{translation-friends} Call for Papers: Religions in Translation

From: Ahmed Hassan Al-Maaini <amueini@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: mailing list <translation-friends@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 11:41:16 +0000
Call for Papers: Religions in Translation: Issues of Censorship and Identity 
Special issue of The Translator (Volume 18, Number 2, 2012) 
Guest-edited by Hephzibah Israel, Open University, UK 
 

 

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 July 2010 (500 words)

 

 

Translation has been central to the way religions have travelled across 
languages and cultures. It has introduced religions to new cultures, led to 
conversions and to the establishment of communities of new religious adherents. 
However, religions have had to negotiate a place for themselves amidst 
competing notions of the sacred in the cultures they entered. All types of 
religious translation, whether the formal translation of texts or the 
translation of religious practices, attempt to regulate self-representation in 
the target cultures. Indeed, they may even try to control the very discourses 
which would distinguish them as a new religion in the target culture and thus 
walk a tightrope between being translated as a recognizable faith system or 
represented as one that is unique. 

The politics and aesthetics of language use as well as translation practices 
influence the way religions are re-constructed within target cultures. Since 
the acquisition of a new religious vocabulary also facilitates the articulation 
of the convert?s self, elite groups controlling the mediation of religion often 
attempt to monitor the translation of scriptures and the construction of 
religious vocabularies. However, the community?s interpretation and use of that 
religious vocabulary may proceed on its own terms, challenging what is 
designated as sacred and what is not. Religious language thus becomes the site 
of conflict between contesting social and political aspirations, demonstrating 
that religions participate vigorously in identity politics even as they 
habitually offer otherworldly claims. 

The aim of this special issue is to engage in a comparative study of 
translation practices and methods across religious traditions, with particular 
attention to examining various types of control and censorship in different 
historical and cultural contexts. The issue intends to demonstrate the 
importance of studying the politics of censorship in translation processes for 
a nuanced understanding of how perceptions regarding appropriate language use 
affect religious conversion and processes of identity formation. However, 
censorship in the translation of religions is not to be viewed only negatively, 
as always having a detrimental effect on the target culture, and it is hoped 
that some papers will be able to explore productive types of control that may 
have been used for radical questioning of existing status quo (for instance, 
feminist translations of scriptures). 

As the special issue proposes to explore how religion, translation and identity 
are embedded within intersecting cultural processes, contributors are 
encouraged to venture beyond the constitutive power of language and offer 
papers that also examine non-linguistic aspects of religious translation and 
censorship where relevant. Articles may discuss any of the following religions: 
Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and New Religious Movements. 

Contributors to the special issue might offer theoretical, empirical and/or 
historical studies on any of the issues raised above. Articles are invited on 
one or more of the following themes/questions but will not necessarily be 
limited to them: 
1. Notions of translatability in the religious context. 
2. Formal and informal forms of censorship that affect religious translations. 
3. The status of the translator's own interpretation as a potential form of 
censorship. 
4. Ways in which metatexts of sacred texts regulate reader responses in order 
to ensure that ?free? interpretations remain within the bounds of the orthodox. 
5. Conceptions of "original" and authorship and the part they play in the 
interpretation and translation of religious texts. 
6. The processes of patronage that control religious translation. Is it 
possible to see religious translations as exercises of cultural power or as 
instruments of social control? 

Articles should be between 6000 and 9000 words on average. Examples from 
languages other than English should be glossed where necessary. 

Key Dates: 
1 July 2010 Deadline for submission of abstracts (500 words) 
1 September 2010 Selected contributors notified of acceptance of abstracts 
1 April 2011 Deadline for submission of papers 
1 August 2011 Confirmation of acceptance of papers 
1 January 2012 Deadline for submission of final versions of papers 
November 2012 Publication date 

Contact Details: Dr. Hephzibah Israel 
Email: hepisrael@xxxxxxxxxxx

 

 



 

Ahmed Hassan Al-Maaini
PhD Student.
School of Languages and Social Sciences
Aston University
Birmingham-UK
Mobile (UK): +44 (0) 7552 480 889
Mobile (Oman): +968 928 22 134
 

                                          
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{translation-friends} Call for Papers: Religions in Translation

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