Emancipation through Translation?

Emancipation through translation?
Women trajectories in Central and Eastern Europe (19th–21st centuries)

This international conference is part of the “Femmes et choc(s) d’émancipation” cycle at CIRCE / Eur’ORBEM, developed since 2022 in partnership with CEFRES.

Date: from 17 to 18 Octobre 2024
Place: Czech Centre in Paris, 18 rue Bonaparte, Paris 6e
Language: English & French

Organizers: Cécile Gauthier (University of Reims),
Malgorzata Smorag-Goldberg (Sorbonne University)
Agnieszka Sobolewska (University of Warsaw/Sorbonne University)
Partners: CEFRES, Eur’ORBEM (CNRS-Sorbonne University)

Please read hereafter the thesis of the conference.

Program

Thursday 17th 2024

09:00 — Welcome

09:30 — Opening words

LUBA JURGENSON, director of Eur’Orbem

CÉCILE GAUTHIER, MALGORZATA SMORAG-GOLDBERG et AGNIESZKA SOBOLEWSKA

MATEUSZ CHMURSKI, director of CEFRES

Panel 1: Keynote lecture

10:00-11:00

LUISE VON FLOTOW (Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa) : Early feminist work in translation: a local phenomenon

11:00-11:15 — Break

Panel 2: Emancipate Together 

11:15-12:45

SYLVIE MARCHENOIR (Bourgogne University) : Die Hörigkeit der Frau (The Subjection of Women) de John Stuart Mill : Enjeux et réception de la traduction allemande d’un texte fondateur du féminisme au XIXe siècle

CATHERINE GÉRY (INALCO, Paris) : L’Artel russe de traduction et d’édition des femmes (1863-1879), entre recherche d’autonomie et désir de sororité

MARIE VRINAT-NIKOLOV (INALCO, Paris) : Le rôle des traductrices dans les premières organisations féminines en Bulgarie (début XXe siècle)

12:45-14:30— Lunch break

Panel 3: Translation and feminine agency (I)

14:30-16:00

IRYNA DMYTRYCHYN (INALCO, Paris): Lessia Oukraïnka ou la traduction comme acte d’émancipation politique: compléter la littérature nationale

ANNABEL GOTTFRIED COHEN (Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City) : Gina Medem, the forgotten “Yiddish pasionaria”

KAREN UNDERHILL (University of Illinois, Chicago) : The trilingual Polysystem : Language Choice in Polish-Jewish Context of feminist Activism

16:00-16:15— Break

Panel 4: Translation and feminine agency (II)

16:15-17:45

POLINA DE MAUNY (University of Paris-Nanterre) : La traduction féminine à Saint-Pétersbourg impérial : la revue ‘Traductions des meilleurs écrivains étrangers’ de Marko Vovtchok

ROSINA NEGINSKY (University of Illinois, Chicago) : Zinaïda Vengerova: femme libre, traductrice et critique littéraire         

KAROLINA SZYMANIAK (Sorbonne University) : Traduction, auto-traduction, écriture chez Debora Vogel

Friday 18th 2024

Panel 5: Around modernism

9:00-10:30 (Chair: Clara Royer)

JANA KANTORIKOVA ET PETRA JAMES (Sorbonne University, Université Libre de Bruxelles) : Entre invisibilisation et « empowerment » – parcours de femmes traductrices en Bohême au tournant du XXe siècle

EVE FILÉE (Université Libre de Bruxelles) : Au-delà de l’ornement : la présence féminine dans la réception de John Ruskin en Europe centrale

LENA MAGNONE (Collegium de Lyon) : Percer dans le modernisme. Les traductrices dans les revues modernistes polonaises, tchèques et croates

10:30-10:45 — Break

Panel 6: Political engagement and resistance through translation

10:45-12:15

ANA-MARIA GIRLEANU-GUICHARD (University of Strasbourg) : La traduction comme forme de dissidence : Annie Bentoiu et Sanda Stolojan, deux destins en miroir

ADELA HINCU (Institut for Contemporary History, Ljubljana / Babeş-Bolyai University , Cluj-Napoca): Socialist translations. (In)accessible Writings on Women and Feminism in Romania

GALYNA DRANENKO (Sorbonne University) : Traductrices ukrainiennes aux premiers mois de l’invasion russe. La traduction comme arme de résistance des civils

12:15-14:00— Lunch break

Panel 7: Limits of emancipation, risks of becoming invisible

14:00-16:00

ANNA LUSHENKOVA (University of Lyon III) : Les traductions de Proust par Galina Kouznetsov


HÉLÈNE MARTINELLI (CEFRES/ENS in Lyon) : Les traductions de Zofia Nałkowska dans les années 1930

ELENA GUEORGUIEVA (INALCO, Paris) : Le faux départ d’une tradition : deux pionnières non reconnues de l’émancipation des femmes bulgares

16:00-16:15 – Break                                                                                      

Panel 8: Marginal and/or singular trajectories?

16:15-17:15

CECILE ROUSSELET (Université Sorbonne nouvelle, Sorbonne University) : Trajectoires de traduction au féminin et bénéfices de la marginalité dans le monde yiddish de la première moitié du XXe siècle

ANNA BORGOS (Hungarian Research Network): Between scholarship and art: Margit G. Beke, a Hungarian translator of Northern literature

Thesis

Invisible and invisibilized, marginal and marginalized, subaltern, inferior, ancillary, unreliable, if not unfaithful… These are just some of the terms that have long been applied to women and to translation. In contrast to these representations, we propose to reflect on translation (as a theory, a profession, a practice, even an act of creation) as a possible instrument of emancipation for women in Central and Eastern Europe, from the 19th century to the present day.
In the 19th century, the crucial role played by translation in the development of national languages and literatures gave it a form of legitimacy, which could intersect with the mission assigned to women as educators of the nation, guardians of the language, which they had a duty to transmit on an individual (family) and collective (national) scale. But are they, by translating, confined to a practice that is, in a way, of general interest, or basely alimentary, and moreover (partially) imitative? Or is this practice likely to foster emancipation? The question can be considered from several angles, not mutually exclusive:

  • Economic emancipation:
    The emergence of women translators is correlated with the qualitative and quantitative expansion of education for young girls. The knowledge they acquired could later be used as a means of subsistence: among the careers and trades available to women who wanted or needed to earn a living, the practice of translation held a considerable place. While this (forced?) choice may only confirm the downgrading of the status of women, given its subordinate status (as evidenced by the frequent omission of translators’ names from publications), it may – at least this is a hypothesis – have helped women in their quest for (even partial) financial independence, a prerequisite for emancipation.
  • Intellectual emancipation:
    This question implies precise observation of the trajectories of women translators (i.e., their actual practice, as well as any commentaries and testimonials on this practice), but also, on a broader scale, to identify the broad outlines of a history of women translators: who were they? which works, which authors and which women did they translate? which genres (literary, humanities, engaged, militant texts)? according to what modalities and criteria? Did they sign their texts themselves (when they were signed), or did they need a pseudonym, a male signature, a male intellectual guarantor? Lastly, in what way did this practice foster intellectual emancipation? Has it led to the appropriation of new ideas and new forms, fostered awareness and the ability to speak out, taken up public positions, generated the formation of networks? In this respect, have movements for women’s emancipation been able to join other struggles, notably those linked to national and linguistic claims?
    Particular attention will be paid to the translation of founding texts for women’s emancipation in Central and Eastern Europe: what are these texts? In what language were they written, and then read? How did they circulate, and what cultural transfers were involved?
    We’ll also be looking at the phenomenon of self-translation, and the ways in which its practices help to identify, circumscribe and overcome the contradictions linked to multi-belonging and the risks of dislocation of the self, resulting from plurilingualism. Is self-translation one of the ways in which plurilingual women writers express their multi-affiliation? To what extent does it constitute a tool of empowerment for women, both to promote their own writing and to control their identity and political strategies, by modifying their texts from one language to another, in a continuum of rewriting, according to the target audience? This will lead us to address the question of the status of contrasting languages – for example, between German on the one hand and Czech, Polish or Ukrainian on the other – and their value on “linguistic markets”, particularly relevant to the Austro-Hungarian space.
  • Artistic emancipation
    Was translation able to-precisely because it was most often not considered a noble practice-constitute, like certain popular genres, an authorized and privileged field of action for educated and multilingual women? Did it accompany processes of literary creation in women encouraged to take up the pen by their practice of translation? Were they combined with it? Substituted? Does the transition to personal writing (artistic creation) take place in the source or target language of their translation practices? Have there been evolutions, changes in the language of creation for ideological or identity-related reasons (defense of the language that becomes constitutive of identity)?
    We must be careful, however, not to reduce translation to a mere stepping-stone for creation, which would merely renew the discourse of ancestry to which it has long been subjected. It’s also worth noting that many writers have also took up the work of translation, in a fruitful dialogue between translation and creation, which prompts us to wonder about similar phenomena of mutual fertilization among women writers.