[CFP] The Sixth Asia-Pacific Forum on Translation and Intercultural Studies

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Haun Saussy, The University of Chicago

Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter

H. Mack Horton, University of California, Berkeley

AIMS & SCOPE

David Damrosch’s opinion on world literature explains well the natural connection between translation and world literature. He believes that “a work enters world literature by a double process: first, by being read as literature; second, by circulating out into a broader world beyond its linguistic and cultural point of origin” (Damrosch 2003: 4). Apparently, translation is a means that helps a national literary work circulate beyond its linguistic and cultural origin and eventually becomes a part of world literature. Besides, the trajectories of world literature studies and translation studies also share some commons. Like translation studies, world literature was belittled as “lacking in focus and seriousness” (Helgesson and Verneulen 2016: 1). Scholars in both fields have fought for quite a long time before they are recognized as independent disciplines. However, like translation studies, world literature as a discipline has been consolidated when more and more university programs have been established and an increasing number of studies have focused on issues related with world literature. Moreover, because of their interdisciplinary and cross-cultural nature world literature studies and translation studies can be mutually inspirational and have potential for shedding new lights on neighboring disciplines like cross–cultural studies, comparative literature studies and globalization studies.

This conference aims to gather scholars in the fields of translation studies and world literature to present their research results and exchange their views on the interaction of these two disciplines. The goals are to offer new insights on the interrelations between translation and world literature, to inspire further interdisciplinary research in both fields of studies, and to discuss the ways that world literature and translation studies can illuminate other disciplines. Themes of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

• Translation as an instituting factor in world literature
• The institutional power of world literature
• The circulation of world literature
• Translating as a mode of literary reading
• Translation as a means of internationalization
• The map of world literature: the geopolitics of translation and literature
• National literature, translated literature and world literature: interrelations
• The untranslatability of world literature
• Canons of foreign literatures in translation
• World literature and post-colonial translation