Translation Day(s) Oct 2025

Writers and academics across the School of Arts, English and Languages share an interest in literary translation - not least our colleagues in the Centre for Translation and Interpreting. The events below aim to reflect some of those shared interests and open up interdisciplinary dialogue in our School, and share the brilliant research of our colleagues with audiences outside the University.

We hope that audiences will be able to stay for the full programme of events across Friday and Saturday. Registrations for each day will help us prepare refreshments and welcome packs.

Translation Day Schedule:

FRI 17 OCT

9.30am - Welcome

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10.00-10.45am
Mihaela Buruiană (Literature Ireland, Translator-in-Residence 2025) in conversation with Dr Shannon Kuta Kelly (Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow 2025)

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11.00am-12.00pm
Postgraduate Research Panel – chaired by Prof Piotr Blumczynski

Joy McClean - Translating the Past for Future Generations: A Translational Analysis of the Ulster Museum’s ‘Troubles and Beyond’ Exhibition

Audrey Kelly - Caring in translation: the role of embodied identity, experiential knowledge, and ethics of care in the translation of contemporary Chinese literature

Thekra Almaini - Audiovisual Translation and Pedagogy: TED Videos as a Cross-Cultural Learning Tool

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12.15-1.15pm
Translating Dead Authors: Ling Shuhua and the Bloomsbury Connection
Nicky Harman (freelance literary translator, and trustee of Paper-Republic.org)
introduced by Audrey Kelly (Queen’s University, Belfast)

Nicky Harman translates from Chinese, focusing on contemporary fiction for adults and children, literary non-fiction, and occasionally poetry, by a wide variety of authors. She is a trustee of Paper-Republic.org, the charity promoting Chinese literature in translation. She writes blogs, gives talks and lectures, mentors new translators, teaches summer schools, and judges translation competitions.

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1.45-2.00pm
Beowulf: BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime archive episode (drop-in / during lunch break)
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2.15-3.30pm
Postgraduate Research Panel – chaired by Dr Stephen Sexton

Viviana Fiorentino - Translation as metaphor of living: encounters between Plath and Rosselli

Cian Dunne - Writing under Constraint: Mirroring the Poetic Process in the English-Russian translation of Tara Bergin’s Savage Tales

Naomi McKeown - The Ethics of Translating Medieval Irish Literature: Seamus Heaney’s Manuscript Drafts of Sweeney Astray, and Buile Shuibhne

Stephen de Búrca - ‘…at two removes from the original impulse’: Derek Mahon and translation as adaptation

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3.45-4.45pm
Postdoctorate Panel – chaired by Dr Patricia Malone (Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s Collections)

Dr Kath Stevenson (Queen’s University Special Collections)
Examining’ Heaney’s Beowulf

Dr Milena Williamson (Queen’s University, Belfast)
Old English Charms Remixed

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5.00-6.00pm
Translation Day Drinks Reception – open to all participants and attendees

SAT 18 OCT

12.00-1.00pm, Wolfson Lecture Theatre, introduced by the SHC Archive Team
Fretwork: On Translating Beowulf: Seamus Heaney’s 1998 lecture from the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard
Presented with kind permission of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, and the Estate of Seamus Heaney.
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1.00-3.00pm, Wolfson Lecture Theatre
It Goes As Follies: special translation-edition of our monthly traditional music event with guest musicians Aoibheann Devlin and Déaglán Ó Doibhlin

THROUGHOUT

Book at Breakfast: Beowulf
Mon 13 Oct – Fri 24 Oct (Mon-Fri every morning at 10.00-10.15am, except Fri 17 Oct when it will play during Translation Day lunch break)
Wolfson Lecture Theatre
Join us to listen to the book at breakfast, where we’ll play an episode of Heaney’s translation each morning at 10.00am. Let the epic come to life and awaken your imagination!

Audio archive courtesy of the BBC.