Sometimes a workshop is only a workshop, and sometimes it is the beginning of a whole new project. With the recent Translating Cultures event held at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany on 26 and 27 June, my co-convernor Thomas Munck and I soon had the feeling it could be the latter. We got some excellent papers on translation theories and practices, on cultural translation and tradaptation, and on the distribution and reception of printed texts in early modern Europe and beyond.
If you want to know more about individual papers, their arguments and the discussions we had around the big table in the Bibelsaal of this amazing early modern library that is the Augusta, you can read up on them here. The first is a report Thomas and I produced for the German historians’ mailing list HSozKult. The second is a blog post with some observations put together by Rachel Hammersley, who contributed an excellent paper on late C18th French translations of James Harrington.
Yet, while a lot was achieved on those two hot days in Lower Saxony, we also felt that a lot more still needed to be done to explore the ways in which early modern translators worked and which networks of authors, translators, editors, printers, publishers and booksellers were involved in the processes of translation, transmission and dissemination of printed texts. So we all decided to make this workshop an annual event to bring together scholars working on a range of European countries in the hope of moving the field forward together.
Plans for next year
Thanks to the HAB’s director, Peter Burschel, and co-ordinator of scholarly events, Volker Bauer, who have promised their support, we are now in the process of planning next year’s event. I hope I can tell you more about it soon.
In the meantime, feel free to contact us if you are interested in the project.
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