Translating Disability Across Cultures: The Translation and Representation of Disability in the Modern Indian Short Story
14 to 16 September 2016
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Modern Indian languages present us with a rich and variegated body of short stories that capture in fiction the phenomena of disability in its manifold aspects. These stories, by both disabled and non-disabled authors, frame the experience of disability within specific cultural registers, but since they remain for the most part untranslated, their reach and influence is limited to the source-language communities. This three-day regional workshop aims a) to provide an opportunity for translation scholars and practitioners as well as postgraduate students interested in the field of translation and disability studies to come together to identify short stories from a range of modern Indian languages that primarily address the issue of disability and then translate these into English. b) to critically examine and compare the translations of disability texts from a variety of Modern Indian languages and identify if there are any common translation challenges that these texts pose and c) to develop appropriate and useful translation strategies to translate disability texts.
The workshop addresses questions like: what are the specific methodologies and theories of translation that need to be adopted or developed while translating a disability text? How has disability been translated, both historically, and in the present? What are the connotations of disability that need to be negotiated and have emerged in the process of translation? How can theories related to translation in general and produced in a Western context be useful in translating and understanding the translations of disability-centric texts from Modern Indian Languages into English? How does the consolidation of a hegemonic language, English in this case, affect the translation of these texts from the supposedly marginalised linguistic and social registers associated with Modern Indian Languages? Is it possible to think of applications of translation, both as concept and metaphor, to examine the multiple social, cultural, and linguistic domains associated with the experience of disability? What are the political and ideological implications that the translations of these texts have across linguistic, social and cultural boundaries? Are the fissures and contradictions between disabled and non-disabled cultures magnified or diminished as a disability text is being translated? When a disability text moves across linguistic boundaries, what is left behind? What resists translation? What is added? And, what new associations are activated?
Interested participants should identify the most appropriate short story in the language they work with that would qualify as a ‘disability text’. Abstracts of about 500 words that briefly summarize the literary work selected, stating how they fall in the category of ‘disability text’ along with the specific challenges presented by the text are invited. Selected participants will need to attend the workshop with a draft translation of their source text into English along with a twenty minute presentation on the specific challenges and strategies that they have encountered and/or have used to translate.
Key Dates:
Last Date of Submission of Abstract: June 5, 2016
Date of Intimation of Selected Participants: July 10, 2016
Last Date of Submission of Translated Story and Paper: August 31, 2016
Abstracts and Papers are to be went to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For further details and abstract submission, please contact workshop organizer: Dr. Someshwar Sati, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The workshop is organized by the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies (JNIAS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) New Delhi, with academic support and sponsorship from The International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) and Routledge. Please visit http://www.iatis.org/index.php for more information on IATIS.
