Call for papers: Monographic issue

Title: Beyond Equivalence: Queer Disruptions in Translation Theory and Practice

Guest editor: Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, University of Valladolid, Spain

Deadline: 31^st July 2026.

Languages of the journal: English (preferred) and Spanish

Article length: 6,000-8,000 words

Submission guidelines:  https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ESTR/about/submissions

For more info, please contact: miguelsanchez@uva.es or  estudiosdetraduccionucm@gmail.com 

This special issue invites scholars to explore the multifaceted intersections between queerness and translation studies, focusing on how these two fields disrupt normative structures of identity, language, and power. For that purpose, we encourage contributors to consider queerness not as a fixed essence, but as a “discursive horizon” (Halperin 1995) that challenges essentialist categories of gender and sexuality. When this intersects with Translation, it somehow results in a process that goes beyond a mere "text-to-culture" approach and treats translation as a performative act. By doing so, the transposition of messages across languages becomes a tool to unmask essentialist ideas and utilize the subversive potential inherent in fluid identities (Bauer 2015).

The “queer turn” in translation studies highlights how translation serves as a framework for analysing the way sexuality travels across linguistic boundaries and how these processes conceptualize the construction of bodies and desires (Castro & Ergun 2017). Translation does not simply transfer meaning; it interferes in the process of identity creation, often acting as a “third space” where hybrid cultural identities are formed. This intersection reveals that sexuality is not a natural reality but the result of discursive and political strategies that can be either reinforced or dismantled through the act of translating (Valdeón 2010). By “queering” the habitus of translation, we can challenge the heteronormativity that treats heterosexuality as the foundation of society and renders other orientations invisible or unintelligible.

We invite contributors to address the following challenges and inquiries:

• How can we counter the “normalizing and straightening power” of translators who erase queer nuances during the transition between languages?
• How does the “heterosexual matrix”—the invisible norm that conflates sex, gender, and sexuality—influence the establishment of equivalences?
• Linguistic Binarism vs. Fluidity: How do translators navigate the transition from agender or non-binary source texts into languages with rigid binary grammatical gender systems?
• Cisnormativity in Tools: What are the implications of using phonetic and translation software that still requires users to categorize participants into binary “male” or “female” options?
• Transnational Solidarity: How can translation serve “transnational feminist and queer dialogues” while resisting “West-to-the-Rest” narratives that culturally monopolize global understandings of queerness?

We seek original research, case studies, and theoretical papers on topics including, but not limited to:

• Translating “Camp Talk”: Fictional representations of queer speech and the cultural transfer of gay identities.
• Trans and Non-binary Translation: Strategies for (re)writing “undecidable” bodies and texts in historical memoirs or contemporary literature.
• Queer Audiovisual Translation: Analysing gender representation in dubbing and subtitling, particularly the naturalization of queer voices in mainstream media.
• “Drag Translation” and Parody: Translation as an act of performative recreation, reproduction, and radical adaptation, such as queered manga or artistic reinterpretations of speeches.
• Intersectionality in Translation: How queerness intersects with crip theory (disability), race, and coloniality within the translation process.
• Linguistic Resistance: Case studies on “feminist manipulation” or “inclusive rendering” that prioritize social change over traditional “fidelity”.
• Translating Literature: How translators navigate queer subtext, coded language, or historically suppressed queer voices.
• Methodology: Deliberately “queer” translation methods—formally, stylistically, politically.

References

Halperin, David M. 1995. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. Oxford: OUP.

Bauer, Heike. 2015. The Hirschfeld Archives: Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Castro, Olga, and Emek Ergun (Eds). 2017. Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives. London & New York: Routledge.

Valdeón, Roberto A. 2010. “Revisiting the history of Translation Studies: The terms and terminology of the articles published in Target (1989-2007)”. Target 22 (1): 29–64.

Estudios de Traducción also welcomes papers and reviews on other translation-related issues for its regular section.

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