The project has studied a small constellation of important literary and cultural magazines from three countries (Britain, France, Germany), between c. 1945-65, in order to consider how, through translation, they explore and construct notions of European identity in the period following from the end of World War Two to the mid-1960s. Using the notion of periodicals as 'European spaces' (Brolsma and Wijnterp, 2018) the project has explored how periodical culture uses translation to reconfigure a vision for Europe after the catastrophe of World War Two.
For more information on the work of SpaTrEM see https://spacesoftranslation.org/about/
For our final conference, we hope to bring together scholars, whether established, early career, or postgraduate, in order to present work on themes relevant to the project. These may explore translation and transnational exchanges in British, French, or German magazines, but we also very much welcome papers on magazines from other European countries or involving a wider range of languages (including non-European languages) in the relevant time period. A selection of papers from the conference will be published as a book.
Possible topics might include the following:
- Translators and translating cultures (studies of translation in individual magazines; comparative studies of translating cultures; studies of individual translators in magazines; the ‘invisible’ translator in magazines; translators and exile; …)
- Politics and transnationalism (Europe and decolonisation; Cold War translation; the Congress for Cultural Freedom and Cold War periodicals; politics and translation in magazines; Europe and America; transnational periodical cultures; translations and transnationalism; …)
- European identity (how discussion about the nature of post-war Europe was formulated in magazines; the materialisation of new European identities in cultural, philosophical, and political debates; the role of magazine editors in developing ideas about European identities; the role of translation in exploring European identity; …)
- Materiality, visual cultures and genres in post-war periodicals (the materiality of post-war periodical culture in Britain, Germany, France; visual culture and translation in magazines; the significance of diverse genres of material in magazines e.g. travel writing, photo-journalism, advertising; the relation of post-war magazines to ideas of modernism and modernity …)
- Digital humanities approaches to translation and periodicals (mapping translations; creating and working with databases; data visualization; network analysis; mixed methods research; …)
Please submit an abstract of c. 250 words, along with a short bio (c. 100 words), to Dana Steglich (dsteglic@uni-mainz.de) by 30st June 2023. If you have any questions about the conference please do get in touch.