Luise von Flotow
Professor
Translation Studies
University of Ottawa, Canada

Abstract

This introductory talk provides a recap of how ‘gender’ entered the developing field of translation studies in the 1980s and how it has developed since that time. From Barbara Godard in Canada to many international applications of feminist ideas in literary and translation studies – including audiovisual and even advertising/marketing translation – (in Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and more), the field has grown into a transnational movement. While any ‘transnational’ action faces the dominance of English as the academic language of communications (and also of much business), transnational feminist translation studies seem to be finding ways around this potential barrier.

Bio

Luise von Flotow (Professor) has taught Translation Studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada since 1996. Her main research interests have focused on feminist and gender issues in translation, translation as cultural diplomacy, and audio-visual translation. Publications include articles and books authored and edited in these areas: The Routledge Handbook on Translation, Feminism and Gender, eds. Luise von Flotow and Hala Kamal, 2020; Translating Women, Different Voices and New Horizons, eds. Luise von Flotow and Farzaneh Farhazad, Routledge 2017; Translation Effects: The Making of Contemporary Canadian Culture and Translation, ed. with Kathy Mezei and Sherry Simon, McGill Queens UP 2014; Translating Women, ed. University of Ottawa Press 2011; Translating Canada. Charting the Institutions and Influences of Cultural Transfer. Canadian Writing in German/y. eds. Luise von Flotow and Reingard Nischik, University of Ottawa Press 2007; Translation and Gender. Translation in the ‘Era of Feminism’ St. Jerome Publishing and University of Ottawa Press 1997. She is also a literary translator, working mainly from German and French to English. Recent publications include: Tacky! The World of the Megamalls, tr. of Rinny Gremaud’s Le monde en toc (2018), UAlberta Press 2023; Manikanetish, tr. of Naomi Fontaine’s Manikanetish (2018), Anansi 2021; The World at Your Back, tr. of Thomas Melle’s Die Welt im Rücken (2016), Biblioasis Canada, 2022; They Divided the Sky. Re-translation of Der geteilte Himmel, by Christa Wolf (1963), UOttawa Press, 2013; Everyone Talks About the Weather. We Don’t. ed. Karin Bauer. Political columns by Ulrike Meinhof, annotation and introduction by Karin Bauer, Seven Stories Press, New York, 2008; The Four Roads Hotel, tr. of France Théoret`s L’hôtel aux quatre chemins, Guernica Editions, 2017; The Stalinist’s Wife, tr. of France Théoret’s La femme du stalinien, Guernica Editions, 2013; Such a Good Education, tr. of France Theoret’s Une belle éducation, Cormorant Press, 2010. One translation into French is Tout le monde parle de la pluie et du beau temps. Pas nous! the French translation of Everybody Talks About the Weather. We Don’t! (ed. Karin Bauer 2008), 2018 at Editions Remue-ménage, Montreal, in collaboration with Isabelle Totikaev.