ALTA roundtable on Collaborative Translations (18 October 2020)

On 18 October 2020, team members Rosa Mucignat and Cristina Viti, together with Kathryn Woods, presented an exciting collaborative translations project, involving KCL students, at the 43th annual conference of the American Literary Translators Society.

What is equality? Is universal happiness an achievable political goal? This roundtable will reflect on a collaborative translation project involving students and researchers at King's College London. This project translated The Manifesto of Equals (1796), a French revolutionary text by Sylvain Maréchal calling for a complete overthrown of the status quo in the name of radical egalitarianism. We will present our responses to the challenges of translating radical revolutionary language into English and into the present, reactivating the subversive potential of the original French words and their fiery rhetoric. Our collaborative practice seeks ways to re-enact the plural, collective nature of revolutionary language, moving beyond the figure of the lone author/translator.

The recording of our panel discussion at ALTA43 is now live and open to the public. Watch it here