Şebnem Susam-Saraeva

Professor of Translation Studies

Biography

Background

Şebnem Susam-Saraeva holds a Personal Chair of Translation Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Before joining Edinburgh in 2003, she held posts at the universities of Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Boğaziçi (Bosphorus).

Prof. Susam-Saraeva's past research focused on translation of literary theories, retranslations, research methodology in translation studies, internationalisation of the discipline, non-professionals translating/interpreting, translation and gender, translation and popular music, and ethical & representational issues in translation.

She is the author of  Theories on the Move. Translation’s Role in the Travels of Literary Theories (2006) and Translation and Popular Music. Transcultural Intimacy in Turkish-Greek Relations (2015), and editor of Translation and Music (2008), Non-Professionals Translating and Interpreting. Participatory and Engaged Perspectives (2012, with Luis Pérez-González) and the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Health (2021, with Eva Spišiaková).

Her more recent work focuses on translation/interpreting in (maternal) health and on eco-translation. 

On the former, she led the RSE-funded project Translating Informed Consent in Scottish Maternity Services in 2022, bringing together the expertise of midwifery and translation & interpreting studies. She is currently running a new RSE-funded project 'The beginnings: Factoring in interpreting at antenatal care and midwifery education' (March 2024-Nov 2025), which will examine the best ways of flagging up interpreting needs at early stages of antenatal care and of firmly incorporating linguistic and cultural awareness into Scottish midwifery curricula.

Prof Susam-Saraeva has published on translation and ecofeminism, as well as (knowledge) translation in climate crisis discourse. She is the co-founder of the Eco-translation Network (with Michael Cronin) and has held a visiting fellowship at Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin, with her work on the translation and representation of cetacean communication in arts and music. She is currently taking part at the Edinburgh Climate Research Leaders Programme (Jan-May 2024) and will be a Leverhulme International Fellow for her project 'Translation and cetacean communication systems: interactions and synergies' (August-November 2024), during which she will be working with ecologists specializing on marine ecosystems. She is also co-editing the inaugural special issue of the journal Feminist Translation Studies, on feminism, gender and eco-translation (with Carolyn Shread). 

Prof Susam-Saraeva’s literary translations include the 2017 Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day into Turkish (1993, 21 reprints by 2024). She is the winner of PEN Wales Translation Challenge 2017 with her poetry translation from Küçük İskender.  Her own poems appeared in Ambit 234, October 2018; The Scores, Issue 3, Winter 2017; and Doulaing, issues 31 (Summer 2017) and 28 (Autumn 2016).

Responsibilities & affiliations

Beyond the University of Edinburgh, Prof. Susam-Saraeva has been:

  • 2024 onwards - Member of the scientific committee of the Journal of Non-Professional Interpreting and Translation (JoNPIT)
  • 2023 onwards – Member of the editorial board of Feminist Translation Studies, Routledge
  • 2021 onwards – Member of the editorial board of STRIDON: Studies in Translation and Interpreting, University of Ljubljana Press
  • 2017 onwards – Member of the advisory board of Chronotopos - International Journal for Translation History, University of Vienna 
  • 2013 onwards – Member of the international advisory board of Translation Studies, Routledge 
  • 2018 – 2020 Member of the editorial board of the Approaches to Translation Studies series, Brill
  • 2016 – 2020 Chair of ARTIS (Advancing Research in Translation and Interpreting Studies); member of the ARTIS Steering Committee between 2014-2020
  • 2010–2015 – Co-vice president of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS)
  • 2006-2017 – Member of the Board of Advisors for Cunda International Workshop for Translators of Turkish Literature
  • 2004-2006 – Member of the advisory panel for the journal New Voices in Translation Studies

Areas of interest for supervision

Prof Susam-Saraeva is available to supervise PhD projects in several areas within translation studies, but especially on translation and music, translation and health, non-professionals translating and interpreting, translation and gender, and translation and environment.

Past PhD students supervised

Research summary

Prof. Susam-Saraeva is currently working on:

  • Translation/interpreting in (maternal) health
  • Eco-translation (with a specific focus on climate crisis and interspecies communication)

This article was published on