Şebnem Susam-Saraeva

Professor of Translation Studies

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 research has covered a wide range of areas: 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 Translation and Popular Music. Transcultural Intimacy in Turkish-Greek Relations (2015) and Theories on the Move. Translation’s Role in the Travels of Literary Theories (2006), 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 has focused on translation in (maternal) health, and translation and environment (including interspecies communication). On the former, she has led the RSE funded project Translating Informed Consent in Scottish Maternity Services in 2022, bringing together the expertise of midwifery and translation & interpreting studies. On the latter, she is the co-founder of the Eco-translation Network (with Michael Cronin, TCD) and has held a visiting fellowship at Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin with her work on the translation and representation of dolphin & whale communication in arts and music.

Prof Susam-Saraeva’s literary translations include the 2017 Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day into Turkish (1993, 20 reprints by 2023). She is also 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 – A Journal of Poetry and Prose, 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:

  • 2023 onwards – Member of the editorial board, Feminist Translation Studies, Routledge
  • 2021 onwards – Member of the editorial board for STRIDON: Studies in Translation and Interpreting, University of Ljubljana Press
  • 2017 onwards – Member of the advisory board for Chronotopos – International Journal for Translation History, University of Vienna 
  • 2013 onwards – Member of the international advisory board of the Routledge journal Translation Studies
  • 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 and (maternal) health
  • Translation and environment
  • Translation and interspecies communication

Research activities

View all 70 activities on Research Explorer

View all 36 publications on Research Explorer