The international conference History and Translation: Multidisciplinary Perspectives brings 150 scholars to Tallinn University to discuss the pivotal role of acts of translation and interpretation in the shaping of history.
The inaugural conference of the recently founded History and Translation Network takes place at Tallinn University from the 25th to the 28th of May and seeks to address history from a transnational and comparative perspective through the lens of translation.
The conference has the confirmed participation of over 150 scholars from 25 countries in Europe and North America, representing different disciplines ranging from translation and interpreting studies, literary and cultural studies, and history to philology, religious studies, international relations, and philosophy. The different approaches adopted by the conference participants share the common idea that acts of translation and interpretation play a crucial role in the shaping of history and that historical context is essential to the understanding of such acts. Thus translation history becomes the history of the role of pivotal individuals and practices of intercultural mediation. It is not limited to the analysis of the ways in which texts are transposed from one language to another but studies the broader cultural transfer brought about in and by translation, paying particular attention to the ways in which language itself is inscribed in history and engages with subjects of discourse, power, and asymmetrical relations.
The conference is co-organized by the History and Translation Network and the Estonian Research Council grant PRG1206“Translation in History, Estonia 1850-2010: Texts, Agents, Institutions and Practices”.
