Hosted by University College London’s (UCL) Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS), TransMemo included training-through-research by means of an independent research project. Various representations of nostalgia, memory, home, migration, identity and cultural translation in novels by contemporary Arab British women authors were analysed through close critical readings and case studies anchored in interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies, including translation studies, memory studies, literary and cultural theory and criticism, postcolonialism, cultural materialism, embodiment and performativity. Questions addressed include the underlying cultural narratives and discourses, the consequences of the presence/absence of nostalgic remembering/forgetting for migrant subjectivity, visibility, survival, and cultural encounter, and how nostalgia can be configured as enabling memory beyond aspects of loss. The key findings are as follows: First, the selected authors/texts share similar trajectories in relation to nostalgia’s role in countering experiences of dislocation, representing migrants’ loss but also their agentic homemaking practices in the present; second, the narratives elicit entanglements with cultural minority and dominance as they often contest inequalities and daily negotiations of power; third, the readings reveal strong intersections and engagements with diasporic material realities, gender relations, trauma and xenophobia in the country of origin and the host country; fourth, the results show that the texts/authors engage explicit and implicit links between the empirical experience of migration and the theory and practice of translation as negotiation of cultural realities, often problematizing migrants’ minority and displacement as they move between cultures; fifth, the concept of cultural translation was shown to be fruitful in terms of investigating the ways migrant authors’ perform functions of cultural mediation while subverting dominant cultural discourses and power relations.
The publications generated by the project encompass a monograph (in progress), several forthcoming research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals, and a published paper in a conference proceedings book. In terms of career development, the project also included co- and microteaching, running reading groups and seminars, auditing and assisting in classes, mentor feedback, training in teaching and pedagogy in dedicated courses at UCL, organizational assistance and chairing sessions in academic events and activities at CenTraS. The dissemination and outreach activities included peer networking and the presentation of research results to academic audiences at national and international conferences, and a public lecture in the CenTraS Global Translation Lecture Series “Translation, Memory, Migration”. Further planned public engagement and outreach activities include a newspaper article and a workshop.
