The Cultural Ecology of Translation - IATIS 7th International Conference

International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, IATIS remains positive that its 7^th conference will go ahead in 2021. The organisers are therefore pleased to circulate the call to invite proposals for panels, roundtables, workshops and artistic initiatives (deadline 30 April 2020). We hope that the Barcelona Conference will be an opportunity for our community to gather again after a challenging period for the world. We will remain guided by the WHO and the hosting university and national health guidelines and look forward to welcoming you in 2021. In this respect the organisers will remain sensitive to possible travel restrictions and/or initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint. We will do our utmost to go ahead and be able to welcome all delegates in the best way we can, to the best of our ability, flexibility and imagination.
Patrick Zabalbeascoa & Julie Boéri
Please find below all the details and do not hesitate to circulate as much as you can.

Following successful conferences in Seoul (2004), Cape Town (2006), Melbourne (2009), Belfast (2012), Belo Horizonte (2015) and Hong Kong (2018), IATIS is delighted to announce its call for panel, paper, roundtable, workshop, and poster proposals for its seventh conference, which will be held at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, 29 June– 2 July 2021.

Conference Theme

As an international meeting point of different cultures and a hub of political experimentation and business development, Barcelona is an ideal location for the 7th IATIS conference. Under the theme of Translation Ecology, the conference will explore interactions among both human and non-human organisms in translation and between translation and interpreting and its physical environment. These interactions may be explored from multiple angles: cultural, social, environmental, political, literary, technological, and ethical, among others. Wherever not specified, we use the term "translation" in this call to include written and audiovisual translation, and interpreting.

The inspiration for the theme comes from a recognition of the growing importance of multiple forces that impact and are impacted by the work of translators and interpreters. One such force is globalization, including the spread of global literatures, global literary and cultural trends, global digital cultures, as well as evidence of resistance to global forces in the economic and political fields in particular. Other forces include digitization (especially in the area of machine translation and artificial intelligence), climate change, migratory fluxes, nationalism, the dynamics and effects of traditional and social media, live subtitling, multilingualism and multiculturalism, and the evolving relationship between global, national and minoritized languages. In all of these areas, the translation profession, its actors and academic counterparts have an important role to play. Thus, researchers and professionals need to further develop awareness of translation as a global phenomenon and a critical practice that can work for and/or against sustainability, climate change, animal rights, new technologies and human rights, including the rights of various minorities and disadvantaged groups in society.

Scholars such as Michael Cronin, Esperança Bielsa, Jianzhong Xu, Gengshen Hu, and Liudmila Kushnina have all highlighted the important relationship between cosmopolitanism, ecology and translation and revealed some of the many angles and approaches from which an ecological awareness of translation can be developed, including but not limited to environmental awareness. Translation here is understood in its broadest sense to encompass adaptation, localization and transcreation and to include oral, written, audiovisual, multimodal, inter-linguistic, semiotic and cultural modes of transfer, in both conventional and non-conventional contexts.

This conference will focus on the socio-political, literary, ethical, theoretical and methodological questions raised, from around the world, by the theme of Translation Ecology. Topics of interest include but are not restricted to the following: 

• Questions pertaining to translation and ecological awareness, in the sense of awareness of the evolving relationship between different elements and practices over time; issues of interest here might include soft and hard activism, crisis situations, short- and long-term policies.
• The impact of translation (including various forms of interpreting and audiovisual translation) on the relationship between individual and society, in terms of the construction and negotiation of identities, patterns of survival and extinction, and processes of mediation between humans and digital and other technologies.
• Translation peripheries and centers (geographical and otherwise): the impact of practices such as crowdsourcing, fansubbing, fandubbing and activist and volunteer translation and interpreting on various communities, the economy, and the political order. 
• Translation, sustainability and social responsibility in and beyond the mainstream.
• The role of translation in the growing international movement in support of animal rights.
• The role of translation in the interdisciplinary study of (world) literature and the environment (ecocriticism), of women and the environment (ecofeminism), and of the evolving conceptualizations of gender and sexual identity.
• Translation and knowledge ecology: multi-, inter-, trans-disciplinary approaches to the role of translation in different fields of knowledge, including the Humanities, the Social Sciences, Computing Sciences, Medical Humanities, and other areas. 
• Translation and spatiality studies: new approaches to interactions among writers, readers, texts, and places.
   

Language Policy 

All abstracts/proposals must be submitted in English for peer-review by the Advisory Board but speakers will be given the choice to present in English, Spanish or Catalan. The possibility of providing interpreting will be assessed according to available resources and is not guaranteed.

Keynote Speakers

• Emily Apter, Silver Professor of French and Comparative Literature. Chair, Department of Comparative Literature. New York University. Series Editor, Translation/Transnation, Princeton University Press, USA.
• Esperança Bielsa, Associate Professor and ICREA Academia Fellow at the Department of Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.
• Michael Cronin, Professor of French. Director of Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation, the University of Dublin, Ireland.
• Liudmila Kushnina, Professor of Foreign Languages, Linguistics and Translation. Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Perm, Russia.

Key Deadlines

• 30 April 2020: Deadline for potential convenors to submit panel, workshop, roundtable or artistic initiatives (see call below and here).
   
• 10 June 2020: Notification of acceptance to convenors.
   
• 15 June 2020: Announcement of the accepted panels, workshops, roundtables and artistic initiatives & call for proposals (papers, posters, performances) within or beyond these pre-established formats.
   
• 15 September 2020: Deadline for potential presenters to submit proposals.
   
• 30 October 2020: Deadline for panel convenors to submit their complete panel.
   
• 30 November 2020: Notification of acceptance of proposals (all formats).

Registration
 

• 15 January 2021:        Registration opens
• 15 March 2021:          Early-bird registration closes 

Details of registration fees here.

CALL FOR PANEL, ROUNDTABLE, WORKSHOP & ARTISTIC INITIATIVES

At this stage, we are inviting for proposals from convenors of panels, roundtables, workshops and artistic initiatives(deadline 30 April 2020) on the topic of the conference: The Cultural Ecology of Translation.

Please note that individual communications will be submitted at a later stage (from June to October 2020).

Panels

Panels will serve as the cornerstone for structuring the conference program. Panels are thematic, integrated discussions among 6 to 12 session participants on a clearly identified theme or topic within the larger them of the conference (TheCultural Ecology of Translation). They should provide attendees with an opportunity to hear presenters engage in dialogue amongst themselves as well as with attendees about cutting-edge research, practice, theory building, or policy development

Timeline for Panels

• Submission of panel proposals: by 30 April 2020
• Announcement of accepted panels by 10 June 2020

Link to the submission platform: HERE

At this stage, you do not need to have a list of speakers. If accepted, you panel will then be posted on IATIS website and turned into a thematic call for papers. 

The following information will be required:

- Details about the convenor(s): name, surname, affiliation, bionote (100 words approx.), and contact address

- Details about the proposal: abstract (up to 500 words). 

See examples of IATIS panels in previous conferences:

Hong Kong Panels 2018

Belo Horizonte Panels 2020

Roundtables

Roundtables run for one hour and provide opportunities for up to three participants with specific expertise and varying positions/opinions to discuss with one another, and with the audience, topics concerning the theme of the conference(The Cultural Ecology of Translation).

Timeline for Roundtables

• Submission of roundtable proposals: by 30 April 2020
• Notification of acceptance by 10 June 2020
• Link to the submission platform: HERE

The following information will be required:

• Details about the convenor(s): name, surname, affiliation, bionote (100 words approx.), and contact address
• Details about the proposal: abstract (up to 500 words)

See examples of IATIS panels in previous conferences:

Hong Kong Roundtables 2018

Belo Horizonte Roundtables 2020

Workshops

Running for a day or half a day on June 28 (preceding the main conference), pre-conference workshops are designed to be training sessions on a topic of interest to conference attendees, such teaching and professional development, with a special emphasis on learning or developing new skills.

Timeline for Workshops

• Submission of workshop proposals: by 30 April 2020
• Notification of acceptance by 10 June 2020

Link to the submission platform: HERE

The following information will be required:

• Details about the participant(s): name, surname, affiliation, bionote (100 words approx.), and contact address
• Details about the proposal: abstract (up to 500 words)

See examples of IATIS panels in previous conferences:

Hong Kong Workshops 2018

Belo Horizonte Workshops 2015  

Artistic initiatives

Since a pioneer initiative in Hong Kong, IATIS has decided to extend its call to artistic initiatives that address the topic of the conference (The Cultural Ecology of Translation).

Timeline for Workshops

• Submission of workshop proposals: by 30 April 2020
• Notification of acceptance by 10 June 2020

Link to the submission platform: HERE

The following information will be required:

-  Details about the convenor(s): name, surname, affiliation, bionote (100 words approx.), and contact address

-  Details about the proposal: abstract (up to 500 words)

See for instance this initiative which took place during the Hong Kong IATIS conference here

Presentation within and outside a thematic panel

Individual presentations will run for 20-minute followed by a 10-minute discussion submitted in response to either a thematic panel or the general theme of the conference.

Please note that individual communications will be submitted at a later stage (from June to October 2020).

Conference Website

Organizers

Organising Committee (OrgCom), chaired by Patrick Zabalbeascoa, UPF

María Aguilar, UPF

Mario Bisiada, Lecturer, UPF

Julie Boéri, HBKU, Chair of IATIS International Conferences Committee

Jenny Brumme, UPF

Montserrat Cunillera, UPF

Marta Marfany, UPF

Luis Pegenaute, UPF

Dídac Pujol, UPF

Scientific Committee (SciCom)

Victòria Alsina, UPF, Barcelona, Spain

Fabio Alves, UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Gemma Andújar, UPF, Barcelona, Spain

Frederic Chaume Varela, UJI, Castelló, Spain

Eva Espasa, UVic, Vic, Spain

Anna Espunya, UPF, Barcelona, Spain

Malaien Marin Lacarta, HKBU, Hong Kong

Lucía Molina, UAB, Barcelona, Spain

Marie-Noëlle Guillot, UEA, Norwich, England

Irene Ranzato, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

Patricia Rodríguez, UAB, Barcelona, Spain

Sara Rovira-Esteve, UAB, Barcelona, Spain

Agnieszka Szarkowska, UW, Warsaw, Poland

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