We’re recruiting a Research Assistant at BCLT! 

Are you a recent graduate from a PhD programme in literary translation (preferably Spanish – English) interested in practice research? 

We are looking to appoint a Research Assistant who will collaborate with PI Cecilia Rossi in her research project ‘Literary Translation Workshops: Bridging Communities Affected by Past Conflict’, part of the Manchester-led Cross Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community OWRI project.  

As RA at the BCLT you will be working on the project blog, which will publish excerpts from the translations produced at the translation and creative writing workshops held as part of the project, as well as reflections on translation process from participants and writers. You will also be encouraged to produce your own translations and/ or edits of submitted translations and contribute your own entries to the research blog. There will also be an opportunity to conduct your own research in line with the project's research questions:

i. In the context of the literary translation workshops (organised by AATI and BCLT): what is the nature of the personal and collective space created by workshops which bring together literary translators and creative writers, and what is their potential contribution (as a methodology) to current debates in other disciplines? 
ii. What happens with works that represent or negotiate memories of past conflict as they are translated into, and circulated in, other languages and cultures?
iii. What does a translator (literary / non-literary) need to know when working in contexts which are difficult, conflict-ridden, multi-ethnic? How do they deal with these difficult contexts in practice?

The post is for 3 months (July 1 to September 30 2019), full-time, at Grade 6. You will also be invited to attend this year’s BCLT International Literary Translation and Creative Writing  Summer School at UEA (July 21 – 27). 

Please send you CV (not more than 2 pp.) and a statement (2 pp. max.) outlining your research interests and the ways in which you would contribute to the BCLT OWRI project by Monday 15th July to bclt@uea.ac.uk
 

Publication of 'Untranslatability: Interdisciplinary Perspectives'

We are pleased to announce the publication of 'Untranslatability: Interdisciplinary Perspectives'

Edited by BCLT's Prof Duncan Large, Motoko Akashi, Wanda Józwikowska and Emily Rose.

This volume is the first of its kind to explore the notion of untranslatability from a wide variety of interdisciplinary perspectives and its implications within the broader context of translation studies. Featuring contributions from both leading authorities and emerging scholars in the field, the book looks to go beyond traditional comparisons of target texts and their sources to more rigorously investigate the myriad ways in which the term untranslatability is both conceptualized and applied.

The first half of the volume focuses on untranslatability as a theoretical or philosophical construct, both to ground and extend the term’s conceptual remit, while the second half is composed of case studies in which the term is applied and contextualized in a diverse set of literary text types and genres, including poetry, philosophical works, song lyrics, memoir, and scripture. A final chapter examines untranslatability in the real world and the challenges it brings in practical contexts. Extending the conversation in this burgeoning contemporary debate, this volume is key reading for graduate students and researchers in translation studies, comparative literature, gender studies, and philosophy of language.

Find out more and purchase a copy.

BCLT Research Events Series Launched

The BCLT has launched a new series of research events at UEA, Norwich. Download the Autumn Series poster. The Autumn series includes research seminars by Richard Mansell and Sarah Maitland, as well Prof Duncan Large's inaugural lecture in December 2017, 'Could Google Translate Shakespeare?'.

AHRC Open World Research Initiative (OWRI)

BCLT and UEA are satellite partners in the AHRC Open World Research Initiative (OWRI) research project "Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community" led by the University of Manchester.

The subproject led by Cecilia Rossi comes under the "Translingual Strand" of the project led by Professor Catherine Davies, director of the Institute of Modern Languages Research and will focus on the translation of literature exploring how communities affected by past conflicts incorporate their experience into cultural memory, and how that memory can be sustained and circulated across language borders. The first round of funding for the project will allow BCLT to run two literary translation workshops at the BCLT Summer School in July 2017.