Translating the City: Cartographies of Cultural Contact and Change

Panel to be presented at the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting Toronto, Canada, April 4-7, 2013

Cities are sites of ever-changing cultural and historical encounters, and languages have a significant role in shaping the urban experience. Both predictable and surprising challenges and opportunities arise when city borders are crossed, voices meet, and artistic traditions find their counterparts. Using the Latin word for "translation," translatio, or "to carry across," as a theoretical point of departure, this seminar examines the dynamics of translation in urban spaces and the constructions of imaginative geographies. Translation, in this sense, is not solely a linguistic matter, but more broadly a sensory experience that manifests its traces and residues in music, visual media, architecture, and literature. How do the languages of cities influence the process of both writing and translating? How does travel between cities stimulate creative interaction and encourage acts of translation? What is the role of multilingualism in the city? During periods of cultural conflict, transformation, and political instability, how are translation practices used strategically in urban areas? This seminar invites papers that will expand our understanding of the relation between travel, translation, and the city through a variety of critical, theoretical, and cultural frameworks.
Paper topics might address:
perceptions of place
translation of spatial practices
representations of the metropolis
self-translation and the function of translators
the translation of and interaction between different media and disciplines
cultural encounters between East/West, North/South, center/periphery
translation in the (post)colonial city
cosmopolitan, transnational, and transatlantic urban zones
transhistorical studies
translation and conflict

For more information, please contact Regina Galasso at rgalasso@complit.umass.edu