UVic-UCC organises an international symposium focusing on the Franco regime's censorship of literature written or translated by women

The III International Symposium on Women Translators, Translated Women, with the title "Women, translation and censorship. Balance and perspectives" will take place on Friday 8 November, at the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), which will become a forum for debate on current studies and future lines of research on censorship in the translation of literature written or translated by women. 

As part of the Twentieth Translation Seminar, organised by the Gender Studies: Translation, Literature, History and Communication (GETLIHC) research group at UVic-UCC, the event will take place in Catalan, Spanish and English throughout the day in the University's Segimon Serrallonga Hall (Masia Torre dels Frares, c. Perot Rocaguinarda, 17, Vic). Twelve researchers from Spanish and Italian universities, most of whom are experts in the study of the Franco regime's censorship in translation, will be taking part as speakers.

The symposium, which is the first of its kind to be held at a Catalan university, "focuses primarily on examining how the Franco regime monitored, manipulated, conditioned and censored the production and importation of literature written and translated by women for almost forty years," says Pilar Godayol, a member of the event's Organising Committee. Likewise, Teresa Julio, who is also a member of the Committee, highlights the fact that "the most important voices from the world of women, translation and censorship, from both other countries and here in Spain, will be heard at the event," and adds that "their expertise makes them essential references for tradition, modernity and innovation in the field of censorship applied to translators and their works."

Opening and closing lectures and ten presentations

Enric Gallén, of Pompeu Fabra University, will deliver the symposium's opening lecture, with the title "Translated playwrights and the search for one's own space," while the closing lecture, delivered in English, will be about censorship and gender among journalists, writers and translators in Southern Italy from the beginning of the twentieth century to the period after the Second World War. The lecture will be given by Annarita Taronna, from the University of Bari, in Italy.

The opening lecture will be followed by a total of ten presentations. Those in the morning include a talk by Montserrat Bacardí from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), entitled "Anna Murià and Teresa Pàmies, parallel translations", and "Keys to forgetting. Female translators, exile in publishing, and publishing censorship by the Franco regime", by Fernando Larraz, from the University of Alcalá. Other presentations include "Carme Serrallonga, translations and censorship", by Jordi Jané-Lligé, from the UAB, and "Isabel Oyarzábal: political commitment, translation and writing", by Teresa Julio, from UVic-UCC. Rounding off the morning session, Pilar Godayol, also from UVic-UCC, will present "Marxist feminism censored in the 1970s", and Gora Zaragoza, from the University of Valencia, will discuss "Angela Davis in the Iberian Peninsula: translations and political censorship."

The afternoon session will open with "Women censors in the second Francoism: the case of translated French literature", with Marian Panchón, from the University of Granada, which will be followed by "Censorship and reception of children's literature published by Edicions 62 (1962-1972)", by Mireia Canals, from the UVic - UCC. The final presentations, just before the closing lecture, will be given by Cristina Gómez-Castro, of the University of León, on "Women writers of best-selling fiction: the translation and censorship of worldwide blockbusters", and Teresa Iribarren, from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, on "Censorship or boycott? Controversies in the translation of female authors."

Prior research and previous editions of the symposium

The conference, which can also be followed online, is open to both specialists in the field and members of the general public interested in literature written by women, the censorship undertaken by the Franco regime, and translation. Registration is free of charge, and can be completed in person on the day of the Symposium. 

This congress is also a consolidation of the research on censorship and translation carried out for ten years by the researchers Mireia Canals, Pilar Godayol, Teresa Julio, Caterina Riba and Carme Sanmartí, while working on the "Gender and Translation" line within the GETLIHC. This research has been the result of the GETLIHC's collaboration with the Contemporary Catalan Translation Study Group (GETCC) at the UAB, which has shared two coordinated ministerial and R+D+i projects related to the topic, and the synergies created within the framework of the RED-EDIT Network of Excellence with other universities in Spain and one in Italy, coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council.

The symposium is being organised in collaboration with the Faculty of Education, Translation, Sports and Psychology at UVic-UCC and the GETCC at the UAB, and is supported by the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at UVic-UCC, and the PEN Català literary association. 
This is the third time the International Symposium on Women Translators, Translated Women has been held. The second event, which took place on 5 May, 2017, focused on "Jane Austen, two hundred years on", and the first, which took place on 9 May, 2013, looked at "Reception of Virginia Woolf in Catalonia."