The Forum for Modern Language Studies Prize competition 2015 invites submissions on the subject of translating cultures.
In an increasingly transnational, multi-cultural and multi-lingual world, translation has a crucial role to play in inter-cultural understanding, to which research in Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures makes a vital contribution. Translation has long been at the heart of LLC teaching and research activity and is a thriving area of interdisciplinary scholarship across a broad range of historical and geographical contexts.
‘Translating Cultures’ is the subject of an important current AHRC research theme in the UK, and is a key area of many research centres, collaborative projects and networks across the world, involving a wide range of disciplinary fields, in both the academic and professional spheres. As well as a textual practice familiar to all learners of language, translation understood as a range of dynamic processes has extended into countless inter-related research domains including such broad fields as adaptation, comparative literature, multilingualism, post-colonialism and cultural identity.
Authors of articles submitted to The Forum Prize 2015 may wish to address one or more of the following topics:
— Comparative analyses of different translations of the same text, their reception and the ways they allow the flow of ideas — and their evolution — across national boundaries.
— How translation contributes to the development of particular literary forms (and vice versa).
— Canonisation — the relationship between translation and notions of world literature, or the role translation plays in comparative literature.
— Questions of genre — what differences or similarities might be observed in the translation of narrative, poetry, prose, drama, operas, subtitles, bande dessinee, fiction and non-fiction, or political, legal, economic and religious texts?
— The multilingual text, translanguaging, and the relationship between multilingualism and creativity.
— Intermediality — the ways in which adaptation may be conceived as a form of translation, ekphrastic translations of the visual arts, but also including non-linguistic translation, between music, painting, sculpture, dance, as well as visual culture.
— The ethics of translation — how notions of domestication or foreignisation raise questions of appropriation and resistance in intercultural dialogues.
— Migration and diaspora — the migration of texts across boundaries, translation as a form of cultural interpretation, or as a catalyst for mobile, dynamic global identities.
— Linguistics and the linguistic landscape — the politics and practice of bilingual signage, the complex relationship between language and regional, national or transnational identities.
— Translating between regional and national languages, the question of internal colonialism, and the creation of hybridised global discourses.
— Representations of the translator in literature or film. How do fictional texts represent, support or subvert the politics and practice of translation?
— Radical translation practices: intralingual translation and rewriting, feminist translation strategies, translation and phenomenology.
— The role of translation in producing original cultural artefacts.
— Mistranslations, deliberate or accidental.
— The untranslatable, including omitted or untranslated elements, or resistance to translation.
— Translation and the acoustic properties of a text.
Submissions may address literature of any period, from a literary or linguistic perspective, and in any of the languages covered by the journal (usually Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian, but we will consider others too). The competition is open to all researchers, whether established or early-career: it is worth noting that previous competitions have been won by scholars in both categories.
The winner’s prize will consist of:
1. Publication of the winning in essay in the next appropriate volume of Forum for Modern Language Studies.
2. A cheque for £500.
A panel of judges will read all entries, which will be assessed anonymously. At the judges’ discretion, a runner-up prize of £200 may be awarded. The Editors may commission for publication any entries that are highly commended by the judges.
Entry requirements and submission details for the Forum Prize are as follows:
— The closing date for entries is 3 April 2015.
— Entries must be written in English, between 6,000 and 10,000 words in length, including notes, should conform to MHRA style, and must be accompanied by an abstract (approx. 150 words) summarizing the principal arguments and making clear the relevance of the article to the competition topic.
— Articles should be submitted online at www.fmls.oxfordjournals.org, flagged as Forum Prize entries and following the guidelines for authors. We will also accept submissions by email or hard copy or disc, if there is a compelling reason. In this case, please contact:
formod.editorialoffice@oup.com
Full details of the Essay Prize rules can be found at: