translation studies

Special issue on children’s literature originally published in a language other than English

Academic Articles, ca. 4000 words

Negotiating Agency, Voice and Identity through Literature

Bookbird seeks contributions for a themed issue on agency, voice and identity. In a fast-changing world, where power is becoming more and more oppressive and undemocratic, agency, voice and identity are the very life elements that can sustain us. Our sense of agency—our ability to assert our identity, exert our voice and make a difference in the world—is closely related to our drive to live, act and hope. Citizens who contribute to, and receive from, their local and global communities, strive to have a voice in issues that matter and to be part of decision-making processes that are of importance. Such empowerment comes from developing a strong sense of identity.

This is a guaranteed session that considers representations of travel in English Renaissance literature. Given the regular movement of persons and merchandise between England and Continental Europe and the incipient development of English interests in the New World, travel is central to the evolution of an English national identity. At the same time, an idea of travel profoundly subtends humanist models of education, which generally present their material as objects of translatio across time and place. This panel aims to explore how early modern writers conceptualize travel, and how they respond to travel’s capacity to register both physical and imaginative experiences.

"Linguistic (Re)Turns"

Organizers: Sara Ceroni (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Luke Mueller (Bentley University) 

This is a session sponsored by the International Layamon's Brut Society for the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 9-12, 2019, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.