You are all warmly invited to Kathryn Batchelor's inaugural lecture on Tuesday 8 October at 18:30 in the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL, London. The event is free but please register on Eventbrite.

Translations are things that we often look through, rather than at. We use translations as tools for overcoming language barriers; we rarely stop and inspect the tools themselves. In this lecture, I argue that there is value in studying translations as historical objects in their own right. In an approach inspired by microhistory and histoire croisée, I consider translated books to be concrete traces of intercultural interactions from the past. By investigating how and why they came to be, and by paying attention to the details of their physical presence (that book cover, those word choices), I show that translations can enrich our historical understanding of political and cultural developments.

To register, click here