Reform in Translation: the travel of peoples, languages & ideas of selfhood

Translation historian of South Asia, Dr Hephzibah Israel, will present on how ideas on reform underpinned many cultural exchanges between Scotland and British India in the 19th and early 20th centuries. She will link setting up of schools by Scottish educationists in the ‘black towns’ of key Indian cities, such as Bombay and Madras, to ‘re-form’ young natives with the wider circulation of languages, texts and objects through their writings.

Hephzibah Israel is Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies, University of Edinburgh. Her research interests lie in the intersections between translation, religion, literature, history, and postcolonial studies. She authored Religious Transactions in Colonial South India: Language, Translation and the Making of Protestant Identity (2011) and has edited the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Religion (2023). Apart from academic publications, more recently, she has written multilingual poetry in Tamil, Hindi and English on translation, borders and migration which was on display at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, June 23-September 30, 2023.

This talk is a part of Black History Month Scotland 2024. Please find more events and the full programme at www.blackhistorymonthscotland.org

Host or Publisher Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights #BHM24