CERES Lecture 2016: Mona Baker on Translating the Egyptian Revolution

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The Centre for Reception Studies is proud to annouce that the CERES lecture 2016 will be given by prof. Mona Baker (University of Manchester). Mona will focus on activist subtitling in the context of the Egyptian Revolution and sent us the abstract below.

Tom Toremans (KU Leuven) and Anneleen Spiessens (UGent) will also present the special issue on ‘Translating Testimony’ they edited for the journal Getuigen/Témoigner.

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The event will take place on Tuesday, November 15th, at 10:00 AM at KU Leuven Campus Brussel, Hermesgebouw, Van Genechtenzaal (room 6303). All are welcome, but please confirm your attendance by e-mailing tom.toremans@kuleuven.be.

ABSTRACT

Fluidity, Uncertainty and Distance: Researching Volunteer Subtitling in the Context of an Unfolding Revolution (Mona Baker)

While interest in volunteer translation and interpreting has grown noticeably in recent years, little field work has been undertaken to examine this important form of citizen media practice in violent and high risk contexts. Drawing on a recent study of the collaboration between subtitlers and filmmakers during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, this presentation will focus on the challenges posed by a fast-paced, fluid, non-hierarchical context of collaboration between relatively distinct groups (filmmakers and subtitlers) who do not interact regularly despite producing prolific output collaboratively. The discussion will also explore the difficulty of offering traditional research ‘findings’ in contexts where intense human relations and experiences are unfolding and taking unpredictable directions during the research period, rendering any notion of optimal researcher distance from the object of study both unworkable and undesirable and placing issues of trust and ethics at the centre of the research agenda. These difficulties are further exasperated by the ethos of contemporary movements of collective action, where there is often no interest in maintaining a record of individual contributions to any output or even a basic hierarchical structure that prevents any member from editing a (subtitled) video after it has been published.