CFP: European Colloquium on Gender & Translation. University of Ferrara, Italy, 6-7 June 2022

 European Colloquium on Gender & Translation (5th edition) 

Gendering Agency and Activism in Translation and Interpreting 

University of Ferrara, Italy, 6-7 June 2022 

Call for Papers  

The main aim of this hybrid Colloquium (in person and online) – which has shifted venue from edition to edition since 2016 – is to periodically offer an overview of the latest trends in the research on translation and gender around the world, with special emphasis on its cross-pollination with a number of disciplines, including but not limited to Translation Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cultural and Media Studies, Sociology, Politics, Linguistics and Literary Criticism. Besides its overview of the growing diversity of research (both theoretical and practical) on translation and gender/sexuality/equality, the 5th edition of this Colloquium will have a thematic orientation focused on the role played by translation and interpreting as agents of resistance to and change of the dynamics between gender and power in society.

The alliance between feminism(s) and translation has fostered the development of studies centred around agency and performativity of the individual, the translator or the interpreter and their role in society. In the 21st century, both feminism(s) and translation have become privileged spaces of agency, activism and resistance, thus becoming central to the identification and analysis of the strategies of subordination used to exercise social, political and cultural power.

Starting from the work by Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian, The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism (2017), we intend to develop further the notion of the translator/interpreter as activist, namely as champion of political change, advocate of gender equality, promoter of gender diversity, voice-giver and helper of minorities, migrants and refugees, and agent of change capable of putting “into words the perspectives and experiences of oppressed and silenced peoples”. Our reflection also follows in the footsteps of Olga Castro and Emek Ergun’s research on Feminist Translation Studies. Local and Transnational Perspectives (2017) in order to widen the discussion on the interplay between feminist translation, agency and activism as academic fields of enquiry.

The Colloquium aims at making visible the important role of interpreters and translators in: 1) promoting and enabling social, political and cultural change around the world; 2) promoting equality; 3) fighting discrimination; 4) supporting gender diversity; 5) supporting human rights; 6) empowering minorities; 7) challenging authority and injustice not only across European countries but all over the world; 8) facilitating network-building activities among activists and agents of change and 8) teaching feminist translation as a pedagogical act in support of social and gender equality.

We are aware that translation is a powerful tool capable of producing social, political and cultural transformation. Thus, the Colloquium wants to open a forum of discussion and reflection on the contribution offered by practitioners, stakeholders and scholars to the study of translation as activism and agent of change.

Abstracts (up to 250 words) are invited on any aspect of the interface between translation, agency and activism and particularly on (but not limited to) the following Topics:

Activism through translation and interpreting

The role of translators and interpreters in promoting gender equality

The role of translators and interpreters in fighting discrimination

The role of translators and interpreters as champions of gender diversity

Translation and interpreting as acts of resistance to and change of the dynamics between gender and power

The role of translators and interpreters as voice-givers to minorities

Translation and human rights

Translators’ and interpreters’ agency exercised across different media

Translation and interpreting as network-building activities among activists and agents of change

Feminism(s), translation and interpreting: common grounds, challenges, divergences

Implementing innovative (feminist) strategies of translation across media and cultures

Border-crossing and feminism(s): synergies in translation and interpreting projects

The importation of feminism(s) through translation and interpreting

Personal experience and the translation praxis: the importance of (feminist) translators’ agency

Teaching (feminist) translation as a pedagogical act in support of social and gender equality

Translating (feminist) texts from/into different languages and cultures

Practical arrangements

Colloquium format: in person (University of Ferrara) and online

Presentations: in the form of Papers (a 20-minute presentation + a 10-minute discussion)

Official languages: presentations will be in English and Spanish

Abstract evaluation: double-blind and peer-reviewed.

Abstracts should be sent (to translationfest2022@gmail.com) as MS-Word attachments and include:

- Name(s) of author(s)

- Author affiliation(s) – university or institution, e-mail

- Title

- Abstract (up to 250 words)

- 3-4 keywords to identify the subject matter of your presentation

Following the colloquium, presenters will be invited to contribute to a publication in English (volume of essays). More information will be circulated in due time.

Key dates

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 April 2022

Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2022

Confirmed plenary speakers

Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter

Lupe Romero, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

José Santaemilia, Universitat de València

Conference organisers

Università di Ferrara: Eleonora Federici, Giulia Giorgi, Luisa Marino and Marta Fabbri

University of Exeter: Eliana Maestri

Universitat de Valencia: José Santaemilia.

CFP:Translating and Analysing Charles Darwin and Darwinism in(to) European languages (1859-2022)Conference 2022 Mainz

 "Translating and Analyzing Charles Darwin and Darwinism in(to) European languages (1859-2022)":

If Charles Darwin is “perhaps the most discussed writer in English besides Shakespeare”, in George Levine’s words, he certainly is also one of the most debated authors in any language. Yet European readers outside Britain ‒ whether scientists or ordinary educated people ‒ have usually read and criticized his texts through translations into their own languages. Now language was a terrible problem for Darwin himself as he had to express revolutionary ideas using words that had been employed through centuries of Creationist thought, as was brilliantly shown by Gillian Beer in her seminal Darwin’s Plots (1983). It can be said that Darwin’s materialistic and un-teleological concepts had to be translated into an old Christian English language. The European translations of Darwin’s works in turn reflect the difficulty of coining new phrases for new ideas, but they also mirror the specificities of each different language and culture. In France for instance, Clémence Royer ‒ Darwin’s first French translator ‒ read The Origin of Species through Lamarckian lenses and produced a Lamarckian translation that was taken for Darwin’s actual views by thousands of readers for many years. Clémence Royer's translation was also found to convey a higher degree of certainty pertaining to the views expressed than Darwin's own original text. Heinrich Georg Bronn translated the Origin into German in 1860 and opted for ‘Entstehung’ rather than ‘Ursprung’ for ‘origin’ and ‘Kampf’ for ‘struggle’. With his cuts and terms he paved the way for strands of social Darwinism under the auspices of Ernst Haeckel. The reception of Darwinism in Europe was therefore highly influenced by the individual situation of each country in terms of translation, edition, readership and cultural market. This seminar aims at showing the diversity of the circulation and reception of Darwinism (Darwin himself but also such authors as T.H. Huxley, Wallace, Spencer, or many others) from the publication of The Origin in November 1859 to the present day in the various European countries and cultures.

Proposals for papers in the domains of translation and comparative studies, reception studies and linguistics are invited. Papers on linguistic research questions applied to both the original work and the translations of Darwin’s work are welcome; linguistic topics and traditions which may be addressed include (but are not limited to) modality and epistemic stance, Appraisal Theory and Systemic Functional Linguistics, semantic relations (e.g. causality or similar semantic relations), and metaphor theory.

We also welcome proposals that probe into textual aspects of the discursive relation, for example reader response theory within a Christian framework as well as an emerging atheist stance, literary appropriations of Darwin’s work and reactions of contemporary readers in the twenty-first century, Systemic Functional analyses of the textual function, etc.

Submissions:
Titles and abstracts of the proposed papers for this seminar with a very short biography of their authors should be submitted directly to the convenors of the seminar:
Professor Michel Prum (Société des Anglicistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur)
Professor Felix Sprang (Deutscher Anglistenverband)
Professor Heidi Verplaetse (Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education)

prum.michel@wanadoo.fr; felix.sprang@uni-siegen.de; heidi.verplaetse@kuleuven.be

Important dates:
28 February 2022                :       Extended deadline for submissions of paper proposals
20 March 2022                    :       Notification of acceptance       
March 2022                         :       Opening conference registrations
29 August - 2 September 2022 :  ESSE conference
 

For More Details: https://esse2022.uni-mainz.de/ 

CFP:American Historical Association Panel, "Working for the State in Peace and War: Gender, Race, and Labor in the 20th Century, Philadelphia, Jan 2023

 Working for the State in Peace and War: Gender, Race, and Labor in the 20th Century-Philadelphia, Jan 2023

What can centering the experiences of workers for the state tell us about the growth of the state; the impact of war on societies; and relationships between citizen and state? Who did the often undervalued and unrecognized labor that enabled large military and civil efforts?

Our proposed panel for the 2023 American Historical Association Conference (Philadelphia, PA, January 5-8, 2023) will cohere around an intersectional consideration of gender and race among government and military employees in the long twentieth century.

Thus far, presentations include a consideration of working men in the British Army Army Service Corps between 1914 and 1918; a consideration of Solomon Islander workers and the battle of Guadalcanal; and a consideration of cleaning women at the US Treasury Department at the turn of the twentieth century. We seek another paper considering non-military laborers in the long twentieth century and a scholar who can act as commentator. We are open regarding geographic focus, but we do have a strong preference for a paper that is located in the twentieth century. If interested, please send an email introducing yourself and your research interests to Hannah Alms and Tommy Stephens at halms@iu.edu and tstephe@iu.edu by January 31.

Contact Info: 

Tommy Stephens and Hannah Alms 

tstephe@iu.edu and halms@iu.edu

Ph.D. Candidates, History Department

Indiana University

Contact Email: 

halms@iu.edu

CFP: Online Conference on "Their story": An Online Conference on American LGBTQIA+ Scholarship and Activism

 “Theirstory”: An Online Conference on American LGBTQIA+ Scholarship and Activism

Monday February 28th, 2022

Call for Papers Deadline: February 7th, 2022 at 5pm

Hosted by Queen’s University Belfast’s American Studies Association (ASA). The month of February has long been connected to the concept of love. ASA want to provide a platform for American LGBTQIA+ scholars and activists to share their work with the wider community. “Theirstory” will be an online and international conference. CfPs are open to all; students, academics, activists, independent researchers, etc. Speakers can choose their own topic as long as it relates to American LGBTQIA+ scholarship and/or activism.

Please email americanstudies@qub.ac.uk with a paper abstract and a CV by February 7th at 5pm to apply. 

Contact Info: 

Event hosted by Queen's University Belfast's American Studies Association. Email: americanstudies@qub.ac.uk 

Contact Email: 

americanstudies@qub.ac.uk

CFP: Counter-Image International Conference 2022 and Photo Impulse Final Conference - Decolonizing visuality: working towards sustainable sociocultural practices

  Counter-Image International Conference 2022 and Photo Impulse Final Conference - Decolonizing visuality: working towards sustainable sociocultural practices

Lisbon, 13th to 15th July 2022

 

 

This edition of the Counter Image International Conference is an association with Photo Impulse research project, funded by FCT (PTDC/COM-OUT/29608/2017). Photo Impulse investigates the photographic and film productions of the geodesic, geographical and anthropological missions to Portugal’s formerly occupied territories in Africa and Asia. The collections being investigated are curated by the Museum of Natural History and Science of Lisbon University, a partner of the project.

 

The final results of the project will be presented at the conference. The project raises many of the questions we wish to discuss: from the centre of the “Metropolis” to the periphery of the “Colonies”: how did images, in particular photography and film, reinforce these unbalanced places and disseminate within them? How do images contribute to shaping the past and the present? What can be done to decolonize the archives, museums and centres of knowledge? How is it possible to integrate other forms of knowledge and knowledge production? What is the role of the arts and artistic practices? Which were the visual practices of those who were colonized? How are the contemporary visual practices of postcolonial authors shaping societies? How important are vernacular images to this discussion? What is the role of global media systems such as social media, television and journalism? How can images contribute to a more sustainable and equitable world? The writer Chinua Achebe spoke of a “balance of stories”, we ask how important is a balance of images and what are their affordances in relation to textual accounts?

 

In short, the scope of the conference includes, but is not limited to the following topics:

• Colonial visual cultures and strategies for decolonization
• Colonial and postcolonial photography and film
• Museums and colonial heritage
• Social sustainability and image practices
• Counter-hegemonic narratives 
• Visual Culture of the “colonial sciences”
• Colonial cosmoramas, panoramas and other “ramas”
• Archive dynamics in relation to counter-power and counter-memory
• Artistic practices as resistance
• The use of vernacular images and processes in artistic production
• Ecocriticism in visual practices

 

Proposals

Abstracts are due by March 31st 2022. Portuguese and English languages are accepted.

We encourage proposals that are ACADEMIC, ARTISTIC or HYBRID in nature. Proposals will be for 20 minute time slots and must be sent through our Easy Chair Account, here. After creating a login, write a proposal with no more than 500 words, with 5 key-words and no more than 5 bibliographic references. Artistic/hybrid presentations should be time-based, including audiovisual or sound-based works, or performance-based actions. These proposals should be accompanied by a short 3-4min. sample and/or an illustrated description, along with the summary, key-words and bibliographic references (when relevant) previously mentioned. In all cases, a separate biographical note should be uploaded. Please make sure your name is not mentioned anywhere in the abstract. Proposals will be selected through a double blind referee system. Sessions will be organized based on thematic kinship, regardless of practices (academic/artistic/hybrid); all works will be considered equally valid scholarly outputs. Successful applicants will be contacted by April 30th, 2022.

 

The Organizing Committee of the CIIC22 has decided to offer a blended conference experience for the upcoming edition taking place 13 to 15 July. While submitting their abstracts, applicants should indicate their option for an online or on-site presentation. We look forward to meeting you in Lisbon!

 

Papers or visual essays may be submitted to a special issue of an academic journal (to be announced).

Contact Info: 

Organizing Committee

Contact Email: 

counterimageconference@fcsh.unl.pt

URL: 

https://counter-image.netlify.app

CFP: THE VIEW FROM THE ANTHROPOCENE: EXPLORING THE HUMAN EPOCH FROM POST-ANTHROPOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVES on 15-16 October 2022

 The Institute of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen, Hungary invites you to participate in the conference titled

THE VIEW FROM THE ANTHROPOCENE:
EXPLORING THE HUMAN EPOCH FROM POST-ANTHROPOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVES

on 15-16 October 2022

 

“If the sadness of life makes you tired
And the failures of man make you sigh
You can look to the time soon arriving
When this noble experiment winds down and calls it a day”

In this age of ecological, economic and social crises, the notion of the Anthropocene is becoming ever more significant. Proposed by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer in 2000, the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch highlights detrimental human impact on the planet, while as a critical notion it synthetises anti-, non- or post-anthropocentric views challenging the dominant discourses and practices that place humans at the centre of the world. However, with its scope incessantly expanding and its meanings ever in flux, the Anthropocene requires constant redefinition and reassessment. So far it has been criticised for its ideological implications and several terms such as Plantationocene (Haraway 2015), Capitalocene (Moore 2016, Davies 2016), and Occidentalocene (Bonneuil and Fressoz 2017) have been offered as alternatives. Yet could we define the Anthropocene and its implications more clearly and harmoniously? Above all, it is an urgent warning about the future of ecosystems, cultures and societies alike, forcing us to realise that “we are embedded in various social, economic, and—especially—ecological contexts that are inseparably connected” (Kersten 2013). Addressing the need for coherence across versatile approaches, the conference calls for a transdisciplinary investigation of the challenges of our age.

We also realise that the Anthropocene must be acted upon, although its cry for action is crippling. As Judy Wilson put it during one of the panel discussions at COP26, “the human epoch is not only external, it is also internal”, for it not only denotes a number of ecological and social crises – including climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution, poverty and starvation in the global south, causing waves of migration which in turn fuel global conflict –, but it also involves anxiety and apathy that render us passive in the face of these crises. As Liz-Rejane Issberner and Philippe Léna put it, it seems “as though humanity is being lethargic – waiting for the end of the film, when the heroes arrive to sort everything out, and we can all live happily ever after” (2018).

The conference aims to address some of the controversies, the lethargy and (wilful) ignorance that conceal the significance of the Anthropocene, exploring the notion itself as well as its theoretical and practical challenges from the perspectives of posthumanism, animal studies, ecocriticism and any other approaches that question anthropocentrism from their respective viewpoints. We invite proposals that may address, yet are not restricted to, the following topics:

• Critiques of and conceptual alternatives to the Anthropocene—Donna Haraway’s ‘Cthulhucene’, JasonMoore’s ‘Capitalocene’, Bernard Stiegler’s ‘neganthropocene’ and the like
• Cli-fi, dystopian and/or utopian responses to climate change
• Speculative and fantastic fiction related to the Anthropocene
• Eco-anxiety
• Fantastic texts exploring indigenous worldviews on ecology
• Literary fiction or other media that interrogate humanity’s relationship with other lifeforms
• Literary fiction or other media that question the human/animal boundary
• Human-Animal Studies, Literary and Cultural Animal Studies, Animal Ethics, Critical Animal Studies
• The non- and posthuman other (animals, plants, monsters, aliens, artificial intelligence) in art, literature, cinema and other media
• Nonhuman perspectives in literature and cinema; the nonhuman gaze
• Non-anthropocentric spaces and temporalities in literature and cinema
• Ecocriticism, environmental humanities, deep ecology and ecosophy
• Eco-horror; aesthetics and themes
• Bioethical considerations
• Posthumanism, post- and transhumanist frameworks, posthumanist ethics
• Anti-humanism, meta-humanism
• Speculative realism, object-oriented ontologies, new materialism, post-anthropocentric ecologytheories, theories of social assemblage
• Object-oriented art; bioart, microbial art
• Eco-art, eco-literature, eco-media, eco-cinema

Confirmed plenary speakers include Márk Horváth and Ádám Lovász who will give a talk on the post-anthropocentric turn, and László Nemes, who will speak about his current inquiry into the ethics of de-extinction. Accompanying programmes will include a roundtable discussion addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, with participants from various fields including philosophy, literary and film criticism, biology, and psychology; a photography exhibition; and a multimedia art event organised by the members of Művészek a klímatudatosságért (Artists for Climate Awareness). With these programmes we hope to turn the collective experience of inertia symptomatic of the Anthropocene into awareness, new forms of agency, and action.

“Time has come now to stop being human
Time to find a new creature to be
Be a fish or a weed or a sparrow
For the earth has grown tired and all of your time has expired.”
(Thinking Fellers Union Local 282: “Noble Experiment”)

Technical details:

The conference is planned as an on-site event, to be held in English and Hungarian, on 15-16 October 2022at the University of Debrecen. Depending on the dynamics of the pandemic, we will nevertheless adapt and consider moving parts of or the whole conference to a digital platform. Participants will be informed about any changes via email in due time.

Please send a 250 word abstract of your proposed paper with a brief, max. 100 word biography to theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com
by June 30, 2022. Responses will be given by July 31, 2022.

It is intended that a selection of the papers based on the conference presentations will be published, either in a separate collection of articles or a thematic volume in a scholarly journal.

For more information please visit the event’s Facebook page or contact the organizers at the following e-mail address: theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com.

 

Co-organised and supported by the Hungarian Society for the Study of English (HUSSE).
Supported by the Institute of English and American Studies (IEAS), University of Debrecen (UD).

Contact Info: 

For details, please visit the event’s Facebook page or contact the organizers at the following e-mail address: theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com.

Contact Email: 

theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com

URL: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V9uf0qfpveBVfZbzmE0Szt620EG11_n4/view?usp=sharing

The conference is planned as an on-site event, to be held in English and Hungarian, on 15-16 October 2022at the University of Debrecen. Depending on the dynamics of the pandemic, we will nevertheless adapt and consider moving parts of or the whole conference to a digital platform. Participants will be informed about any changes via email in due time.

Please send a 250 word abstract of your proposed paper with a brief, max. 100 word biography to theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com
by June 30, 2022. Responses will be given by July 31, 2022.

It is intended that a selection of the papers based on the conference presentations will be published, either in a separate collection of articles or a thematic volume in a scholarly journal.

For more information please visit the event’s Facebook page or contact the organizers at the following e-mail address: theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com.

 

Co-organised and supported by the Hungarian Society for the Study of English (HUSSE).
Supported by the Institute of English and American Studies (IEAS), University of Debrecen (UD).

Contact Info: 

For details, please visit the event’s Facebook page or contact the organizers at the following e-mail address: theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com.

Contact Email: 

theviewfromtheanthropocene@gmail.com

URL: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V9uf0qfpveBVfZbzmE0Szt620EG11_n4/view?usp=sharing

CfP: Caricatures and Satire in a Global Perspective: 1850–1950, 15-16. Dec. 2022, Germany

 Caricatures and Satire in a Global Perspective: 1850–1950, 15-16. Dec. 2022, Germany

Call for Papers: Caricatures and Satire in a Global Perspective: 1850–1950

 

University of Bonn, Institute for Oriental and Asian Studies, Department for Islamic Studies and Near Eastern Languages

Organizers: Dr. Anna Kollatz, Dr. Veruschka Wagner

Date: 15–16 Dec. 2022, Bonn

 

The century between 1850 and 1950 can be described, in a global perspective, as a century of transitions. During these years, a multitude of profound changes hit the world in many ways, such as in political, social and societal dimensions. Modernization processes, new concepts of education, the discussion of women’s rights and participation in political decision-making are just a few examples. The period is also strongly influenced by Western colonialism and imperialism, at least in its beginnings, while also seeing emancipation movements against these hegemonies.

In this very fluid transition period, which was of course also marked by conflicts, discourses emerged that were conducted with similar themes and similar communication media in different parts of the world, but also in global exchange. Among others, this period saw a veritable boom in satirical journals that addressed the mentioned transformative strands and conflicts, notably also by caricatures.

This conference ventures into taking stock of satirical discourses communicated in caricatures in a transcultural, comparative way. We invite colleagues from a wide range of disciplines to present case studies and engage in dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.

 

The conference will be organized along the following thematic lenses:

1. Comparing Style and Content
   1. Figures and stereotypes
   2. Painting techniques
   3. Settings
   4. Text-Context relations in (satire) journals
2. Functions and Objectives of Caricatures as
   1. Criticizing tools
   2. Propaganda
   3. Educative tools
   4. Entertainment (with a hidden agenda)
3. Thematic Strands
   1. Discussing modernization and progress
   2. Technological utopia and dystopia
   3. Gender questions
   4. Political and social questions

 

Proposals may be sent to caricatures@uni-bonn.de until March 15, 2022. Abstracts (roughly 200 words) should describe the proposed paper/panel, including topic, method, and used sources. Comparative papers/panels that examine a fixed topic in transcultural perspective (two or more regions, languages, etc. involved) are especially welcome.

Contact Info: 

Dr. Veruschka Wagner, Department for Islamic Studies and Near Eastern Languages, University of Bonn

Contact Email: 

caricatures@uni-bonn.de