Translation and History

In recent years, serious attention has been directed to the fruitful relation between translation studies and historical research. In this interdisciplinary junction, the differences between competing theories of translation are discussed based on their historical (or ahistorical) assumptions. We also explore the diverse ways in which translation was used as a means for shaping the historical memory of societies and nations; the ways in which past can teach us about the changing particularities of translation; and how translation phenomena may inform us about historically significant moments and events. Scholars in our department study translation to shed new light on the Jewish-Christian relationship throughout the ages; ideologies of national languages; tensions in homeland-diaspora relations; tensions between different historical layers of the same language; Holocaust memory; and migration in its cultural contexts, among other issues.