TRANSLATING ANARCHISM

How should we understand anarchism and border abolition, in theory and practice? 

What are some of the different ways in which those concepts have been articulated?

How do they vary by community, culture, and language?

What has been lost in translation in anarchist and abolitionist writings (both literally - not translated or untranslatable - and conceptually - what context or ideas are getting lost?)

What are some case studies of anarchist mobilisations across languages that we can refer to, learn from, and translate?

Speakers:

Rosa Mucignat is Reader in Comparative Literature at King's College London. Rosa co-edits Comparative Critical Studies, the journal of the British Comparative Literature Association. She has been part of the Leverhulme International Network grant "Landascapes of Realism" (2016-2019) and the AHRC-funded project "Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture Between Britain, France and Italy, 1789-1815" (2019-2023), which sought to uncover the mobility of revolutionary language and the role of translators as political actors.

Dr Gökhan Fırat is a translator, editor, and researcher in translation studies. He has translated and published works by Noam Chomsky and other political thinkers into Turkish, and worked as a book translator and editor in publishing before completing a PhD in the UK on the political economy of translation. His research examines the working conditions of translators in the platform economy and the possibilities of cooperative alternatives. He is also actively involved in political work on the Kurdish struggle, translating the ideas and paradigms of the Kurdish freedom movement into the UK context. At this event, he will speak on anarchist translation in Turkey and Kurdistan, and how translation movements have shaped radical political thought in the region, particularly in light of the Rojava Revolution.

Dr Kathryn Medien is a Lecturer in Sociology based in the Sociology Department at the Open University. Her research interests are in social and political theory, particularly anti-colonial thought and feminist theory. Before joining the Open University in 2020, I worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. I have also held research fellowships in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University and at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick. She is a co-author of Border Abolition Now (2024).