10 November 2026
A Masochist's Guide to Translating Boris Vian, Terry Bradford (University of Leeds)

This presentation seeks to illustrate how Boris Vian's novels resist machine translation (utterly). A raft of translation challenges will be discussed through examples of solutions that I came up with in the process of translating Trouble dans les andains (Trouble in the Swaths) and Vercoquin et le plancton (Vercoquin and the Plankton), both published by Wakefield Press (US: CA, MA). His polyphonic and idiosyncratic punning, neologisms, specialist terminology, characters' names, intertexts, cultural references, and autobiographical details cannot be translated with any degree of success without research and knowledge of his life and œuvre. Only thus buoyed can one begin to get creative in order to overcome challenges arising in the translation of his surreal, logic-defying, and fiendishly multi-layered work. Reference will be made to Stanley Chapman's translation of Vian's L'Ecume des jours (Froth on the Daydream) in order to compare and discuss the advantages and pitfalls of a differently creative approach, namely "domestication".

Terry Bradford teaches French, translation, and interpreting at the University of Leeds in the north of England. Wakefield Press (US) and Liverpool University Press (GB) have published his translations of works by Boris Vian, Léon-Paul Fargue, Clément Pansaers, & Clémentine Mélois. Keruanserai Press (US) are publishing his translation Outside, the Storm (Clémentine Mélois), and Snuggly Books (US) are set to publish two tomes of his translations of short stories by André de Lorde (the "Prince of Terror" of French Literature). He is a regular contributor – of short translations, commentaries, and creative pseudotranslations – to US literary journal Typo: The International Journal of Prototypes, edited by Norman Conquest.

The visit of Terry Bradford is made possible thanks to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Events Fund.

24 November 2026
Performing Veronica: Image, Ritual, and Sacred Authority in Early Modern Spain, Professor Mary B. Quinn (University of New Mexico)

The Veronica occupies an unusual place in the history of Christian images. Said to preserve the face of Christ through direct contact rather than artistic creation, it could be understood simultaneously as image, icon, relic, and acheiropoietic object. Yet in the early modern period, neither the status of the image nor the tradition surrounding it was fully settled. This talk explores that instability in early modern Spain, arguing that the Veronica was not simply an object to be viewed or venerated, but one whose meaning and authority were continually produced via acts of participation and performance. Through theatrical spectatorship, artistic representation, ritual, and local devotional practice, viewers and communities participated in performing the Veronica into being. Examining works by Juan del Encina and Francisco de Zurbarán alongside the cult of the Santa Faz in Alicante, I show how these practices helped transform an unstable image tradition into an authoritative sacred object. 

Mary Quinn is Professor of Spanish at the University of New Mexico, where she specializes in the literature and culture of early modern Spain. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach, moving across literature, music, visual culture, performance, and sensory history. She has authored three books: Don Quixote: Wandering, Misreading, and the Creation of the Modern Novel (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press); Sense and Spectacle in the Age of Philip IV: Performing Empire in Word, Music, and Image (Routledge, 2024); and The Moor and the Novel: Narrating Absence in Early Modern Spain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).