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Prof Kathryn Batchelor
Professor in Translation Studies
SELCS
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
- Joined UCL
- 1st Jan 2019
Research summary
My research interests lie in the areas of translation theory, literary translation, translation and history, philosophical translation, translation and power, and translation in or involving Africa. I am the author of three books, Translation and Paratexts (2018), Decolonizing Translation: Francophone African Novels in English Translation (2009/2014), and Analyse de texts san (parler de Toma) (2003). I have co-edited four volumes of essays: Translating Thought/Traduire la pensée (special issue of Nottingham French Studies 49.2, 2010), Intimate Enemies: Translation in Francophone Contexts (2013), Translating Frantz Fanon across Continents and Languages (2017), and China-Africa Relations: Building Images through Cultural Cooperation. Media Representation and Communication (2017). I have also published in a variety of journals, edited volumes and handbooks, and have contributed to major reference works such as the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies (3rd edition), and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Translation Studies (2014).
I was principal investigator for the AHRC project, Building Images (2014-16) and for the British Academy Small Research Grant, Translating Frantz Fanon (2014). I was a Wellcome Prime Scholar at the University of Nottingham from 2017-18, collaborating with colleagues at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on a multilingual healthcare communication project.
I am mentor to two postdoctoral fellows at UCL, both working on connections between translation and memory:
Dr Tzu-yu Lin, The Voices of Translators - Re-writing Colonial Cultural Memory in Japanophone Taiwanese Literature (British Academy 2016-2021)
Dr Akkad Alhussein, Translation and Memory: Strategies of Remembering and Forgetting in Contemporary Arab Migrant Literature (Marie Curie 2021-2023)
I serve on the advisory boards of a number of journals and prizes, and am a member of the IMLR (Institute of Modern Languages Research) Advisory Council.
Teaching summary
I convene MA modules Translation Theory and Translating Literary Culture, and teach on the MA module Translation in History and on the BA module Translation and Intercultural Communication. I supervise MA and PhD students across a broad spectrum of translation-related areas, including poetry translation, news translation, theatre translation, and translation theory.