A critical review of research on translation and memory

Abstract

This article presents a critical review of a bourgeoning interdisciplinary research trend in the English-language literature that integrates Translation Studies and Memory Studies. After sketching its emergence over the past three decades or so, the article recounts main theoretical contributions in this research trend to explain how scholars promote an idea of translation as memory and expound on political and ethical issues. It then reports on analytical scholarship on specific cases of translation that take on different memory themes, including (1) the Holocaust, genocide and mass killing, (2) war, conflict, and other dark memories, and (3) traditions and sites of memory. Finally, to anticipate a more diversified prospect of the research trend, it is suggested that researchers adopt more concepts and theories from recent transcultural memory studies, and attend more to memory cultures, themes, and practices in different, especially non-Western, contexts.