Responding to a challenge raised by Douglas Robinson in the conclusion of his book Translationality (2017: 200-202), this transdisciplinary research project uses concepts, methods and theories from Translation Studies to investigate the semiotic processes (verbal and nonverbal) involved in the transfer of information between different ‘epistemic systems’. 

When the project was launched in Spring 2023, the main focus was on the relationship between technical ‘scientific’ knowledge (i.e. the kind of knowledge which purports to be objective, rational and universal) and the various embedded, embodied and subjective forms of knowledge that have served as its Others in different times and places, such as humanities, arts and religion; knowledges of the Global South and East; and pre-modern forms of knowledge. 

Since then, however, our scope has expanded. Thanks to input from the many scholars of different disciplinary persuasions that have participated in our various initiatives, it has become clear that (inter-)epistemic translation is a much more widespread phenomenon than we had initially thought, with ramifications stretching into all areas of life.

Hence, in Phase 2 of the project, launched in November 2024 we have reformulated the research strands to take account of some of these new areas of interest: 

A) Science in Transit – how specialist knowledge is transmitted across disciplines, reformulated for different audiences, and reworked into imaginative literature, audiovisual content or works of art;

B) Knowledges of the World – how forms of inter-epistemic translation can be used to interpret and explain traditional knowledges of the Global South and East, and convey Western know-how in the opposite direction

C) The Invention of Modern Science – the translational processes involved in the Early Modern transition to a scientific mode of inquiry

D) Eco-Translation – studies in bio-, geo- and terra-translation, and other eco-related forms of transit (NEW!)

E) Cyber-Translation – human/machine communication, AI, analogue-digital translation of knowledge systems, and post-human epistemologies (NEW!)

F) Epistemic Emergence – the translational mechanisms involved in the coming-into-being of new knowledge about the physical, human or post-human world (NEW!)

Phase 1 ran from April 2023 to October 2024, and resulted, amongst other things, in the the organization of an International Conference and the publication of a special issue inaugurating the new field of (Inter-)Epistemic Translation. Phase 2, beginning in November 2024, features a series of online lectures by team members and other specialists, and the production of an edited volume. [See Research Outputs for further information]

KEYWORDS: (inter-)epistemic translation, ecology of knowledges, epistemicide, epistemologies of the South, ‘two cultures’, science and literature, eco-translation, cyber-translation, epistemic emergence