Anneleen Spiessens is Associate Professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. Her research engages with the ethical, political, and mnemonic dimensions of translation, with particular attention to how translation mediates memory and identity across cultural and linguistic boundaries.
She is the author of Quand le bourreau prend la parole: témoignage et fiction (Droz, 2016), a study of translated perpetrator testimonies, and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory (2022, with Sharon Deane-Cox) which maps the intersections between translation and memory in the reconstruction, transmission and reconfiguration of the past. Together with Piet Van Poucke, she has published a series of articles on Russian news translation, highlighting the role of translation in shaping national identity and collective memory.
Recently, her work has turned toward questions of spatiality, materiality, and multimodal translation, identifying both museums and cities as critical sites of inquiry. She approaches translation not merely as a process of linguistic and cultural transfer, but as a lived and structuring condition of contemporary society, central to how urban spaces shaped by migration and mobility are inhabited, interpreted, and narrated.
Anneleen’s research interests include:
- Translation and memory (personal, collective, and travelling/transcultural memory)
- News translation (translated journalistic discourse, circulation of global news, ideological framing)
- Museum translation (knowledge transfer, heritage, materiality, multimodality, outreach, translation policy)
- City translation (urban semiotics, translational landscapes, urban memory, migration, cartography)
- Translation and testimony (secondary witnessing, trauma, perpetrator discourse, translation ethics)
Contact: Anneleen.Spiessens@UGent.be
