Between Words and Sounds

This volume’s aim is to shed new light on cultural misunderstanding, examining both the obstacles and outcomes it can entail. In the field of literary and song translation in particular, cultural misunderstanding can engender compound and wide-ranging effects. Occurrences can lead to ambiguity, the distortion of source texts or the spread of false or potentially harmful cultural images. Still, these misunderstandings can also be fruitful, dynamic phenomena with highly creative potential. Following an interdisciplinary approach, the volume’s chapters navigate thorny yet fertile instances of cultural misunderstanding, including song translation for Polish national television, the “exportation” of anglophone pop songs to Germany and France, Bob Dylan in French, Spanish, or Portuguese, Rimbaud’s poems translated into Norwegian, American Broadway musicals staged in Chinese, or the translation of Iranian novels into French. The volume’s contributors approach their subject matter from different academic backgrounds in music, literature, translation studies and linguistics.



Meghann Cassidy is Assistant Professor of English at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. A background in contemporary philosophy and contemporary uses of classical thought sparked her keen interest in acts of interpretation, translation, and misunderstanding. Her current work centers on language, make-believe and political action specifically in Afro-Caribbean, feminist, and materialist poetry and philosophy.

Stephanie Schwerter is Professor of Anglophone Literature and Translation Studies at the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France. Previously, she taught at the University of Ulster and at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Her current research interest lies in the translation and circulation of migration literature.



Following an interdisciplinary approach, the volume’s chapters navigate thorny yet fertile instances of cultural misunderstanding.



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