1 00:00:03,020 --> 00:00:10,370 Welcome. This is the second episode of translating COVID 19 in new series of video conversations 2 00:00:10,370 --> 00:00:16,130 exploring the significance of translation at the time of the coronavirus pandemic. 3 00:00:16,130 --> 00:00:22,490 My name is maternally and I am, Lalami, research fellow at the Queens College University of Oxford. 4 00:00:22,490 --> 00:00:28,370 I am the principal investigator of Trunking Illness, which is the project and 35 media series. 5 00:00:28,370 --> 00:00:31,700 And if you would like to hear more about this project, 6 00:00:31,700 --> 00:00:40,820 you can visit the Queens College So website and click on the research that believing in us today, I am honoured to join in conversation. 7 00:00:40,820 --> 00:00:50,960 Charles Fox, The Professor James Sparrow, professor of French at the University of Liverpool Charles is not only the leading academic, 8 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:57,890 he is also a caring and inspirational mentor to his students and colleagues, including myself. 9 00:00:57,890 --> 00:01:05,090 Charles, as published by date on topics as varied as travel writing, postcolonial literature, 10 00:01:05,090 --> 00:01:11,810 colonial history, comics, penal culture and the afterlife of slavery. 11 00:01:11,810 --> 00:01:20,570 Since 2012, and this is perhaps the part of Charles's career that will inform today's discussion with Iraqi society. 12 00:01:20,570 --> 00:01:27,170 2012 Chances Being the HNC Theme Leadership Fellow for Translating Cultures, 13 00:01:27,170 --> 00:01:34,070 a monumental research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. 14 00:01:34,070 --> 00:01:36,860 Since his appointment now eight years ago, 15 00:01:36,860 --> 00:01:46,070 Charles has overseen a portfolio of around 100 projects across the world honour which engage with concepts of multiculturalism, 16 00:01:46,070 --> 00:01:50,570 multilingualism, tolerance and identity. 17 00:01:50,570 --> 00:01:59,950 Charles is a renowned expert in the field of translation studies, and I am indeed thrilled to have him as a special guest of this series. 18 00:01:59,950 --> 00:02:08,710 Charles, I would like to start with a question related to your own work and experience of translating cultures. 19 00:02:08,710 --> 00:02:19,540 Could you give us a sense of what it is translating cultures, research themes and what it has to do with issues of health and well-being? 20 00:02:19,540 --> 00:02:31,720 Thank you, Marta. First of all, warmest congratulations on the translating COVID 19 project, which I think is an extremely timely initiative, 21 00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:36,370 and thank you also for giving me this opportunity to talk about the resonance 22 00:02:36,370 --> 00:02:42,760 of translating cultures as a theme with your own work and your own interests. 23 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:46,330 Just a bit of background on translating cultures. 24 00:02:46,330 --> 00:02:56,320 It was one of four strategic themes launched, as you said, by the Arts and Humanities Research Council back in 2012. 25 00:02:56,320 --> 00:03:02,680 What's important about translating cultures is that it developed organically so it wasn't commissioned. 26 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:10,330 Work on the projects that emerged were a community response to calls that we put out. 27 00:03:10,330 --> 00:03:19,360 And what fascinates me is that those 100 or so projects you've already mentioned that formed our portfolio provide a real snapshot of work 28 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:30,520 in the area of translation and interpreting and multilingualism that's emerged over the past decade or so of those hundred or so projects. 29 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:31,840 I think it's quite striking. 30 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:41,770 About a third of them were research networks, and that provides a real indication for me of the extent to which and you're seeing this, 31 00:03:41,770 --> 00:03:52,120 I know in your own work that there's a commitment to collaborating to building capacity around questions of translation, interpreting multilingualism. 32 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:58,510 Now, translating cultures led in particular to three large grants. 33 00:03:58,510 --> 00:04:03,820 I'll talk about a couple of them in a moment. They were grants of about two million pounds each. 34 00:04:03,820 --> 00:04:07,540 At the time, they were unprecedented in their scope and scale. 35 00:04:07,540 --> 00:04:12,700 They were the largest ones that the city had ever something else. 36 00:04:12,700 --> 00:04:15,160 And this leads back to your question. 37 00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:25,900 That was really important for translating cultures was the way in which the theme was a major input to the UK, our AI Global Challenges Research Fund. 38 00:04:25,900 --> 00:04:28,990 So the fund, about one and a half billion pounds, 39 00:04:28,990 --> 00:04:39,670 are supporting UK researchers to form partnerships with other researchers and with NGOs and organisations in the global south. 40 00:04:39,670 --> 00:04:46,330 What was exciting about that engagement with the CRF was it allowed us to show the role of language and 41 00:04:46,330 --> 00:04:53,320 translation in the formation of intercultural knowledge in a whole range of different partnerships with, 42 00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:57,370 as I've said, researchers in the global south. 43 00:04:57,370 --> 00:05:04,510 Particularly striking example we had, which I think again is relevant to your question, is the pioneering work done by Hillary Foote. 44 00:05:04,510 --> 00:05:10,750 It led from the University of Reading on listening zones of NGOs. 45 00:05:10,750 --> 00:05:17,050 Now, translating cultures was about a very broad concept of translation. 46 00:05:17,050 --> 00:05:26,200 It wasn't just about inter lingual transfer. We focussed on issues that that are really important to the questions that interest you. 47 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:34,300 So globalisation, transnational connexions. We also, though, and again, this is part of my my response to you. 48 00:05:34,300 --> 00:05:36,700 We focussed on domestic issues. 49 00:05:36,700 --> 00:05:45,580 We looked at the way in which the United Kingdom itself is a multilingual society with world languages, minorities, languages, 50 00:05:45,580 --> 00:05:55,980 community languages with a really complex linguistic ecology which brings with it all sorts of translation and interpreting needs. 51 00:05:55,980 --> 00:05:58,750 And one other thing I'd say, and I think again, 52 00:05:58,750 --> 00:06:08,140 as we look at the ways in which humanities social science scholars respond to the current pandemic, we were really keen on avoiding presenteeism. 53 00:06:08,140 --> 00:06:14,020 So a lot of our work was looking at the need to historic size, questions of translation, 54 00:06:14,020 --> 00:06:21,550 questions of interpreting questions of language and the key ideas that emerged were, 55 00:06:21,550 --> 00:06:31,540 Well, we need to challenge any sense that monolingual ism is an unmarked case in our research, in our policies, in our everyday life. 56 00:06:31,540 --> 00:06:37,990 We need to recognise and again, this is central to responses to the current health crisis, 57 00:06:37,990 --> 00:06:46,810 recognise the ways in which being human involves fundamentally negotiating linguistic diversity. 58 00:06:46,810 --> 00:06:51,880 That obviously leads to to a key point, and I think one will probably come back to and that's one of our jobs. 59 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:59,200 As scholars, researchers, teachers active in the area of language in translation is we need at every possible 60 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:06,520 turn to challenge linguistic indifference and to encourage sensitivity to language. 61 00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:09,850 And part of that as well is something I know you're interested in, 62 00:07:09,850 --> 00:07:18,300 and that's understanding the specific meanings of translation even when translation is deployed to. 63 00:07:18,300 --> 00:07:24,720 For Italy, and in a very striking example of that is obviously thinking about translational medicine. 64 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:32,910 What does that term translational tell us about the journey of knowledge from bench to bedside? 65 00:07:32,910 --> 00:07:40,290 And the final aspect that really emerged very strongly from translating cultures was the way in which we need to explore 66 00:07:40,290 --> 00:07:50,040 the relationship between translating and culture and to understand the close independent interdependency of those terms. 67 00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:53,610 Now, in terms of the second part of your question, 68 00:07:53,610 --> 00:08:02,520 and that's what we see in translating cultures in relation to the medical humanities in relation to medicine and translation. 69 00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:08,310 Well, I don't want to be disappointing, but there was less activity than than I anticipated. 70 00:08:08,310 --> 00:08:15,240 I think that's in part because some of that work that would interest you very much went to our sister theme, 71 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:19,470 science in Culture, with whom we worked quite closely. 72 00:08:19,470 --> 00:08:26,170 That said, though, concerns around health and well-being were central to a number of our core projects. 73 00:08:26,170 --> 00:08:32,910 So one of the the three large grants researching multilingual at the borders of language, the body and the state? 74 00:08:32,910 --> 00:08:37,800 Well, a key part of that was the work of Ross White previously in Glasgow, 75 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:43,500 is now a colleague of mine in Liverpool looking at questions of global mental health. 76 00:08:43,500 --> 00:08:48,810 Considering the ways in which Western medical knowledge is translated to context in 77 00:08:48,810 --> 00:08:54,510 the global south and the importance of factoring in to that translation process. 78 00:08:54,510 --> 00:09:00,150 Indigenous knowledge as an alternative, another one of our large grants, 79 00:09:00,150 --> 00:09:06,720 you might know it because it was focussed very much on on Italian culture trends nationalising modern languages. 80 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:10,590 They had a large project in Namibia. 81 00:09:10,590 --> 00:09:17,100 It was under the aegis of the Global Challenge Research Fund looking at the role of multilingualism and in particular, 82 00:09:17,100 --> 00:09:21,000 the use of local languages in health education. 83 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:27,450 And just to give you a third example, I'm not so much in the area of medical humanities, but in the area of disability studies. 84 00:09:27,450 --> 00:09:34,290 I'm Jemaine and Napier at Heriot-Watt led a fantastic project called Translating the Deaf Self, 85 00:09:34,290 --> 00:09:37,320 which looked at the way in which I'm hearing impaired people. 86 00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:44,550 Deaf people live literally in translation as they rely on interpretation for communication. 87 00:09:44,550 --> 00:09:54,810 And just one final issue I'd mention translating cultures also engaged with a constellation of other awards. 88 00:09:54,810 --> 00:10:00,030 And it's a number of those other awards which are probably of interest to you and the work you're doing. 89 00:10:00,030 --> 00:10:06,720 One particularly comes to mind it's it was based in Lancaster, and it was called translating chronic pain, 90 00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:11,820 and it was an incredible research network that brought together people living with chronic pain. 91 00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:15,270 Representatives of pain charities, medical practitioners, 92 00:10:15,270 --> 00:10:25,650 creative writers to think about the ways in which chronic pain can be can be turned into what those involved in that project called flesh illness, 93 00:10:25,650 --> 00:10:34,380 writing short, fragmentary episodic pieces of writing which capture that particular experience. 94 00:10:34,380 --> 00:10:47,460 Thank you so much for this very rich overview, which is really which highlights a series of very impressive projects all around the UK and abroad. 95 00:10:47,460 --> 00:10:51,810 And now my second question would like to explore a bit more. 96 00:10:51,810 --> 00:11:04,140 These are metaphorical sense of translation and reflect on the current situation as well by linking these reflection to our presence. 97 00:11:04,140 --> 00:11:08,250 So in our in one of your latest blog posts that you suggested, 98 00:11:08,250 --> 00:11:17,160 and I quote that to translate and to reflect on translation in our current context of confinement is to sense in 99 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:27,630 often unexpected ways the expansiveness and interconnectedness with which the practise is inevitably associated. 100 00:11:27,630 --> 00:11:31,410 I was wondering whether you would like to comment on this sentence, 101 00:11:31,410 --> 00:11:39,690 perhaps by helping us see which aspects or outcomes of translating cultures can be applied to the current health crisis. 102 00:11:39,690 --> 00:11:45,750 What we can learn from these practises of cultural translation. 103 00:11:45,750 --> 00:11:50,410 Yes, it's a it's a big question. And as I said, 104 00:11:50,410 --> 00:11:57,060 I'm really very grateful for the invitation to to reflect on this because I think the learning 105 00:11:57,060 --> 00:12:04,650 from translating cultures really is very relevant to the current challenges that we are facing. 106 00:12:04,650 --> 00:12:12,720 Translating cultures, as you said, was launched in 2012. It dealt with many geopolitical shifts that we hadn't anticipated. 107 00:12:12,720 --> 00:12:18,150 It dealt with the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the the. 108 00:12:18,150 --> 00:12:23,100 European Union, we had a lot of collaborations with colleagues in the United States, 109 00:12:23,100 --> 00:12:30,660 and so during the lifetime of the theme, we saw the impact of the election of the 45th president of the United States. 110 00:12:30,660 --> 00:12:34,800 We saw the the rise of popular nationalism in Europe and beyond. 111 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:40,540 We saw the 2015 refugee crisis or the the crisis of hospitality in Europe. 112 00:12:40,540 --> 00:12:53,100 But so although we didn't anticipate COVID 19, it's clear that our findings and the way in which we handled other major challenges can be factored in. 113 00:12:53,100 --> 00:12:59,670 The first point I'd make and and it's one we've mentioned already is the need for 114 00:12:59,670 --> 00:13:06,750 responses to the challenges of this magnitude magnitude to be linguistically sensitive. 115 00:13:06,750 --> 00:13:10,620 And that was a key message coming out of translating cultures. 116 00:13:10,620 --> 00:13:18,570 I think what we've seen over the past three or four months is an initial emphasis on STEM research. 117 00:13:18,570 --> 00:13:27,300 Understandably, in terms of the crisis, we're in a focus on some of the areas that you're familiar with aetiology, 118 00:13:27,300 --> 00:13:38,160 epidemiology, the development of vaccines. What excites me, though, is that we're now increasingly seeing this need for scholars in the arts, 119 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:43,650 humanities and social sciences to be part of a much more consolidated effort. 120 00:13:43,650 --> 00:13:44,880 People now are talking. 121 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:53,520 I don't know if you've seen this about shape, so social sciences, humanities and arts for people and the economy or people and the environment. 122 00:13:53,520 --> 00:14:01,740 So this sense that for us to handle the current pandemic and for us to imagine possible futures beyond the pandemic, 123 00:14:01,740 --> 00:14:03,870 the arts humanities are absolutely crucial. 124 00:14:03,870 --> 00:14:11,670 And I would say that I'm a major part of that is to do with reflecting on the linguistic and it's to do with reflecting on the cultural, 125 00:14:11,670 --> 00:14:15,300 and it's to do with thinking about about translation. 126 00:14:15,300 --> 00:14:25,410 So I think that the responses that we're seeing now and the responses that will emerge as this virus is is slowly brought under 127 00:14:25,410 --> 00:14:34,410 control need to be rooted in an understanding of language that needs to be rooted in understandings of of into cultural difference. 128 00:14:34,410 --> 00:14:45,450 As we seek to grapple with how this virus has had an impact within cultures and across cultures, often revealing great inequality. 129 00:14:45,450 --> 00:14:49,980 So that's the first thing I'd say that that emphasis on on linguistic sensitivity. 130 00:14:49,980 --> 00:14:59,340 The second aspect you've alluded to already, and that's having a clear understanding of what it means to evoke translation metaphorically that 131 00:14:59,340 --> 00:15:07,110 need to to unpack ways of talking about the virus in terms of the translation of of disease. 132 00:15:07,110 --> 00:15:14,070 And there's a lot of work to be done on that. And I know that's central to to your own current interests. 133 00:15:14,070 --> 00:15:20,310 But I go from that focus on the metaphorical back to the practical, and this is one of the things we did in translating cultures. 134 00:15:20,310 --> 00:15:28,980 There was this constant balance between practical understandings of translation and much more metaphorical understandings. 135 00:15:28,980 --> 00:15:35,340 I think what we've seen over the past few weeks is that there's a growing sense of the need to ensure 136 00:15:35,340 --> 00:15:44,610 that those at risk of this virus need absolutely to have access to information in their own language. 137 00:15:44,610 --> 00:15:54,120 And that awareness is a real challenge to assumptions about the monolingual nature of public information. 138 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:59,400 The monolingual nature of science, education and science education, 139 00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:05,040 which needs to be seen as translational, both metaphorically but also in this sense, quite literally, 140 00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:10,920 there is a need for public information to be disseminated in a wide range of community languages, 141 00:16:10,920 --> 00:16:14,850 not just in majority languages, and I'd add something here. 142 00:16:14,850 --> 00:16:20,190 I think that translation can also be seen as a way of engaging the public through other media. 143 00:16:20,190 --> 00:16:25,830 And I've always been interested in the work of the graphic medicine movement who have 144 00:16:25,830 --> 00:16:35,340 shown us that we can use other forms pictorial forms to translate scientific knowledge. 145 00:16:35,340 --> 00:16:42,180 And I suppose the final point I'd make there about this sort of ethical and social value of translation. 146 00:16:42,180 --> 00:16:46,680 We've seen this. This is where History Association even recently saw association is important. 147 00:16:46,680 --> 00:17:00,910 We've seen this in in in previous health crises, not least the 2009 swine flu pandemic, when there was an acknowledgement that. 148 00:17:00,910 --> 00:17:07,600 Knowledge about health circulates beyond English, it circulates in other languages, 149 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:14,800 and we really need to make sure that information in other languages is made available in in translation. 150 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:21,580 The final point I'd make, and to a certain extent, it's one you've alluded to already. 151 00:17:21,580 --> 00:17:25,330 And again, we're seeing this quite firmly at the moment. 152 00:17:25,330 --> 00:17:33,400 And that's the need in terms of addressing this current pandemic for transnational and comparative knowledge. 153 00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:40,180 Now, a lot of the concerns relating to epidemiology relating more generally to public health have underlined 154 00:17:40,180 --> 00:17:49,060 precisely the importance of comparative approaches that need to grasp how the virus has taken root, 155 00:17:49,060 --> 00:17:52,990 how it's spread, how it's being controlled, crucially elsewhere. 156 00:17:52,990 --> 00:18:02,890 And the only way we can have that knowledge, global knowledge is through detailed cultural understanding, which comes through linguistic knowledge. 157 00:18:02,890 --> 00:18:05,590 And I was when you asked that question, 158 00:18:05,590 --> 00:18:12,040 I thought of the in translation studies of that concept of trans editing and that need to understand the ways in 159 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:19,270 which we can maximise the flow of information and understand how that information is being filtered as it reaches us. 160 00:18:19,270 --> 00:18:28,120 So I think the learning from translating cultures in relation to to the current situation in which we find ourselves is extremely broad. 161 00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:36,820 Thank you very much for elucidating all these areas of exploration and concern at the same time. 162 00:18:36,820 --> 00:18:40,130 And I will my next question in a sense, 163 00:18:40,130 --> 00:18:52,310 moves from these public collective scenario to a more private one and enters into the reality or around holding the houses and lives at the moment. 164 00:18:52,310 --> 00:18:52,970 Yes, yes. 165 00:18:52,970 --> 00:19:05,380 So coronavirus disease is one that undermines not only our immune system, but also our common understanding of words such as isolation and community. 166 00:19:05,380 --> 00:19:13,060 We are the COVID 19 generation, the most connected and yet perhaps the loneliest of all. 167 00:19:13,060 --> 00:19:19,180 Mental Health Foundation has reported that, according to a survey of UK adults, 168 00:19:19,180 --> 00:19:27,580 which took place during lockdown at the beginning of April, one in four people said that they had feelings of loneliness. 169 00:19:27,580 --> 00:19:35,620 Well, in the same question was asked shortly before lockdown, just one in 10 people said that they had these feelings. 170 00:19:35,620 --> 00:19:41,820 So in a matter of weeks, the social distancing, social distancing lack. 171 00:19:41,820 --> 00:19:49,360 EE ee, ee ee ee. 172 00:19:49,360 --> 00:19:55,720 And in this age of confinement. Right. 173 00:19:55,720 --> 00:20:08,980 This, for me, is a key question because it allows us to think about the interdisciplinary response to the virus and the way in which the sort of work 174 00:20:08,980 --> 00:20:17,230 that was represented by translating cultures has a complementary and indeed supplementary role to play in the response to the virus. 175 00:20:17,230 --> 00:20:29,200 As you said, the current emphasis is understandably on on on medical control of the virus, the sorts of questions we're already asking in the arts, 176 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:35,650 humanities and social sciences to do with these other legacies legacies around, as you've said, 177 00:20:35,650 --> 00:20:44,710 mental health and wellbeing legacies around a sense of community legacies around what it means for a significant number of 178 00:20:44,710 --> 00:20:52,390 people across the world not to have been allowed to to mourn their dead in the ways that they would usually expect to do. 179 00:20:52,390 --> 00:21:01,840 This is a major impact which goes beyond the immediate health related and and physical. 180 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:11,530 The answer I'd like to give you really in terms of illustrating how thinking on this is emerging relates to precisely that sense of isolation 181 00:21:11,530 --> 00:21:22,720 and that sense of confinement and the way in which literature and culture have clearly played a major role in this age of confinement, 182 00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:34,360 particularly for our purposes, literature and culture in translation, which have continued to give people access to the world in in its diversity. 183 00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:44,050 I think what's become increasingly clear over the past few weeks is that literature, cinema, access to to museums, 184 00:21:44,050 --> 00:21:49,420 virtual access to museums have been really important tools in negotiating what 185 00:21:49,420 --> 00:21:55,150 you've just described those very negative effects of isolation and confinement. 186 00:21:55,150 --> 00:22:01,390 What we're seeing is a really strong endorsement of what a number of people have been aware of for a while. 187 00:22:01,390 --> 00:22:11,470 That is the potentially therapeutic value of culture and the therapeutic value of literature in translation of world cinema, 188 00:22:11,470 --> 00:22:20,200 which, as I've said, have played this real role in ensuring that many of us have been able to maintain international connexions. 189 00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:26,110 Many of us have been able to continue to to nurture forms of openness to to the wider world. 190 00:22:26,110 --> 00:22:34,630 So. So I agree with you, the translation has really had a major place already in this age of confinement. 191 00:22:34,630 --> 00:22:41,890 And I'm wondering whether we're actually learning quite a lot now about this emerging area of of of 192 00:22:41,890 --> 00:22:50,650 social prescribing and the way in which in terms of preparation for future episodes of this type, 193 00:22:50,650 --> 00:22:59,140 if we ought to face them in the future, which seems quite likely that we need to be thinking a much more collectively about the role of culture in our 194 00:22:59,140 --> 00:23:06,580 in our facing up to the sorts of challenge mental health and wellbeing challenges that you've talked about. 195 00:23:06,580 --> 00:23:11,810 One thing that really interests me and I know this interests you too, is the way in which certain texts have come. 196 00:23:11,810 --> 00:23:19,540 I've come to the fore. So Kamuela, past Kafka's different long metamorphosis, 197 00:23:19,540 --> 00:23:24,820 translated texts which have circulated widely and have really allowed a number of people 198 00:23:24,820 --> 00:23:31,660 to reflect on and understand better and come to terms with our current predicament. 199 00:23:31,660 --> 00:23:33,960 Thank you. Thank you, Charles. 200 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:45,370 And I would like just to reflect to be more on the word confinement because it is that specific word and experience it refers to means, 201 00:23:45,370 --> 00:23:54,730 of course, something very different to each one of us. It happens to be a different concept across different generations, social groups and countries. 202 00:23:54,730 --> 00:24:05,920 As you have rightly pointed out in your research blog hypotheses and I quote, we need to be wary of the ethics or metaphor arising confinement. 203 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:15,040 These and other modes of anxiety are nothing new. And I continue to quote to those rather the she's physically immobile by disability, 204 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:21,610 imprisonment or other forms of confinement reliant as a result on the imaginative 205 00:24:21,610 --> 00:24:29,350 possibilities or micro S. in order to reach out or transcend the everyday end quote. 206 00:24:29,350 --> 00:24:41,350 So do you think that translation, at least in some of its forms, can offer support or care to the vulnerable populations in the current circumstances? 207 00:24:41,350 --> 00:24:46,000 Yeah, thank you for quoting from that. That blog post. 208 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,170 It was a piece like the British comparative literature. 209 00:24:48,170 --> 00:24:55,280 Her association invited me to write that piece on on on comparative literature in an age of confinement, 210 00:24:55,280 --> 00:25:02,450 and I was very interested in the place of travel writing as a supplementary form to those we've already discussed 211 00:25:02,450 --> 00:25:08,510 and the ways in which travel writing and indeed travel documentaries as well seem to be doing two things. 212 00:25:08,510 --> 00:25:13,520 They seem to be allowing various forms of vicarious travel, 213 00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:19,520 but they also seem to be encouraging people to to rethink their relationship to their direct surroundings 214 00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:25,520 and to see how their direct surroundings can be a place of microbe selection of looking at detail, 215 00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:34,910 but also of introspection and thinking about the ways in which we interrelate individually to those surroundings. 216 00:25:34,910 --> 00:25:49,430 That said, as you've noted there, I've always been very wary of metaphor arising idealising romanticising confinement. 217 00:25:49,430 --> 00:26:02,420 And that's why I very much welcome your question because clearly the confinement that many of us are living through now is highly differential. 218 00:26:02,420 --> 00:26:08,360 The confinement we're living through reveals massive inequalities within our own society, 219 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:13,070 as well as between our own society and those elsewhere in the world. 220 00:26:13,070 --> 00:26:22,520 Also, I think it's important when we're talking about confinement to pick up on other forms of confinement and and immobility like disability, 221 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:36,660 like imprisonment, like confinement in refugee camps, which clearly call into question any sense of of romanticising where we find ourselves. 222 00:26:36,660 --> 00:26:43,670 So I was interested in that blog post in in what some people have called sort of claustrophobic travel. 223 00:26:43,670 --> 00:26:53,210 So there's this idea that although we are stuck in one place, we can still explore the world from that place. 224 00:26:53,210 --> 00:26:55,940 My point was, let's be careful here. 225 00:26:55,940 --> 00:27:07,490 There's nothing new about that for and for those who are rendered physically immobile by some of the various conditions that I've described. 226 00:27:07,490 --> 00:27:14,900 I've, you know, another part of my work we haven't talked about. I've worked a lot on on the penal exoticism and penal heritage, 227 00:27:14,900 --> 00:27:23,000 and I've always been worried about the exoticism of exoticism of imprisonment as well in my work on pedestrian travel writing. 228 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:33,700 I've always been aware that that sort of romanticism of pedestrian ism, idealises and able bodied ness in ways that aren't obviously apparent. 229 00:27:33,700 --> 00:27:41,300 So that's why I think we need to be wary about that sort of metaphor ization of confinement. 230 00:27:41,300 --> 00:27:45,290 That said, and this brings it back to your question. I've already alluded, I think, 231 00:27:45,290 --> 00:27:59,090 to the practical potential of translation in protecting bringing support to vulnerable populations for reasons we don't understand. 232 00:27:59,090 --> 00:28:05,600 The impact of COVID 19 on black and minority ethnic populations seems to be disproportionate. 233 00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:11,870 And as I've said already, that there is this pressing need to ensure equality of access to information, 234 00:28:11,870 --> 00:28:17,840 which depends on the high standards of translation. That's a practical understanding of the way in which translation operates now. 235 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:23,420 But to think more metaphorically and this is where I think I'll I'll conclude today. 236 00:28:23,420 --> 00:28:29,690 Translation for me has always been a way at looking at the margins. 237 00:28:29,690 --> 00:28:36,960 It's always been a way of bringing marginalised voices, often silence voices onto to the foreground. 238 00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:45,680 So what I'd like to finish with is this idea of translation being a means of bridging understanding between groups. 239 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,070 Translation as a way of articulating the fears. 240 00:28:49,070 --> 00:28:58,820 The frustrations of the sorts of groups who live in confinement on a regular basis that you've already talked about. 241 00:28:58,820 --> 00:29:01,040 And it's that sort of articulation of fears, 242 00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:09,390 frustrations that leads us again to thinking about how translation can challenge the assumptions of the majority. 243 00:29:09,390 --> 00:29:15,180 Thank you very much. Now this is indeed an illuminating, 244 00:29:15,180 --> 00:29:21,090 far reaching and very important contribution because he shows in a sense that the 245 00:29:21,090 --> 00:29:27,780 expansive nature to record your word for translation and yet at the same time, 246 00:29:27,780 --> 00:29:35,460 the capacity of translation to reach those margins that would remain untouched otherwise. 247 00:29:35,460 --> 00:29:43,170 So thank you so much for this and thank you for suggesting ways as well and underlines the ways in which 248 00:29:43,170 --> 00:29:50,340 is why the humanities can be part of the pandemic response by means of pioneering translational work, 249 00:29:50,340 --> 00:29:58,080 like the work that you have been conducting together with your colleagues and within the translating culture theme. 250 00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:03,870 And thank you also for explaining with clarity and to see how questions of contact 251 00:30:03,870 --> 00:30:09,120 and cultural diversity can overlap with questions of the illness and confinement. 252 00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:15,190 At a time when the distinction between the closer the distance has somehow given way to a fluid, 253 00:30:15,190 --> 00:30:23,400 the idea of space interaction and relation to its message would like to thank you also for completing and expanding the 254 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:31,320 discussion I had with Nicola Gardini in the first episode of the series when we reflected on the new language of COVID 19. 255 00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:39,660 Today, we knew we had an opportunity to reflect that the new spaces caused by COVID and the new concept concepts 256 00:30:39,660 --> 00:30:47,400 of relationship that are these post-pandemic world is asking us to accommodate in our own lives. 257 00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:53,760 So finally, as always, I also would like to thank each one of you for watching this video, 258 00:30:53,760 --> 00:31:03,420 which we hope will help us find a safe, orderly, safe zone, approximately cross-cultural encounter and translation. 259 00:31:03,420 --> 00:31:05,310 Thank you very much indeed. 260 00:31:05,310 --> 00:31:14,070 Marta, thank you for the opportunity to discuss all these, these key issues, and I wish you well for the continuation of the project. 261 00:31:14,070 --> 00:31:16,992 Thank you very much.