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Professor Loredana Polezzi

Professor Loredana Polezzi

Professor in Translation Studies

School of Modern Languages

Email
polezzil@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 (0)29 2068 8735
Campuses
2.02, 66a Park Place, Cathays, Cardiff, CF10 3AS

Overview

My main research interests are in translation studies, comparative literature, and the history of travel and migration. My recent work focuses on how geographical and social mobilities are connected to the theories and practices of translation and self-translation. With Rita Wilson, I am co-editor of The Translator, a leading international journal in Translation Studies. I am also a co-investigator in the research project ‘Transnationalizing Modern Languages’, funded by the AHRC’s Translating Cultures scheme, as well as a founding member of the ‘Cultural Literacy in Europe’ network.

Biography

I studied Modern Languages at the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari, and then at the University of Siena, where I obtained a degree in English, French and Spanish. I later completed an MA in Italian Studies (Applied Linguistics) and a PhD in Translation Studies at the University of Warwick.

I taught at the University of Birmingham, before returning to Warwick, where I was a member of the Department of Italian. I served as Director of the Humanities Research Centre (1999-2000 and 2001-2002) and Head of Italian (2003 and 2007). Between December 2010 and September 2015 I was Academic Director of the Warwick Venice Centre and from 2011 to 2015 I also took up the role of founding Academic Lead for a university-wide research programme on 'Connecting Cultures'. In 2013 I was appointed Monash-Warwick Associate Professor in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia).

I moved to Cardiff in October 2015 to take up the Professorship of Translation Studies in the School of Modern Languages.

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Teaching

I teach translation history and theory across a range of MA modules including ‘Translation and Cultures’ and ‘Translation as Creative Practice’. I also supervise research projects at MA and PhD level.

I have extensive experience of supervision and co-supervision at MA and PhD level in the areas of translation studies, migration, travel writing, contemporary Italian culture, as well as language teaching and learning.

I am particularly interested in inter- and multi-disciplinary projects connecting translation and migration, translation and multilingualism, translation and intercultural communication.

I have acted as external examiner at undergraduate, MA and doctoral level for a range of UK and international institutions and also as a consultant for the Open University’s Modern Languages programme.

My research interests revolve around the question of how culture is produced, circulated and consumed across languages and national borders. I am particularly interested in the way in which phenomena such as translation, migration and plurilingualism contribute to the vitality of cultures – but also how language barriers, or the assumption of linguistic homogeneity, affect the visibility and status of cultural production as well as cultural producers.

My recent work focuses on two connected themes: colonial and post-colonial writing linking Italy with the history of African cultures, and the intersection between translingual writing and self-translation. In both cases, I examine the complex itineraries followed by migrant texts, objects and people, as well as the way in which these multiple trajectories form transnational memory networks.

I am currently co-investigator in the project 'Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Mobility, Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures' which was awarded 1.9 million by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council under its ‘Translating Cultures’ programme. The project examines Italian communities established in the UK, the US, Australia, South America, and Africa as well as the migrant communities of contemporary Italy, focusing on the wide range of cultural production and translation strategies they have adopted.