[Event] Le Deuxième Sexe Seventy Years On: Reading Beauvoir around the World, 25-26 October 2019, USA

Events

Le Deuxième Sexe Seventy Years On: Reading Beauvoir around the World

Location: Emory University Conference Center, Atlanta, USA

Dates: 25-26 October 2019

Link: https://beauvoir.weebly.com/cfp.html

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

  • Professor Penelope Deutscher (Northwestern University)
  • Professor Nancy Bauer (Tufts University)

Call for Papers:
Seventy years following its publication in France, Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe (1949) remains a fundamental source of philosophical feminist knowledge, providing concrete evidence of women’s societal oppression and delineating the constructed nature of gender through an existential, phenomenological lens. Its translation into more than forty languages to date has contributed to shaping knowledge in discourses on gender and sexuality, and the centrality of Beauvoir’s text is testament to its continued relevancy for feminist thought and activism in a multitude of global contexts. To date, important scholarship on the translation of this cornerstone text into specific locales exists, yet in isolated pockets. While the controversy surrounding both of the translations into English has been well-documented (Simons 1983; Moi 2010), the text’s translation trajectories into other languages remains underexplored. Furthermore, specific synergies between translations have yet to be mapped transnationally.  The aim of this conference will be to bring together international scholars working at the intersections of Beauvoirian Studies and Translation Studies in order to trace holistically the dissemination of Beauvoirian thought on a global scale. The conference will aim to elicit papers which address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

  • What were/are the various socio-cultural or political circumstances surrounding the translation of Le Deuxième Sexeinto a specific locale?
  • What role has censorship (political, social or religious) played in the translation of Le Deuxième Sexe?
  • What challenges does the translation of philosophy pose in relation to Le Deuxième Sexe?
  • How have translators dealt with intertextuality when translating Le Deuxième Sexe?
  • How have the paratextual features of Le Deuxième Sexe been translated into a specific locale?
  • How are key terms related to gender and sexuality in Le Deuxième Sexe translated if there is no corollary linguistic/ conceptual cognate in the target language?
  • In what ways has Le Deuxième Sexe been reframed via translation for specific ideological purposes in various target cultures?
  • In what ways has Beauvoir been re-authored via translation?
  • How have more contemporary translations of Le Deuxième Sexe been shaped by changes in philosophical terminology and concepts in intervening decades?
  • What impact does translation bear on the transgenerational reception of Beauvoir?
  • Why has Le Deuxième Sexe been retranslated in specific locales?
  • In cases where a relay language was used to produce a translation of Le Deuxième Sexe, why was this so and what was the impact?
  • In what formats is Le Deuxième Sexe being translated for the digital age and why?

Day Two of the conference will assume a workshop format in the afternoon. Participants will be asked, in advance, to examine four key terms (outlined below) in order to facilitate group discussions related to the translation trajectories of these key terms into a multitude of global contexts.

  • situation
  • devenir
  • femme
  • sexe

Proposals are invited for individual, 20-minute papers in English. Please send abstracts of 250 words, together with a bio (100 words max.) to the conference organizers –
Prof. Julia Bullock (jbullo2@emory.edu)
Dr. Pauline Henry-Tierney (pauline.henry-tierney@newcastle.ac.uk).

Abstract deadline: 31 May 2019
Notification of acceptance: 1 July 2019
Registration open: 1 August 2019

An edited volume of essays will be published out of the papers presented at the conference.