Trextuality 2. Material Turns in Translation: Intermediality and Circulation

September 4-6, 2025
University of Galway, Ireland (and online)
Submission deadline: February 23, 2025
Submission link: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/76934/submitter

Keynote speakers:
Karen Bennett (NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal)
Piotr Blumczynski (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)
Reine Meylaerts (KU Leuven, Belgium)

The Anderson Centre for Translation Research and Practice at the University of Galway, Ireland, is delighted to announce the 2nd Trextuality Conference, scheduled on September 4-6, 2025. Following the success of the inaugural conference at the University of Turku (Finland) in September 2023, titled “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Translated and Multilingual Texts,” this second edition will focus on the theme “Material Turns in Translation: Intermediality and Circulation.”

The concept of ‘trextuality’ brings together the perspectives of text, transmission and translation. This second dedicated conference aims to deepen the discussion on how today’s media hybridity influences both the products and processes of translation, examining the ways in which the convergence of different media forms reshapes translated texts. This includes exploring how combining text, sound, image, and interactive elements affects the creation, interpretation, circulation, and reception of translations. We also seek to understand how these hybrid forms challenge traditional notions of translation, requiring new approaches and methodologies that reflect the complexities of multimodal and cross-media environments. We are also interested in translation as a materialized, situated practice, that is, in how translation operates within specific institutional and political structures (Meylaerts 2023). By investigating these dynamics, we hope to cast a shining light on the evolving role of the translator in navigating and negotiating the intersections between diverse media platforms and cultural contexts.

More specifically, we invite scholars to reflect on the intersection between translation, mediality, technicity (Littau 2011, 2016), and performativity (Bennett 2018, 2022) and to delve into the media, modes, and modalities of translation (Elleström 2010/2021 and 2023; Bruhn 2021). The framework proposed by late media scholar Lars Elleström explores how translation is not merely a linguistic process but a multimodal and intermedial phenomenon. He argues that translation involves a complex dynamics between various media (such as text, sound, and image), modes (e.g.,  argumentative, narrative, or descriptive styles), and modalities (e.g., sensory channels or cognitive perceptions).

Recent work in translation studies drawing on Karin Littau’s and the Linnaeus School of Intermediality’s influential scholarship has emphasized the importance of understanding how these elements interact and shape the translation process (O’Connor 2021; Blumczynski 2023; Tanasescu 2024; Vidal Claramonte 2024), impacting not only the meaning conveyed but also the way it is perceived and understood across different cultural and technological contexts (Haapaniemi 2024; Robert-Foley 2024). We encourage scholars to examine these complex relationships and delve into how translation functions across different media and how it adapts to the specificities of each modality and mode involved (Cronin 2017; Grass 2023; Campbell & Vidal 2024). This approach asks for a broader consideration of translation, seeing it as a dynamic process that goes beyond the transfer of words between languages to include the transference of cultural, social, sensory, and technological experiences.

Conference Themes:

We warmly encourage contributions that engage with the following topics:

• Hybridity in translation (intermedial translation) (analysis of hybrid forms of translation across different media, including print, digital, and audiovisual formats);
• Translation across transmedial cultures (rendering content, narratives, or ideas across different forms of media, such as from literature to film, video games, art, or digital platforms);
• Multimodal translation practices (exploring how translation intersects with various modes of communication—text, image, sound, and gesture);
• Translation studies and textual scholarship (exploring the theoretical, methodological and practical intersections between various disciplines);
• Historical perspectives on translation materiality (investigation of printed traditions, manuscript cultures, and their impact on the translation process);
• Circulation of translated texts (investigating the ways translated works move across borders, both geographically and culturally, and the socio-cultural implications of these movements);
• Translation and infrastructure (examining infrastructures for and of translation as well as translation as infrastructure);
• Digital and postdigital translation (studying the impact of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine translation,  on translation products and practices, including issues of accessibility, interactivity, and media convergence);
• Eco-translation and environmental media (exploring how translation studies engage with inter-species translation, environmental discourses, green media, and sustainability narratives across different cultures and languages);
• Translation and sensory experience (investigating how translation mediates sensory experiences, such as taste, touch, and smell, in addition to the more traditional senses of sight and sound);
• Embodiment and translation (investigating how bodily experiences and corporeal movements influence translation, particularly in performance arts, dance, and embodied literatures);
• Translation and memory (exploring the role of translation in preserving, transforming, or erasing cultural and material memory across generations and within diasporic communities);
• Translation and participatory culture (investigating how translation practices intersect with participation, where users actively contribute to content creation and dissemination across media platforms);
• Visual and spatial translation (exploring how visual art, architecture, and spatial design are translated across cultural and media boundaries).

We welcome submissions from both emerging and established scholars across various disciplines. Contributions may employ traditional methods or innovative, mixed-method approaches, reflecting the evolving nature and interdisciplinarity of the translation studies field.

Submission guidelines and timelines:

Submissions should be sent via the Oxford Abstracts platform:
https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/76934/submitter

Submission deadline: February 23, 2025 (extended)
Notification of acceptance: March 17
Long abstract (1500 – 3000 words) submission: July 1*
Early bird registration: March 31 (opens); June 01 (ends)
Registration deadline: August 25
Conference: September 4-6
Full paper submission: January 15, 2026*

[Stages marked * are optional; please see below.]

Publication: Selected papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal or in an edited volume (open-access) with a major press. Please see submission deadlines above. A long abstract will kindly be requested of the participants interested in this opportunity.

Contact: For more information, please visit our website https://translation.universityofgalway.ie/ or contact Raluca Tanasescu at raluca.tanasescu@universityofgalway.ie.

Bibliography:

Bennett, K. (2018). “Translation and the desacralization of the western world: From performativity to representation.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 38.
Bennett, K. (2022). “The unsustainable lightness of meaning: Reflections on the material turn in Translation Studies and its intradisciplinary implications.” In Dionísio da Silva, G. & Radicioni, M. (eds.), Recharting Territories: Intradisciplinarity in Translation Studies, 49-74. Leuven: LUP.
Blumczynski, P. (2023). Experiencing Translationality: Material and Metaphorical Journeys (1^st ed.). New York: Routledge.
Bruhn, J. (2021). “Towards an intermedial ecocriticism.” In Elleström, L. (ed.), Beyond Media Borders, Volume 2: Intermedial Relations among Multimodal Media, pp. 117-148. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Campbell, M., & Vidal, R. (2024). The Experience of Translation. London; New York: Routledge.
Cronin, M. (2017). Eco-Translation. Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene. New York: Routledge.
Elleström, L. (2021). “The Modalities of Media II: An Expanded Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations.” In Elleström, L. (ed.), Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality, 2^nd ed., 3-92. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Elleström, L. (2023). “Intermedial Approaches.” In R. Meylaerts and K. Marais (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation Theory and Concepts, 389-409. New York: Routledge.
Grass, D. (2023). Translation as Creative-Critical Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haapaniemi, R. (2024). “Translation as meaning-construction under co-textual and contextual constraints: A model for a material approach to translation.” Translation Studies 17(1): 20-36.
Littau, K. (2011). “First steps towards a media history of translation.” Translation Studies, 4(3), 261–281.
Littau, K. (2016). “Translation and the materialities of communication.” Translation Studies 9(1): 82-96.
Marais, K. (2019). A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation. The Emergence of Social-Cultural Reality. London: Routledge.
Meylaerts, R. (2023). “Public services and translation policy.” M. Gazzola, F. Grin, L. Cardinal, K. Heugh (eds.), The Routledge of Language Policy and Planning, 497-509. London: Routledge.
O’Connor, A. (2021). “Translation and religion: Issues of materiality.” Translation Studies 14(3): 332–349.
Robert-Foley, L. (2024). Experimental Translation. The Work of Translation in the Era of Algorithmic Production. London: Goldsmith Press.
Tanasescu, R. (2024). “Reimagining Translation Anthologies: A Journey into Non-Linear Computational Assemblages.” In C. Tanasescu (ed.) Literature and Computation. Platform Intermediality, Hermeneutic Modeling, and Analytical-Creative Approaches, pp. 87-116. New York: Routledge.
Vidal Claramonte, M.Á. (2024). Translation and Objects. Rewriting Migrancy and Displacement through the Materiality of Art. New York: Routledge.

*Cover image AI-generated with Dall-E 3.