Development Fund 2021/22: Translation, nation, migration
Dr Freyja Cox Jensen (History): Translation, nation, migration: exploring the cultural dimensions of migration, language, and social identity
This project is founded in interdisciplinary research into translation in the medieval and early modern periods: translation between languages, across space and time, and from one form or medium to another. It works to achieve a deeper understanding of how translation has shaped identities –be they national, regional, ethnic, linguistic etc. –and the ways in which linguistic and literary translations reflected the migration of people, objects, and texts around the European continent and beyond. In doing so, Dr Cox Jensen engages with historically focused contemporary challenges around migration and the formation of national or linguistic identities that have become particularly significant in the current political climate. Ultimately, the project traces not only the development of ‘difference’ and the connection between vernacular language and cultural identity, but thinks more widely about shared heritage and seeks to find ways to use this understanding to unite social groups through the arts and creative industries.
On June 14th, we held an exploratory workshop on the theme of Translation, Nation, Migration, bringing together colleagues from a range of disciplines (Law, Translation Studies, Linguistics, History, Sociology, Politics, Migration Studies) whose work relates to the theme, with a view to finding common ground, reflecting on methodologies and planning teaching and research collaboration. We had asked everyone to share an image and speak to this –we heard about language in asylum court appeals, German concepts of ‘heimat’ (home’); the impact of Brexit; the Venezuelan diaspora; early modern ideologies of nationhood and translation; eighteenth-century abolition movements and the working class; the anti-imperial revolutionary Ghadar Movement; diversity in contemporary UK publishing of translated literature; notion of home and identity in migration camps; multilingual London; and asylum decision-making processes in relation to LGBTQ+ communities.
It was rewarding to share different disciplinary perspectives and approaches and to find common interest in these themes from across SSIS and Hums, now HASS, and, in particular, to bring together people working on different time periods. Next steps include another meeting to pursue teaching and research opportunities. This workshop was the second element of the SCI project, awarded to foster collaboration more widely, across disciplines and periods about the themes of translation, migration and nation.
The first part of the SCI grant pursued early modern period-focused research in this area as part of an exchange/partnership we have set up with KU Leuven. We held a conference on June 8th in Leuven with participants from elsewhere in Belgium, from Switzerland, the Netherlands and the States. It drew together a range of scholars from different career stages working on early modern Europe and on questions of translation (especially from classical languages and cultures), book history, nationhood and identity. We are working to achieve a deeper understanding of how translation helped construct identities –regional, national or proto-national, ethnic, linguistic, and supra-national –and the ways in linguistic and literary translations reflected the migration of people, objects, and texts around the European continent. As a result of this stimulating conference, we are planning an edited volume with Amsterdam University Press series ‘Language and Culture in History’, a PhD mentoring scheme, and a further network bid.
Dr Freyja Cox Jensen (History).
Blog by Dr Helena Taylor (Modern Languages and Cultures).
