BELTRANS

Intra-Belgian literary translations since 1970

Scope of this project

The project Intra-Belgian literary translations since 1970 (BELTRANS) studies the untold history of literary translation flows in Belgium between French and Dutch in the period 1970-2020.

BELTRANS examines the link between intra-Belgian cultural transfers and the mutual knowledge and perception of each other’s culture in a period of increasing regionalisation of the state, which caused a growing distance between Belgium’s linguistic and cultural communities.

Phases of the project

  • Creating FAIR data on contemporary Belgian authors and their works in French and Dutch translation in order to prepare and establish the corpus
  • Mapping and quantitative analysis of intra-Belgian literary translation flows
  • Analysing the roles of actors, institutions and organisations that were involved
  • Studying the reception of the translated texts
  • Contextualising the literary transfers through translation with regard to Belgian cultural and societal evolutions
  • Developing policy guidelines in order to valorise Belgian authors and their works, within Belgium and abroad
  • Valorisation, dissemination and exploitation of the research results for a scientific, professional and cultural public

Partners

The BELTRANS project is financed by BELSPO as part of the BRAIN.be 2.0 programme, and results from the cooperation between:

Duration

2021 – 2025 (4 years)

Follow-up committee

  • Diana Roig Sanz (ICREA Research Professor and coordinator of Global Literary Studies Research Group)
  • Laura Fólica (Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Arts and Humanities and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
  • Johanna Ferket (Letterenhuis Antwerp)

Contacts

KBR

KU Leuven

UCLouvain