Cultural Translation (MLA Conference)

Call For Papers for a Special Session for the 2001 M/MLA Annual Conference in Cleveland, OH (November 1-3, 2001)
"Past Translation: the Uses and Limits of ‘Cultural Translation’ as a Metaphor for Historical Representation"

Prospective panelists are invited present 20-minute papers that explore the cultural work performed when historical understanding and representation are understood as processes of "cultural translation."
Since modern historical thought emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century, "translation" has often provided historiographers (including, but not limited to, historians, historical novelists, antiquarians, archeologists, anthropologists, certain filmmakers, and certain visual artists) with a useful metaphor for the cultural, cognitive, and practical dimensions of representing history. Panelists are asked to examine that metaphor’s uses and limits either in contemporary culture or in some other post-1800 cultural moment.
Submissions may be theoretical explorations of the topic, but particularly encouraged are papers that engage the topic through specific verbal or visual, literary or non-literary representations of history. As the panel’s title suggests, submissions that look at texts or thinkers who seek alternatives to "cultural translation" as a paradigm for historical understanding and representation are particularly welcome.

Prospective panelists should submit 2-page abstracts by April 1, 2001 to:
Mike Goode
Department of English
The University of Chicago
5220 S. Woodlawn, #3W
Chicago, IL 60615

Abstracts can also be submitted by email to: mgoode@midway.uchicago.edu
Please include the text of the abstract in the body of the message.