Cambridge University Press Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle Ages: Translating Cultures: 54 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 54)

This collection of original essays is dedicated to exploring the intersections between medieval and postcolonial studies. Ranging across a variety of academic disciplines, from art history to cartography, and from Anglo-Saxon to Hispanic studies, this volume highlights the connections between medieval and postcolonial studies through the exploration of a theme common to both areas of study: translation as a mechanism of and metaphor for cultures in contact, confrontation and competition. Drawing upon the widespread medieval trope of the translation of empire and culture, this collection engages the concept of translation from its most narrow, lexicographic sense, to the broader applications of its literal meaning, to carry across. It carries the multilingual, multicultural realities of medieval studies to postcolonial analyses of the coercive and subversive powers of cultural translation, offering a set of case studies of translation as the transfer of language, culture and power. Review Review of the hardback: 'The application of postcolonial theory to the study of medieval texts has developed into something of a boom industry over the past five years, and this collection adds greatly to the case for the continued relevance of this approach … The unified nature of this collection is one of its chief virtues, constituting an extended interrogation of the role of translation, in the many senses of the term.' Modern Philology Book Description A collection of original essays exploring the intersections between medieval and postcolonial studies. About the Author Ananya Jahanara Kabir is Lecturer in English at Leeds University.Deanne Williams is Assistant Professor of English at York University, Toronto.