Translation is the materialization of webs of relations. Viewed as an event, translation bears the traces of bodies, voices, and experiences. As artifacts, translations are themselves marks of relations as they manifest themselves through language, and offer us sites to map those relations. Beyond the text, as a web and in its chaotic, messy nature, translation is a site for agents, institutions, texts and strategies to be brought together “on the same map of culture” so that their relations can be traced “in the form of complex networks” (Tahir Gürçağlar 727)[1].
As the agents responsible for the traveling of narratives across languages and territories, and although most often rendered invisible, translators are fundamental to understand the map of literature. Translations and other texts and paratexts constitute part of the “translator’s archive” and allow us to trace the presence of the translating subject. The “translator’s archive” is a concept that encompasses a translators’ texts, paratexts, and statements, her body of works—both published and unpublished—i.e, the material traces of a translator. The “translator’s archive” also goes beyond its textual composition to designate “a discursive formation and a dynamic and organic composition [...] that is not limited to the archive's textual materiality but includes translators’ biographies, their practices, the agents involved in the translating event, and the relations among them” (Guzmán 6-7)[2].
In this issue of Tusaaji we seek to investigate the traces that can be found in and through translation. We invite papers looking at the traces of translation from a range of disciplines and frameworks, and conceptualizing traces in a variety of ways. These can include—although they need not be limited to—papers dealing with translator’s statements, prefaces, notes, manuscripts and marginalia, translators’ correspondence, autobiographies, memoirs and other elements of the translator’s archive, as well as proposals of methodological possibilities to engage the traces of translation.
We invite papers in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, or any other language of the Americas that deal with this issue’s theme. Given Tusaaji’s hemispheric focus, papers discussing the experience of translation in the Americas from this perspective are welcome; however, this issue is not restricted geographically so submissions about all languages and regions will be considered.
In addition to scholarly articles, we also invite submissions of visual art and of translations in any genre, and from/into any of the languages of the journal.
Deadline: September 1, 2017. Submissions can be sent to the guest editor at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with a copy to the journal editorial team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Submissions should adhere to the author guidelines: http://tusaaji.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/tusaaji/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
[1] Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar (2007) “Chaos Before Order: Network Maps and Research Design in DTS”, Meta, Special Issue, Connecting Translation and Network Studies, eds. D. Folaron and H. Buzelin,52: 4, 724-743.
[2] María Constanza Guzmán (2013) “Translation North and South: Composing the Translator’s Archive.” Special issue: Traduction et conscience sociale/Translation and Social Conscience: Around the Work of Daniel Simeoni. Eds. Hélène Buzelin and Alexis Nouss. TTR : traduction, terminology, rédaction. Vol. 26, No. 2, 2013 (published in 2016). 171-191.
