The Cambridge Translation Studies Network (CTSN) aims to bring together all those interested in translation across the Humanities and Social Sciences, to promote translation as research in an interdisciplinary context, and to support students involved in any aspect of translation studies.

To further these aims, the CTSN plan to host a regular series of seminars and workshops throughout the year.

Sign up to the CTSN Mailing List

Membership call

If you are a translator or carry out research on translation in the University, you are very welcome to become affiliated to the Cambridge Translation Studies Network. If you would like to join us, please write to Ángeles Carreres (ac289) providing your name, title and a link to your University staff page. We hope this will be a first step in developing a sense of community and collaboration opportunities amongst translation scholars and practitioners within the University. Please note that we can only accept requests from colleagues and graduate students affiliated to the University or the Colleges.

Current events

You are warmly invited to attend our events this term. Attendance is free and open to all.

Wednesday 19 February: James Womack (University of Cambridge) – Translating Poetry. 5–6:30pm, LB8, Lecture Block, Sidgwick Site. This open-language workshop will identify some of the main issues encountered in the translation of poetry and offer a set of hands-on exercises for participants to engage in.

Wednesday 5 March: Paschalis Nikolaou (Ionian University) – Closing the distance: Creativity and invention in classical translation. 5–6pm, online. The transmission of ancient Greek and Latin texts into anglophone literatures has been exquisitely diverse, particularly in the wake of modernism, and all the way to recent examples. This talk will present several reasons for retranslation, hybridity and translation as experiment.

Thursday 20 March: Helen Vassallo (University of Exeter) – Navigating the "in-between": Translation practice, research and activism. 4–5pm, LB8, Lecture Block, Sidgwick Site. This talk will discuss how working at the intersection of translation research and practice offers a productive and stimulating knowledge exchange, but will also confront the complex and often messy realities of navigating the “in-between” space, straddling both and not belonging entirely to either one.

Previous events

• Thursday 7 November 2024 (5:30-7pm) at the Heong Gallery, Downing College with Daniel Hahn. Daniel translates from Portuguese, Spanish and French. He has over 40 books to his name, and has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (The Book of Chameleons) and the International Dublin Literary Award (A General Theory of Oblivion), amongst others. Daniel will be in conversation with Ángeles Carreres and Maya Feile Tomes.

• Thursday 14 November 2024 (2-3:30pm) in Room T9, Downing College with Martin Munro. Martin is Eminent Scholar and Winthrop-King Professor at Florida State University. This informal talk, titled 'Tokyo Stories: Translating Michaël Ferrier', will present the work of Michaël Ferrier, before discussing the experiences and challenges of translating this author and of literary translation more generally.