No abstract

Within imagological approaches, paratexts can provide insights into how the Other of translated literature is presented to a new target audience. So, within a transnational context, such as Germany and Britain’s shared experience of the Second World War, can the source and target-culture paratexts invoke the same images? Through a case study of Er ist wieder da, a novel that satirises Germany’s relationship with its National Socialist past, and the British publication of the English translation Look Who’s Back, this article finds that while the novel’s humour is reframed by the British publisher, the novel’s controversial position within Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung discourse remains intrinsic to the paratexts published in the British press. As such, this article demonstrates the transnational relevance of individual national characteristics to the paratextual framing of translated literature, the value of paratexts as objects of imagological study, and the methodological benefits of distinguishing between production- and reception-side paratexts.

Conceptualising the role of the translator in the global circulation of liter...

This article presents a discussion of the theoretical and methodological challenges posed by digitization processes and born-digital sources within translation and translator studies research, particularly in archival contexts. It begins by demonstrating how the digitization of archives and source materials remains an undertheorized issue in translation contexts, as well as the need to understand how digitization allows new forms of “peripheral vision” across our research and publication processes. Subsequently, the article problematizes the archiving and use of born-digital sources to research translation and translators, particularly in terms of issues surrounding data collection, access and ethics. In doing so, this article argues that care must be taken to properly understand and preserve the digital sources that will enable archival research in the future, whilst emphasizing the new opportunities presented by digitized and born-digital sources to challenge the invisibility of translation and translators within many of the world’s archives and histories.