The focus of this Conference is on the translocal, transcultural and translingual connections between texts and their authors. In what ways do texts connect activists operating in different local environments? How are actors influenced by intellectual and political sources originating from other localities and different cultural environments? What happens to a text when it is adapted to a new environment and is politically operationalised in different circumstances?
We adopt a broad understanding of ‘text’, which includes both published and unpublished work, recorded and unrecorded words, and can range from literary fiction to oral testimony and activist pamphlets. Feminism, too, is defined here in very broad terms – including any action aimed at subverting the gender status quo and foregrounding female agency. Finally, we understand translation as a process of cultural transfer across languages, but also within the lexicons and registers of single languages. While the prime focus of the Network has been on the period since 1945, papers incorporating longer-term perspectives and earlier periods are very welcome.
The Conference will also feature a strand on ‘Feminist Translating: Activists and Professionals’, organized in collaboration with Glasgow’s Centre for Gender History, and involving roundtable discussions and workshops with activist-translator communities and publishers working with a feminist ethos. All Conference delegates will be welcome to attend, and its programme will be announced alongside the main Conference programme.
We are very pleased that Professor Claudia de Lima Costa will be our keynote speaker.
The call for papers is available below; please note that it has been slightly revised since the last version to accommodate more themes/panels and please note that the deadline for abstracts has been extended from January to March.