Translation as Microhistory

Kathryn Batchelor, Professor of Translation Studies, UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society, delivers her Inaugural Lecture: Translation as Microhistory

About the lecture

Translations are things that we often look through, rather than at. We use translations as tools for overcoming language barriers; we rarely stop and inspect the tools themselves. In this lecture, I argue that there is value in studying translations as historical objects in their own right. In an approach inspired by microhistory and histoire croisée, I consider translated books to be concrete traces of intercultural interactions from the past. By investigating how and why they came to be, and by paying attention to the details of their physical presence (that book cover, those word choices), I show that translations can enrich our historical understanding of political and cultural developments.

About the speaker

Kathryn Batchelor was appointed Professor of Translation Studies at the UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) in January 2019. She is the author of Translation and Paratexts (2018) and Decolonizing Translation (2009), and has co-edited four volumes of essays including Translating Frantz Fanon across Continents and Languages (2017) and China-Africa Relations: Building Images through Cultural Cooperation, Media Representation and Communication (2017).  

Inaugural Lecture Series 2019/20

This lecture is part of the 2019/20 series for UCL's Faculty of Arts & Humanities and Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences. The series provides an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our professors who are undertaking research and scholarship of international significance, and offers an insight into the strength and vitality of the arts, humanities and social sciences at UCL. 

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