Translation meets Book History: Intersections 1700-1900 (CFP)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Book history and translation studies have significantly enhanced our understanding of print culture. Although driven respectively by bibliographic and comparativist linguistic interests, the two fields have converged into a shared perception of texts as cultural and social products controlled by interconnected networks of agents. Recent efforts to delve deeper into the nature of these networks and into the mobility of printed texts have led to fruitful cross-disciplinary intersections. As a result, translation scholars are becoming increasingly receptive to the relevance of textual materiality while book historians are turning to comparative approaches and the transnational side of publishing. On a general level, texts and their trajectories are more and more frequently analysed by integrating conceptual, methodological and theoretical frameworks originally developed in either book history or translation studies. This two-day conference aims at exploring and further promoting such intersections with a particular focus on the multifaceted international publishing panorama of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dialogue and reflection will especially be encouraged on thematic areas including:

– The materiality of translation
– Translations’ paratext and translation of paratext
– Agents involved in the production and distribution of translations, their relation on a national and international level
– Translation and the transnationalisation of print culture
– Translation of popular print and ephemera (and other kinds of publications    ‘ignored’ in translation studies and ‘valued’ in book history)
– Translation, religion and book history
– Translation and the sociology of texts
– Translation and textual bibliography
– Terminology of the book across languages
– Translation and the transformation of reading habits and attitudes
– Research methodologies in translation studies and book history

We welcome proposals (max. 250 words) for papers and panels engaging with the above and related topics. Abstracts should be emailed together with a short biographical note and contact details to alice.colombo@nuigalway.ie by 15 December 2016. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than 31 January 2017.

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Norbert Bachleitner (Universität Wien)
Prof. Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Universität des Saarlandes)

Conference organisers:
Dr Alice Colombo (alice.colombo@nuigalway.ie)
Dr Niall Ó Ciosáin (niall.ociosain@nuigalway.ie)
Dr Anne O’Connor (anne.oconnor@nuigalway.ie)

For information please contact Alice Colombo at alice.colombo@nuigalway.ie.