The European Journal of Women’s Studies
Special issue: ‘Living in Translation: Voicing and Inscribing Women’s Lives and
Practices’
Edited by Ann Phoenix and Kornelia Slavova
Volume 18.4, 2011
In the last three-four decades translation studies as an interdiscipline has moved away from the linguistic aspects of translation as text-based towards translation as culture and politics, exploring the role of various important social categories in/ as translation such as gender, ethnicity, ideology, history, and tradition. Translation theory and practice have become deeply connected with post-colonial theory, feminist theory, gender studies, and cultural studies. For example, translation has been seen as a central factor in the analysis of ethnic and cultural transfers, imposition of power or even instrument of colonial domination. Thus translation has been discussed in broader metaphorical terms as adaptation, re-writing, displacement, “transgression” (Derrida) or “the third space” (Bhabha).
Feminist theories of translation pay special attention to issues of responsibility and loyalty in translating women’s writing (Massardier-Kenney), as well as being more sensitive to the ways in which language gives “a clue to the workings of gendered agency” in translation (Spivak). Women as translators and cultural intermediaries have become increasingly visible and feminist writers have engaged in theoretical and critical efforts to make the feminine subject more visible in/ through language.
In today’s Europe, marked as it is by increased mobilities and global onnections,
language and translation have come to play a substantial role – from the quotidian aspects of living, education, work, to the more sophisticated aspects of female creativity and expression in/ through translation. Is the role of women as keepers of cultural memory diminishing at the expense of their role as intercultural intermediaries/ brokers in the changing context of the European Union? How do feminist politics of translation relate to feminist politics of location? What is the impact of everyday translation on power relations within families?
This thematic issue of the European Journal of Women’s Studies will take an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach to the issues raised by ‘Living in Translation’. It seeks to include explorations of the impact of translation/ language as a liberating and empowering force for gendered ways of being and/ or belonging. Equally, it aims to attend to difficulties and struggles around translation and language. The special issue welcomes contributions from a wide range of disciplines including, for example, literature, gender studies, cultural studies,
migration studies, translation studies and the health and social sciences.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- translation as cultural brokering
- bilingualism/ multilingualism as a way of life
- first language conceptualized as ‘mother tongue’ to signify ways of belonging and transmitting cultural memory
- multilingual lives: immigrant narratives
- translation and the inscription of gendered identities
- the new tasks/ challenges for feminist translators
- female autobiographics in a foreign language
- the translingual literary imagination of European women (writing in second and other languages)
- feminism in/as translation
All articles will be subject to the usual review process. Articles should be prepared according to the guidelines for submission on the inside back cover of the journal or at the worldwide web address: [http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/ejws]. Articles should be sent to the Managing Editor of the journal by September 1st, 2010.
The European Journal of Women’s Studies
Attn. Hazel Johnstone, Managing Editor
Gender Institute/ London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
UK
Details here.
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