<\/p>\n
The most important event format will be the annual conferences<\/strong>, which will be devoted primarily to the presentation and discussion of the research activities. These conferences will serve to reinforce the overall cluster concept once a year as a basis for introducing research impulses across section boundaries and opening up perspectives for cooperation. In addition to the conferences, there will also be thematic workshops, to be organized by the TransUnits<\/a> and individual projects<\/a> as well as gatherings at which members of the SPP present matters of relevance for the cluster.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since the beginning of the third project year, there is a new format: Digital Discussions<\/strong>. In order to take advantage of the positive side effects of the increasing digitalisation of research and teaching, which have been accelerated by the Covid pandemic, and at the same time to intensify the exchange among each other, SPP 2130 is now continuing its thematic discussions between the annual conferences. At regular intervals, on the first Thursday of each month, we meet online with guest speakers to discuss various aspects of translation cultures or to provide in-depth insights into current project work. Not only SPP members, but also all associates and interested parties are cordially invited. To receive the access data, please contact the office<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n You will find dates and announcements under current topics<\/a>\u00a0and in the calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6th<\/sup> Annual Conference:<\/strong> The Early Modern Period as an Age of Translation: Review and Stocktaking of a Research Programme<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 11.\u201313. Sept. 2024, HAB Wolfenb\u00fcttel<\/p>\n The Priority Programme 2130 launched by the German Research Foundation in 2018 used its sixth and final annual conference to reflect on and validate the programme\u2019s central assertion in the framework of in-depth discussion. The conference publication will be devoted to the SPP\u2019s core hypothesis\u2014that the Early Modern period is to be conceived of as an era of translation\u2014while in the process mirroring its multiperspectival nature. Lectures by the two Mercator Fellows Yen\u2010Ma\u00ef Tran\u2010Gervat (Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris) from the field of comparative studies in Romance literature, and Jewish studies scholar Iris Idelson-Shein (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) enhanced the various concepts of the epoch in question.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The conference also focussed on reflecting on and taking stock of the tiered concept of translation that served as the research programme\u2019s working basis for six years\u2014and was discussed as intensively at the last conference as it had been at the first. Within this context, the emphasis shifted from the question \u201cCan there even be translation above and beyond \u2018translation proper\u2019?\u201d to \u201cIsn\u2019t a tiered concept of translation already in itself a hierarchizing concept?\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The panel on interdisciplinarity proved to be especially multifaceted. It was borne by reflections on what there is to discover outside the scholarly and personal comfort zone, how findings gained by interdisciplinary means can be successfully transferred into one\u2019s own discipline, but also research policy questions as to how one can make a scholarly career for oneself in interdisciplinarity and whether scholarly communication is to be understood primarily as an addition to one\u2019s workload or is part and parcel of scholars\u2019 responsibility towards society.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All these discussions were accompanied and commentated by three experts: Tobias Bulang (Heidelberg, German medieval studies), Maren J\u00e4ger (Berlin, literary studies and rhetoric), and Renate D\u00fcrr (T\u00fcbingen, history of the Early Modern period), who concluded the conference by mirroring their observations back to the research association.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The pure discussion format for conferences is recommended for all associations in which a culture of appreciative communication and mutual understanding is common practice and ubiquitous.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Annkathrin Koppers<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> Annual Conference: Gender and Diversity in Early Modern Translation Cultures<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 13.\u201315. Sept. 2023, Burkardushaus in W\u00fcrzburg<\/p>\n The increasing relevance of gender and diversity to society and politics is also mirrored in scholarship and research. Already at the SPP 2130\u2019s second annual conference on \u201cTranslation Policy and the Politics of Translation\u201d, controversial discussion ensued over the influence of gender roles in Early Modern translation history. Those conversations are what led in good part to exploring the reciprocal relationship between translation and gender all the more persistently at the 5th Annual Conference of the German Research Foundation\u2019s Priority Programme 2130 \u201cEarly Modern Translation Cultures\u201d. The conference aim was not only to make gender and diversity productive as analytical categories for Early Modern translation cultures, but also to raise awareness of their fundamental significance for translation practice and research of both the past and the present. To what extent did culturally shaped identity concepts and group affiliations influence translation practice and vice versa? How did Early Modern translations contribute to the establishment of social values and gender-specific ideals? Can we also discern translation methods that counteracted and undermined social norms by means of references to recognized authorities and normativity-critical interpretations of the source text? With regard to methodology, the approaches to the conference theme can be classified as either actor-centred, theoretical-reflective, or comparative-product-related. In terms of content, the lectures likewise fell into three categories: female translators of the Early Modern period, literary gender translations, and anthropological gender translations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Under the direction of Regina Toepfer (W\u00fcrzburg), the sixteen lectures contemplated gender and diversity in Early Modern translation cultures from interlingual, intermedial, anthropological, epistemic, cultural, and social perspectives. These specialist approaches were flanked by a panel discussion whose purpose was to translate the conference\u2019s research topics for an interested public. In that context, translation from the Arabic and translation from Middle High German into present-day modern German proved to have various aspects in common. The conference also comprised a workshop on building practical diversity competence in research and teaching.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The conference results will be published in a collective volume.<\/p>\n Felix Herberth & Annkathrin Koppers<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/a>4th<\/sup> Annual Conference: Translation Spaces \u2013 Spaces in Translation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 14.\u201316. Sept. 2022, Historical Observatory in G\u00f6ttingen<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After the past two SPP 2130 annual conferences had to be conducted in hybrid form owing to the pandemic, this year we were once again able to hold the event entirely in person. From 14 to 16 September 2022, fifty scholars gathered in the Historical Observatory in G\u00f6ttingen under the chairmanship of Regina Toepfer and J\u00f6rg Wesche.<\/p>\n The thirteen lectures revolved around the exploration of the link between translational and spatial turn and how to make productive use of that link for research into the Early Modern period. Within that context, the various approaches ranged from the investigation of spatial semantics in translation metaphors and the transcultural and intermedial translation of space to the identification of translational spaces as intermediary spaces. The SPP 2130\u2019s broad interdisciplinary diversity not only enabled a comprehensive multi-perspectival view of the conference topic, but also proved beneficial for the reflection on and discussion of different spatial concepts and definitions.<\/p>\n In his evening lecture entitled Plusminuswurzelgleich: \u00dcber die Sprache einer beweisenden Disziplin<\/em> (\u2018PlusMinusRootEqual: On the Language of a Probative Discipline\u2019), Thomas de Padova demonstrated how a literary path, among others, can be taken to translate \u201ccalculation\u201d into a language of mathematical formulae. Citing selected passages from his latest book Alles wird Zahl: Wie sich die Mathematik in der Renaissance neu erfand<\/em> (\u2018The Rise of Numbers: How Mathematics Reinvented Itself in the Renaissance\u2019), he recounted important moments in the history of mathematics and science as episodes of mathematical translation, for example translation into a geometric pictorial language by means of central perspective. He highlighted this geometrical method of depicting mass from various perspectives and positions to attain an impression of space as a \u201cprecursor of the modern sciences\u201d.<\/p>\n The internal agenda items consisted of a general assembly and the formation of the TransUnits for the second SPP 2130 funding phase. TransUnits are study groups made up of the doctoral and post-doctoral students as well as assistants in the SPP 2130 who provide each other support in the form of peer feedback and will join to carry out small-scale projects.<\/p>\n Felix Herberth & Eileen Rippe<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>3rd Annual Conference of the SPP 2130: \u201cAmbiguity and Subversion. Contrarieties in Early Modern Translation Cultures\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n 15.\u201318. Sept. 2021, Wolfenb\u00fcttel & online<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Under the direction of Regina Toepfer and J\u00f6rg Wesche, the annual conference once again took place in hybrid form. Twenty-five participants attended in person in the Augusteer Hall and a further forty took part online via Zoom. This enabled scholars from countries with travel restrictions to participate. Felix Herberth, Annkathrin Koppers<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>2nd Annual Conference of the SPP 2130: \u201cTranslation Policy and the Politics of Translation\u201d <\/p>\n Led by the SPP project directors Antje Fl\u00fcchter, Andreas Gipper, Susanne Greilich, and Hans-J\u00fcrgen L\u00fcsebrink as a team, our second annual conference took place in hybrid form with twenty participants in the Augusteerhalle and altogether more than sixty online participants via Webex, which also enabled external researchers to take part. The point of departure was the pivotal question as to why certain texts, images, and sign complexes are translated, while others (must) remain untranslated. On the one hand, this approach directed the focus to translation politics and policies and the concept under lying them as well as the influencing sociocultural, economic, and intercultural factors, and on the other hand to translations in the context of political discourse and negotiation processes and thus to the connection between politics and translation. The chief concern here was with the interplay between actor-centred and structural dimensions of the politics of translation, in which context the organizers pointed out cultural filters, calculation, and diplomacy as particularly important factors from the heuristic point of view. In his keynote lecture \u201cThe Individuality of Language \u2013Translation and Internationality\u201d, Naoki Sakai (Cornell University) broadened the participants\u2019 perspective by citing the example of Japan to expose the conception of homogeneous language as a fiction. We plan to have Mr Sakai continue his lecture at the third annual conference. The results of this year\u2019s conference will be published in 2022 in the series \u201c\u00dcbersetzungskulturen der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit \/ Early Modern Translation Cultures\u201d (EMTC). The hybrid conference format was well received by the participants because it closely linked the digital and real worlds. All of the lectures given in Wolfenb\u00fcttel prompted online responses, and the co-moderation ensured the continual alternation between the two participant groups during the question and comment phases. \u2018Translation\u2019 thus came about not only between the various disciplines but, this time, also between different modes of participation, across geographical distances, and regardless of pandemic-related restrictions. Lively discussion took place virtually unimpeded. With a view to organizing our joint work in the second funding phase, the members of the SPP also explored new formats during the subsequent general assembly.<\/p>\n Annkathrin Koppers<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\nReports<\/h4>\n
\nWhereas the second annual conference concentrated on issues of normalization and translation politics, this time the emphasis shifted away from standard(ization)s to the themes of oppositionality and counter-currents in the translation cultures of the Early Modern period. Of the various approaches to the concept of translation reflected in the three sections of the SPP 2130, interlingual\/intermedial translations and epistemic configurations here constituted the two main accents in terms of content.
\nOne focus was thus on literary translation milieus as well as on how interpreting was presented and reflected on. In the latter context, miscomprehension and ambiguity, as phenomena of Early Modern translation cultures, were not only the subject of theoretical deliberations of the time, but also treated subversively in translation satires and tragedies. The second major theme of discussion addressed not only theoretical reflections and deliberations on terminological definitions, but also and above all the translation of ideas and concepts (e.g. of European conceptions of martyrdom to Japan or of marriage and religious hierarchies to New Mexico). In the analysis of these resemanticizations and\/or refunctionalizations, it is of fundamental importance to take different knowledge systems and orders into consideration.
\nIn his keynote entitled \u2018On a Universal Tendency to Debase Retranslations or The Instrumentalism of a Translation Fixation\u2019, Lawrence Venuti (Temple University, Philadelphia) advanced the hypothesis of a universal tendency towards fixation in readers, all too often manifest in their preference for older, well-established translations over new ones.
\nNaoki Sakai (Cornell University, New York) continued his lecture \u2018The Individuality of Language \u2013 Internationality and Transnationality\u2019, begun last year, in person in Wolfenb\u00fcttel. He explored the special status of the Japanese language brought about by the comprehensive isolation of Early Modern Japan
\nfrom the international world. That isolation prevented the European translation regime\u2014a globalization effect observable in numerous other cultures as a result of European colonization\u2014from taking hold in Japan. Sakai accordingly refers to the emergence of Japanese as a \u2018stillbirth\u2019.
\nIn addition to the international guest speakers, the final presentations by the TransUnits and the pre-opening of the SPP 2130\u2019s digital exhibition formed further highlights, and ones that presented and communicated the priority programme\u2019s historical-humanistic research with innovative creative methods. The exhibition preview took place in a festive setting with a musical greeting from the SPP project \u2018Song Culture of the Seventeenth Century as Translation Culture\u2019, organized and with comments by Dr. Astrid Dr\u00f6se and Dr. Sarah Springfeld and performed by Charlotte Beckmann and Prof. Matthew Gardener.
\nThe results will be published as conference proceedings in the series Early Modern Translation Cultures.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>16.\u201318. Sept. 2020, HAB Wolfenb\u00fcttel & online<\/p>\n