Dr Cristina Marinetti

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Research

My primary area of research is translation studies but I also have a strong interest in theatre history and theatre practice. My current research has two primary strands: an empirical one which explores the translational nature of contemporary performance (with particular attention to multilingual, migrant and citizen theatres) and a historical one which uses archival research to trace the different forms of agency involved in the circulation of performance cultures.

Recent publications include a contribution to the journal The Translator which investigates the way in which multiple languages on the stage interact with the performing body of the actor. Paying attention to how linguistic and cultural identities are constructed on the stage, I examine four productions by arguably the most significant intercultural company in contemporary Italy, Teatro delle Albe.  Here I argue that translation occurs not only discursively, through subsequent rewritings of a foreign text, but also performatively, through the creative juxtaposition of multiple languages with the actor’s body, ethnicity and role. Translation, in this sense, is understood less as a communicative act aimed at transferring texts or conveying ideas than as a ‘fundamentally hybridizing instance’ (Sakai, 1997: 3), which is at once linguistic, cultural, aesthetic and political.

My historical work analyses the Larpent archive of censored manuscript plays to uncover the labour of invisible agents shaping the translation of performed drama in eighteenth-century England. Unlike other genres, performed drama was subject to a system of state censorship that shaped translation practices in ways that have not been fully accounted for by translation historiography. Using Carlo Goldoni as a case study, the article reveals the intervention of censors and actors in shaping Goldoni’s translations, making visible for the first time, the central role they played as ‘rewriters’ in English theatrical culture. In reading translation through the material conditions of eighteenth-century theatre, I ultimately argue for a re-evaluation of performed drama in the historiographical account of eighteenth-century translation in English.

To give further visibility to performed drama in translation history, I am currently editing, with Enza De Francisci, a special edition of the Routledge journal Translation Studies (2022) https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/translation-performance-cultures-agents-networks/ .  While cross-cultural encounters and transnational exchanges have characterized theatre history from its inception, little attention has been paid to the agents mediating those encounters and to the multiple forms of translation they engendered. The special edition aims to shed light on the networks of agents who intervened in the circulation of translated texts in a range of performance cultures. In charting the labour of travelling actors, singers, singing/acting masters, censors, directors, critics, writers and of course translators the special issue will raise awareness of the particular contexts and process which have enabled these agents to affirm translation's capacity to promote equality, diversity and inclusion.

My own contribution to the special issue focusses on the role played by Anna Larpent, the wife of John Larpent (Royal Theatre Censor from 1777-1805) in the censoring of foreign drama for Georgian audiences. Drawing on the censored manuscripts and her personal writing, the article reveals Anna's significant intervention in re-shaping foreign drama for English sensitivities whilst also highlighting the value of theatre archives in providing evidence of the multiple forms of labour involved in the translation and circulation of foreign texts.

In recent years, I have also researched translation as a participatory practice and collaborated with community groups, the theatre and the arts world. Through the EU-funded WISE Project (2013-15), my research on translation as participatory practice enabled the sharing of intergenerational memories of 60 participants across linguistic and cultural borders whilst shaping the working practices of 5 established theatre companies (http://www.babelia.org, http://www.maltezoo.eu/, http://www.brandschrift.de/brand/, http://www.nur.com/; http://www.august012.co.uk/). As a result of their interaction with my work, these companies have begun to use translations and translators as part of their creative process, increasing the number of foreign plays in their repertoire and fostering links with translation professional and volunteer associations in their respective countries. Through the AHRC ‘Book Kernel: Dylan Thomas in Translation’ project (2013-14) I contributed to the development of the Book Kernel technology, which transformed performance events into print publication in real time. The technology has been praised as an example of innovation in performance-based publishing.

Teaching

I currently teach translation theory and practice in Year 2 and 3 (Principles of Translation Theory, Translating Cultures) and convene our successful MA in Translation Studies, leading and contributing to a number of modules (Theories of Translation, Translation as Creative Practice, Translation and Cultures, Translation History)

I have extensive and proven experience in the supervision of MA dissertations in translation studies and in the joint supervision of PhD research. A significant feature of my teaching and supervision experience has been working with students from very different cultural backgrounds. I would welcome applications from doctoral candidates working in several areas within translation studies, but especially on cultural approaches to translation, theatre translation and adaptation, translation and new media, translation and performance, translation and creative practice, the reception of translation and translation and identity.

Biography

I graduated with a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Venice (Ca’ Foscari) in 2001. In 2002 I moved to Warwick where I completed an MA in Translation Studies (2003) and then a PhD on translation and theatre history (2008) with Prof. Susan Bassnett. I lectured at Warwick until September 2012 when I moved to Cardiff to take up my current post as a Lecturer in and then Senior Lecturer (2018) in Translation Studies.

Before embarking on an academic career, I worked as a freelance technical translator (chemistry, automotive, mental health, infertility), as translator and location researcher for BBC Education (Italy Inside Out, Talk Italian), as an interpreter and guide for Venice city council and as a public service interpreter for Warwickshire county council.

Honours and awards

• 2010 Warwick University Roberts Fund (with Annunziata Videtta and Alessandra Cappuccio), for the international symposium Translating Theatre. Migrating Texts. Warwick University
• 2007 British Academy conference grant (with Roger Baines and Manuela Perteghella), for the international conference Staging Translated Plays, UEA
• 2005 Department of Education and Skills (DfES) grant to carry out a feasibility study for a postgraduate course for professional translators on Research Trends in Translation Studies
• 2003 University of Warwick Postgraduate Research Fellowship
• 2003 Arts and Humanities Research Board Doctoral Scholarship

Professional memberships

• Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (MCIL)
• Member of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST)
• Member of the International sociation of Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS)

Supervisions

I am interested in supervising PhD stuents in the areas of:

• Translation and Society
• Translation and Performance
• Translation and Theatre History
• Multilingualism and translation