Contact us at gracls@austin.utexas.eduSubmission deadline: Saturday, August 15University of Texas at Austin
“Any thorough reading of a text out of the past of one’s own language and literature is a manifold act of interpretation”
- George Steiner

In 2022, OpenAI changed the landscape of translation. However, AI and machine translation only represent the surface value between languages, as “AI has very little understanding of nuance, subtlety, humor, or any of the other aspects of really good writing” (McKay). Much as AI translation can only approximate translation from one language to another, language itself can only approximate translation from the self to the other.
All communication is interpretation; all language is imprecise. How do we navigate these gaps? How do we attempt to bridge them? How can these spaces between what we mean, what we say, and what we understand be productive? Language is a powerful creative force that structures society and communication, and yet language is also an imperfect tool. For our 21st Annual GRACLS Conference, we invite 20-minute presentations from any applicable field of inquiry. These presentations may take the form of scholarly papers, creative works, performances, posters, etc., and may be in languages other than English. The act of translation is not exclusive to a paradigm of one spoken language to another contemporaneous language (or vice versa), but instead can act across genres, places, and time, and thus we welcome presentations that engage with the broadest possible applications of
translation, transcreation, transmedia, and similar fields.
Interests may include, but are not limited to the following:
• Translation Theory and Practice
• Transliteration
• Transnational Literatures
• Transmedia Properties
• Translation and Linguistics
• Transnational Labor
• Migration
• Transformative Works (Retellings, Reimaginings)
• Reframing of Traditional Narratives
• Travel and Transportation
• Geopolitics and Global Imagination
• Planet Politics
• Globalization and Glocalization
• Time Travel
• Transgressing Spaces
• Queer Translation
• Cosmopolitanism and De/Colonialization
• Imagined Community
• Global Memories
• Races and Transcultural Studies
• Poetics
• Rhetoric
• Anthropology
• Comics studies Submissions for presentations for the conference can be made here (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScfmF6y644TI0jndO7XvJcdSvIfYNwk...). We are looking for 20-minute presentations in the form of scholarly papers, creative works, performances, posters etc., and they may be given in languages other than English. We are constructing the conference mainly in physical meetings, but virtual setting will be otherwise organized if necessary.  For any questions, please contact us at gracls@austin.utexas.edu