The Priority Programme 2130 ‘Early Modern Translation Cultures’ of the German Research Foundation is pleased to announce its 4th annual conference on the subject ‘Translation Spaces – Spaces in Translation’, to take place at the University of Göttingen Observatory from 14 to 16 September 2022.
The aim of the conference is methodological reflection on and historical examination of the connection between the translational and the spatial turn in research settings devoted specifically to the Early Modern period. The focus will thus be on an early epoch of globalization during which the ‘old’ world took increasing interest in non-European regions and cultures. Spurred on by Europe’s exponentiated multilingualism and territoriality, European translation cultures resonated worldwide by way of the bidirectional channels of colonialism in the Early Modern period. In the process, they interacted with translation cultures elsewhere, in turn bringing about reactions and sparking new developments within Europe.
Where were translations carried out and received in the period under investigation? What spaces do those translations describe and stage, using what techniques? What regions were associated with—or disassociated from—one another through translations? Taking this question complex as its point of departure, the conference will seek to gain new insights from the interweave of translation studies and topological research in the cultural studies field from two perspectives:
On the one hand, it will centre on translation spaces. To be raised here, first of all, is the question as to cultural transit or contact zones such as border regions, port cities, and frontline areas—that is, zones characterized by strong translational and multilingual dynamics. Also of relevance here are translation venues that figured prominently as Early Modern printing centres or ‘translational cities’, such as Amsterdam, Basel, Constantinople, and Venice, as well as venues of reception that were created in the Early Modern period through translations of, for example, Reformation writings and genre-forming texts such as Brant’s Ship of Fools, and thus contributed to the spread of new paradigms.
The second area of interest is spatial translations. Here the concentration will be on practices of cultural translation arising from situations of encounter or confrontation with foreign cultures and inscribing themselves, for instance, in the colonial discourses of the Early Modern period. The aim is to reconstruct cultural translations of unknown social spaces as well as scripto-pictorial translations of space in the natural-scientific, architectural, art-theoretical, and cartographic research projects. Finally, this area also encompasses literary translations of imaginary spaces such as those staged in fictional worlds of narrative literature, described in autobiographical travelogues for a specific readership, or prompted in missionary contexts by Christian conceptions of paradise and hell.
For both approaches, the conference also welcomes reflections from the perspective of the Early Modern period’s temporal margins on precisely the European translation cultures as an entangled history, as well as inquiries into Early Modern translations from the transcultural standpoint.
Not least importantly, with a view to the historical acquisition and use of different sign systems, it appears desirable to take into account text types used in various language regions for language-teaching purposes, such as language textbooks, multilingual editions, and intermediary translations, and to inquire into the role played by spatial categories in the acquisition of language and knowledge as well as the transfer of media.
Please submit your title and an abstract (approx. ½ page) in German or English to Annkathrin Koppers (spp2130@uni-wuerzburg.de) by 24 April 2022.