Rosario Mascato Rey

Research Coordinator
info@silveragelab.net

Alba Alonso Morais

Research Assistant / Ph.D. Student

Rosario Mascato Rey, “Women as Cultural Mediators: the Interwar Spanish Literature Across Borders (1914-1940)”.

III Women´s History in the Digital World Conference, Campus of Maynooth University, Ireland, 6-7 July 2017. More info.

Abstract: Funded by the Galician Government (Secretaría Xeral de Universidades - Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria), the research project “Catalogue of Spanish Literature Translations (1914-1940)”, currently under development, means to offer a bibliographic record and document collection of Spanish literary productions translated into English, French, Italian and Portuguese in the interwar period. Previous experiences (mainly derived from the construction of Valle-Inclán´s Digital Archive, managed by the Grupo de Investigación Valle-Inclán at the USC) account for the novelty value and importance of the “added information” this kind of databases can provide, mainly when regarding the networks of agents and institutions involved in the processes. The usefulness of these data is even more substantial when it comes to re-constructing the role and position occupied by women, in the case of writers and translators acting in what nowadays is known as the “Other Silver Age” of Spanish culture by the beginning of the 20th Century. In this regard, recent studies referred to the Spanish literary field of the time have projected Spanish women translators from the margins of historiography to the center of the feminist debate, offering new insights for the understanding of this period (such as information on specific trajectories of female translators). However, nowadays we are still lacking a complementary and panoramic view regarding the other end of the process: not just the importation of goods, but also their exportation abroad. In short: which literary products are translated from Spanish during the period 1914-1940? Who are their producers? Who are the agents and institutions responsible for that exportation process? And, most of all, what is the role women have played in it as producers of original texts or as mediators (translators, editors, publishers…)? Or, in other words, who act as counterparts of the Spanish female translators of the time? In this sense, this Catalogue is being specifically designed and implemented to account for the names of agents and organisms linked to Spanish literary field in the international frame, specially featuring the function and position of women in this process. Therefore, and bearing in mind the need for accurate and reliable tools for the study of translation as a cultural and economic market, the aims of this presentation are, on one hand, to provide a brief state of the art regarding the objectives, design and construction of our database, and, on the other, to offer a few examples of the possible approaches derived from the information contained in it that might be useful for the development of women´s history in an international level.

Rosario Mascato Rey, “Estados Unidos (1914-1936): redes internacionales de la cultura, enseñanza del español, historia de la literatura y antologías”

Lenguaje y Textos, December 1915. Available here.

Abstract: The function and importance of the many different kinds of anthologies involved in creating the modern Spanish literary canon and its process of internationalization is an issue that has barely been touched upon by critics to date. Many interesting pedagogical or didactic anthologies have been published, mainly overseas, that are particularly meaningful for this process. Put together by specialists in Hispanic studies to serve as guides and objects of study for the classes of Spanish language, literature and culture, they become an exceptional corpus for tracing the list of authors and texts considered as the most carefully selected and representative of national literary production in the 1920s and 1930s, often at odds with those presented in the account of the history of literature articulated by Spanish canonizing institutions such as the Real Academia Española. In the case of the United States, the production of such materials is directly linked with the project implemented by the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas to establish international cultural and scientific networks, which involved Spanish and Latin American professor in American universities. This paper looks at some of the keys to the creation of these relationships and their significance in the consolidation of a regenerated image of Spanish 20th century culture and literature in the United States.

SilverAgeLab Translations Database (1914-1940)

SilverAgeLab Translation Database (1914-1940) gathers translations of Spanish poetry, theatre, romance and essay into English, French, Italian and Portuguese for the period between the beginning of the First and Second World Wars. The format of the publication (book, anthology, press, musicalized texts) determines the typology of bibliographic data to be collected, as well as the information about the network of agents and institutions involved in the publication. In this regard, searches in the database focus any of these items, which can be combined in order to obtain specific results: original texts, translations, agents, institutions plus dates, places or languages.

On the other hand, we faced the issue of having unspecific, anonymized or hidden information about the agency of either originals or translations, what mainly affects female authorship. As a result, the team designed the database from a feminist point of departure, where gender becomes one of the main features to be codified, according to any signs, either paratextual (pseudonyms, signatures) or information provided by academic and scientific researches.

Other features pay attention to the complete or fragmented nature of the translations –sometimes extracted from a wider work- or to the evidences of the author´s copyright.

SilverAgeLab Translation Database (1914-1940) reúne traducciones de poesía, teatro, narrativa y ensayo de la Literatura Española de la Edad de Plata a cuatro lenguas: inglés, francés, italiano y portugués. El formato de la publicación (libro, antología, prensa o texto musicado) determina la tipología de los datos bibliográficos a recoger, así como la información sobre la red de agentes e instituciones involucrados en cada publicación. En este sentido, las búsquedas en la base de datos priorizan estos elementos, que pueden ser combinados entre sí para obtener resultados específicos: títulos originales, traducciones, agentes, instituciones, junto con fechas, lugares o lenguas de publicación.

Por otra parte, nos enfrentamos a la circunstancia de tener información poco específica, anonimiazada o oculta sobre los agentes, bien de la escritura original, bien de la traducción, lo que principalmente afecta a la producción femenina. Como resultado de ello, el equipo ha diseñado la base de datos con conciencia feminista, de manera que el género del agente se convierte en uno de los elementos principales a ser codificados, siguiendo para ello cualquier evidencia, ya sea paratextual (pseudónimos, firmas) or procedente de fuentes científicas y académicas.

Otras características prestan atención a la naturaleza fragmentaria de la traducción –en muchas ocasiones extraída de un obra de mayor envergadura- o a los datos referidos al copyright de los autores.