Output details

Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory

Context and contribution: Mills' output comprises: the co-editing and structuring of the book’s contents; the book’s co-authored introduction which re-frames problems of medieval translation; the key single-authored chapter that he contributed to the volume. Mills’ own chapter entitled 'Invisible Translation, Language Difference and the Scandal of Becket’s Mother', explores textual and visual responses to the legend that Thomas Becket’s mother was a Saracen princess who miraculously found her way to England, and to her crusading lover Gilbert Becket, despite not speaking a word of English.

Research imperative and process: Rethinking Medieval Translation, co-edited by Robert Mills, concentrates on two related areas – ethics and politics – that have generated much recent discussion in translation studies. Contributors ask whether questions currently being posed by contemporary theorists of translation need rethinking or revising when brought into dialogue with medieval examples. This inter-disciplinary collection breaks new ground by critically revisiting the work of theorists such as Derrida, Benjamin, Berman and Venuti in the light of a range of medieval case studies. The collection grew out of a two-day workshop on the ethics of medieval translation that Mills organised at King's College London in 2010; he also helped organise a series of sessions at the American Comparative Literature Association in April 2008, which enabled him to road test some of the theoretical frameworks for what eventually became the book. In his own single-authored chapter, Mills’ analysis of the story of Thomas Becket’s mother, whose dissemination has not been subjected to detailed scholarly analysis for more than 80 years, brings together his interdisciplinary interests in the interface between literary and art historical sources.