MHS Public Lecture: Translation and History: The Case of Women Translators in Malta

The Malta Historical Society invites you to a public lecture

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗮

𝗯𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳. 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼

The event will be held on Wednesday 19th April 2023, at 7pm

Din L-Art Helwa, 133 Melita Street, Valletta.

The event will be followed by Drinks.

The lecture is being held in collaboration with Din l-Art Ħelwa

The event is kindly sponsored by The Alfred Mizzi Foundation

𝗦𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗽𝘀𝗶𝘀

Translation is typically an invisible action which tends to be taken for granted in the reading of texts originally written in other languages. It is arguably – and it shall be argued – a protagonist in the transmission of all kinds of knowledge through time and space. The history of ideas and of civilizations changes perspective when you look at it from a translation-centred point of view.

From a broad acknowledgment of the role of translation to a very narrow focus on the presence, or absence, of women translators in Malta – we will see what translation as a key to the past reveals.

Although it was clear at the outset that Malta with its strong patriarchal culture, dominated by the Catholic Church, and with low levels of literacy for much of the population over the centuries, was unlikely to yield many examples of women translators, it nevertheless pieces together aspects of Women’s History – the absence of women sometimes speaking volumes. Of course, there were not many, but there were some – and these women’s names and the texts they translated will be mentioned. Hopefully, more will be unearthed and added over time.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿

A graduate of Philosophy, Linguistics and English Literature from the University of Malta, Clare Vassallo pursued her interest in the interface of these three areas at the University of Bologna, Italy where she was awarded a scholarship to obtain her PhD in Semiotics under the tutorship of Prof. Umberto Eco in 1996. The emphasis of her research was in the field of Semiotics as literary and cultural theory and as theory of knowledge.

Between 2008 and 2010, she served as Chairman of the Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) for national television and radio (and the Eurovision Song Contest), where she had previously served as a member of the Board of Directors from 2000 to 2003, and from 2007 to 2008.

She is Full Professor of Semiotics and Translation Studies in the Department of Translation Studies at the University of Malta. She teaches postgraduate courses in Translation History and Contemporary Theory; Pragmatics, Semantics and Semiotics; and Literary Translation, among others. She has translated Pierre Mejlak, Trevor Zahra, Joe Friggieri, Antoinette Borg, Lara Calleja, Walid Nabhan, Norbert Bugeja and the national poet, Dun Karm Psaila from Maltese to English. She has also published a number of academic papers internationally.