Translating Cultural Memory: Migrations and Mediations of Contemporary Québécois Literature
Carmen Ruschiensky
PhD Student in Humanities

Carmen Ruschiensky holds a BFA in Studio Art, a BA in Translation, and an MA in Translation Studies. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Humanities at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University. Her master’s thesis “Competence and Creativity in Translation: Multilingual Perspectives” was based on a study of multilingual translation students in Montreal and explored how translators’ diverse linguistic repertoires and sociocultural backgrounds shape their attitudes about and approaches to translation. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral research “Translating Cultural Memory: Migrations and Mediations of Contemporary Québécois Literature” extends this exploration of language, identity, memory and translation into a broader social and historical context by integrating three fields – translation studies, memory studies and Quebec studies –to examine the dynamics of cultural memory in Québécois literature, its transmutations within a broader network of cultural production, and the role that translation plays in the construction and circulation of cultural memory across languages, cultures and national affiliations.

As a translator she specializes in the French-to-English translation of scholarly articles in the visual arts, social sciences and humanities and has translated, with David Howes, some key works in sensory studies. Her published translations can be found in the journal The Senses and Society, and in the volumes A Cultural History of the Senses in the Age of Empire, 1800-1920 (C. Classen, ed. 2014) and Speaking Memory: How Translation Shapes City Life (S. Simon, ed. 2016).