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This article focuses on the genre of the genealogical novel, which has boomed in Flanders since 1970. This type of novel deals with the narrativization of the past (individual and collective) and with the link between origin and identity. The Flemish genealogical novel portrays the formation of individuals against the background of an emerging Flemish cultural identity. The link between cultural identity and literature is complex and nuanced. A territorializing approach of this relation leads to the reading of genealogical novels as ‘typically Flemish’. This view is often taken in the critical reception of the genre. A deterritorializing approach shows how genealogical novels can be read as comments on the concept of territorialization and as a critique of the stereotypical image of Flanders and its ‘roots’.

There is no doubt that self-reflection and meta-reflection are characteristic of every dynamic and developing scholarly discipline. Nevertheless, it is arguable that meta-reflection is exceptionally clearly present in Translation Studies (see Gambier: this issue). Some scholars may get the impression that the discipline, despite its perceived successful development over recent decades, is caught in a more or less permanent state of doubt and uncertainty. Or is this just a more negative perception of the very features that others consider signs of the dynamics of the discipline? After several paradigm changes and even more turns, after fights about scholarly territories and methodological renewal, after intra-and interdisciplinary discussions, after the question whether localizing knowledge embarrasses or rather complements globalizing research etc., Translation Studies continues to produce a large number of publications dealing with the struggle of defining itself and its object, with the borderlines of both the discipline and the object, with ways of interacting with related (sub)disciplines.Together with the institutionalization, the growth in knowledge and the variety of approaches and topics, the aspect of uncertainty may offer an additional explanation for the number of publications dealing not only with the history of the discipline, but also questioning its future directions. Translation Studies has often not only felt the need to look back and take stock of what had already been achieved, but also to look forward. As the topic of this special issue is exactly to question some of the unknowns of Translation Studies, this introduction analyzes the tendencies of similar 'predictive' articles of the past 10-15 years. We have used the Translation Studies Bibliography or TSB (Gambier & van Doorslaer 2011) and its extensive keyword system to track down publications looking ahead or combining the present state of the art with predictions about future developments. It is not our goal to present an exhaustive overview of those publications. In many cases, the 'state of the art' presented in the articles focused on a relatively small

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