Open Call for Proposals
Following the success of the Nov 2011 conference in Antwerp and Amsterdam on Translation and National Images, we invite proposals for full length articles for a book publication.
The book we envisage will bear the working title Interconnecting Translation and Image Studies and will comprise work that specifically addresses pertinent aspects of the link between translation studies and imagology (image studies). The Benjamins Translation Library has already shown great interest in the topic of the book, but publication of course depends on the quality of the chapters and on the refereeing process.
Proposals will be selected with a view to opening up the scope of study. They can address contextualised studies of film, (children’s) literature, news, tourism, advertising, etc. and their related translations. Possible approaches will also include “paratextual” or reception studies viewed in combination with their related translations.
The proposal should contain a clear outline of the methodology used to examine the corpus and to pursue the general argument. This can comprise a specific approach to Imagology in combination with a TS approach and/or involve some form of the following: critical discourse analysis, content analysis, reception studies, etc. Proposals explicitly elaborating on the interconnection of methodological issues in both Translation Studies and Imagology will be welcomed.
We welcome proposals that give serious consideration to the researcher’s position with regard to his or her topic and that provides the reader with a perspective on the data under discussion and problematizes possible naive data collection methods or essentialist readings of such data.
We welcome proposals that treat the construction, negotiation and maintenance of sometimes conflicting images in “source” and “target texts”.
We welcome proposals that identify ideologies of state, etc. emergent from “source” texts, films, etc. and contrast them with those visible in their translations. In this respect we are interested in proposals that move beyond or problematise conflations of language culture and nation.
We welcome proposals that study the trajectories, genealogies and networks of transfer along with the discourse involved in the reception of such texts in other cultures including related negotiations with agents promoting these texts abroad.
We welcome proposals that treat such aspects of semiotic production as (self)censorship, taboo avoidance and related issues of translatorial ethics.
Please bear the following in mind when submitting a proposal: it should be noted that the whole array of images are (empirically) given only to the extent that they emerge from the corpus under analysis and do not constitute categories that exist “sui generis”. Categories provide us with a means for classifying image constructions visible in a given corpus and are not a set of eternal truths that can be used to denote and designate a priori aspects on nation, culture, region, ethnic group, etc. They are and remain constructions, despite their sometimes long genealogies. These constructions are also understood as underlying and informing translations and the general translation strategies that might be discerned from analysing such translations. How these images are constructed in text or speech and how they are further represented or not in translation remains part of the object of study.
Though the intersections and overlap between imagology and translation studies are obvious in terms of interests and objects of study, forms of theorising, issues of methodology, data collection, etc., that arise from combining the two areas of study still need to be worked out in depth.
Fully elaborated proposals should be approximately 500 words long including a basic set of 5 to 6 main references.
Proposals should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Please mention Interconnecting Translation and Image Studies in the subject line.
The closing date for proposals is: 15 July 2012.
All proposals will be peer-reviewed anonymously.
Notification will be given by 15 September 2012.
Yours sincerely,
Luc van Doorslaer, Joep Leerssen & Peter Flynn
