Date: 28 April 2017, 2-4:30pm
Location: KU Leuven Campus Brussels, T’Serclaes 4303.1, Warmoesberg 26, 1000 Brussels

Please pre-register by email to jack.mcmartin@kuleuven.be. Seminar open to KU Leuven PhD students in Translation Studies, Literary Studies and related disciplines. Max 15 participants. Free of charge. First come, first served. Download the flyer here.

Aims and format

The aims of this doctoral seminar are two: 1) to share an overview of the state of the art of translation sociology with doctoral students and postdocs working in Translation Studies (and related disciplines) and 2) to provide a platform for obtaining guidance on theory and method from an authority in the field. The format for the seminar – a half-hour lecture followed by an extensive discussion of three pre-assigned articles selected by Professor Sapiro with input from the participants – is intended to enable participants to put forward concrete questions about challenges they are facing in their own research. Participants will receive the articles upon registration.

Gisèle Sapiro

Gisèle Sapiro (Professor of Sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Research Director at the CNRS) is one of the leading voices in Translation Studies today. Her academic interests are diverse, but for this doctoral seminar she will discuss her (extensive) work in the subfield of translation sociology and editorial policy. Special focus will be placed on the role of state agencies in the global market for translations, the phenomenon of cross-border symbolic capital accumulation, and the importance of transnational events like book fairs for the international dissemination of books from smaller literatures, particularly through translation into larger languages (e.g. books by Flemish authors translated into English).

Prerequiste reading

The majority of the seminar will be centred around a discussion of three articles authored by the speaker. Participants are expected to have read all articles carefully and should come to the seminar with questions and insights prepared in advance. The three articles are:

  • Sapiro, G. ‘How Do Literary Works Cross Borders (or Not)? A Sociological Approach to World Literature’, Journal of World Literature 1 (2016) 81-96.
  • Sapiro, G. ‘Globalization and cultural diversity in the book market: The case of literary translations in the US and in France’, Poetics 38 (2010) 419-439.
  • Sapiro, G. ‘Translation and Symbolic Capital in the Era of Globalization: French Literature in the United States’, Cultural Sociology 9:3 (2015) 320-346.

Flyer Sapiro