Cfp: Translating Feminism

Multi-disciplinary Perspectives on Text, Place and Agency

The transformation of women's sense of self - individually and collectively - is one of the most significant socio-cultural events of the past 50 years to have occurred around the globe. Western-focused historiographies of 'second-wave' feminisms have only made the first few steps in addressing the geographical biases in their self-narration and in the very definition of feminism. A whole world unfolds when one considers the many guises of female agency aimed at social transformation, and articulated through text.

The focus of this Conference is on the translocal, transcultural and translingual connections between such 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We adopt a broad understanding of 'text', which includes both published and unpublished work, recorded and unrecorded words, and can range from literary fiction to oral testimony and activist pamphlets.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.

Confirmed keynote speaker: Professor Claudia de Lima Costa (UMass Amherst)

Panels and themes will include:
*       Intersectional approaches in translation
*       Feminist vocabularies and dictionaries
*       Patterns of transmission/questions of centre and periphery
*       Self-translation/intimate translation
*       Intergenerational translation
*       Pedagogies of feminist translation
*       Sexism in/and language
*       Feminism and specialized translation (e.g., medical or legal translation)
*       Feminisms and literary translation
*       Feminism, translation and international institutions (e.g., the UN International Women's Year 1975)
*       Men and feminism
*       Multilingual contexts and the absence of translation
*       Multilingual spaces of negotiation (e.g., book fairs)
*       Social media

Please note 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.

Please send us your abstract by 15 January. You will be notified of acceptance by 15 February. The programme will be announced and registration will open on 1 March.
Your abstract should be between 250 and 350 words. Please include your email address and (if applicable) institutional affiliation, as well as a three-sentence biography.

All abstracts, as well as queries, should be sent to: translatingfeminism@gmail.com

'Feminist Translating: Activists and Professionals': If you would like to be involved in the activist-translator strand please contact us separately by email.

Limited funding to cover travel and accommodation is available for researchers working on temporary contracts, and for academics working outside Europe and North America. If you wish to benefit from this please clarify in your cover letter how you meet these criteria.

Organisers:
Dr Maud Bracke, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, University of Glasgow
Dr Penelope Morris, Senior Lecturer in Italian, University of Glasgow
Dr Emily Ryder, Network Facilitator, Lecturer in Italian, University of Glasgow