CFP NeMLA 2018: "Globalizing English: Translation and the Production of World Literature"
New York, United States
Call For Papers
Primary Area / Secondary Area: World Literatures (non-European Languages)                                  / Comparative Literature.
Abstract :
Translation makes contemporary global spaces possible. As J.W.  Goethe says: “Whatever one may say of the inadequacy of translation,  this activity nonetheless remains one of the most essential tasks and  one of the worthiest of esteem in the universal market of world trade  [emphasis added].” But how does translation create global literary  spaces? What is the role of translation in world literature courses?  Goethe tells us to admire the translator--do we?
Scholars like  Pascale Casanova and Gayatri Spivak have engaged forcefully with  translation, arguing for recognition of the “untranslatable” and warning  against replicating Anglo worldviews. Partially as a result of this  intense conversation, translation has become more important in the  typically “parochial” United States. More than ever, texts are  translated into English, thereby bringing the world to us while  encouraging the extreme proliferation of world literature, both as  academic discipline and pedagogical endeavor. And yet, translation has  also diminished--consider the fact that many world literature scholars  and/or instructors cannot tell you the names or qualifications of the  translators involved in creating world literature texts, let alone  explain how translation affects readers’ perceptions of what they read  and, consequently, their understanding of the world. 
Participants  are encouraged to review their experience in translating texts and/or  teaching translated texts, in discussing translation with students, or  to share findings in translation studies, particularly as related to  works routinely found in world literature classrooms. Participants may  focus on texts from any genre--poetry, prose, and drama, fictional or  nonfictional, in order to best represent the variety of texts found in  common anthologies like the Norton Anthology of World Literature or the  Longman Anthology of World Literature. 
This  is a CFP for a roundtable panel on translation and the production of  world literature, which will be held at the 2018 NeMLA conference in  Pittsburgh, PA. Translators, world literature professors and  instructors, translation scholars, and comparative literature scholars,  etc. are invited to participate in this roundtable panel. Please  contact genewaite@gmail.com for further information or to submit an abstract proposal by September 15, 2017. Here is the official CFP link on the NeMLA website: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16743.
Contact Info: 
Genevieve Waite, Ph.D. Candidate in French Literature at The Graduate Center, CUNY
Contact Email:  genewaite@gmail.com
