Inaugural Conference of the History and Translation Network

What Is This Event About?

The theme of this year’s inaugural HTN conference is multidisciplinary perspectives, so attendees can expect to participate in a diverse array of workshops, keynote speeches, seminars, and networking opportunities.

With a strong base in thorough academic research into the fields of translation, interpreting, history, and linguistics, HTN always puts together enriching and intellectually stimulating panels on a variety of topics.

Educators, teachers, professors and students can join working industry professionals to share ideas and wisdom.

What Can You Expect?

Here are a few of the many keynote speeches, seminars, and lectures that HTN Conference audiences can take in:

• Hilary Footit, University of Reading, UK - “Present-ing The Past: The Politics of Translation History”

Professor Footit will present her paper on how the intellectual journey of Translation History passes through research related to texts, the agency of translators, and more recently insights derived from material culture.

Footit’s work seeks to contribute to the discussion by shifting attention to historical contexts themselves, and specifically to the cognitive power relations enacted through the perception of ‘foreignness’. 

• Hephzibah Israel, Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Edinburgh - “Archival Dea(r)th: Tracing the Afterlives of Translation Memory”

A conundrum that scholars working with history often encounter is that the kind of histories they reconstruct depend on the archival research undertaken, while the archives historians often have access to may have been created as a result of specific historical imaginings and arguments.

In this keynote address, Professor Israel will call attention to the challenges historians encounter when they evaluate the nature of archives for translation research and how they work with them.

• Ronnie Hsia, Pennsylvania State University - “Translating China: The Catholic Mission in the History of Global Translations, 1585-1800”

Between 1585 and 1800, Catholic missionaries from a half dozen European countries labored to translate hundreds of Western books into Chinese.

Most of these were Christian texts, including large portions of the Bible, while others were excerpted from the Greco-Roman philosophical and scientific corpus.

Professor Hsia will be presenting his paper, which aims to give a general overview of this first global translation enterprise: where the texts were translated, who were the translators, and how difficult were these translations to complete.

While most of the translations were primarily textual, some were visual, with iconic images from both Christianity and Confucianism being presented for an audience totally unfamiliar with a new and alien civilization.

There is much more though, so make sure to visit the link below for more information. Thanks to HTN, this event is sure to be captivating and a unique amalgamation of both history and language and translation studies.

HTN Conference 2022

25-28 May, 2022

University of Tallinn, Estonia

Registration: https://konverentsikeskus.tlu.ee/en/htn-conference-2022