, vulnerability is usually defined as susceptibility to being harmed (Adger 2006) when confronted with the impact of the environment on our actions and well-being. Moreover, there are crises, such as a pandemic or a natural disaster, that reinforce and amplify some of the pre-existing inequalities in groups already presenting heightened vulnerability to economic and social hardship (intersectional vulnerabilities). All these different definitions and nuanced perspectives suggest that the study of vulnerability and of vulnerable populations involves the examination of complex notions whose implications are intertwined with a specific time and space and with a specific context. In the same vein, there is no binary split between vulnerable and non-vulnerable populations, rather, there are gradual degradations and multiple zones of vulnerability into which a population or individual might fall. Consequently, one may argue that the notion of vulnerability is not one that inherently applies to an individual or population: in other words, the notion of vulnerability is dependent on a particular time and place. Based on the same dependencies, language can also engender vulnerability. For example, individuals with limited capacity in the dominant language of a given space (country, region, city, organisation) can be described as vulnerable. Whilst it is true that even citizens who speak the dominant language can be considered as vulnerable people, not speaking the dominant language of a given space places the individual in a state of heightened vulnerability when defending their cause (in courts or police stations), conveying their health issues (healthcare), or accessing education. Language can also create vulnerabilities for otherwise dominant populations: in the context of a crisis (be it an armed conflict, a natural disaster or a pandemic) local citizens often face linguistic and cultural barriers when accessing the aid offered by international humanitarian organisations. In order to mitigate language-engendered vulnerability, interpreters are recruited both by national public services to work with vulnerable populations in different contexts: with migrant children (Sultanic 2022); people with mental health issues (Bot 2008); asylum seekers (Määttä, Puumala & Ylikomi 2021); or refugees (González Campanella 2022), among others. International organisations also recruit interpreters to provide aid to populations who find themselves in vulnerable situations in their own country as a consequence of a crisis, such as the ICRC (International Commission of the Red Cross) (Kherbiche 2009; Delgado Luchner & Kherbiche 2018) the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (Todorova 2016, 2017, 2019); MSF (Médecins sans frontières, Doctors without Borders); or the United Nations, with its human rights missions (Ruiz Rosendo, Barghout & Martin 2021), among others. Furthermore, international organisations, such as the United Nations and others, host fora allowing vulnerable populations to speak directly to the organisation or through NGOs, such as at the UN Human Rights Council or Treaty Bodies, for which interpreters are also recruited. Against this backdrop, this special issue will showcase the need for addressing and foregrounding language and cultural issues, with a particular focus on interpreters, in the discussion of the challenges faced by people in situations of vulnerability in different contexts and settings. Additionally, this special issue will show that more research is needed to shed light on aspects that further complicate the issues stemming from language-engendered asymmetrical power relations between vulnerable and dominant populations within a given time and space. Just. Journal of Language Rights and Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories is seeking submissions for a special monographic issue on the topic of interpreting for vulnerable populations. The issue aspires to drive the debate on the challenges that interpreters face when working with vulnerable populations and communities in different contexts and settings, their positionality and the role(s) they adopt as agents of communication. Researchers are invited to submit articles in English, Spanish or Catalan. Papers are expected to represent research across a wide range of disciplines, as well as inter- and transdisciplinary studies. It is our belief that more interdisciplinary discussion among scholars from translation studies, social sciences, anthropology, political sciences, development studies, and natural sciences, among other fields, is needed. We welcome any article that contributes to our understanding of interpreting for vulnerable populations. In preparing their submission, which should focus principally on the linguistic and interpreting aspects of the topic in question, contributors may wish to consider and address the following guiding questions: Who are vulnerable populations, particularly when viewed from a linguistic and cultural standpoint? How does the researcher’s positionality impact the study of vulnerable populations?  Is vulnerability a fixed characteristic, or a shifting and relative aspect of positionality? How does vulnerability interact with other elements of these populations’ positionalities? How do researchers manage their positionality when researching vulnerable populations? Is vulnerability expressed in the context of asymmetrical power relations? If so, how? What is the difference between a vulnerable population and a vulnerable individual? What characterises “interpreting for vulnerable populations”?  What is the positionality of interpreters working for vulnerable populations, particularly in terms of training (formal or otherwise, including training through membership of a community of practice and learning by doing) and experience? Where and in what contexts do interpreters work for vulnerable populations? (PSI contexts; crisis, humanitarian and conflict-related scenarios; (international) conferences or human rights fora) What languages (signed and spoken) are most often represented? Can, and should, a single paradigm represent “interpreting for vulnerable populations”?  What existing fields address or have addressed vulnerable populations? How should future studies address this topic? What are the common challenges and difficulties faced by non-vulnerable users and interpreters when working with vulnerable populations in different settings? To what extent could interpreters help vulnerable populations to respond to vulnerability by promoting autonomy, be it linguistic or otherwise?   Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories is a journal dedicated to disseminating scholarship on the protection, enforcement, and promotion of the rights of linguistic minorities as well as related themes arising from the confluence of language, the social dynamics of dominance and oppression, and the law. Interested authors are invited to send their expression of interest to the guest editors: Lucía Ruiz Rosendo (lucia.ruiz@unige.ch) and Conor Martin (conor.martin@unige.ch) by 15th May 2023. They are also invited to send full manuscripts to them by 1st November 2023. A full manuscript should be between 6000 and 8000 words in length (exclusive of abstract and references but including footnotes). Every manuscript will be submitted to a double-blind peer review that includes at least two referees. Please include a brief bionote about the authors and their affiliations in a separate file. All abstracts and manuscripts should use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) for both citation (https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html) and drafting. A summary of the drafting CMS guidelines is available in Just’s author guidelines (https://ojs.uv.es/index.php/JUST/about/submissions). The publication of this special issue will adhere to the following editorial timeline: Submission of full manuscripts 1 November 2023 Comments to authors (peer-review) 15 December 2023 Final versions of papers 31 January 2024 Decision to authors 15 February 2024 Publication of special issue April 2024 References Adger, W. Neil. 2006. “Vulnerability.” Global environmental change 16: 268–281. Atkinson, Jacqueline M. 2007. “Protecting or empowering the vulnerable? Mental illness, communication and the research process.” Research Ethics Review 3 (4): 134–138. Bagattini, Alexander. 2019. “Children’s well-being and vulnerability.” Ethics and Social Welfare 13 (3): 211–215. Bot, Hanneke. 2018. “Interpreting for vulnerable people–Cooperation between professionals.” Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning 5: 47–70. Castel, Robert. 1995. Les metamorphoses de la question sociale. Paris: Gallimard. Delgado Luchner, Carmen & Leila Kherbiche. 2018. “Without fear or favour? The positionality of ICRC and UNHCR interpreters in the humanitarian field.” Target 30 (3): 408–429. Flemig, Sarah S. & Stephen P. Osborne. 2019. “The dynamics of co-production in the context of social care personalisation: Testing theory and practice in a Scottish context.” Journal of Social Policy 48 (4): 671–697. González Campanella, Alejandra. 2022. “Trauma informs so much of what happens: Interpreting refugee-background clients in Aotearoa New Zealand.” Perspectives (first online). Grubb, Ane & Morten Frederiksen. 2022. “Speaking on behalf of the vulnerable? Voluntary translations of citizen needs to policy in community co-production.” Public Management Review 24 (12): 1894–1913. Kherbiche, Leila. 2009. Interprètes de l'ombre et du silence : entre cris et chuchotements (Réflexion sur l'interprétation dans un contexte humanitaire auprès du CICR). Unpublished MA thesis. University of Geneva. Mackenzie, Catriona. 2013. “The importance of relational autonomy and capabilities for an ethics of vulnerability.” In Vulnerability: New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy, edited by Catriona Mackenzie, Wendy Rogers & Susan Dodds, 33–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mackenzie, Catriona, Wendy Rogers & Susan Dodds, eds. 2013. Vulnerability: New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Määttä, Simo K., Eeva Puumala & Riitta Ylikomi. 2021. “Linguistic, psychological and epistemic vulnerability in asylum procedures: An interdisciplinary approach.” Discourse Studies 23 (1): 46–66. Ruiz Rosendo, Lucía, Alma Barghout & Conor Martin. 2021. “Interpreting on UN field missions: A training programme”. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 15 (4): 450–467. Rukmana, Desdén. 2014. “Vulnerable Populations.” In Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research, edited by Alex C. Michalos, 6989–6992. Dordrecht: Springer. Scully, Jackie L. 2013. “Disability and vulnerability: On bodies, dependence, and power.” In Vulnerability: New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy, edited by Catriona Mackenzie, Wendy Rogers & Susan Dodds, 204–221. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strokosch, Kirsty & Stephen P. Osborne. 2016. “Asylum seekers and the co-production of public services: Understanding the implications for social inclusion and citizenship.” Journal of Social Policy 45 (4): 673–690. Sultanic, Indira. 2022. “Interpreting for vulnerable populations. Training and education of interpreters working with refugee children in the United States.” In Interpreter training in conflict and post-conflict scenarios, edited by Lucia Ruiz Rosendo & Marija Todorova, 114–128. London: Routledge. Todorova, Marija. 2016. “Interpreting conflict mediation in Kosovo and Macedonia.” Linguistica Antverpiensia15: 227–240. Todorova, Marija. 2017. “Interpreting at the border: “Shuttle interpreting” for the UNHCR.” Clina 3 (2): 115–129. Todorova, Marija. 2019. “Interpreting for refugees: Empathy and activism.” In Intercultural crisis communication: Translation, interpreting, and languages in local crises, edited by Federico Federici & Christophe Declercq, 153–173. London: Bloomsbury Academics.   For more details go the the journal page here. 

A unique opportunity exists for a professionally qualified academic with expertise in Translation Studies (Translation Technology) THE ROLE Salary Package: Senior Lecturer (Level C), from $134,645 to $154,843 p.a., plus 17% employer's superannuation and annual leave loading Appointment Type: Full time, continuing. Macquarie University (North Ryde) location A unique opportunity exists for a professionally qualified academic with expertise in Translation Studies (specialisation in Translation Technology) in the position of Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University. The successful candidate will actively engage in all aspects of the department including research, learning and teaching, supervision of research students (Masters to higher degree), administration and actively engage with other areas and colleagues across the Department and Faculty. In recognition of the diversity of skills and experience required, this position is offered for appointment within either the Teaching and Research or the Technical/Industry/Commercial Job Family. The Technical/Industry/Commercial Academic is a specialist academic role designed to be a bridge between industry/commercial enterprise and academia, and/or to accommodate hybrid technical/academic roles that are grounded in research or teaching. The academic component of this role may be teaching or research, coupled with activities that are not traditional academic work. More information about Macquarie University Academic Job Families at can be found here. About Us Macquarie is the university of pioneering minds. Globally recognised as one of Australia's leading research universities, Macquarie is a place where extraordinary new possibilities come to light. We've helped people to hear, introduced wireless internet technology to the world and broken through traditional boundaries by appointing Australia's first female vice-chancellor.Macquarie University's Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences builds on our aspiration to have the nation's first fully integrated Academic Health Sciences Centre under a university's leadership. It brings together the excellent work of medical and allied-health clinicians and researchers across the University and around the country, with unparalleled access to world-leading clinical resources and research facilities found only on our campus. Deadline for applications: 31 May 2023 For more information, click here

CREATIVITY AND TRANSLATIONIN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEInternational Conference at the Department of Translation StudiesJanuary 11-12, 2024, University of Innsbruck, Austria ORGANIZATION:Dr. Katharina Walter (katharina.walter@uibk.ac.at) andAss.-Prof. Dr. Marco Agnetta (marco.agnetta@uibk.ac.at) The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) poses new challenges for language mediators. As machine translation systems are making great strides and many language services have come to be supported or partially automated by AI, the job market for human translators and interpreters is being redefined. However, humans remain indispensable to the language service industry – not only because they coordinate and correct machine output, but also because they continue to have the upper hand in certain areas of language mediation. There is widespread agreement that the benefits of human work are particularly evident in language services that require special creativity, which applies, for instance, to the transfer of pithy advertising slogans from one linguistic and cultural context to another, or to literary translation. At the same time, such language services are also gaining in importance overall, as witnessed, for example, by numerous publications on transcreation from recent years. Although AI is now also permanently transforming free speech production through applications such as ChatGPT, machines have so far lacked the contextual understanding that is required for high-quality transfers of nuanced and form-conscious texts between languages and cultures. For the time being, one shortcoming of machine translation is the fact that texts can only be grasped at the sentence level, not in their overall context. Nevertheless, AI-based applications are extremely useful tools for humans, even in highly sophisticated types of language mediation. In fact, in many creative industries specializing in language mediation and text design, the use of text creation software is already commonplace. Post-editing is booming and is increasingly finding its way into translation studies research and translator training. The Department of Translation Studies at the University of Innsbruck takes these developments as a point of departure to reflect on potential tensions emerging between human and machine contributions to creative work in language mediation. On January 11 and 12, 2024, perspectives on the theory, practice or didactics of translation and interpreting are equally welcome to address questions that may include but are not limited to the following topics:• creativity in translation or interpreting,• enhancing creativity in the practice of language mediation,• promoting creativity in translator and interpreter training,• limits and potentials of neural machine translation with regard to creative work,• impact of AI on processes of language mediation,• examples of effects of AI use on translational creativity,• transcreation and AI,• AI and the language services market,• impact of AI on job profiles for translators and interpreters,• quality assurance in AI-assisted language services. Please send your abstracts (no more than 300 words including title) for a 20-minute presentation in German or English by May 31, 2023, at the latest, to katharina.walter@uibk.ac.at and marco.agnetta@uibk.ac.at. A publication of the conference papers is planned.We are looking forward to an exciting conference!

As recently announced, the IAPTI 6th International Conference will be held on November 11-12, 2023, in Timișoara, Romania. The Call for Papers is still open and we will continue with the proposals selection process until 15 May, 2023.  Please remember that abstracts should be a maximum of 200 words and be submitted to the Organising Committee at //romaniaconference@iapti.org/" style="color: #e64e4e; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">romaniaconference@iapti.org. *Priority will be given to new topics not presented before at other conferences.*  Please include a title and description, a short bio (up to 100 words) and a profile photo with your proposal. Speakers will have 45-50 minutes for their presentations and 10 minutes for Q&A. The Organising Committee reserves the right to accept or reject proposals and will notify applicants accordingly. The conference fee is waived for speakers (1 per presentation) and no other monetary compensation or reimbursement is offered. For more information, please contact the Organising Committee at romaniaconference@iapti.org. Come and join us for another outstanding IAPTI event with us in the 2023 European Capital of Culture! For more information, click here

Edited by Francesca Raffi (University of Macerata), Emília Perez (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra) and Matej Martinkovič (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra) The concept of paratext was first analysed by Gérard Genette, who defines the term as “what enables a text to become a book and to be offered as such to its readers and, more generally, to the public” (Genette 1997: 1). According to the author, in fact, a literary work not only consists of the main text itself, but is also surrounded by other elements, such as the title, cover, preface and all those elements that help to present it to the public and that “ensure the text’s presence in the world, its ‘reception’ and consumption” (Genette 1997: 1). The paratexts of (re)translations are indeed elements that offer interesting insights from many perspectives, with retranslation intended as “the act of translating a work that has previously been translated into the same language, or the result of such an act, i.e. the retranslated text itself” (Gürçaglar 2009: 233). By framing the core text in a certain way, these added elements present a work to the audience with the potential to influence its reception. Paratexts are also a powerful tool through which translators may convey their vision and purpose, invite new interpretations, and claim their role. Paratexts, being flexible, versatile and transitory can thus be a tool for adapting a text to a dynamic and ever-changing target culture, while also offering a place for the (re)translator to claim their presence and visibility. Since the early 2000s, several studies have examined retranslations by taking into account their paratextual aspects to investigate issues related to the context and reception of a given literary (Gürçağlar 2008; Deane-Cox 2012, 2014; Badić 2020, among others) or, more recently, audiovisual (O’Sullivan 2018; Mével 2020; Raffi 2022; Bucaria and Batchelor forthcoming, among others) work. These studies have confirmed that paratextual aspects reflect the context in which a retranslation is produced, highlight the dominant ideologies and norms of a target culture, but may also act as a marketing tool and a catalyst for the (new) audience. The aim of this issue is to provide an opportunity for scholars in Translation Studies, Reception Studies, and Media Studies, among others, to present their findings, insights, and interdisciplinary perspectives on paratextual elements in the (re)translation of both literary and multimodal works. Following Genette (1997: 12), paratexts may be here intended as a very broad category of elements that are “fundamentally heteronomous, auxiliary, and dedicated to the service of something other than itself”. These may include prefaces, blurbs, notes, interviews, private communications (e.g., letters, diaries), promotional campaigns, fan-made materials, social media posts, endorsements, trailers, among others. The topics of interest may include but are not restricted to those listed below: paratextual elements in (re)translated literary works paratextual elements in (re)translated multimedia works (e.g. films, TV-series, videogames, operas, musicals, theatre plays) accessible paratexts and inclusive design the (in)visibility of the translator paratexts and the editor theoretical and methodological challenges of studying paratexts ideological discourse in (re)translation paratextuality and (re)translation across different media We welcome full-paper submissions reflecting the abovementioned issues. All articles must be written in English and should not exceed 7,000 words. We also welcome reviews of publications related to the main topic of this issue.  Deadline for submission: 15 October 2023 For more information, click here

This conference aims at shedding new light on the challenges and consequences of cultural misunderstanding. Following an interdisciplinary approach, the theme of the conference will be examined from a linguistic, legal and translational perspective. The intention of the event is to establish a link between theory and praxis. Presentations on different theories and disciplinary approaches are encouraged as well as accounts from the professional life of translators, lawyers and linguists. In the context of this event, we define intercultural misunderstandings both as misunderstandings between cultures of different countries, but also as misunderstandings within the same country due to cultural, regional, social or ethnic differences. Deadline for submissions: 15 May 2023 For more information, click here  

Postgraduate research is anything but linear. Instead, it is a process of continual untangling – of plucking at a single thread within the tapestry. Methods and methodologies are the tools we use to find and follow those threads, sometimes without really knowing where they might lead. The new and shifting world we live in presents a complex tapestry, and innovative as well as established methods are more necessary than ever. IPCITI 2023 hopes to provide a space for postgraduate researchers to share their ways of knowing, and to keep one another company on this entangled adventure.    The International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting, or IPCITI, is a student-led conference that rotates between four universities with a strong focus on translation and interpreting: Dublin City University, Heriot-Watt University, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Manchester. IPCITI aims to provide an inviting, collaborative and stimulating space for PhD and early-career researchers in translation and interpreting studies to present their research.   The Heriot-Watt IPCITI team are pleased to announce that, after a 3-year hiatus due to COVID-19, IPCITI is back! After being unable to meet for so long, we are delighted to be welcoming participants back to the campus for this in-person conference, which will be held at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh on 23-24 November 2023. By holding the conference in person, we aim to build in time for informal discussions, meeting new colleagues and opportunities to discuss your own research while also learning about others’ work.  Abstracts are invited from postgraduate and early-career researchers on topics including, but not limited to:   Multimodal methods Interventionist approaches Ethical questions in TIS methodology TIS during the pandemic: research and practice  Ethnographic approaches  Corpus methodologies  Institutional factors in translation and interpreting Language brokering and non-professional interpreting Investigating identity in translation and interpreting Investigating gender in translation and interpreting Representation and diversity in translation and interpreting Deadline for submissions: 22 May 2023

Two-day symposium organized by Alexa Alfer and Cornelia Zwischenberger, held 6-7th July 2023 in London, UK This symposium will be devoted to explorations of the concept of labour arising from Translab’s hallmark blending of ‘translation’ and ‘collaboration’. It posits that the concept of labour, as distinct from ‘work’ (Arendt 1958/1998; Narotzky 2018), warrants more sustained engagement on the part of both Translation Studies and the translation profession. While digital labour (Fuchs 2020), playbor (Kücklich 2005), fan labour (De Kosnik 2012), affective labour (Hardt 1999; Koskinen 2020), emotional labour (Hochschild 1993), or (im)material labour (Negri & Hardt 2004) may present themselves as particularly topical sites for such exploration, both labour and work are also important yet largely underarticulated dimensions in discussions about translation in a professional context and in debates about the distinction between professional and non-professional translation. Last but not least, we are keen to extend consideration of the labour concept to translation as such, and to interrogate its relevance to current debates about the translation concept. While the concept of work is perhaps more readily associated with translation in professional discourses at least, translation as labour, i.e. as an activity structurally embedded in capitalist chains of surplus-value production (Zwischenberger and Alfer 2022), features far less prominently in current debates. However, foregrounding labour as a fundamental dimension of translation (and, for that matter, interpreting) allows both researchers and practitioners to investigate translation and interpreting more closely from a socioeconomic perspective. This should, in turn, help develop impactful alternatives to the prevalent ‘professionalisation’ discourses intended to raise the socio-economic status of translators, and critique the ways in which many of these discourses create idealised narratives of translation and interpreting that tend to foreground the processes of work while masking the labour involved in producing outputs whose value is, quietly or overtly, appropriated by those with a stake in the means of their production. Shining a spotlight on the surplus-value inherent in translation as the commodifiable expansion of a source text thus also uncovers the translation concept itself as the site of an unarticulated and unresolved tension between two competing and converging cultural narratives that pivot on conceptions of value as, on the one hand, inextricably bound to and, on the other, posited firmly “outside of a profit-motivated relationship” (Fayard 2021, 216). Papers are to be submitted by 18 April 2023.  For more information, click here.

In recent years, periodicals have increasingly drawn the attention of Translation Studies (Fólica et al. 2020); reciprocally, Periodical Studies have been moving towards a transnational turn (Ernst 2022; Van Remoortel 2022). These disciplinary moves are (amongst others) informed by the development of digital methods and techniques, as well as vast digitization efforts of the archive, that have gathered speed over the past two decades (Bode 2018) and which enable the extraction, processing and analysis of the enormous amounts of information contained in periodicals. Translations constitute a significant tranche of the information periodicals publish, permitting uniquely detailed and quantitatively grounded insight into the dynamic processes that subtended transnational traffic between literatures and cultures. Notwithstanding the clear promise of research at the intersection of translation and periodical studies, and the burgeoning scholarly work that has begun to explore this middle ground, there remains a significant hiatus: there is yet strikingly little material that offers theories, methods, or instructively representative cases. On an empirical level, well-established high-brow periodicals have been the main focus of research, whereas the more popular low and middle-brow periodicals are yet to receive proper place on the research agenda.  More concretely, serial publishing practices (so-called feuilletons) and the interactions between translated and non-translated content within periodicals demand much closer attention. The key question which this conference seeks to ponder is whether periodical translation can be argued to have particular qualities that differentiate the practice from other forms of translation, notably for print books, much as periodical writing can be distinguished from book writing. The discursive techniques of periodical translation, and its key role in the mediation of culture and the dynamic exploration of the present that has long been argued to be central to the specificity of the periodical, are likely to be key touchstones in responding to this question. The international conference ‘Translation and the Periodical’ aims to push forward decisively the developing conversations on cultural translation in periodicals. Its target is to bring scholars from various disciplines together and to activate and advance significantly on extant qualitative (cfr. Guzmán et al. 2019; Pym 2007) and quantitative work (cfr. Caristia 2020). The objective is to be a hub of knowledge and expertise in this field as it continues to grow, in particular in those periodicals that have so far largely remained out of the focus of scholarship. The organizing committee aims to cover a broad scope of subjects and a variety of methodological perspectives in order to reflect current work on translation in periodicals, and both to inform and enhance conversations and debates to come. Suggested topics for papers include (but are not limited to): theoretical contributions, defining translation in periodicals as a praxis and sharpening terminology methodological contributions, e.g. focusing on Digital Humanities tools for Translation Studies research quantifying approaches (distant reading) that establish the ratio of translated content vs. non-translated content transnational networks and periodicals the limits of the transnational paradigm translation as cultural mediation in periodicals visual analyses of translation in periodicals in/visibility of translation and translators in periodicals migrant/diaspora periodicals and their orientation towards the hosting culture vis-à-vis preserving their domestic heritage translation in children’s magazines comparative approaches to translation in newspapers and periodical journals archival examinations of editorial practices sociology of translation, identifying the translators and other actors involved in periodical publishing translators’ periodicals, and – in a wider frame – translation discourse in periodicals translational and localization practices of comics transnational periodicals and their role as furnishers of content for local or regional periodicals syndicated fiction readers’ responses to translation (readers’ letters etc.) Deadline for submissions: 20 April 2023 For more information, click here

Along with an emerging body of scholarly research on the role of translation in the Middle East, this conferencefocuses on the intersections of Middle Eastern women, translation, and relational views on culture across regionaland global levels. The dialogic convergence of those disciplinary territories allows for an in-depth examination ofstrategies of resistance by and/or representation of Middle Eastern women through the lens of translation, both as ameans 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 theone hand, women in the Middle East fulfill their transformative roles as authors, translators, publishers, and/orsocial (political) activists by means of translation, and on the other hand to reflect on the (mis)representation ofMiddle 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 Womenand 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, andideological dynamics;• Discuss how the production and circulation of meanings associated with translation can be approached as amodality 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 beenrepresented in the work of female translators in the region. On the other hand, how Middle Eastern womenhave 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 theexpansion of critical understandings of translating as representing “the other” and challenge the legacies ofhegemonic (mis) representation of Middle Eastern Women. Deadline for submissions: 30 April For more information, click here

In today’s globalized world, the socio-political and economic conditions in most societies areclosely linked to prevailing global trends. Within this context, neoliberalism – the idea of a freemarket within a deregulated economy – has dominated the world through a combination ofwilling acceptance and enforcement, bringing about many fundamental changes withinmultiple contemporary societies, which have in turn given rise to a plethora of studies indifferent fields. In Applied Linguistics, Block, Gray and Holborow (2012) have made some initial attempts toconceptualize the ways in which neoliberal ideology plays out in the areas of language teachingand language teacher education. Since then, a growing number of researchers have furtherexplored interlinked concepts of neoliberalism, mainly within the English Language Teachingindustry, including the discourse of neoliberalism in ELT textbooks (e.g., Copley, 2018),neoliberalism and teacher education (e.g., Furlong, 2013), linguistic imperialism (e.g., Phillipson, 2013) and the commodification of English language pedagogy (e.g., Soto & Pérez-Milans, 2018), to mention but a few. By contrast, the online Translation Studies Bibliography (TSB) records only a handful ofEnglish-language publications worldwide that are related to globalization in general, andhardly any on neoliberalism and translation in particular. In his book Translation andGlobalization (2003/2013) Michael Cronin looks at the changing geography of translationpractice and offers new ways of understanding the role of translators in globalized societiesand economies. The author focuses on the part played by translation and translators in safeguarding linguistic and cultural diversity. From a different standpoint, Bielsa (2005) makesan attempt to understand the significance of translation in the global context, conceptualisingits analytical place in globalisation theory and its key role in articulating the global and thelocal. Language and translation have an essential function in the production, circulation and receptionof neoliberalist texts. Not only do the socio-political and economic policies adopted in differentcontexts influence the choice of texts to be translated (Richner & Olesen, 2019), but translationpractices have an impact on the communication of the discourses and narratives ofneoliberalism (Ban, 2011). In response to the forces of globalization and also to ongoing technological advances,translations of technology, electronics, financial and economic texts, subtitled and dubbedversions of films, and other multimedia products have driven the transformation of values andways of thinking across linguistic and cultural borders (Tang & Gentzler, 2009). While this hasprovided great opportunities for the translation market, employment conditions for translators“have moved towards a model of freelance and contingent work, whereby they struggle withspeed and productivity demands, the unilateral imposition of technologies, and constantdownward pressure on price” (Moorkens, 2020, p.23). To conclude, while translation studies is interdisciplinary in essence, the way in which thepolitical economy – and more specifically neoliberally socio-political and economicallyinformed factors – interact with translation has been downplayed. The aim of this volume is toenhance our understanding of the evolving practices adopted by the translation industry andthe stakeholders in the neoliberal era and to exploit whatever concepts and methodologies canbe adopted for researching translation in the light of neoliberal tendencies existing in differentsocieties. Recommended topicsPossible topics include but are not limited to the following:• Neoliberalism and translation policies• Neoliberalism and translator training• Neoliberalism and translation quality• Neoliberal discourses and narratives in translation• Neoliberalism, technology and translation• Neoliberalism and the translation profession Translation of neoliberalism through history• Neoliberalism and machine translation• Neoliberalism and translation across time and space• Neoliberalism and translation in postcolonial contexts• Neoliberalism, translation and social inequality• Neoliberalism, translation and consumerism• Neoliberalism, translation and identity• Neoliberalism and the role of translators• Neoliberalism, translation and agency For more information, click here Deadline for applications: 30 April 2023