Unsettling Translation

This collection engages with translation and interpreting from a diverse but complementary range of perspectives, in dialogue with the seminal work of Theo Hermans. A foundational figure in the field, Hermans’s scholarly engagement with translation spans several key areas, including history of translation, metaphor, norms, ethics, ideology, methodology, and the critical reconceptualization of the positioning of the translator and of translation itself as a social and hermeneutic practice. Those he has mentored or inspired through his lectures and pioneering publications over the years are now household names in the field, with many represented in this volume. They come together here both to critically re-examine translation as a social, political and conceptual site of negotiation and to celebrate his contributions to the field.The volume opens with an extended introduction and personal tribute by the editor, which situates Hermans’s work within the broader development of critical thinking about translation from the 1970s onward. This is followed by five parts, each addressing a theme that has been broadly taken up by Theo Hermans in his own work: translational epistemologies; historicizing translation; performing translation; centres and peripheries; and digital encounters.This is important reading for translation scholars, researchers and advanced students on courses covering key trends and theories in translation studies, and those engaging with the history of the discipline.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

"This is a rich collection of interventions which speak to the most current and urgent questions in Translation Studies: from material culture to the question of agency, from ecotranslation to the role of transdisciplinary and transnational approaches in the Humanities. That contributors do all this while engaging with Theo Hermans’s work is the best possible testimony to the originality of his thinking and the legacy of his scholarship." Loredana Polezzi, Stony Brook University, USA"Theo Hermans is one of the most prominent figures in the disciplinary history of translation studies. He has been a key player in institutionalising the field but also an independent critical voice against excessive institutionalising, promoting a view of 'a splintered discipline, a de-centred and perhaps ex-centric field of study that must learn to speak several tongues, recognizes the contingency of theory and seeks to make its own uncertainties productive' (Hermans 2006:9). This collective volume edited by Mona Baker, another likeminded critical thinker, is a testament to this vision, and the many chapters by prominent TS scholars expand on Hermans's ideas and unleash productive uncertainties in ways that capture the reader's scientific imagination and create a desire to reread his entire oeuvre." Kaisa Koskinen, Tampere University, Finland

Mona Baker is Affiliate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, University of Oslo, and co-coordinator of the Genealogies of Knowledge Research Network. She is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, and Adjunct Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. She is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation and Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account; editor of Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution; and co-editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Citizen Media.