Human Translators in Focus: Exploring the Human Aspects of Japanese Literary Translation through a Sociological Lens
Date: Date: 22 – 24 October 2025 - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Venue: Hybrid
Programme Timetable: Full programme can be found here
This conference showcases research on the human aspects of Japanese literary translation. It contributes to the development of Japanese Translation Studies and raises the visibility of the Japanese context within Translation Studies.The event is partially funded by the Japan Foundation and co-organized by TCAS and TCLCT.
Registration: https://buytickets.at/tclct/1483828
Presentations -Guest Speakers:
• No Longer Ningen? Translator Transformation between the Japanese and Anglo Literary Spheres
What happens when a translator becomes the protagonist?
Prof. David Karashima (Waseda University) offers an early look at his Kafka-inspired novella about literary translators living in a glass museum—set to appear in Japanese in 2025 and English (2026/27). Blending readings, reflections on self-translation, and real-world case studies, this talk explores the strange, creative spaces where writing and translation converge.
• Translating Okinawa: The Role of Visual and Material Translation in Interpreting Art, Gender, and Cultural Narratives
How do artists “translate” Okinawa’s postwar experience for the world?
Dr Eriko Tomizawa-Kay (University of East Anglia) explores how Okinawan creators—from internationally acclaimed Yūken Teruya to pioneering women painters like Nakajima Isoko and Kyan Chie—use art, popular culture, and tradition to reframe memory, identity, and cultural negotiation beyond militarization.
• Translation Studies as Cultural History: Some Observations from an Itinerant Translator-Scholar
What can translators and their work reveal about culture beyond national borders?
Prof. Jeffrey Angles (Western Michigan University) revisits Koyano Atsushi’s provocative critique of translation studies, showing how translators’ lives and translations themselves can reshape literary history and illuminate the cross-cultural exchanges that define our global age.