CTIS Research Seminar: Feminist Translation Studies in the 21st Century: A Narrowing Gap Between Theory and Practice?
| Dates: | 21 November 2013 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:20 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | Current University students, General public, University staff |
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| Speaker: | Olga Castro |
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In the last few decades Feminist Translation Studies have become an increasingly popular subject in different academic contexts, being progressively incorporated to a number of Translation Studies programmes as one of the main theories of the discipline. Some of the most recurrent examples used to illustrate these practices are, among others, the feminist rewritings into English of highly sexist texts and the Canadian school of feminist translation in the 80s which rendered experimental, avant-garde literary writings by francophone Quebec authers into English. The publication of two influential monographs by Sherry Simon (1996) and Luise von Flotow (1997) greatly contributed to opening up new avenues of dialogue, at a time when new approaches to Translation Studies proclaimed a ‘cultural turn’, shifting the focus of the discussion from a mainly linguistic/textual analysis to a broader cultural/ideological context. More recently, in parallel to the development of feminist theories and practices in the 21st century, the dyad gender and translation has been gaining critical consistency and experiencing a remarkable growth, with numerous conferences and many publications devoted to exploring the multifaceted nature of translation when approached from a feminist perspective.
Taking this as a starting point, in this paper I will offer an overview of the most recent developments in the theorizing and practicing of feminist translation from different disciplinary perspectives, with a view to assessing the supposed gap that has so often been noticed between theory and practice, between the “Ivory Tower and the Wordface” (Chesterman and Wagner 2002). I will first examine to what extent recent critical notions in feminist theory (such as ‘transnationalism’ or ‘intersectionality’) are being implemented in the practical manifestations of feminist translation. Second, I will evaluate whether notions in vogue in the realm of translation theory (such as ‘ideology’, ‘ethics’, ‘mediation’, ‘visibility’, ‘power’ or ‘rewriting’) are taken into account when judging gender-conscious strategies used by feminist translators in their professional practice.
It is my contention that this paper can help reveal those power relations which (still) support gender oppression in the theory and practice of translation -- a first step, undoubtedly, towards articulating alternatives for a more equal world.
Speaker
Olga Castro
Role: Lecturer in Translation Studies and Spanish
Organisation: Aston University
Biography: Dr Olga Castro is Lecturer in Translation Studies and Spanish at Aston University, Birmingham. She joined Aston in 2011, after a year working as Teaching Fellow in Translation at the University of Exeter. She gained her Ph.D. in Translation (with the European Doctorate Mention) at the University of Vigo, Spain (2010), for which she has been also awarded the PhD Extraordinary Prize. She has also published a dozen of different peer-reviewed articles and chapters in edited books and journals, edited a special issue on Translation in the journal Gender and Language (7:1, 2013), and co-authored the monograph Feminismos (Xerais, 2013). She is Vice-president of the International Association for Galician Studies.
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