Performing Translation: Translatorship in the 21st Century

Performing Translation:

Translatorship in the 21st Century

Project DaRT – Centre for Advanced Studies in Languages and Cultures (CASiLaC)

University College Cork, Ireland

21-22nd June 2019

The metaphor of “translation as transfer” has been predominant in traditional Translation Studies until relatively recently (Cheetham 2016). However, based on considerations of translation in terms of the “performative nature of cultural communication” (Bhabha 2007), new conceptual articulations of translation, translatorship and the role of the translator in the creation of new meanings and shared experiences have come to the fore. This two-day conference aims to explore the metaphor of translation as performance. This entails not only the suitably explored field of translation for the stage (Boyle 2011, 2013, 2016; Johnston 2011, 2012, 2017; Buffery 2013), or the performativity of the translator (Robinson 1991; Chesterman 2009) but also the investigation of translatorship from new perspectives in the context of the contemporary translation “landscape” (Kershaw and Saldanha 2013) arising from our increasingly interconnected and multilingual world. If we consider that translators contribute to worldmaking by “staging cultural difference” (Bhabha 2007), how can we reformulate their role and their identity in the 21st century?

This conference will invite contributions encouraging interdisciplinary discussions between scholars and practitioners around topics related to the understanding of translation as performance and how it may bring new understandings to the identity, agency and role of the translator in the 21st century. This will enable scholars to frame cognitive and affective processes of translation in different contexts, and develop new perspectives and ideas about translation and translatorship.