agnesw | Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (original) (raw)
Department of English
department-of-english
Whitfield
Agnès
agnesw
false
yes
Agnès Whitfield
department-of-english
Professor
Agnes Whitfield (PhD, Laval) is a Professor in the Department of English in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University and a member of the Graduate Programs in English and French. She teaches primarily in the area of Canadian literature, and her research focuses on the work of Canadian Francophone and Anglophone women writers and translators, the role of literary translation in fostering cultural exchange, issues in language and gender in intercultural communication, and pedagogy.
An award-winning researcher and translator, Professor Whitfield is frequently invited to speak at scholarly conferences in Canada and Europe. She has been visiting professor at the University of Bologna, McGill University, University of Mainz, Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, President of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies, an executive member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada, and Chair of the School of Translation at York University. She is the Founding President of Academic Women for Justice/Femmes universitaires pour la justice, and a founding member of the international research group Voice in Translation, based at the University of Oslo: http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/groups/Voice-in-Translation/. She is an Associate member of the international research group TRACT at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle - Paris 3: http://www.univ-paris3.fr/membres-tract-83637.kjsp?RH=1320253174947\. In 2012, she founded the international peer-reviewed publication series in Translation Studies, Vita Traductiva, at Éditions québécoises de l'oeuvre: www.editionsquebecoisesdeloeuvre.ca.
Professor Whitfield has published twelve books, including three co-edited and three edited books and three works of poetry, and over 100 articles in scholarly journals, literary encyclopaedia, and peer-reviewed international conference proceedings. She has given over 100 peer-reviewed conference papers or invited lectures in Canada and abroad (Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, United States), and some 70 literary readings and media interviews. She has been awarded over 40 research grants from external agencies such as SSHRCC (10), the Canada Council (9), and the French Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (14).
More...
Agnes Whitfield (PhD, Laval) is a Professor in the Department of English in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University.
In her research, Professor Whitfield draws on concepts from literary history, sociology, narratology, and gender theory to examine the work of Canadian Francophone and Anglophone women writers and translators, and the institutions and practices of literary translation in Canada. She has played a leading role in compiling previously unavailable bio-bibliographical data on eminent Canadian Francophone and Anglophone literary translators to enhance recognition of their fundamental contribution as dynamic cultural agents and advance scholarship on their multi-faceted work. The two collections of essays she commissioned and edited, Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006) and Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, Collection du CRILCQ, 2005), short-listed for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize, are recognized as making an essential contribution to the study of literary translation in Canada.
Professor Whitfield is particularly interested in research leading to the development of policies and institutional practices that can foster equitable literary exchange and recognition. As SSHRC/Heritage Canada Virtual Scholar, she completed two comprehensive reports on the state of French-English and English-French literary translation in Canada detailing the extent to which both linguistic communities have access to each other’s important literary works, and evaluating measures to enhance balanced exchange. Her SSHRC International Initiatives Project seeks to develop a reciprocal model of translation exchange between Anglophone and Francophone Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Romania. Her continued commitment to recovering the work of women writers and translators underlies her SSHRC funded project on Hannah Josephson, the unknown American translator of Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion.
With funding from the French Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and in collaboration with the research group TRACT (Sorbonne Nouvelle), she is presently the principal co-organizer of a research initiative (2024-2025) on Translation and Surrealism. Professor Whitfield is an accredited member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario and the Literary Translators Association of Canada. Divine Diva, her translation of Daniel Gagnon's novel, Venite a cantare, was short-listed in 1991 for the Governor General's Award for translation. She is also the author of three books of poetry, Ô cher Émile je t'aime ou l'heureuse mort d'une Gorgone anglaise racontée par sa fille (Le Nordir, 1993), Et si les sirènes ne chantaient plus (Écrits des Forges, 2001), and Poète, où te tiens-tu?(Sémaphore, 2021) and a prose narrative, Où dansent les nénuphars (Le Nordir, 1995). In 2012, she founded a new international peer-reviewed publication series in Translation Studies, Vita Traductiva: http://vitatraductiva.blog.yorku.ca/
Degrees
Ph.D., Université Laval
M.A., Queen's University
Maîtrise ès lettres, Université de Paris-Sorbonne
Hons B.A., Queen's University
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate Studies
Professional Leadership
Professor Whitfield has served as board member of several scholarly or professional associations and journals, including the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada, the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario, the Canadian Association for Translation Studies, the Canadian Semiotics Association, Lettres québécoises, Voix et Images, Protée, and TTR. She was appointed bilingual Visiting Seagram Chair at the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University (2003-2004) and bilingual Joint Chair in Women's Studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa (2009-2010). From 2002-2016, she was the translation omnibus review editor for the University of Toronto Quarterly. In 2011, she founded Vita Traductiva, a bilingual, international peer-reviewed publication series in Translation Studies, at the Montréal press, Éditions québécoises de l'oeuvre.
As President of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies, Professor Whitfield signed the first Research Exchange Agreement with the European Society for Translation Studies (EST), and created the Canadian Vinay-Darbelnet Awards in Translation Studies. She has been a jury member for the Governor General's Award in French-English Translation, the Quebec Writers’ Federation QSPELL Translation Award, and the Prix de la ville de Sherbrooke (essay category). She has served as member and chair of selection panels for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program.
At York University, Professor Whitfield has chaired the Selection Committee for a New Principal, Glendon College and the Glendon College Policy and Planning Committee, served as Director of the School of Translation and Director of the Graduate Program in Translation, coordinated a Pilot Project in Distance Education, and contributed as a Member of the Women’s Studies and Canadian Studies Program Committees. She has also chaired the Scholarship Committee of the Graduate Program in English and the English Department Committee on Pedagogy, and currently chairs the York University Faculty Association Subcommittee on Governance.
Community Contributions
Professor Whitfield was the founding President (June 2010 to February 2013) of Academic Women for Justice/Femmes universitaires pour la justice, a national association of university women working to advance the cause of women and other equity-seeking groups on Canadian university and college campuses. She is also a vocal public proponent of more equitable access to French in the Ontario and Canadian judicial system, and regularly contributes opinion columns to Law360 Canada.
Research Interests
Translation , Canadian Studies, Voice in Translation, French-English and English-French Literary Translation, Translation and Institutional Practices, Canadian Anglophone and Francophone Literatures, Translation Theory, Gender and Intercultural Communication
- Short-listed, Glassco Prize, Literary Translators' Association of Canada - 1992
- Short-listed, Governor General's Award, Translation - 1992
- Short-listed for the Raymond-Klibansky Prize, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences - 2007
- Seagram Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies, Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University - 2003
- Joint Chair in Women’s Studies, Carleton University/University of Ottawa - 2009
- Honorable Mention, James Tate PoetryPrize - 2024
Current Research Projects
agnesw
Traduction et surréalisme - Translation and Surrealism
Summary:
This project brings together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines to explore the complex relationships between translation and surrealism. The Surrealist movement profoundly transformed our conceptualization of aesthetic works and the creative process, notably by questioning the ontological status of the creative subject and destabilizing the borders between different forms of creative practice – textual, visual, dramatic, musical and cinematographic. Curiously, despite its indisputable relevance for Translation Studies, its implications for the practice and theory of translation remain understudied. This research seminar series aims to fill this gap.
Description:
Cycle de séminaires 2024-2025 du TRACT (Sorbonne-Nouvelle) :
« Traduction et surréalisme »
À une époque marquée par une succession de crises sanitaires et environnementales, la remontée des autoritarismes et les affres de guerres d’agression, le surréalisme, par sa valorisation de l’imagination, sa portée libératrice et sa foi en l’humain, s’affirme encore comme un courant productif de réflexion et de création artistique. Le centenaire des textes clés du mouvement, dont Les champs magnétiques (1919) et le Manifeste du surréalisme (1924), a donné un nouvel élan aux publications (rééditions, correspondances, exégèses, biographies) sur ce mouvement complexe qui a profondément marqué notre façon de conceptualiser les arts en bousculant les frontières entre les différentes formes de création textuelle, visuelle, dramatique, musicale et cinématographique. Curieusement, en dépit de sa grande pertinence pour une réflexion sur les assises de la théorie et de la pratique de la traduction, les enjeux traductologiques du surréalisme restent encore un champ de recherche à défricher. Une recherche par mot clé (« surrealism » et « surréalisme ») dans la bibliographie John Benjamins en traductologie, une base de données spécialisées de quelques 40,000 entrées, ne donne que seize références, toutes langues confondues, depuis 1999. Ce cycle de séminaires du TRACT autour du thème « Traduction et surréalisme » répond à l’intérêt de combler cette lacune. Une réflexion sur la traduction et le surréalisme, par la multiplicité des formes de création surréaliste, ouvre la voie à de nouvelles synergies entre la traductologie et d’autres disciplines (histoire de l’art, musicologie, philosophie), tout en permettant de souligner l’immense rayonnement international du surréalisme français.
Mouvement fluide aux contours difficiles à définir, réunissant une grande diversité de pratiques, le surréalisme offre un champ d’étude particulièrement fécond pour la traductologie. Par sa mise en cause du langage, par sa reconceptualisation du sujet ainsi que par sa pluridisciplinarité – entre autres –, il permet d’interroger sous de nouvelles perspectives autant les objectifs et les modalités du processus traductif, que son inscription esthétique, sociale, épistémologique et éthique. La définition multiple du surréalisme que propose Breton dans son premier Manifeste trouble déjà la stabilité et le statut du texte artistique. Riche vecteur de questionnements multiples, le surréalisme ouvre un vaste domaine de réflexion sur les frontières linguistiques, sémiotiques, psychophysiques, voire ontologiques de la traduction. Dans ce cadre très libre et inventif, on pourra donc s’intéresser aux questions suivantes (liste non exhaustive) :
• Le surréalisme pose de façon essentielle la question du sens. Qu’en font les traducteurs ?
• Peut-on, doit-on, s’en tenir à une traduction de la « lettre » des œuvres surréalistes ? Face au brouillage entre forme et sens, comment les traducteurs-traductrices relèvent le défi ? Comment se positionnent-ils par rapport aux différents vecteurs du surréalisme : automatisme, onirisme, jeux de cadavres exquis, intention provocatrice, libre association d’idées, écriture à deux mains, citation, etc. ?
• Qu’il s’agisse d’œuvres surréalistes textuelles, picturales ou musicales, les traducteurs doivent-ils se caler sur la méthode ou le positionnement de l’auteur ou de l’auteure de l’œuvre source ? Ou bien doivent-ils faire résonner l’œuvre dans un acte d’exploration créative propre ?
• Que dire du désir qui est au cœur du projet surréaliste en lien avec le désir des traducteurs ? Peuvent-ils être déstabilisés par la démarche surréaliste et par la rencontre traductive ?
• La relation entre texte et image que propose le surréalisme (par exemple, Paul Éluard et Man Ray dans Les Mains libres) génère une réflexion sur les contours et la fluidité du sens souvent perçus comme figé ou statique. Parce qu’elle jongle avec le chevauchement du/des sens, la traduction dans des contextes intersémiotiques crée de nouveaux cheminements et de nouvelles perceptions.
• Comment définir et traduire l’œuvre source dans le cas de textes faisant un emploi important de la citation ?
• La subversion fait partie intégrante du projet surréaliste. Comment reproduire la brisure et l’éclatement des codes autant au niveau de leur conception que leur réalisation formelle ? Comment restituer l’énergie intense qui émane du travail surréaliste ?
• Des œuvres qui s’inspirent du surréalisme, comme celles de Beckett et de Joyce ou des peintres automatistes du Québec, pour ne donner que ces exemples, constituent-elles une forme de traduction ? Peut-on envisager la reprise de pratiques surréalistes dans les œuvres poétiques et picturales contemporaines comme une forme de « after life » traductif, selon le terme de Benjamin ?
• Les femmes créatrices – écrivaines, peintres, compositrices, réalisatrices – ont entretenu des relations complexes et diversifiées, voire contestataires avec l’esthétique surréaliste. La question du genre affecte-t-elle la traduction de leurs œuvres ?
• Quelques écrivains surréalistes, dont Louis Aragon et Philippe Soupault, ont eux-mêmes traduit des œuvres notamment de Blake, Joyce et Lewis Carroll. Comment situer leur démarche traductive par rapport à leur écriture ?
• Les textes surréalistes français ont été traduits dans de nombreux contextes linguistiques et culturels. Comment les différentes pratiques éditoriales et paratextuelles qui sous-tendent la traduction ont-elles influencé, voire déterminé les modalités de réception des œuvres traduites ?
• Depuis leur publication, les œuvres phares du surréalisme ont donné lieu à de nombreuses retraductions. L’analyse de ces traductions successives permet-elle d’éclairer le processus traductif de ces œuvres dont le sens est particulièrement ouvert et fluctuant ?
• Que dire des liens riches et complexes, voire antagonistes entre l’IA et le surréalisme en traduction ?
• En définitive, la traduction d’œuvres surréalistes est-elle possible ?
Bibliographie
Sources (choix parmi les titres récents) :
Aragon, Louis, 2012, Poèmes de Louis Aragon, Paris, Gallimard Jeunesse.
Breton, André et Soupault, Philippe, 2020, The Magnetic Fields, trad. Charlotte Mandell, New York, New York Review Books.
Crevel, René, 2014, Œuvres complètes, Paris, Éditions du Sandre.
Desnos, Robert, 2023, Night of Loveless Nights, trad. Lewis Warsh, Winter Editions, New York. Duhême, Jacqueline et Paul Éluard, 2021, Ami Paul : lettres à Paul Eluard, juin 1948-décembre 1949, Paris, Gallimard.
Éluard, Paul, 2022, Poésie involontaire et poésie intentionnelle, Paris, Seghers.
Reverdy, Pierre, 2013, Pierre Reverdy, traductions sous la direction de Mary Ann Caws, New York, New York Review of Books.
Soupault, Philippe, 2016, Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, trad. Alan Bernheimer, introduction de Mark Polizzotti, postface de Ron Padgett, San Francisco, City Lights Books.
Articles
Bastion, Sophie, 2016, « Les scènes du surréalisme », Revue québécoise d’études théâtrales, 59. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1040485ar
Chadwick, Whitney, 1985, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Londres, Thames & Hudson.
Chenieux-Gendron, Jacqueline, Vienne, Maïté, Le Roux, Françoise, 1994, Le Surréalisme autour du monde, 1929-1947, Inventaire analytique de revues surréalistes ou apparentées, Paris, CNRS Éditions.
Carluccio, Daniele, 2022, Cult Surréalisme, Paris, Hermann.
Dempsey, Amy, 2019, Surrealism, Londres, Thames & Hudson.
Foucault, Anne, 2022, Histoire du surréalisme ignoré (1945-1969). Du déshonneur des poètes au « surréalisme éternel », Paris, Hermann.
Gonnard, Henri, 2021, Musique et surréalisme en France, d’Érik Satie à Pierre Boulez, Paris, Honoré Champion.
Ivleva, Krasimira, 2017, « Horizon poétique/projet traductif : le cas des traductions d’Éluard dans la Bulgarie communiste », Babel 63 (1), p. 65-88.
Leydenback, Claire, 2002, « Mary Ann Caws, traductrice d’André Breton », Atelier de traduction 20, p.127-138.
Low, Graham, 2002, « Evaluating translations of surrealist poetry: adding note-down protocols to close reading », Target 14 (1), p. 1–41.
Lusty, Natalya, dir., 2021, Surrealism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Mackintosh, Fiona J., 2010, « Alejandra Pizarnik as translator », The Translator, 16 (1), p.43-66.
Mooney, Sinéad, 2019, « "Delirium of interpretation": surrealism, the possessions, and Beckett’s outsider artists », in Lukes, Alexandra, dir., Nonsense, madness, and the limits of translation, numéro special de Translation Studies 12 (1), p. 47-63.
Panchón Hidalgo, Marian, 2021, « Dictature versus démocratie : traduction et réception des Manifestes du surréalisme d’André Breton dans les années 1960 en Espagne et en Argentine, in Génin, Isabelle et Bruno Poncharal, dirs. La pensée française contemporaine dans le monde : réception et traduction, Palimpsestes 35, p. 114-128.
Penot-Lacassagne, Olivier, 2022, (In)actualité du surréalisme (1940-2020), Dijon, Les Presses du réel.
Richardson, John, 2011, An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal, Oxford University Press.
See more
**Role:**Principal co-investigator
Start Date:
Month: Oct Year: 2024
End Date:
Month: Dec Year: 2025
**Collaborator:**Jessica Stephens, Laetitia Sansonetti
**Collaborator Institution:**Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Funders:
Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Vita Traductiva
Summary:
Agnes Whitfield is the founding director of Vita Traductiva, an international peer-reviewed publication series in Translations Studies at Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre.
Description:
A joint initiative of the Research Group on Literary Translation in Canada at York University and the Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, Vita Traductiva is an international peer-reviewed collection that gives priority to empirical studies of literary translation exchange and biographies of literary translators. The aim of the collection is to further our understanding of translation as vita activa, to foster reciprocal cultural exchange, and to increase awareness of translation’s essential contribution to cultural diversity. The collection publishes in English and French, and welcomes studies on translation and translators in any language context by authors from around the world. Initiative conjointe du Groupe de recherche sur la traduction littéraire au Canada à l’Université York et des Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, dotée d’un comité scientifique international, la collection Vita Traductiva publie en priorité des études empiriques sur la traduction littéraire comme moyen d’échange culturel ainsi que des biographies de traducteurs et de traductrices littéraires. La collection vise à faire mieux comprendre la traduction en tant que vita activa, à favoriser des échanges réciproques et à faire mieux reconnaître l’apport essentiel de la traduction à la diversité culturelle. La collection publie en anglais et en français et accueille des réflexions sur la traduction dans tous les contextes linguistiques de la part de chercheur(e)s de tous les pays du monde. www.editionsquebecoisesdeloeuvre.ca http://vitatraductiva.blog.yorku.ca/
See more
**Role:**Founding Director/Directrice fondatrice
Funders:
Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, York University
Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme, France
University of Oslo, Norway
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Voice in Translation
Summary:
Agnes Whitfield is a founding member of Voice in Translation, an international research group, exploring how the concept of voice can illuminate our understanding and practice of translation.
Description:
The goal of this research program is to explore how a re-examination of voice, a concept presently used in widely different ways across several disciplines, can offer a productive new theoretical framework for generating, structuring and mobilizing knowledge in the area of translation studies. It builds on a critical analysis of existing research on voice, from linguistics, stylistics, narratology, discourse analysis, feminist criticism, and standpoint theory, to identify key dimensions of voice as a theoretical concept, and to develop a new, coherent voice-based conceptual framework for understanding the production, interpretation, circulation and pedagogy of literary translations. This program of research draws on my long-term interest in narratology, narrative voice, feminist theory and agency. Since 2002, as Translations/Traductions omnibus review editor for the University of Toronto Quarterly, voice-related concepts have also played an increasing role in my assessment of translation equivalence. In October 2010, I was a founding member of Voice in Translation, an international research group, based at the University of Oslo, under Professor Cecilia Alvstad: http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/groups/Voice-in-Translation/ Projects within this research program include co-organisation of the international conference: Intratextual Voices in Translation: Concepts, Discourses and Practices/ La Traduction des voix intra-textuelles: concepts, discours et pratiques, March 2011, at the Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (Paris), and participation in the International Conference, Authorial and Editorial Voices, held at the University of Copenhagen in November 2011. Publications include: “Intratextual Voices in French-English Literary Translation in Canada: Identifying the Translation Challenges” forthcoming in K. Taivalkoski-Shilov and M. Suchet, eds. La Traduction des voix intra-textuelles/Intratextual Voices in Translation, Montréal, Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013. “Author-editor/publisher-translator communication in English-Canadian literary presses since 1960” forthcoming in H. Jansen and A. Wagener, eds. Authorial and Editorial Voices in Translation, Montréal, Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013.
See more
Start Date:
Month: Oct Year: 2010
Funders:
Fondation des Sciences de l'homme
Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University
The Contribution of Literary Translation to Intercultural Understanding: Developing a Model for Reciprocal Exchange
Summary:
Working in the context of literary translation in Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Romania, this project seeks to identify the components of a much-needed multi-lateral model of reciprocal literary exchange.
Description:
The Unesco Convention on Cultural Diversity, adopted in 2005, recognises the need to reinforce local languages and cultures, and to move towards more respectful cultural exchange both between national states and within multicultural states. This project builds on the complementary multidisciplinary expertise of Czech, Estonian and Romanian scholars working in Canadian, Québec and Translation Studies to assess how literary translations presently circulate among our respective countries, and how literary translation could contribute more effectively to intercultural understanding. More specifically, the project seeks to identify the components of a much-needed multi-lateral model of reciprocal literary exchange that can assist the international library and translation community in enhancing the circulation of literary translations outside of hegemonic systems. Issues examined include the impact of globalisation on the cultural and economic context in which translations are produced and circulate, the role of diasporic writers on intercultural exchange, the influence of local translation traditions on translation activity, and the importance of online bibliographical and cultural information tools for use by the publishing, library, translation and scholarly milieu in each country.
See more
**Role:**Principal Investigator
Start Date:
Month: Jan Year: 2007
End Date:
Month: Dec Year: 2009
Funders:
SSHRC
The Contribution of Literary Translation to an Appreciation of Linguistic Duality
Summary:
This study seeks to assess how literary translation can enhance an understanding of the value of linguistic duality in Canada and promote stronger links between Francophone and Anglophone Canadians.
Description:
This project builds from the premise that literary translations offer Anglophone and Francophone Canadians who are unable to read each other’s’ literary works in the original a way to transcend the linguistic barrier, and an opportunity they would otherwise not have to learn more about, and better appreciate each other’s culture. In this way, literary translations also contribute to the development of shared cultural knowledge that can only serve to strengthen links between Anglophone and Francophone Canadians, reinforce their understanding and recognition of each other’s culture, and further enhance the recognition of the value of linguistic duality. For literary translations to fulfil this potential, however, they must be accessible. Accordingly, the primary objective of this study was to provide a macro-structural assessment of the degree to which Anglophone and Francophone Canadians currently have access to each other’s significant literary works through translation. For the purposes of this study, literary works are considered significant if they are defined by each culture as works of lasting merit or ‘classics,’ are recognized as being of cultural and literary significance by their inclusion in university courses on English-Canadian or French-Canadian/Québécois literature, or are contemporary works whose value has been acclaimed by literary awards granted through peer evaluation. Through surveys of university professors, librarians, publishers and booksellers, the project also assessed factors that affect the circulation of literary translations in Canada
See more
**Role:**Principal Investigator
Start Date:
Month: Apr Year: 2006
End Date:
Month: Mar Year: 2008
Funders:
SSHRC-Heritage Canada Virtual Scholar Program
Heritage Canada
Hannah Josephson: Translating Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion
Summary:
This project seeks to re-contextualize Hannah Josephson's translation of Bonheur d'occasion within a comprehensive vision of the translator as active cultural agent. In the fields of Canadian literary translation and Canadian literary institutions, this project offers a well-researched case study of the complex inter-connections between Québécois, Canadian, American and French literary circles that continue to affect Canadian-Québec letters. Finally, through its methodology, it makes a contribution to the emerging field of translation agency within the international discipline of translation studies.
Description:
An exceptional phenomenon in Canadian letters, Franco-Manitoban writer Gabrielle Roy’s 1945 novel Bonheur d'occasion is a Canadian classic in both English and French. Translated in 1946 by American Hannah Josephson as The Tin Flute, Roy's book became a popular success in the United States and English Canada, and Universal Studios bought the film rights. In 1947, the translation earned Roy the Governor General's Award. Despite the commercial success of the original translation, McClelland and Stewart commissioned a new translation by Canadian Alan Brown in 1980. This project fills an important gap in scholarship on Josephson’s translation of Bonheur d’occasion and her work as an author and translator. A literary figure in her own right, Josephson is the author of a study of the Lowell girls of the Massachusetts textile mills, a biography of Jeannette Rankin, the first American Congresswoman, and co-author of a book on American politician Al Smith. A part of the ebullient Paris literary scene in the early 1920s along with her husband, biographer Matthew Josephson, Hannah met French Dada and Surrealist writers including Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon. Through archival and bibliographical research, this study seeks to answer the following questions. What do Josephson’s translations of French writers, in particular Soupault and Aragon, and the French and American reception of their work reveal about the particular cultural attitudes and approaches she brought to her translation of Bonheur d'occasion? To what degree do differences in her translation and that of Brown point to changes in Canadian and American literary traditions and expectations (and the relations between the two institutions) between 1947 and 1980? What can archival research uncover about Josephson's formative influences and experiences, the editorial links that led her to translate Roy, her relationship with the Franco-Manitoban author, and the particular place translation occupies in her practice of cultural difference?
See more
**Role:**Principal Investigator
Start Date:
Month: Apr Year: 2006
End Date:
Month: Mar Year: 2010
Funders:
SSHRC Standard Research Grant
Books
Agnes Whitfield, ed. L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction, Ottawa : Éditions David, Collection « Voix savantes », 2009, 364p.
2009
Agnes Whitfield, ed. Writing Between the Lines: Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators. Waterloo (Ontario): Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, 312 p.
2006
Agnes Whitfield, ed. Le Métier du double : Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones. Montréal: Fides, collection “Nouvelles études québécoises” du CRILCQ, 2005, 392 p. (Short-listed for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Award.
2005
Agnès Whitfield, Jacques Cotnam and Yves Frenette, ed. La Francophonie ontarienne : bilan et perspectives de recherche. Ottawa: Le Nordir, 1995, 361 p.
1995
Agnès Whitfield and Jacques Cotnam, ed. La nouvelle : écriture(s) et lecture(s). Montréal/Toronto: XYZ/GREF, 1993, 226 p.
1993
Agnès Whitfield and Annette Hayward, ed. Critique et littérature québécoise. Montréal: Éditions Tryptique, 1992, 422 p.
1992
Book Chapters
Agnès Whitfield and Christine Raguet, “Altérités multiples en traduction : nouveaux horizons conceptuels,” in Vidya Vencatesan and Christine Raguet, eds. Altérités multiples en traduction : explorations indiennes. Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2020, pp. 3-18.
2020
“Enseigner les nouvelles de Tagore : altérités multiples et voix médiatrices,” Vidya Vencatesan and Christine Raguet, eds. La représentation de l’Autre en traduction/ The Other in Translation, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2020, pp. 147-169.
2020
Agnes Whitfield and Susan Ingram. “Mapping European Studies in Canada from a Cultural-Historical Perspective,” in Vita Fortunati and Francesco Cattani, ed. Questioning the European Identity/ies: Deconstructing Old Stereotypes and Envisioning New Models of Representation. Rome: Il Mulino, 2011, pp. 225-243.
2011
Agnès Whitfield, “Le Désir comme catastrophe naturelle de Claire Dé,” “Femmes de soleil de Dominique Blondeau,” and “L’Homme qui peignait Staline de France Théoret,” in A. Boivin, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec. Vol. VIII, 2011.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Patricia Claxton, A Civil Translator,” in A. Whitfield, ed. Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, pp. 139-167.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. Introduction,” in A. Whitfield, ed. Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, pp. 1-18.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “Introduction,” in A. Whitfield, ed. Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones. Montréal: Fides, Collection“Nouvelles études québécoises, 2005, pp. 1-21.
2005
Agnès Whitfield. “Lettres d'une autre de Lise Gauvin,” in A. Boivin et al, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec, Vol. VII. Montréal: Fides, 2003, pp. 527-528.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Émilie du Châtelet, traductrice d'Isaac Newton, ou la ?traduction-confirmation,’” in Jean Delisle, ed. Portraits de traductrices. Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 2002, pp. 87-115.
2002
Agnès Whitfield. “Gérard Bessette,” in Willliam New, ed. Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, pp. 109-111.
2002
Agnès Whitfield. “Les Anthropoïdes de Gérard Bessette” (pp. 30-31); “Mes romans et moi de Gérard Bessette” (pp. 513-515); “Mirage de Pauline Michel” (pp. 520-521); “La Couvade de Robert Baillie” (pp. 181); “Flore Cocon de Suzanne Jacob” (pp. 340-341). in G. Dorion et al, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec. Vol. VI. Montreal: Fides, 1994.
1994
Agnès Whitfield. “Recherches, sujets et plaisir : repenser la relation,” in L. Milot and F. Dumont, ed. Pour un bilan prospectif de la recherche en littérature québécoise. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1992, p. 73-94.
1992
Agnès Whitfield. “L'Autobiographie au féminin : altérité masculine dans La Détresse et l'enchantement de Gabrielle Roy,” in Y. Grisé and R. Major, ed. Mélanges offerts en hommage à Réjean Robidoux. Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1992, pp. 391-404.
1992
Agnès Whitfield. “Introduction,” “Chronologie,” and “Bibliographie,” in MacLennan, H. Deux solitudes. Montréal: Fides, 1992, pp. 7-16, 733-740.
1992
Agnès Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy's Children of My Heart or Portrait of the Artist as Young Woman,” in C. Hall and J. Morgan, ed. Redefining Autobiography in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991, pp. 209-225.
1991
Book Reviews
Sâdhanâ de Rabindranath Tagore, Le Cahier bleu, vol. 3, no. 1 (2022), pp. 35-42.
2022
Science, poésie et écologie : R. Buckminster Fuller, Edgard Morin et Pierre Rabhi,” Le Cahier bleu, vol. 3, no. 2 (2022), pp. 31-40.
2022
Contexts, Subtexts and Pretexts. Literary translation in Eastern Europe and Russia, Brian James Baer, ed. (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2011) and Traduire sous contraintes. Littérature et communisme (1947-1989) by Ioana Popa (Paris : CRNS Éditions, 2010),” Translation Studies, vol 6, no. 1 (2013) : 118-122.
2013
Monographs
Agnès Whitfield, Le Je(u) illocutoire, forme et contestation dans le nouveau roman québécois. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1987, 342 p.
1987
Journal Articles
Les multiples modes de la voix autobiographique de Philippe Soupault : enjeux et défis de la traduction. Palimpsestes 37, 2024, https://journals.openedition.org/palimpsestes/8440
2024
Enhancing Student Engagement and Structured Learning in Online Discussion Forums: The Worksheet Video Walk Formula. International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, vol. 12, no. 2 (July 2022) (With Vanessa Evans and Breanna Simpson).
2022
Unspoken Assumptions, Deep Holes and Boundless Expectations: The Dialogical Tensions in Teaching Short Stories. Language and Dialogue, Volume 12, Issue 1, Mar 2022, p. 110 - 129
2022
“Rumo a uma virada sociocultural no ensino da tradução : uma perspectiva canadense.” Trans. Myllena Lacerda and Marcelo Aguiar. Belas Infiéis, Vol. 10, no. 2 (2021).
2021
Agnes Whitfield, “The Circulation in English of Voices Theorizing Translation in French: Which Voices, When, and Why (or Why not),” Palimpsestes 33 (fall 2019), pp. 153-169.
2019
Agnes Whitfield, Émilie du Châtelet as Translator: Reading Sociability and Agency in Contexts of Multiple (In)visibilities,” Cahiers du Centre de traduction littéraires de Lausanne, 58 (2018), Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère, Angela Sanmann and Valérie Cossy, eds., pp. 269-300.
2018
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 85/3 (summer 2016), pp. 268-299.
2016
Agnes Whitfield. “Retranslation in a postcolonial context: Extra-textual and intra-textual voices in Hubert Aquin’s novel of Québec independence Prochain episode.” Target 27/1 (February 2015), pp. 75-93.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 84/3 (summer 2015), pp. 92-126.
2015
Agnes Whitfield, “Suggestive Sonorities: Representing and Translating Silence in Works by Québécois Poets Saint-Denys Garneau and Anne Hébert,” Palimpsestes 28 (2015), pp. 75-96.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 83/2 (spring 2014), pp. 373-396.
2014
Agnès Whitfield. “Le défi du rythme : Le défi du rythme dans la traduction d’essais littéraires : quelques exemples canadiens et québécois,” Palimpsestes 27 (2014), pp. 103-128.
2014
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 82/3 (summer 2013), pp. 452-473.
2013
Agnès Whitfield. “La voix anglaise de Marie-Claire Blais : Enjeux diachroniques de l’homogénéisation,” Palimpsestes 24 (2013), pp. 185-204.
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “Méthode et pratique du portrait : sur les traces des traducteurs.” Romanica Wratislaviensia 59 (ed. Elzbieta Skibinska and Natalia Paprocka), pp. 175-184.
2012
Agnes Whitfield, “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 81/3 (summer 2012), pp. 446-469.
2012
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 80/2 (spring 2011), pp. 218-243.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Creating a space for reciprocal cultural exchange: French-English / English-French literary translation in Canada.” TransCanadiana (Review of the Polish Association of Canadian Studies) 4 (2011),Katowice: Para, pp. 13-30.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 79/1 (winter 2010), pp. 318-344.
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 78/1 (winter 2009), pp. 96-130.
2009
Agnès Whitfield, “La traduction américaine des Voyageurs de l’impériale : enjeux esthétiques et sociaux,” Recherches croisées. Aragon et Elsa Triolet. Publication de l’Équipe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur Elsa Triolet et Aragon (ÉRITA), Strasbourg : Presses de l’Université de Strasbourg, 2009, pp. 149-176.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 77/1 (winter 2008), pp. 97-129.
2008
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 76/1 (2006-2007), pp. 266-291.
2007
Agnes Whitfield. “Behind the “Powderworks:” Hannah Josephson and The Tin Flute,” Canadian Literature 192 (spring 2007): 111-128.
2007
Agnes Whitfield. “La traduction anglais/français en sciences humaines: le repérage des marqueurs de cohérence.” La Tribune internationale des Langues Vivantes, 42, mai 2007, pp. 18-23.
2007
Agnes Whitfield. “Towards a Socio-Cultural Turn in Translation Teaching: A Canadian Perspective,” Méta 50/4 (December 2005). Electronic publication no page numbers.
2005
Agnes Whitfield. “L'enseignement de la théorie de la traduction : quelques réflexions pédagogiques,” Méta 48/ 3 (septembre 2003), pp. 429-437.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly 73/1 (2003-2004), pp. 79-96.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Traductions/Translations,” University of Toronto Quarterly 72/1 (2002-2003), pp. 291-306.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “Douleur et désir, altérité et traduction: réflexions d'une ?autre’ d'ici,” Francophonies d'Amérique 10 (2000), pp. 115-125.
2000
Agnes Whitfield. “Lost in Syntax: Translating Voice in the Literary Essay,” Méta 48/1 (avril 2000), pp. 113-126.
2000
Agnes Whitfield. “Silences du corps : L'Hiver de Mira Christophe de Pierre Nepveu,” Voix et images 52 (automne 1992), pp. 52-61.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Gérard Bessette écrivain : à la recherche de l'homme nouveau,” Queen's Quarterly 98/1(spring 1991), pp. 40-57.
1991
Agnes Whitfield. “Une fragile renaissance : images du corps masculin dans Les Masques et Le Passager,” Voix et images 45 (spring 1990), pp. 374-386.
1990
Agnes Whitfield. “Relire Gabrielle Roy, écrivaine,” The Queen's Quarterly 97/1 (spring 1990), pp. 53-66.
1990
Agnes Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy as Feminist: Re-reading the Critical Myths,” Canadian Literature 126 (1990), pp. 20-32.
1990
Agnès Whitfield. “Narrataires et réception : le cas du roman québécois,” Études canadiennes 24 (1988), pp. 57-66.
1988
Agnès Whitfield. “Psychanalyse et critique littéraire au Québec, 1960-1980,” Revue d'histoire littéraire du Québec et du Canada français 14 (1987), pp. 95-108.
1987
Agnès Whitfield. “Le nouveau roman québécois en 'je’ ou le je(u) illocutoire,” Québec français 63 (October 1986), pp. 28-31.
1986
Agnès Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy et Gérard Bessette : quand l'écriture rencontre la mémoire,” Voix et Images, IX/3 (printemps 1984), pp. 129-142.
1984
Agnès Whitfield. “L'énonciation : théories et applications récentes,” Recherches sémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry IV/1 (1984), pp. 59-70.
1984
Agnès Whitfield. “L'Auteur implicite dans Trente Arpents : modes de présence et signification narrative,” Voix et Images, VIII /3 (printemps 1983), pp. 485-494.
1983
Agnes Whitfield. “Reading the Post-1960 Quebec Novel: the Changing Role of the Narratee,” L'Esprit créateur, XXIII/3 (Fall 1983), pp. 32-39.
1983
Agnès Whitfield. “Prochain Épisode ou la confession manipulée,” Voix et Images, VIII/1 (automne 1982), pp. 11-126.
1982
Agnès Whitfield. “Blanche forcée ou la problématique du voyage chez Beaulieu,” Voix et Images, V/1 (automne 1979), pp. 165-176.
1979
Agnès Whitfield. “Alexandre Chenevert : Cercle vicieux et évasions manquées,” Voix et Images du Pays, VIII (1974), pp. 107-125.
1974
Professional Journal Articles
“Retired Supreme Court justice: A new commercial brand?” Law360 Canada, January 25, 2024, https://www.law360.ca/ca/pulse/articles/1789672/retired-supreme-court-justice-a-new-commercial-brand-agn-s-whitfield
2024
“Beverley McLachlin’s disdain for the rule of law,” Law360 Canada, January 17, 2024, https://www.law360.ca/ca/pulse/articles/1786632/beverley-mclachlin-s-disdain-for-the-rule-of-law-agn-s-whitfield
2024
Court of Appeal strikes heavy blow to public accountability, Law360 Canada, June 26, 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/48087/court-of-appeal-strikes-heavy-blow-to-public-accountability-agn-s-whitfield?category=opinion
2023
“Do Canadians have confidence in their Supreme Court?” Law360 Canada, 5 January 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/42605
2023
Ending sexual violence enabling: Responsibilities of legal, judicial communities, Law360 Canada, March 22, 2023
2023
“Sexual violence in Canadian major junior hockey: Bad faith is not reform,” Law360 Canada, 20 March 2023
2023
What the Brown matter says about values of senior judiciary, Law360 Canada, July 4, 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/48087/court-of-appeal-strikes-heavy-blow-to-public-accountability-agn-s-whitfield?category=opinion
2023
Will Bill C-9 restore public confidence in the judiciary? Law360 Canada, April 6, 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/45504/will-bill-c-9-restore-public-confidence-in-the-judiciary-agn-s-whitfield?category=opinion
2023
Will Canadian legal community step up for French-language rights? Law360 Canada, December 7, 2023.
2023
Debunking the myth: Unilingual judges more competent than bilingual, The Lawyer’s Daily, 6 June 2022
2022
Hockey Canada : Responsibilities of legal counsel, law societies, The Lawyer’s Daily, 25 October 2022
2022
Impediments to the public’s right to information, The Lawyer’s Daily, 19 August 2022
2022
“Is online voting reliable?” The Lawyer’s Daily, January 11, 2022
2022
Laurentian University: Public accountability and the courts.
The Lawyer’s Daily, April 29, 2022
2022
Laurentian University: Why university governance structures fail
The Lawyer’s Daily, April 28, 2022
2022
Working with Formative Feedback: Setting up Formative Feedback Guidelines, Teaching Commons blog, York University, September 2022.
2022
“Ontario judicial appointments: Francophones not welcome” The Lawyer’s Daily, March 01, 2022
2022
“French-language rights: Law societies’ duty to francophone litigants,” The Lawyer’s Daily, 28 October 2021, https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/30791
2021
“The incompatibility of sitting judges as university chancellors,” The Lawyer’s Daily, 12 November 2021.
2021
Thinking about feedback in translation terms, Teaching Commons, York University, blog 38, October 19, 2016
2016
Conference Papers
“Bilingual judges and cultural misunderstanding in Canada: A litigant-based perspective,” International Conference: The Challenges and Consequences of Cultural Misunderstanding: Linguistic, Legal and Translational Perspectives, Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, Valenciennes, 14 March 2024.
2024
“Creative solidarities: Cross-writing and cross-translation in Canada,” International conference: Translation and Creativity, University of Galway, 25 April 2024.
2024
“Plaisirs et défis de la traduction d’un écrivain surréaliste,” Maison Suger, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, May 30, 2024.
2024
“Récits de voyages et textes ethnographiques : Pour une approche plurivocale de la traduction,” séminaire TRACT, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 23 April 2024.
2024
“Les multiples modes de la voix autobiographique de Philippe Soupault : enjeux et défis de la traduction,” TRACT Seminar via Zoom, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 15 October 2021.
2021
“Structured Engagement and Learning in Discussion Forums: The Worksheet Video Walk Formula,” Teaching in Focus Conference, York University, 10 May 2021 (with Vanessa Evans and Breanna Simpson).
2021
“Le rayonnement de la pensée francophone au-delà du monde anglophone : la contribution du programme d'aide à la traduction du Conseil des arts du Canada,” TRACT Seminar, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 18 April 2019
2019
“Short Story Cycles and Nature Writing: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known (1898): Changing Publics, Changing Ecological Concerns,” Department of English, University of Mainz, 4 December 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield, “The Circulation in English of Voices Theorising Translation in French : Which Voices, When, and Why (or Why not)” International Conference: La réception de la pensée française contemporaine au prisme de la traduction, Sorbonne-Nouvelle Paris – 3, October 12, 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield, “Translating animal voices in a changing pedagogical and environmental context: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known in French,” International Conference : « Traduire les voix de la nature », May 26, 2018, Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle
2018
Agnes Whitfield, “Translating Québec's Quiet Revolution: Then and Now,” 58e congrès de la Société des Anglicistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur (SAES), Université Paris-Nanterre, June 8, 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield. “Émilie du Châtelet as Translator: Reading Sociability and Agency in Contexts of Multiple (In)visibilities,” International Conference, Fémin|in|visible: Femmes de lettres à l'époque des Lumières: traduction, écriture, médiation, 12 May 2017, Université de Lausanne (Switzerland).
2017
Agnes Whitfield. “Voix, rythme et vocabulaire : les défis de la traduction d’altérités multiples, ” International Conference, “La représentation de l’Autre en traduction/ The Other in Translation,” organised by the University of Mumbai and Sorbonne Nouvelle, University of Mumbai, 19 January 2016.
2016
Agnes Whitfield. “Caring for the Translation Eco-system: Translation Researchers as a Force for Change,” International Conference KäTu2015, University of Helsinki, 10 April 2015.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Suggestive Sonorities: Representing and Translating Silence in Works by Québécois Poets Saint-Denys-Garneau and Anne Hébert,” International Conference : Traduire le rythme Palimpsestes 28, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 17 October 2014.
2014
Agnes Whitfield. “Translating Voices Theorizing Translation in Canada: Which Voices, When, and Why,” International Conference: Translating the Voices of Theory: Intercultural passages, Resistances and Audibility/ La Traduction des voix de la théorie : Passages interculturels, résistances et audibilité,” University Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 22 March 2014.
2014
Agnès Whitfield. “L’enseignement des traductions littéraires dans les universités canadiennes: une enquête empirique auprès des professeur(e)s anglophones et francophones,” International Conference : Le traducteur à l’école/The Translator at School, Université de Wroc?aw, 26 April 2013
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “Le défi du rythme dans la traduction d’essais littéraires : quelques exemples canadiens et québécois,” International Conference : Traduire le rythme Palimpsestes 27, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 11-12 October 2013.
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “The Circulation of Translations of Anglophone and Francophone Literary Works in Canadian Libraries: A Cross-cultural Empirical Study,” 7th Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies, Germersheim, Germany, 29 August, 2013.
2013
Agnès Whitfield. “Les traducteurs : itinéraires biographiques et projets traductifs,” Séminaire du TRACT, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 3 October 2013.
2013
Agnès Whitfield. “La voix anglaise de Marie-Claire Blais : Enjeux diachroniques de l’homogénéisation,” Colloque international La Cohérence discursive à l’épreuve : traduction et homogénéisation, Université de Paris III /Sorbonne-Nouvelle, 13 October 2012.
2012
Agnes Whitfield. “Author-editor/publisher-translator communication in English-Canadian literary presses since 1960.” International Conference: Authorial and Editorial Voices, University of Copenhagen, 3 November 2011.
2011
Agnes Whitfield, “Intratextual voices: identifying the translation challenges.” International Conference: Agnes Whitfield. “Intratextual Voices in Translation: concepts, discourse and practice/ La Traduction des voix intra-textuelles: concepts, discours et pratiques,” La Maison Suger, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, France, 15 March 2011.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Sur les traces de figures effacées: la reconstitution bio-bibliographique des traducteurs et traductrices,” International Conference : Figure(s) du traducteur, University of Wroc?aw, 28 October 2010.
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “From Prochain Épisode to Next Episode: Hubert Aquin’s separatist novel goes Canadian classic,” International Conference: Voice in Retranslation, University of Oslo, 21 October, 2010
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “Literary Translation and the ‘Local’: Developing Pro-active Reciprocal Models for Transnational Cultural Exchange,” International Conference: Literature, Geography, Translation. The New Comparative Horizons, University of Uppsala, Sweden, June 13, 2009.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “Creating a space for reciprocal cultural exchange: French-English / English-French literary translation in Canada,” International and Multidisciplinary Conference RE-EXPLORING CANADIAN SPACE / REDÉCOUVRIR L’ESPACE CANADIEN, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 27 November 2008.
2008
Agnès Whitfield. “Hannah Josephson et le voyage de Bonheur d’occasion vers le monde anglophone,” International Conference : Bonheur d'occasion and Two Solitudes: Two Canadian Classics Through the Intercultural Passage,” Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, September 25, 2008.
2008
Agnès Whitfield. “La Contribution de la traduction littéraire à la promotion de la dualité linguistique : réalisations et défis.” Conference: Bilingualism in a Plurilingual Canada: Research and Implications, University of Ottawa, 19 June 2008.
2008
Agnes Whitfield. “The Circulation of Cultural Knowledge in Bilingual and Multilingual Contexts: A Canadian Case Study.” International Conference on Knowledge, Creativity and Transformation of Societies, Vienna, 8 December 2007.
2007
Agnès Whitfield. “Mise en relief et cohérence textuelle: une approche narratologique à la traduction,” International Conference “Traduire les sciences humaines,” Université de Rouen, 31 March 2006.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “The Case for Local Specificities: Francophone and Anglophone Literary Translators in Canada,” International Conference “Translating Identity and the Identity of Translation,” Université d'Avignon, 8 December 2005.
2005
Agnès Whitfield. “Traduction et altérité dans le contexte canadien et québécois,” Séminaire de la CEFAN (Chaire pour le développement de la Culture d’expression française en Amérique du Nord), Université Laval, 6 October 2005.
2005
Agnes Whitfield. “Towards a Socio-Cultural Turn in Translation Teaching : A Canadian Perspective,” Conference Méta 50, Université de Montréal, 6 April 2005.
2005
Agnès Whitfield. “Et si Katherine Mansfield écrivait de Montréal,” Conference “Traces d'une oeuvre : Gabrielle Roy et les écrivains montréalais,” McGill University, 20 November 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Reception of the Canadian classic, Two Solitudes: Translation as Invisible Cultural Inter-text,” TRANSLATION TARGETS, 10th International Conference on Translation and Interpreting, Charles University, Prague, 13 September 2003.
2003
Agnès Whitfield. “L'enseignement de la théorie de la traduction : quelques réflexions pédagogiques,” Congrès de la Fédération internationale des traducteurs, Vancouver, 9 August 2002.
2002
Agnès Whitfield. “L'enseignement de la théorie de la traduction : quelques réflexions pédagogiques,” Congrès de l'ACFAS, Université Laval, 15 May 2002.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “Teaching Translation Theory: a Learner-Centred Approach to Self-Identification as a Language Professional,” International Conference “Training the Language Services Provider for the New Millennium,” Faculdade de letra da universidade do Porto, Porto (Portugal), 26 May 2001.
2001
Agnes Whitfield. “The Canadian Classic Two Solitudes: Translation as Invisible Cultural Inter-text,” International Conference “Tradução e cultura,” Escola superior de tecnologia e gestão, Leiria (Portugal), 10 May 2001.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. “L'Appel à “l'autre” dans la traduction/écriture : deux cas canadiens/québécois,” Vision/Division: International Conference on Nancy Huston, Paris, Sorbonne Nouvelle, 27-28 April, 2001.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. “Traductions plurielles : relire Mavis Gallant,” Séance conjointe de l'Association des littératures canadienne et québécoise et de l'Association canadienne de traductologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 3 June 1999.
1999
Agnès Whitfield. “Traduire la voix ou l'impertinence du sujet féminin,” International Conference Les femmes et les textes : Langages, technologies, communautés, University of Leeds, 4 July 1997.
1997
Agnès Whitfield. “Translations ontologiques : le traducteur comme fiction,” Association canadienne de traductologie, Saint-John’s, 3 June 1997.
1997
Agnès Whitfield. “Silences et solitudes ou l'insoutenable légèreté du traduire,” Conference “Traduction et Mondialisation, Victoria University, University of Toronto, 3 October 1996.
1996
Agnès Whitfield. “Have Dictionary, Will Travel: le traducteur comme agent secret,” Conference : “La traduction dans le champ des sciences humaines,” ACFAS, McGill, 17 May 1996.
1996
Agnès Whitfield. “Vision et création chez Gabrielle Roy : le regard réciproque,” International Conference “Gabrielle Roy” Université de Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, 29 September 1995.
1995
Agnès Whitfield. “D'une langue à l'autre : l'espace de la création chez Daniel Gagnon,” Association canadienne de traductologie, Montréal, 3 juin 1995.
1995
Agnès Whitfield. “Traduire la nouvelle : Monique Proulx et Daniel Gagnon,” Conference “La nouvelle québécoise,” ACFAS, Montréal, 19 May 1994.
1994
Agnès Whitfield. “Figures du féminin et du masculin dans l'oeuvre d'André Langevin,” ACSUS, Boston, 18 November 1991.
1991
Agnes Whitfield. “Woman's Autobiography or the Challenge to Traditional Narratology,” Association canadienne de sémiotique, Kingston, 29 May 1991.
1991
Agnès Whitfield. “Bessette féministe?” Biennial Meeting, Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, San Francisco, 19 November 1989.
1989
Conference Proceedings
“Translating animal voices in a changing pedagogical and environmental context: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known in French,” in Traduire les voix de la nature /Translating the Voices of Nature, Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov and Bruno Poncharal, eds., Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, vol. 11, 2020, pp. 153-181.
2020
Agnes Whitfield. “Action Research in Translation Studies: Building Relationships with Education Science, Library Science and Literary Translator Communities,” in Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov, Liisa Tittula and Maarit Koponen, eds. Communities in Translation and Interpreting. Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2017, pp. 219-252.
2017
Agnes Whitfield. “Translating Voices Theorizing Translation in Canada: Which Voices, When, and Why.” in Isabelle Génin and Ida Klitgård, eds. La traduction des voix de la théorie/Translating the Voices of Theory, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2015, pp. 253-283.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Intratextual Voices in French-English Literary Translation in Canada: Identifying the Translation Challenges” in K. Taivalkoski-Shilov and M. Suchet, ed. Intratextual Voices in Translation, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’oeuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013, pp.35-66.
2013
Agnes Whitfield, “Author-publisher-translator communication in English-Canadian literary presses since 1960,” in H. Jansen and A. Wagener, ed. Authorial and Editorial Voices in Translation 2 – Editorial and Publishing Practices, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013, pp. 211-239.
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “Literary Translation and the ‘Local’: Developing Pro-active Reciprocal Models for Transnational Cultural Exchange,” in Cecilia Alvstad, Stefan Helgesson, and David Watson, ed. Literature, Geography, Translation: Studies in World Writing. Newcastle upon Tyne (England): Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, pp. 95-107.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Introduction,” in Agnès Whitfield, ed. L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction. Ottawa: Éditions David, Collection « Voix savantes », 2009, p. 9-33.
2009
Agnès Whitfield. “Dans le froid de la poudrerie : Hannah Josephson et la traduction américaine de Bonheur d’occasion,” in Agnès Whitfield, ed.L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction. Ottawa: Éditions David, Collection « Voix savantes », 2009, p. 39-60.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “The Case for Local Specificities: Francophone and Anglophone Literary Translators in Canada,” in Madelena Gonzalez and Francine Tolron, ed. Translating Identity and the Identity of Translation. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006, pp. 60-76.
2006
Agnès Whitfield. “Le syndrome des Plaines d'Abraham: traduction et translature,” in Louis Jolicoeur, ed. Traduction et enjeux identitaires dans le contexte des Amériques. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2006, pp. 177-191.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “Between Translation and Traduction: The Many Paradoxes of Deux Solitudes,” in Anthony Pym, Miriam Shlesinger and Zuzana Jettmarova, ed. Sociocultural Aspects of translating and Interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005, pp. 106-120.
2005
Agnes Whitfield.“The Canadian Classic Two Solitudes: Translation as Invisible Cultural Inter-text,” in Maria Goreti et al, ed. Actas Jornadas de Tradução. Leiria (Portugal): Escola superior de tecnologia e gestão, 2003, pp. 15-26.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Teaching Translation Theory: A Canadian Case Study,” in B. Maia, J. Haller and M. Ulrych, ed. Training the Language Services Provider for the New Millennium. Porto (Portugal): Universidade do Porto, 2002, pp.111-124.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “(Dis)playing difference: ‘Across the Bridge’ by Mavis Gallant,” in P. Sabor and N. Côté, ed. Varieties of Exile. New Essays on Mavis Gallant. New York: Peter Lang, 2002, pp. 49-62.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “Traduire l'étrangeté : de quelques nouvelles de Aude et de Daniel Gagnon, ” in M. Lord and A. Carpentier, ed. La Nouvelle québécoise au XXe siècle. De la tradition à l'innovation. Québec: Nuit blanche, 1997, pp. 117-135.
1997
Agnes Whitfield. “Vision et création chez Gabrielle Roy : le regard réciproque,” in André Fauchon, ed. Colloque international “Gabrielle Roy.” Winnipeg: Presses universitaires de Saint-Boniface, 1996, pp. 271-285.
1996
Agnes Whitfield and Gregory Lessard. “Le roman-joual : Tremblay et Beaulieu,” in I. S. MacLaren and C. Potvin, ed. Literary Genres/Les Genres littéraires. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, 1992, pp. 115-137.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Le Nouveau roman québécois en ‘je’ ou le refus de l'introspection,” in I. S. MacLaren, C. Potvin, ed. Literary Genres/Les Genres littéraires. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, 1992, pp. 87-98.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Frontières critiques,” in A. Hayward and A. Whitfield, ed. Critique et littérature québécoise. Montréal: Tryptique, 1992, pp. 149-161.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Altérité et identité : tensions narratives dans Ces enfants de ma vie de Gabrielle Roy,” in L. Milot and J. Lintvelt. Le Roman québécois depuis 1960. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1992, pp. 167-180.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Le Littéraire bessettien : entre la taverne et la caverne,” in L. Milot and F. Roy, ed. Les Actes du Colloque international “la littérarité.” Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1991, pp. 147-162.
1991
Agnes Whitfield and Gregory Lessard, “The Study of Oral Elements in some Modern Quebecois Novels: Some Applications of Text Analysis Software,” in I. Lancashire, ed. Research in the Humanities Computing 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 35-46.
1991
Agnès Whitfield. “Intimité et écriture : tensions spatiales dans l'oeuvre de Gérard Bessette,” in Maïr Verthuy, ed. L'Espace-temps dans la littérature, Cahiers de l'APFUCC III. 2 (1989), pp. 23-38.
1989
Agnès Whitfield. “Les Anthropoïdes : l'épreuve de la parole ou l'enjeu de la transgression,” in Jean-Jacques Hamm, ed. Lectures de Gérard Bessette. Montréal: Québec/Amérique, 1982, pp. 211-226.
1982
Research Reports
Agnes Whitfield. Améliorer l’apport de la traduction littéraire à la dualité linguistique : Études d’options. Report submitted to Heritage Canada, March 2009, 40 p. and 2 appendices.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. The Contribution of Literary Translation to an Appreciation of Linguistic Duality: Access to Literary Works. Report submitted to Heritage Canada, September 2008, 23 p. and 14 appendices.
2008
Creative Works
Poète, où te tiens-tu ? Montréal : Éditions Sémaphore, spring 2021, 127 p.
2021
Agnès Whitfield. “Le linceul du ROC,” XYZ, la revue de la nouvelle 112 (hiver 2012), pp. 69-74.
2012
Agnès Whitfield. “Le Rallye du peintre,” Anne-Brigitte Renaud, Petronella Van Dijk and Michèle Plomer, ed. Lac Memphrémagog, Québec (Québec): Éditions GID, 2012, pp. 29-34.
2012
Agnès Whitfield. Si les sirènes ne chantaient plus, recueil de poésie. Montréal: Écrits des Forges, 2001, 96 p.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. Où dansent les nénuphars, récit. Ottawa: Le Nordir, 1995, 82 p.
1995
Agnès Whitfield. O cher Émile je t'aime ou l'heureuse mort d'une Gorgone anglaise racontée par sa fille, recueil de poésie. Ottawa: Le Nordir, 1993, 69 p.
1993
Divine Diva (Translation of Venite a cantare, novel by Daniel Gagnon), Toronto: Coach House Press, 1991, 60 p.
1991
Public Lectures
Agnes Whitfield, “Short Story Cycles and Nature Writing: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known (1898): Changing Publics, Changing Ecological Concerns,” Department of English, University of Mainz, 4 December, 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield. “Langue, littérature et traduction au Québec,” Invited Lecture, Department of French, School of Humanities, Pondicherry University, 22 January 2016.
2016
Agnes Whitfield. “La francophonie canadienne : Langue, littérature et traduction,” Invited Lecture, Department of French, University of Madras, 25 January 2016.
2016
Agnès Whitfield. “Les multiples roles des traducteurs et traductrices,” Institut d’études romanes, University of Wrocław, 26 October 2010.
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “The Creative Power of Translation Studies,” Zentrum für Translationswissenschaft, Universität Wien, 4 November 2009.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “English-French and French-English literary translation in Canada as an example of local exchange,” Université Lille, Lille (France), November 17, 2009.
2009
Agnès Whitfield. “Quand il ne suffit pas de traduire ou les défis de la diffusion des traductions littéraires au Canada,” Groupe de recherche sur l’édition littéraire, Université de Sherbrooke, 27 March 2009.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “Mapping Francophone Montreal: Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion and Trans-Generational Translation.” Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, Universität Vien, 24 April, 2008.
2008
Agnes Whitfield. “In Between the Lines: The Creative Art of Literary Exchange in Canada,” Forum Canada Lecture Series on Multicultural Canada, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, 12 December 2006.
2006
Agnès Whitfield. “Comment traduire le pouvoir évocateur du texte,” Master’s Program in Literary Translation, Université de Strasbourg, 6 December 2006.
2006
Agnès Whitfield. “La traduction américaine des Voyageurs de l’impériale : enjeux esthétiques et sociaux,” Université de Strasbourg, Research Group: Cériel, 5 December 2006.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “Props, Pluck and Parapets ou Comment traduire vers sa langue maternelle sans se casser la figure?” Public Lecture, Département de linguistique et de traduction, Université Laval, 8 February 2005.
2005
Agnes Whitfield. “Two Solitudes/Deux Solitudes: The Paradoxical Destiny of a Canadian Classic,” Annual Hugh MacLennan/Seagram Lecture, McGill University, 7 April 2004.
2004
Agnes Whitfield. “Canadian Studies and Translation Studies: Attention, travaux sur le pont!” Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University, 19 November 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Translation and Inter-cultural communication in Canada,” Lecture in CANS 200 Introduction to the Study of Canada, Canadian Studies, McGill University, 11 November 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Translation Issues in The Tin Flute: Hannah Josephson and Alan Brown's English version of Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion,” Lecture in CANS 410 Literary Montreal, Canadian Studies, McGill University, 30 September 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Is it time for a Cultural Turn in Translation Pedagogy?” Dipartimento di Studi Inter-disciplinari su Traduzione, Lingue e Culture, University of Bologna at Forli, 12 May 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “The Representation of History in Canadian Women’s Writing,” Doctoral Seminar, Letterature e Culture dei Paesi di Lingua Inglese, University of Bologna, 9 May 2003.
2003
Agnès Whitfield. “La nouvelle francophone au Canada et au Québec: formes et identités” Centro interuniversitario di Studi Quebecchesi, University of Bologna, 14 May 2003.
2003
Agnès Whitfield. “Panorama de la nouvelle québécoise,” Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3, Bordeaux, 4 May 2001.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. “Écrire et traduire la nouvelle au Québec,” Alliance française, Université deTours, 19 October 1999.
1999
Agnès Whitfield. “La Traduction au Canada : pratiques institutionnelles et formation des traducteurs et traductrices,” Institut pluridisciplinaire d'études canadiennes, Université de Rouen, 18 March 1999.
1999
Agnès Whitfield. “La nouvelle au Québec,” Public Lecture, Paron-Sens (France), 6 April 1998.
1998
Agnès Whitfield. “Stylistique ou idéologie : le cas de Deux Solitudes,” Advanced research seminar “Practices/Discourses/ Institutions/Theories: an overview of translation studies in Canada,” York University, 4 March 1998.
1998
Agnès Whitfield. “Pertinence ou non-pertinence : le défi de la traduction,” École de traduction et d'interprétation, Université de Genève, 11 November 1997.
1997
Agnès Whitfield. “Analyse du discours et traduction publicitaire,” Département de Langue et littérature française, McGill, 4 December 1996.
1996
Agnes Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy's Autobiographical Writing,” Public Lecture, Études françaises and Canadian Studies, Trent University, 2 March 1994.
1994
Agnès Whitfield. “La Traduction publicitaire,” Département d'études françaises, Trent University, 2 March 1994.
1994
Agnes Whitfield. “Bilan prospectif de la recherche en littérature québécoise,” Séminaire du CRÉLIQ, Université Laval, 6 February 1992.
1992
Conferences
Agnes Whitfield, “Recognizing What Translators Do: A Tribute to Hannah Josephson (1900-1976),” Invited Lecture, Norwegian Literary Translators Association, Oversatte Dager, Kulturhuset, Oslo, 19 February 2016.
2016
Published Reviews
J, Felx, Éternité reconquise sur le temps, compte-rendu de Si les sirènes ne chantaient plus, Lettres québécoises, 106 (2002), 33-34.
2002
Jean-Pierre Boucher, La nouvelle: écriture(s) et lecture(s), sous la direction d'Agnès Whitfield et Jacques Cotnam (review), University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 65, Number 1, Winter 1995/96, pp. 275-277.
1995
A. Lamontagne, Regards métacritiques, review of Critique et littérature québécoise, Canadian Literature 147 (1995), 170-172.
1995
Barbara Godard, Critique et littérature québécoise ed. by Annette Hayward and Agnes Whitfield (review),
University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 63, Number 1, Fall 1993, pp. 231-235.
1993
Emile J. Talbot, Le je(u) illocutoire: Forme et contestation dans le nouveau roman québécois by Agnès Whitfield, review. World Literature Today. Vol. 63, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 68-69
1989
R. Major, Prises de parole, review of Le je(u) illocutoire, Voix et images, 14(2), 322–325
1989
Paul Perron, Le jeu illocutoire: Forme et contestation dans le nouveau
roman québécois by Agnès Whitfield (review)
University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 58, Number 1, Fall 1988, pp. 193-196
1988
Chantal Gamache, Le « je(u) entre l’indiviuel et le collectif
Le Je(u) illocutoire. Forme et Contestation dans le nouveau
roman québécois d’Agnès Whitfield, Lettres québécoises, No. 48, p. 63.
1987
Other
Bilinguisme à la Cour supreme : Le refus anglophone de l’égalité du français, La Presse, 31 May, 2022, https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/opinions/2022-05-31/bilinguisme-a-la-cour-supreme/le-refus-anglophone-de-l-egalite-du-francais.php
2022
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN4252 6.0 | A | Canadian Topics: Life-Writing | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | TUTR |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN4252 6.0 | A | Canadian Topics: Life-Writing | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | TUTR |
Agnes Whitfield (PhD, Laval) is a Professor in the Department of English in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University and a member of the Graduate Programs in English and French. She teaches primarily in the area of Canadian literature, and her research focuses on the work of Canadian Francophone and Anglophone women writers and translators, the role of literary translation in fostering cultural exchange, issues in language and gender in intercultural communication, and pedagogy.
An award-winning researcher and translator, Professor Whitfield is frequently invited to speak at scholarly conferences in Canada and Europe. She has been visiting professor at the University of Bologna, McGill University, University of Mainz, Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, President of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies, an executive member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada, and Chair of the School of Translation at York University. She is the Founding President of Academic Women for Justice/Femmes universitaires pour la justice, and a founding member of the international research group Voice in Translation, based at the University of Oslo: http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/groups/Voice-in-Translation/. She is an Associate member of the international research group TRACT at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle - Paris 3: http://www.univ-paris3.fr/membres-tract-83637.kjsp?RH=1320253174947\. In 2012, she founded the international peer-reviewed publication series in Translation Studies, Vita Traductiva, at Éditions québécoises de l'oeuvre: www.editionsquebecoisesdeloeuvre.ca.
Professor Whitfield has published twelve books, including three co-edited and three edited books and three works of poetry, and over 100 articles in scholarly journals, literary encyclopaedia, and peer-reviewed international conference proceedings. She has given over 100 peer-reviewed conference papers or invited lectures in Canada and abroad (Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, United States), and some 70 literary readings and media interviews. She has been awarded over 40 research grants from external agencies such as SSHRCC (10), the Canada Council (9), and the French Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (14).
Agnes Whitfield (PhD, Laval) is a Professor in the Department of English in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University.
In her research, Professor Whitfield draws on concepts from literary history, sociology, narratology, and gender theory to examine the work of Canadian Francophone and Anglophone women writers and translators, and the institutions and practices of literary translation in Canada. She has played a leading role in compiling previously unavailable bio-bibliographical data on eminent Canadian Francophone and Anglophone literary translators to enhance recognition of their fundamental contribution as dynamic cultural agents and advance scholarship on their multi-faceted work. The two collections of essays she commissioned and edited, Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006) and Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, Collection du CRILCQ, 2005), short-listed for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize, are recognized as making an essential contribution to the study of literary translation in Canada.
Professor Whitfield is particularly interested in research leading to the development of policies and institutional practices that can foster equitable literary exchange and recognition. As SSHRC/Heritage Canada Virtual Scholar, she completed two comprehensive reports on the state of French-English and English-French literary translation in Canada detailing the extent to which both linguistic communities have access to each other’s important literary works, and evaluating measures to enhance balanced exchange. Her SSHRC International Initiatives Project seeks to develop a reciprocal model of translation exchange between Anglophone and Francophone Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Romania. Her continued commitment to recovering the work of women writers and translators underlies her SSHRC funded project on Hannah Josephson, the unknown American translator of Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion.
With funding from the French Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and in collaboration with the research group TRACT (Sorbonne Nouvelle), she is presently the principal co-organizer of a research initiative (2024-2025) on Translation and Surrealism. Professor Whitfield is an accredited member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario and the Literary Translators Association of Canada. Divine Diva, her translation of Daniel Gagnon's novel, Venite a cantare, was short-listed in 1991 for the Governor General's Award for translation. She is also the author of three books of poetry, Ô cher Émile je t'aime ou l'heureuse mort d'une Gorgone anglaise racontée par sa fille (Le Nordir, 1993), Et si les sirènes ne chantaient plus (Écrits des Forges, 2001), and Poète, où te tiens-tu?(Sémaphore, 2021) and a prose narrative, Où dansent les nénuphars (Le Nordir, 1995). In 2012, she founded a new international peer-reviewed publication series in Translation Studies, Vita Traductiva: http://vitatraductiva.blog.yorku.ca/
Degrees
Ph.D., Université Laval
M.A., Queen's University
Maîtrise ès lettres, Université de Paris-Sorbonne
Hons B.A., Queen's University
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate Studies
Professional Leadership
Professor Whitfield has served as board member of several scholarly or professional associations and journals, including the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada, the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario, the Canadian Association for Translation Studies, the Canadian Semiotics Association, Lettres québécoises, Voix et Images, Protée, and TTR. She was appointed bilingual Visiting Seagram Chair at the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University (2003-2004) and bilingual Joint Chair in Women's Studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa (2009-2010). From 2002-2016, she was the translation omnibus review editor for the University of Toronto Quarterly. In 2011, she founded Vita Traductiva, a bilingual, international peer-reviewed publication series in Translation Studies, at the Montréal press, Éditions québécoises de l'oeuvre.
As President of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies, Professor Whitfield signed the first Research Exchange Agreement with the European Society for Translation Studies (EST), and created the Canadian Vinay-Darbelnet Awards in Translation Studies. She has been a jury member for the Governor General's Award in French-English Translation, the Quebec Writers’ Federation QSPELL Translation Award, and the Prix de la ville de Sherbrooke (essay category). She has served as member and chair of selection panels for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program.
At York University, Professor Whitfield has chaired the Selection Committee for a New Principal, Glendon College and the Glendon College Policy and Planning Committee, served as Director of the School of Translation and Director of the Graduate Program in Translation, coordinated a Pilot Project in Distance Education, and contributed as a Member of the Women’s Studies and Canadian Studies Program Committees. She has also chaired the Scholarship Committee of the Graduate Program in English and the English Department Committee on Pedagogy, and currently chairs the York University Faculty Association Subcommittee on Governance.
Community Contributions
Professor Whitfield was the founding President (June 2010 to February 2013) of Academic Women for Justice/Femmes universitaires pour la justice, a national association of university women working to advance the cause of women and other equity-seeking groups on Canadian university and college campuses. She is also a vocal public proponent of more equitable access to French in the Ontario and Canadian judicial system, and regularly contributes opinion columns to Law360 Canada.
Research Interests
Translation , Canadian Studies, Voice in Translation, French-English and English-French Literary Translation, Translation and Institutional Practices, Canadian Anglophone and Francophone Literatures, Translation Theory, Gender and Intercultural Communication
Awards
- Short-listed, Glassco Prize, Literary Translators' Association of Canada - 1992
- Short-listed, Governor General's Award, Translation - 1992
- Short-listed for the Raymond-Klibansky Prize, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences - 2007
- Seagram Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies, Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University - 2003
- Joint Chair in Women’s Studies, Carleton University/University of Ottawa - 2009
- Honorable Mention, James Tate PoetryPrize - 2024
Current Research Projects
agnesw
Traduction et surréalisme - Translation and Surrealism
Summary:
This project brings together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines to explore the complex relationships between translation and surrealism. The Surrealist movement profoundly transformed our conceptualization of aesthetic works and the creative process, notably by questioning the ontological status of the creative subject and destabilizing the borders between different forms of creative practice – textual, visual, dramatic, musical and cinematographic. Curiously, despite its indisputable relevance for Translation Studies, its implications for the practice and theory of translation remain understudied. This research seminar series aims to fill this gap.
Description:
Cycle de séminaires 2024-2025 du TRACT (Sorbonne-Nouvelle) :
« Traduction et surréalisme »
À une époque marquée par une succession de crises sanitaires et environnementales, la remontée des autoritarismes et les affres de guerres d’agression, le surréalisme, par sa valorisation de l’imagination, sa portée libératrice et sa foi en l’humain, s’affirme encore comme un courant productif de réflexion et de création artistique. Le centenaire des textes clés du mouvement, dont Les champs magnétiques (1919) et le Manifeste du surréalisme (1924), a donné un nouvel élan aux publications (rééditions, correspondances, exégèses, biographies) sur ce mouvement complexe qui a profondément marqué notre façon de conceptualiser les arts en bousculant les frontières entre les différentes formes de création textuelle, visuelle, dramatique, musicale et cinématographique. Curieusement, en dépit de sa grande pertinence pour une réflexion sur les assises de la théorie et de la pratique de la traduction, les enjeux traductologiques du surréalisme restent encore un champ de recherche à défricher. Une recherche par mot clé (« surrealism » et « surréalisme ») dans la bibliographie John Benjamins en traductologie, une base de données spécialisées de quelques 40,000 entrées, ne donne que seize références, toutes langues confondues, depuis 1999. Ce cycle de séminaires du TRACT autour du thème « Traduction et surréalisme » répond à l’intérêt de combler cette lacune. Une réflexion sur la traduction et le surréalisme, par la multiplicité des formes de création surréaliste, ouvre la voie à de nouvelles synergies entre la traductologie et d’autres disciplines (histoire de l’art, musicologie, philosophie), tout en permettant de souligner l’immense rayonnement international du surréalisme français.
Mouvement fluide aux contours difficiles à définir, réunissant une grande diversité de pratiques, le surréalisme offre un champ d’étude particulièrement fécond pour la traductologie. Par sa mise en cause du langage, par sa reconceptualisation du sujet ainsi que par sa pluridisciplinarité – entre autres –, il permet d’interroger sous de nouvelles perspectives autant les objectifs et les modalités du processus traductif, que son inscription esthétique, sociale, épistémologique et éthique. La définition multiple du surréalisme que propose Breton dans son premier Manifeste trouble déjà la stabilité et le statut du texte artistique. Riche vecteur de questionnements multiples, le surréalisme ouvre un vaste domaine de réflexion sur les frontières linguistiques, sémiotiques, psychophysiques, voire ontologiques de la traduction. Dans ce cadre très libre et inventif, on pourra donc s’intéresser aux questions suivantes (liste non exhaustive) :
• Le surréalisme pose de façon essentielle la question du sens. Qu’en font les traducteurs ?
• Peut-on, doit-on, s’en tenir à une traduction de la « lettre » des œuvres surréalistes ? Face au brouillage entre forme et sens, comment les traducteurs-traductrices relèvent le défi ? Comment se positionnent-ils par rapport aux différents vecteurs du surréalisme : automatisme, onirisme, jeux de cadavres exquis, intention provocatrice, libre association d’idées, écriture à deux mains, citation, etc. ?
• Qu’il s’agisse d’œuvres surréalistes textuelles, picturales ou musicales, les traducteurs doivent-ils se caler sur la méthode ou le positionnement de l’auteur ou de l’auteure de l’œuvre source ? Ou bien doivent-ils faire résonner l’œuvre dans un acte d’exploration créative propre ?
• Que dire du désir qui est au cœur du projet surréaliste en lien avec le désir des traducteurs ? Peuvent-ils être déstabilisés par la démarche surréaliste et par la rencontre traductive ?
• La relation entre texte et image que propose le surréalisme (par exemple, Paul Éluard et Man Ray dans Les Mains libres) génère une réflexion sur les contours et la fluidité du sens souvent perçus comme figé ou statique. Parce qu’elle jongle avec le chevauchement du/des sens, la traduction dans des contextes intersémiotiques crée de nouveaux cheminements et de nouvelles perceptions.
• Comment définir et traduire l’œuvre source dans le cas de textes faisant un emploi important de la citation ?
• La subversion fait partie intégrante du projet surréaliste. Comment reproduire la brisure et l’éclatement des codes autant au niveau de leur conception que leur réalisation formelle ? Comment restituer l’énergie intense qui émane du travail surréaliste ?
• Des œuvres qui s’inspirent du surréalisme, comme celles de Beckett et de Joyce ou des peintres automatistes du Québec, pour ne donner que ces exemples, constituent-elles une forme de traduction ? Peut-on envisager la reprise de pratiques surréalistes dans les œuvres poétiques et picturales contemporaines comme une forme de « after life » traductif, selon le terme de Benjamin ?
• Les femmes créatrices – écrivaines, peintres, compositrices, réalisatrices – ont entretenu des relations complexes et diversifiées, voire contestataires avec l’esthétique surréaliste. La question du genre affecte-t-elle la traduction de leurs œuvres ?
• Quelques écrivains surréalistes, dont Louis Aragon et Philippe Soupault, ont eux-mêmes traduit des œuvres notamment de Blake, Joyce et Lewis Carroll. Comment situer leur démarche traductive par rapport à leur écriture ?
• Les textes surréalistes français ont été traduits dans de nombreux contextes linguistiques et culturels. Comment les différentes pratiques éditoriales et paratextuelles qui sous-tendent la traduction ont-elles influencé, voire déterminé les modalités de réception des œuvres traduites ?
• Depuis leur publication, les œuvres phares du surréalisme ont donné lieu à de nombreuses retraductions. L’analyse de ces traductions successives permet-elle d’éclairer le processus traductif de ces œuvres dont le sens est particulièrement ouvert et fluctuant ?
• Que dire des liens riches et complexes, voire antagonistes entre l’IA et le surréalisme en traduction ?
• En définitive, la traduction d’œuvres surréalistes est-elle possible ?
Bibliographie
Sources (choix parmi les titres récents) :
Aragon, Louis, 2012, Poèmes de Louis Aragon, Paris, Gallimard Jeunesse.
Breton, André et Soupault, Philippe, 2020, The Magnetic Fields, trad. Charlotte Mandell, New York, New York Review Books.
Crevel, René, 2014, Œuvres complètes, Paris, Éditions du Sandre.
Desnos, Robert, 2023, Night of Loveless Nights, trad. Lewis Warsh, Winter Editions, New York. Duhême, Jacqueline et Paul Éluard, 2021, Ami Paul : lettres à Paul Eluard, juin 1948-décembre 1949, Paris, Gallimard.
Éluard, Paul, 2022, Poésie involontaire et poésie intentionnelle, Paris, Seghers.
Reverdy, Pierre, 2013, Pierre Reverdy, traductions sous la direction de Mary Ann Caws, New York, New York Review of Books.
Soupault, Philippe, 2016, Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, trad. Alan Bernheimer, introduction de Mark Polizzotti, postface de Ron Padgett, San Francisco, City Lights Books.
Articles
Bastion, Sophie, 2016, « Les scènes du surréalisme », Revue québécoise d’études théâtrales, 59. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1040485ar
Chadwick, Whitney, 1985, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Londres, Thames & Hudson.
Chenieux-Gendron, Jacqueline, Vienne, Maïté, Le Roux, Françoise, 1994, Le Surréalisme autour du monde, 1929-1947, Inventaire analytique de revues surréalistes ou apparentées, Paris, CNRS Éditions.
Carluccio, Daniele, 2022, Cult Surréalisme, Paris, Hermann.
Dempsey, Amy, 2019, Surrealism, Londres, Thames & Hudson.
Foucault, Anne, 2022, Histoire du surréalisme ignoré (1945-1969). Du déshonneur des poètes au « surréalisme éternel », Paris, Hermann.
Gonnard, Henri, 2021, Musique et surréalisme en France, d’Érik Satie à Pierre Boulez, Paris, Honoré Champion.
Ivleva, Krasimira, 2017, « Horizon poétique/projet traductif : le cas des traductions d’Éluard dans la Bulgarie communiste », Babel 63 (1), p. 65-88.
Leydenback, Claire, 2002, « Mary Ann Caws, traductrice d’André Breton », Atelier de traduction 20, p.127-138.
Low, Graham, 2002, « Evaluating translations of surrealist poetry: adding note-down protocols to close reading », Target 14 (1), p. 1–41.
Lusty, Natalya, dir., 2021, Surrealism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Mackintosh, Fiona J., 2010, « Alejandra Pizarnik as translator », The Translator, 16 (1), p.43-66.
Mooney, Sinéad, 2019, « "Delirium of interpretation": surrealism, the possessions, and Beckett’s outsider artists », in Lukes, Alexandra, dir., Nonsense, madness, and the limits of translation, numéro special de Translation Studies 12 (1), p. 47-63.
Panchón Hidalgo, Marian, 2021, « Dictature versus démocratie : traduction et réception des Manifestes du surréalisme d’André Breton dans les années 1960 en Espagne et en Argentine, in Génin, Isabelle et Bruno Poncharal, dirs. La pensée française contemporaine dans le monde : réception et traduction, Palimpsestes 35, p. 114-128.
Penot-Lacassagne, Olivier, 2022, (In)actualité du surréalisme (1940-2020), Dijon, Les Presses du réel.
Richardson, John, 2011, An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal, Oxford University Press.
**Project Type:**Funded
**Role:**Principal co-investigator
Start Date:
Month: Oct Year: 2024
End Date:
Month: Dec Year: 2025
**Collaborator:**Jessica Stephens, Laetitia Sansonetti
**Collaborator Institution:**Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Funders:
Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Vita Traductiva
Summary:
Agnes Whitfield is the founding director of Vita Traductiva, an international peer-reviewed publication series in Translations Studies at Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre.
Description:
A joint initiative of the Research Group on Literary Translation in Canada at York University and the Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, Vita Traductiva is an international peer-reviewed collection that gives priority to empirical studies of literary translation exchange and biographies of literary translators. The aim of the collection is to further our understanding of translation as vita activa, to foster reciprocal cultural exchange, and to increase awareness of translation’s essential contribution to cultural diversity. The collection publishes in English and French, and welcomes studies on translation and translators in any language context by authors from around the world. Initiative conjointe du Groupe de recherche sur la traduction littéraire au Canada à l’Université York et des Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, dotée d’un comité scientifique international, la collection Vita Traductiva publie en priorité des études empiriques sur la traduction littéraire comme moyen d’échange culturel ainsi que des biographies de traducteurs et de traductrices littéraires. La collection vise à faire mieux comprendre la traduction en tant que vita activa, à favoriser des échanges réciproques et à faire mieux reconnaître l’apport essentiel de la traduction à la diversité culturelle. La collection publie en anglais et en français et accueille des réflexions sur la traduction dans tous les contextes linguistiques de la part de chercheur(e)s de tous les pays du monde. www.editionsquebecoisesdeloeuvre.ca http://vitatraductiva.blog.yorku.ca/
**Project Type:**Funded
**Role:**Founding Director/Directrice fondatrice
Funders:
Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, York University
Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme, France
University of Oslo, Norway
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Voice in Translation
Summary:
Agnes Whitfield is a founding member of Voice in Translation, an international research group, exploring how the concept of voice can illuminate our understanding and practice of translation.
Description:
The goal of this research program is to explore how a re-examination of voice, a concept presently used in widely different ways across several disciplines, can offer a productive new theoretical framework for generating, structuring and mobilizing knowledge in the area of translation studies. It builds on a critical analysis of existing research on voice, from linguistics, stylistics, narratology, discourse analysis, feminist criticism, and standpoint theory, to identify key dimensions of voice as a theoretical concept, and to develop a new, coherent voice-based conceptual framework for understanding the production, interpretation, circulation and pedagogy of literary translations. This program of research draws on my long-term interest in narratology, narrative voice, feminist theory and agency. Since 2002, as Translations/Traductions omnibus review editor for the University of Toronto Quarterly, voice-related concepts have also played an increasing role in my assessment of translation equivalence. In October 2010, I was a founding member of Voice in Translation, an international research group, based at the University of Oslo, under Professor Cecilia Alvstad: http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/groups/Voice-in-Translation/ Projects within this research program include co-organisation of the international conference: Intratextual Voices in Translation: Concepts, Discourses and Practices/ La Traduction des voix intra-textuelles: concepts, discours et pratiques, March 2011, at the Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (Paris), and participation in the International Conference, Authorial and Editorial Voices, held at the University of Copenhagen in November 2011. Publications include: “Intratextual Voices in French-English Literary Translation in Canada: Identifying the Translation Challenges” forthcoming in K. Taivalkoski-Shilov and M. Suchet, eds. La Traduction des voix intra-textuelles/Intratextual Voices in Translation, Montréal, Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013. “Author-editor/publisher-translator communication in English-Canadian literary presses since 1960” forthcoming in H. Jansen and A. Wagener, eds. Authorial and Editorial Voices in Translation, Montréal, Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013.
**Project Type:**Funded
Start Date:
Month: Oct Year: 2010
Funders:
Fondation des Sciences de l'homme
Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University
The Contribution of Literary Translation to Intercultural Understanding: Developing a Model for Reciprocal Exchange
Summary:
Working in the context of literary translation in Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Romania, this project seeks to identify the components of a much-needed multi-lateral model of reciprocal literary exchange.
Description:
The Unesco Convention on Cultural Diversity, adopted in 2005, recognises the need to reinforce local languages and cultures, and to move towards more respectful cultural exchange both between national states and within multicultural states. This project builds on the complementary multidisciplinary expertise of Czech, Estonian and Romanian scholars working in Canadian, Québec and Translation Studies to assess how literary translations presently circulate among our respective countries, and how literary translation could contribute more effectively to intercultural understanding. More specifically, the project seeks to identify the components of a much-needed multi-lateral model of reciprocal literary exchange that can assist the international library and translation community in enhancing the circulation of literary translations outside of hegemonic systems. Issues examined include the impact of globalisation on the cultural and economic context in which translations are produced and circulate, the role of diasporic writers on intercultural exchange, the influence of local translation traditions on translation activity, and the importance of online bibliographical and cultural information tools for use by the publishing, library, translation and scholarly milieu in each country.
**Project Type:**Funded
**Role:**Principal Investigator
Start Date:
Month: Jan Year: 2007
End Date:
Month: Dec Year: 2009
Funders:
SSHRC
The Contribution of Literary Translation to an Appreciation of Linguistic Duality
Summary:
This study seeks to assess how literary translation can enhance an understanding of the value of linguistic duality in Canada and promote stronger links between Francophone and Anglophone Canadians.
Description:
This project builds from the premise that literary translations offer Anglophone and Francophone Canadians who are unable to read each other’s’ literary works in the original a way to transcend the linguistic barrier, and an opportunity they would otherwise not have to learn more about, and better appreciate each other’s culture. In this way, literary translations also contribute to the development of shared cultural knowledge that can only serve to strengthen links between Anglophone and Francophone Canadians, reinforce their understanding and recognition of each other’s culture, and further enhance the recognition of the value of linguistic duality. For literary translations to fulfil this potential, however, they must be accessible. Accordingly, the primary objective of this study was to provide a macro-structural assessment of the degree to which Anglophone and Francophone Canadians currently have access to each other’s significant literary works through translation. For the purposes of this study, literary works are considered significant if they are defined by each culture as works of lasting merit or ‘classics,’ are recognized as being of cultural and literary significance by their inclusion in university courses on English-Canadian or French-Canadian/Québécois literature, or are contemporary works whose value has been acclaimed by literary awards granted through peer evaluation. Through surveys of university professors, librarians, publishers and booksellers, the project also assessed factors that affect the circulation of literary translations in Canada
**Project Type:**Funded
**Role:**Principal Investigator
Start Date:
Month: Apr Year: 2006
End Date:
Month: Mar Year: 2008
Funders:
SSHRC-Heritage Canada Virtual Scholar Program
Heritage Canada
Hannah Josephson: Translating Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion
Summary:
This project seeks to re-contextualize Hannah Josephson's translation of Bonheur d'occasion within a comprehensive vision of the translator as active cultural agent. In the fields of Canadian literary translation and Canadian literary institutions, this project offers a well-researched case study of the complex inter-connections between Québécois, Canadian, American and French literary circles that continue to affect Canadian-Québec letters. Finally, through its methodology, it makes a contribution to the emerging field of translation agency within the international discipline of translation studies.
Description:
An exceptional phenomenon in Canadian letters, Franco-Manitoban writer Gabrielle Roy’s 1945 novel Bonheur d'occasion is a Canadian classic in both English and French. Translated in 1946 by American Hannah Josephson as The Tin Flute, Roy's book became a popular success in the United States and English Canada, and Universal Studios bought the film rights. In 1947, the translation earned Roy the Governor General's Award. Despite the commercial success of the original translation, McClelland and Stewart commissioned a new translation by Canadian Alan Brown in 1980. This project fills an important gap in scholarship on Josephson’s translation of Bonheur d’occasion and her work as an author and translator. A literary figure in her own right, Josephson is the author of a study of the Lowell girls of the Massachusetts textile mills, a biography of Jeannette Rankin, the first American Congresswoman, and co-author of a book on American politician Al Smith. A part of the ebullient Paris literary scene in the early 1920s along with her husband, biographer Matthew Josephson, Hannah met French Dada and Surrealist writers including Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon. Through archival and bibliographical research, this study seeks to answer the following questions. What do Josephson’s translations of French writers, in particular Soupault and Aragon, and the French and American reception of their work reveal about the particular cultural attitudes and approaches she brought to her translation of Bonheur d'occasion? To what degree do differences in her translation and that of Brown point to changes in Canadian and American literary traditions and expectations (and the relations between the two institutions) between 1947 and 1980? What can archival research uncover about Josephson's formative influences and experiences, the editorial links that led her to translate Roy, her relationship with the Franco-Manitoban author, and the particular place translation occupies in her practice of cultural difference?
**Project Type:**Funded
**Role:**Principal Investigator
Start Date:
Month: Apr Year: 2006
End Date:
Month: Mar Year: 2010
Funders:
SSHRC Standard Research Grant
All Publications
Book Chapters
Agnès Whitfield and Christine Raguet, “Altérités multiples en traduction : nouveaux horizons conceptuels,” in Vidya Vencatesan and Christine Raguet, eds. Altérités multiples en traduction : explorations indiennes. Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2020, pp. 3-18.
2020
“Enseigner les nouvelles de Tagore : altérités multiples et voix médiatrices,” Vidya Vencatesan and Christine Raguet, eds. La représentation de l’Autre en traduction/ The Other in Translation, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2020, pp. 147-169.
2020
Agnes Whitfield and Susan Ingram. “Mapping European Studies in Canada from a Cultural-Historical Perspective,” in Vita Fortunati and Francesco Cattani, ed. Questioning the European Identity/ies: Deconstructing Old Stereotypes and Envisioning New Models of Representation. Rome: Il Mulino, 2011, pp. 225-243.
2011
Agnès Whitfield, “Le Désir comme catastrophe naturelle de Claire Dé,” “Femmes de soleil de Dominique Blondeau,” and “L’Homme qui peignait Staline de France Théoret,” in A. Boivin, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec. Vol. VIII, 2011.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Patricia Claxton, A Civil Translator,” in A. Whitfield, ed. Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, pp. 139-167.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. Introduction,” in A. Whitfield, ed. Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, pp. 1-18.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “Introduction,” in A. Whitfield, ed. Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones. Montréal: Fides, Collection“Nouvelles études québécoises, 2005, pp. 1-21.
2005
Agnès Whitfield. “Lettres d'une autre de Lise Gauvin,” in A. Boivin et al, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec, Vol. VII. Montréal: Fides, 2003, pp. 527-528.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Émilie du Châtelet, traductrice d'Isaac Newton, ou la ?traduction-confirmation,’” in Jean Delisle, ed. Portraits de traductrices. Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 2002, pp. 87-115.
2002
Agnès Whitfield. “Gérard Bessette,” in Willliam New, ed. Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, pp. 109-111.
2002
Agnès Whitfield. “Les Anthropoïdes de Gérard Bessette” (pp. 30-31); “Mes romans et moi de Gérard Bessette” (pp. 513-515); “Mirage de Pauline Michel” (pp. 520-521); “La Couvade de Robert Baillie” (pp. 181); “Flore Cocon de Suzanne Jacob” (pp. 340-341). in G. Dorion et al, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec. Vol. VI. Montreal: Fides, 1994.
1994
Agnès Whitfield. “Recherches, sujets et plaisir : repenser la relation,” in L. Milot and F. Dumont, ed. Pour un bilan prospectif de la recherche en littérature québécoise. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1992, p. 73-94.
1992
Agnès Whitfield. “L'Autobiographie au féminin : altérité masculine dans La Détresse et l'enchantement de Gabrielle Roy,” in Y. Grisé and R. Major, ed. Mélanges offerts en hommage à Réjean Robidoux. Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1992, pp. 391-404.
1992
Agnès Whitfield. “Introduction,” “Chronologie,” and “Bibliographie,” in MacLennan, H. Deux solitudes. Montréal: Fides, 1992, pp. 7-16, 733-740.
1992
Agnès Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy's Children of My Heart or Portrait of the Artist as Young Woman,” in C. Hall and J. Morgan, ed. Redefining Autobiography in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991, pp. 209-225.
1991
Book Reviews
Sâdhanâ de Rabindranath Tagore, Le Cahier bleu, vol. 3, no. 1 (2022), pp. 35-42.
2022
Science, poésie et écologie : R. Buckminster Fuller, Edgard Morin et Pierre Rabhi,” Le Cahier bleu, vol. 3, no. 2 (2022), pp. 31-40.
2022
Contexts, Subtexts and Pretexts. Literary translation in Eastern Europe and Russia, Brian James Baer, ed. (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2011) and Traduire sous contraintes. Littérature et communisme (1947-1989) by Ioana Popa (Paris : CRNS Éditions, 2010),” Translation Studies, vol 6, no. 1 (2013) : 118-122.
2013
Books
Agnes Whitfield, ed. L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction, Ottawa : Éditions David, Collection « Voix savantes », 2009, 364p.
2009
Agnes Whitfield, ed. Writing Between the Lines: Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators. Waterloo (Ontario): Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006, 312 p.
2006
Agnes Whitfield, ed. Le Métier du double : Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones. Montréal: Fides, collection “Nouvelles études québécoises” du CRILCQ, 2005, 392 p. (Short-listed for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Award.
2005
Agnès Whitfield, Jacques Cotnam and Yves Frenette, ed. La Francophonie ontarienne : bilan et perspectives de recherche. Ottawa: Le Nordir, 1995, 361 p.
1995
Agnès Whitfield and Jacques Cotnam, ed. La nouvelle : écriture(s) et lecture(s). Montréal/Toronto: XYZ/GREF, 1993, 226 p.
1993
Agnès Whitfield and Annette Hayward, ed. Critique et littérature québécoise. Montréal: Éditions Tryptique, 1992, 422 p.
1992
Monographs
Agnès Whitfield, Le Je(u) illocutoire, forme et contestation dans le nouveau roman québécois. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1987, 342 p.
1987
Journal Articles
Les multiples modes de la voix autobiographique de Philippe Soupault : enjeux et défis de la traduction. Palimpsestes 37, 2024, https://journals.openedition.org/palimpsestes/8440
2024
Enhancing Student Engagement and Structured Learning in Online Discussion Forums: The Worksheet Video Walk Formula. International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, vol. 12, no. 2 (July 2022) (With Vanessa Evans and Breanna Simpson).
2022
Unspoken Assumptions, Deep Holes and Boundless Expectations: The Dialogical Tensions in Teaching Short Stories. Language and Dialogue, Volume 12, Issue 1, Mar 2022, p. 110 - 129
2022
“Rumo a uma virada sociocultural no ensino da tradução : uma perspectiva canadense.” Trans. Myllena Lacerda and Marcelo Aguiar. Belas Infiéis, Vol. 10, no. 2 (2021).
2021
Agnes Whitfield, “The Circulation in English of Voices Theorizing Translation in French: Which Voices, When, and Why (or Why not),” Palimpsestes 33 (fall 2019), pp. 153-169.
2019
Agnes Whitfield, Émilie du Châtelet as Translator: Reading Sociability and Agency in Contexts of Multiple (In)visibilities,” Cahiers du Centre de traduction littéraires de Lausanne, 58 (2018), Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère, Angela Sanmann and Valérie Cossy, eds., pp. 269-300.
2018
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 85/3 (summer 2016), pp. 268-299.
2016
Agnes Whitfield. “Retranslation in a postcolonial context: Extra-textual and intra-textual voices in Hubert Aquin’s novel of Québec independence Prochain episode.” Target 27/1 (February 2015), pp. 75-93.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 84/3 (summer 2015), pp. 92-126.
2015
Agnes Whitfield, “Suggestive Sonorities: Representing and Translating Silence in Works by Québécois Poets Saint-Denys Garneau and Anne Hébert,” Palimpsestes 28 (2015), pp. 75-96.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 83/2 (spring 2014), pp. 373-396.
2014
Agnès Whitfield. “Le défi du rythme : Le défi du rythme dans la traduction d’essais littéraires : quelques exemples canadiens et québécois,” Palimpsestes 27 (2014), pp. 103-128.
2014
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 82/3 (summer 2013), pp. 452-473.
2013
Agnès Whitfield. “La voix anglaise de Marie-Claire Blais : Enjeux diachroniques de l’homogénéisation,” Palimpsestes 24 (2013), pp. 185-204.
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “Méthode et pratique du portrait : sur les traces des traducteurs.” Romanica Wratislaviensia 59 (ed. Elzbieta Skibinska and Natalia Paprocka), pp. 175-184.
2012
Agnes Whitfield, “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 81/3 (summer 2012), pp. 446-469.
2012
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 80/2 (spring 2011), pp. 218-243.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Creating a space for reciprocal cultural exchange: French-English / English-French literary translation in Canada.” TransCanadiana (Review of the Polish Association of Canadian Studies) 4 (2011),Katowice: Para, pp. 13-30.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 79/1 (winter 2010), pp. 318-344.
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 78/1 (winter 2009), pp. 96-130.
2009
Agnès Whitfield, “La traduction américaine des Voyageurs de l’impériale : enjeux esthétiques et sociaux,” Recherches croisées. Aragon et Elsa Triolet. Publication de l’Équipe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur Elsa Triolet et Aragon (ÉRITA), Strasbourg : Presses de l’Université de Strasbourg, 2009, pp. 149-176.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 77/1 (winter 2008), pp. 97-129.
2008
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 76/1 (2006-2007), pp. 266-291.
2007
Agnes Whitfield. “Behind the “Powderworks:” Hannah Josephson and The Tin Flute,” Canadian Literature 192 (spring 2007): 111-128.
2007
Agnes Whitfield. “La traduction anglais/français en sciences humaines: le repérage des marqueurs de cohérence.” La Tribune internationale des Langues Vivantes, 42, mai 2007, pp. 18-23.
2007
Agnes Whitfield. “Towards a Socio-Cultural Turn in Translation Teaching: A Canadian Perspective,” Méta 50/4 (December 2005). Electronic publication no page numbers.
2005
Agnes Whitfield. “L'enseignement de la théorie de la traduction : quelques réflexions pédagogiques,” Méta 48/ 3 (septembre 2003), pp. 429-437.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Translations/Traductions,” University of Toronto Quarterly 73/1 (2003-2004), pp. 79-96.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Traductions/Translations,” University of Toronto Quarterly 72/1 (2002-2003), pp. 291-306.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “Douleur et désir, altérité et traduction: réflexions d'une ?autre’ d'ici,” Francophonies d'Amérique 10 (2000), pp. 115-125.
2000
Agnes Whitfield. “Lost in Syntax: Translating Voice in the Literary Essay,” Méta 48/1 (avril 2000), pp. 113-126.
2000
Agnes Whitfield. “Silences du corps : L'Hiver de Mira Christophe de Pierre Nepveu,” Voix et images 52 (automne 1992), pp. 52-61.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Gérard Bessette écrivain : à la recherche de l'homme nouveau,” Queen's Quarterly 98/1(spring 1991), pp. 40-57.
1991
Agnes Whitfield. “Une fragile renaissance : images du corps masculin dans Les Masques et Le Passager,” Voix et images 45 (spring 1990), pp. 374-386.
1990
Agnes Whitfield. “Relire Gabrielle Roy, écrivaine,” The Queen's Quarterly 97/1 (spring 1990), pp. 53-66.
1990
Agnes Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy as Feminist: Re-reading the Critical Myths,” Canadian Literature 126 (1990), pp. 20-32.
1990
Agnès Whitfield. “Narrataires et réception : le cas du roman québécois,” Études canadiennes 24 (1988), pp. 57-66.
1988
Agnès Whitfield. “Psychanalyse et critique littéraire au Québec, 1960-1980,” Revue d'histoire littéraire du Québec et du Canada français 14 (1987), pp. 95-108.
1987
Agnès Whitfield. “Le nouveau roman québécois en 'je’ ou le je(u) illocutoire,” Québec français 63 (October 1986), pp. 28-31.
1986
Agnès Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy et Gérard Bessette : quand l'écriture rencontre la mémoire,” Voix et Images, IX/3 (printemps 1984), pp. 129-142.
1984
Agnès Whitfield. “L'énonciation : théories et applications récentes,” Recherches sémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry IV/1 (1984), pp. 59-70.
1984
Agnès Whitfield. “L'Auteur implicite dans Trente Arpents : modes de présence et signification narrative,” Voix et Images, VIII /3 (printemps 1983), pp. 485-494.
1983
Agnes Whitfield. “Reading the Post-1960 Quebec Novel: the Changing Role of the Narratee,” L'Esprit créateur, XXIII/3 (Fall 1983), pp. 32-39.
1983
Agnès Whitfield. “Prochain Épisode ou la confession manipulée,” Voix et Images, VIII/1 (automne 1982), pp. 11-126.
1982
Agnès Whitfield. “Blanche forcée ou la problématique du voyage chez Beaulieu,” Voix et Images, V/1 (automne 1979), pp. 165-176.
1979
Agnès Whitfield. “Alexandre Chenevert : Cercle vicieux et évasions manquées,” Voix et Images du Pays, VIII (1974), pp. 107-125.
1974
Professional Journal Articles
“Retired Supreme Court justice: A new commercial brand?” Law360 Canada, January 25, 2024, https://www.law360.ca/ca/pulse/articles/1789672/retired-supreme-court-justice-a-new-commercial-brand-agn-s-whitfield
2024
“Beverley McLachlin’s disdain for the rule of law,” Law360 Canada, January 17, 2024, https://www.law360.ca/ca/pulse/articles/1786632/beverley-mclachlin-s-disdain-for-the-rule-of-law-agn-s-whitfield
2024
Court of Appeal strikes heavy blow to public accountability, Law360 Canada, June 26, 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/48087/court-of-appeal-strikes-heavy-blow-to-public-accountability-agn-s-whitfield?category=opinion
2023
“Do Canadians have confidence in their Supreme Court?” Law360 Canada, 5 January 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/42605
2023
Ending sexual violence enabling: Responsibilities of legal, judicial communities, Law360 Canada, March 22, 2023
2023
“Sexual violence in Canadian major junior hockey: Bad faith is not reform,” Law360 Canada, 20 March 2023
2023
What the Brown matter says about values of senior judiciary, Law360 Canada, July 4, 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/48087/court-of-appeal-strikes-heavy-blow-to-public-accountability-agn-s-whitfield?category=opinion
2023
Will Bill C-9 restore public confidence in the judiciary? Law360 Canada, April 6, 2023, https://www.law360.ca/articles/45504/will-bill-c-9-restore-public-confidence-in-the-judiciary-agn-s-whitfield?category=opinion
2023
Will Canadian legal community step up for French-language rights? Law360 Canada, December 7, 2023.
2023
Debunking the myth: Unilingual judges more competent than bilingual, The Lawyer’s Daily, 6 June 2022
2022
Hockey Canada : Responsibilities of legal counsel, law societies, The Lawyer’s Daily, 25 October 2022
2022
Impediments to the public’s right to information, The Lawyer’s Daily, 19 August 2022
2022
“Is online voting reliable?” The Lawyer’s Daily, January 11, 2022
2022
Laurentian University: Public accountability and the courts.
The Lawyer’s Daily, April 29, 2022
2022
Laurentian University: Why university governance structures fail
The Lawyer’s Daily, April 28, 2022
2022
Working with Formative Feedback: Setting up Formative Feedback Guidelines, Teaching Commons blog, York University, September 2022.
2022
“Ontario judicial appointments: Francophones not welcome” The Lawyer’s Daily, March 01, 2022
2022
“French-language rights: Law societies’ duty to francophone litigants,” The Lawyer’s Daily, 28 October 2021, https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/30791
2021
“The incompatibility of sitting judges as university chancellors,” The Lawyer’s Daily, 12 November 2021.
2021
Thinking about feedback in translation terms, Teaching Commons, York University, blog 38, October 19, 2016
2016
Conference Papers
“Bilingual judges and cultural misunderstanding in Canada: A litigant-based perspective,” International Conference: The Challenges and Consequences of Cultural Misunderstanding: Linguistic, Legal and Translational Perspectives, Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, Valenciennes, 14 March 2024.
2024
“Creative solidarities: Cross-writing and cross-translation in Canada,” International conference: Translation and Creativity, University of Galway, 25 April 2024.
2024
“Plaisirs et défis de la traduction d’un écrivain surréaliste,” Maison Suger, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, May 30, 2024.
2024
“Récits de voyages et textes ethnographiques : Pour une approche plurivocale de la traduction,” séminaire TRACT, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 23 April 2024.
2024
“Les multiples modes de la voix autobiographique de Philippe Soupault : enjeux et défis de la traduction,” TRACT Seminar via Zoom, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 15 October 2021.
2021
“Structured Engagement and Learning in Discussion Forums: The Worksheet Video Walk Formula,” Teaching in Focus Conference, York University, 10 May 2021 (with Vanessa Evans and Breanna Simpson).
2021
“Le rayonnement de la pensée francophone au-delà du monde anglophone : la contribution du programme d'aide à la traduction du Conseil des arts du Canada,” TRACT Seminar, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 18 April 2019
2019
“Short Story Cycles and Nature Writing: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known (1898): Changing Publics, Changing Ecological Concerns,” Department of English, University of Mainz, 4 December 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield, “The Circulation in English of Voices Theorising Translation in French : Which Voices, When, and Why (or Why not)” International Conference: La réception de la pensée française contemporaine au prisme de la traduction, Sorbonne-Nouvelle Paris – 3, October 12, 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield, “Translating animal voices in a changing pedagogical and environmental context: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known in French,” International Conference : « Traduire les voix de la nature », May 26, 2018, Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle
2018
Agnes Whitfield, “Translating Québec's Quiet Revolution: Then and Now,” 58e congrès de la Société des Anglicistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur (SAES), Université Paris-Nanterre, June 8, 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield. “Émilie du Châtelet as Translator: Reading Sociability and Agency in Contexts of Multiple (In)visibilities,” International Conference, Fémin|in|visible: Femmes de lettres à l'époque des Lumières: traduction, écriture, médiation, 12 May 2017, Université de Lausanne (Switzerland).
2017
Agnes Whitfield. “Voix, rythme et vocabulaire : les défis de la traduction d’altérités multiples, ” International Conference, “La représentation de l’Autre en traduction/ The Other in Translation,” organised by the University of Mumbai and Sorbonne Nouvelle, University of Mumbai, 19 January 2016.
2016
Agnes Whitfield. “Caring for the Translation Eco-system: Translation Researchers as a Force for Change,” International Conference KäTu2015, University of Helsinki, 10 April 2015.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Suggestive Sonorities: Representing and Translating Silence in Works by Québécois Poets Saint-Denys-Garneau and Anne Hébert,” International Conference : Traduire le rythme Palimpsestes 28, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 17 October 2014.
2014
Agnes Whitfield. “Translating Voices Theorizing Translation in Canada: Which Voices, When, and Why,” International Conference: Translating the Voices of Theory: Intercultural passages, Resistances and Audibility/ La Traduction des voix de la théorie : Passages interculturels, résistances et audibilité,” University Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 22 March 2014.
2014
Agnès Whitfield. “L’enseignement des traductions littéraires dans les universités canadiennes: une enquête empirique auprès des professeur(e)s anglophones et francophones,” International Conference : Le traducteur à l’école/The Translator at School, Université de Wroc?aw, 26 April 2013
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “Le défi du rythme dans la traduction d’essais littéraires : quelques exemples canadiens et québécois,” International Conference : Traduire le rythme Palimpsestes 27, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 11-12 October 2013.
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “The Circulation of Translations of Anglophone and Francophone Literary Works in Canadian Libraries: A Cross-cultural Empirical Study,” 7th Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies, Germersheim, Germany, 29 August, 2013.
2013
Agnès Whitfield. “Les traducteurs : itinéraires biographiques et projets traductifs,” Séminaire du TRACT, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 3 October 2013.
2013
Agnès Whitfield. “La voix anglaise de Marie-Claire Blais : Enjeux diachroniques de l’homogénéisation,” Colloque international La Cohérence discursive à l’épreuve : traduction et homogénéisation, Université de Paris III /Sorbonne-Nouvelle, 13 October 2012.
2012
Agnes Whitfield. “Author-editor/publisher-translator communication in English-Canadian literary presses since 1960.” International Conference: Authorial and Editorial Voices, University of Copenhagen, 3 November 2011.
2011
Agnes Whitfield, “Intratextual voices: identifying the translation challenges.” International Conference: Agnes Whitfield. “Intratextual Voices in Translation: concepts, discourse and practice/ La Traduction des voix intra-textuelles: concepts, discours et pratiques,” La Maison Suger, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, France, 15 March 2011.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Sur les traces de figures effacées: la reconstitution bio-bibliographique des traducteurs et traductrices,” International Conference : Figure(s) du traducteur, University of Wroc?aw, 28 October 2010.
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “From Prochain Épisode to Next Episode: Hubert Aquin’s separatist novel goes Canadian classic,” International Conference: Voice in Retranslation, University of Oslo, 21 October, 2010
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “Literary Translation and the ‘Local’: Developing Pro-active Reciprocal Models for Transnational Cultural Exchange,” International Conference: Literature, Geography, Translation. The New Comparative Horizons, University of Uppsala, Sweden, June 13, 2009.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “Creating a space for reciprocal cultural exchange: French-English / English-French literary translation in Canada,” International and Multidisciplinary Conference RE-EXPLORING CANADIAN SPACE / REDÉCOUVRIR L’ESPACE CANADIEN, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 27 November 2008.
2008
Agnès Whitfield. “Hannah Josephson et le voyage de Bonheur d’occasion vers le monde anglophone,” International Conference : Bonheur d'occasion and Two Solitudes: Two Canadian Classics Through the Intercultural Passage,” Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, September 25, 2008.
2008
Agnès Whitfield. “La Contribution de la traduction littéraire à la promotion de la dualité linguistique : réalisations et défis.” Conference: Bilingualism in a Plurilingual Canada: Research and Implications, University of Ottawa, 19 June 2008.
2008
Agnes Whitfield. “The Circulation of Cultural Knowledge in Bilingual and Multilingual Contexts: A Canadian Case Study.” International Conference on Knowledge, Creativity and Transformation of Societies, Vienna, 8 December 2007.
2007
Agnès Whitfield. “Mise en relief et cohérence textuelle: une approche narratologique à la traduction,” International Conference “Traduire les sciences humaines,” Université de Rouen, 31 March 2006.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “The Case for Local Specificities: Francophone and Anglophone Literary Translators in Canada,” International Conference “Translating Identity and the Identity of Translation,” Université d'Avignon, 8 December 2005.
2005
Agnès Whitfield. “Traduction et altérité dans le contexte canadien et québécois,” Séminaire de la CEFAN (Chaire pour le développement de la Culture d’expression française en Amérique du Nord), Université Laval, 6 October 2005.
2005
Agnes Whitfield. “Towards a Socio-Cultural Turn in Translation Teaching : A Canadian Perspective,” Conference Méta 50, Université de Montréal, 6 April 2005.
2005
Agnès Whitfield. “Et si Katherine Mansfield écrivait de Montréal,” Conference “Traces d'une oeuvre : Gabrielle Roy et les écrivains montréalais,” McGill University, 20 November 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Reception of the Canadian classic, Two Solitudes: Translation as Invisible Cultural Inter-text,” TRANSLATION TARGETS, 10th International Conference on Translation and Interpreting, Charles University, Prague, 13 September 2003.
2003
Agnès Whitfield. “L'enseignement de la théorie de la traduction : quelques réflexions pédagogiques,” Congrès de la Fédération internationale des traducteurs, Vancouver, 9 August 2002.
2002
Agnès Whitfield. “L'enseignement de la théorie de la traduction : quelques réflexions pédagogiques,” Congrès de l'ACFAS, Université Laval, 15 May 2002.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “Teaching Translation Theory: a Learner-Centred Approach to Self-Identification as a Language Professional,” International Conference “Training the Language Services Provider for the New Millennium,” Faculdade de letra da universidade do Porto, Porto (Portugal), 26 May 2001.
2001
Agnes Whitfield. “The Canadian Classic Two Solitudes: Translation as Invisible Cultural Inter-text,” International Conference “Tradução e cultura,” Escola superior de tecnologia e gestão, Leiria (Portugal), 10 May 2001.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. “L'Appel à “l'autre” dans la traduction/écriture : deux cas canadiens/québécois,” Vision/Division: International Conference on Nancy Huston, Paris, Sorbonne Nouvelle, 27-28 April, 2001.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. “Traductions plurielles : relire Mavis Gallant,” Séance conjointe de l'Association des littératures canadienne et québécoise et de l'Association canadienne de traductologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 3 June 1999.
1999
Agnès Whitfield. “Traduire la voix ou l'impertinence du sujet féminin,” International Conference Les femmes et les textes : Langages, technologies, communautés, University of Leeds, 4 July 1997.
1997
Agnès Whitfield. “Translations ontologiques : le traducteur comme fiction,” Association canadienne de traductologie, Saint-John’s, 3 June 1997.
1997
Agnès Whitfield. “Silences et solitudes ou l'insoutenable légèreté du traduire,” Conference “Traduction et Mondialisation, Victoria University, University of Toronto, 3 October 1996.
1996
Agnès Whitfield. “Have Dictionary, Will Travel: le traducteur comme agent secret,” Conference : “La traduction dans le champ des sciences humaines,” ACFAS, McGill, 17 May 1996.
1996
Agnès Whitfield. “Vision et création chez Gabrielle Roy : le regard réciproque,” International Conference “Gabrielle Roy” Université de Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, 29 September 1995.
1995
Agnès Whitfield. “D'une langue à l'autre : l'espace de la création chez Daniel Gagnon,” Association canadienne de traductologie, Montréal, 3 juin 1995.
1995
Agnès Whitfield. “Traduire la nouvelle : Monique Proulx et Daniel Gagnon,” Conference “La nouvelle québécoise,” ACFAS, Montréal, 19 May 1994.
1994
Agnès Whitfield. “Figures du féminin et du masculin dans l'oeuvre d'André Langevin,” ACSUS, Boston, 18 November 1991.
1991
Agnes Whitfield. “Woman's Autobiography or the Challenge to Traditional Narratology,” Association canadienne de sémiotique, Kingston, 29 May 1991.
1991
Agnès Whitfield. “Bessette féministe?” Biennial Meeting, Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, San Francisco, 19 November 1989.
1989
Conference Proceedings
“Translating animal voices in a changing pedagogical and environmental context: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known in French,” in Traduire les voix de la nature /Translating the Voices of Nature, Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov and Bruno Poncharal, eds., Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, vol. 11, 2020, pp. 153-181.
2020
Agnes Whitfield. “Action Research in Translation Studies: Building Relationships with Education Science, Library Science and Literary Translator Communities,” in Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov, Liisa Tittula and Maarit Koponen, eds. Communities in Translation and Interpreting. Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2017, pp. 219-252.
2017
Agnes Whitfield. “Translating Voices Theorizing Translation in Canada: Which Voices, When, and Why.” in Isabelle Génin and Ida Klitgård, eds. La traduction des voix de la théorie/Translating the Voices of Theory, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2015, pp. 253-283.
2015
Agnes Whitfield. “Intratextual Voices in French-English Literary Translation in Canada: Identifying the Translation Challenges” in K. Taivalkoski-Shilov and M. Suchet, ed. Intratextual Voices in Translation, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’oeuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013, pp.35-66.
2013
Agnes Whitfield, “Author-publisher-translator communication in English-Canadian literary presses since 1960,” in H. Jansen and A. Wagener, ed. Authorial and Editorial Voices in Translation 2 – Editorial and Publishing Practices, Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre, collection Vita Traductiva, 2013, pp. 211-239.
2013
Agnes Whitfield. “Literary Translation and the ‘Local’: Developing Pro-active Reciprocal Models for Transnational Cultural Exchange,” in Cecilia Alvstad, Stefan Helgesson, and David Watson, ed. Literature, Geography, Translation: Studies in World Writing. Newcastle upon Tyne (England): Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, pp. 95-107.
2011
Agnes Whitfield. “Introduction,” in Agnès Whitfield, ed. L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction. Ottawa: Éditions David, Collection « Voix savantes », 2009, p. 9-33.
2009
Agnès Whitfield. “Dans le froid de la poudrerie : Hannah Josephson et la traduction américaine de Bonheur d’occasion,” in Agnès Whitfield, ed.L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction. Ottawa: Éditions David, Collection « Voix savantes », 2009, p. 39-60.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “The Case for Local Specificities: Francophone and Anglophone Literary Translators in Canada,” in Madelena Gonzalez and Francine Tolron, ed. Translating Identity and the Identity of Translation. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006, pp. 60-76.
2006
Agnès Whitfield. “Le syndrome des Plaines d'Abraham: traduction et translature,” in Louis Jolicoeur, ed. Traduction et enjeux identitaires dans le contexte des Amériques. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2006, pp. 177-191.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “Between Translation and Traduction: The Many Paradoxes of Deux Solitudes,” in Anthony Pym, Miriam Shlesinger and Zuzana Jettmarova, ed. Sociocultural Aspects of translating and Interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005, pp. 106-120.
2005
Agnes Whitfield.“The Canadian Classic Two Solitudes: Translation as Invisible Cultural Inter-text,” in Maria Goreti et al, ed. Actas Jornadas de Tradução. Leiria (Portugal): Escola superior de tecnologia e gestão, 2003, pp. 15-26.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Teaching Translation Theory: A Canadian Case Study,” in B. Maia, J. Haller and M. Ulrych, ed. Training the Language Services Provider for the New Millennium. Porto (Portugal): Universidade do Porto, 2002, pp.111-124.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “(Dis)playing difference: ‘Across the Bridge’ by Mavis Gallant,” in P. Sabor and N. Côté, ed. Varieties of Exile. New Essays on Mavis Gallant. New York: Peter Lang, 2002, pp. 49-62.
2002
Agnes Whitfield. “Traduire l'étrangeté : de quelques nouvelles de Aude et de Daniel Gagnon, ” in M. Lord and A. Carpentier, ed. La Nouvelle québécoise au XXe siècle. De la tradition à l'innovation. Québec: Nuit blanche, 1997, pp. 117-135.
1997
Agnes Whitfield. “Vision et création chez Gabrielle Roy : le regard réciproque,” in André Fauchon, ed. Colloque international “Gabrielle Roy.” Winnipeg: Presses universitaires de Saint-Boniface, 1996, pp. 271-285.
1996
Agnes Whitfield and Gregory Lessard. “Le roman-joual : Tremblay et Beaulieu,” in I. S. MacLaren and C. Potvin, ed. Literary Genres/Les Genres littéraires. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, 1992, pp. 115-137.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Le Nouveau roman québécois en ‘je’ ou le refus de l'introspection,” in I. S. MacLaren, C. Potvin, ed. Literary Genres/Les Genres littéraires. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, 1992, pp. 87-98.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Frontières critiques,” in A. Hayward and A. Whitfield, ed. Critique et littérature québécoise. Montréal: Tryptique, 1992, pp. 149-161.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Altérité et identité : tensions narratives dans Ces enfants de ma vie de Gabrielle Roy,” in L. Milot and J. Lintvelt. Le Roman québécois depuis 1960. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1992, pp. 167-180.
1992
Agnes Whitfield. “Le Littéraire bessettien : entre la taverne et la caverne,” in L. Milot and F. Roy, ed. Les Actes du Colloque international “la littérarité.” Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1991, pp. 147-162.
1991
Agnes Whitfield and Gregory Lessard, “The Study of Oral Elements in some Modern Quebecois Novels: Some Applications of Text Analysis Software,” in I. Lancashire, ed. Research in the Humanities Computing 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 35-46.
1991
Agnès Whitfield. “Intimité et écriture : tensions spatiales dans l'oeuvre de Gérard Bessette,” in Maïr Verthuy, ed. L'Espace-temps dans la littérature, Cahiers de l'APFUCC III. 2 (1989), pp. 23-38.
1989
Agnès Whitfield. “Les Anthropoïdes : l'épreuve de la parole ou l'enjeu de la transgression,” in Jean-Jacques Hamm, ed. Lectures de Gérard Bessette. Montréal: Québec/Amérique, 1982, pp. 211-226.
1982
Research Reports
Agnes Whitfield. Améliorer l’apport de la traduction littéraire à la dualité linguistique : Études d’options. Report submitted to Heritage Canada, March 2009, 40 p. and 2 appendices.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. The Contribution of Literary Translation to an Appreciation of Linguistic Duality: Access to Literary Works. Report submitted to Heritage Canada, September 2008, 23 p. and 14 appendices.
2008
Creative Works
Poète, où te tiens-tu ? Montréal : Éditions Sémaphore, spring 2021, 127 p.
2021
Agnès Whitfield. “Le linceul du ROC,” XYZ, la revue de la nouvelle 112 (hiver 2012), pp. 69-74.
2012
Agnès Whitfield. “Le Rallye du peintre,” Anne-Brigitte Renaud, Petronella Van Dijk and Michèle Plomer, ed. Lac Memphrémagog, Québec (Québec): Éditions GID, 2012, pp. 29-34.
2012
Agnès Whitfield. Si les sirènes ne chantaient plus, recueil de poésie. Montréal: Écrits des Forges, 2001, 96 p.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. Où dansent les nénuphars, récit. Ottawa: Le Nordir, 1995, 82 p.
1995
Agnès Whitfield. O cher Émile je t'aime ou l'heureuse mort d'une Gorgone anglaise racontée par sa fille, recueil de poésie. Ottawa: Le Nordir, 1993, 69 p.
1993
Divine Diva (Translation of Venite a cantare, novel by Daniel Gagnon), Toronto: Coach House Press, 1991, 60 p.
1991
Public Lectures
Agnes Whitfield, “Short Story Cycles and Nature Writing: Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known (1898): Changing Publics, Changing Ecological Concerns,” Department of English, University of Mainz, 4 December, 2018.
2018
Agnes Whitfield. “Langue, littérature et traduction au Québec,” Invited Lecture, Department of French, School of Humanities, Pondicherry University, 22 January 2016.
2016
Agnes Whitfield. “La francophonie canadienne : Langue, littérature et traduction,” Invited Lecture, Department of French, University of Madras, 25 January 2016.
2016
Agnès Whitfield. “Les multiples roles des traducteurs et traductrices,” Institut d’études romanes, University of Wrocław, 26 October 2010.
2010
Agnes Whitfield. “The Creative Power of Translation Studies,” Zentrum für Translationswissenschaft, Universität Wien, 4 November 2009.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “English-French and French-English literary translation in Canada as an example of local exchange,” Université Lille, Lille (France), November 17, 2009.
2009
Agnès Whitfield. “Quand il ne suffit pas de traduire ou les défis de la diffusion des traductions littéraires au Canada,” Groupe de recherche sur l’édition littéraire, Université de Sherbrooke, 27 March 2009.
2009
Agnes Whitfield. “Mapping Francophone Montreal: Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion and Trans-Generational Translation.” Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, Universität Vien, 24 April, 2008.
2008
Agnes Whitfield. “In Between the Lines: The Creative Art of Literary Exchange in Canada,” Forum Canada Lecture Series on Multicultural Canada, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, 12 December 2006.
2006
Agnès Whitfield. “Comment traduire le pouvoir évocateur du texte,” Master’s Program in Literary Translation, Université de Strasbourg, 6 December 2006.
2006
Agnès Whitfield. “La traduction américaine des Voyageurs de l’impériale : enjeux esthétiques et sociaux,” Université de Strasbourg, Research Group: Cériel, 5 December 2006.
2006
Agnes Whitfield. “Props, Pluck and Parapets ou Comment traduire vers sa langue maternelle sans se casser la figure?” Public Lecture, Département de linguistique et de traduction, Université Laval, 8 February 2005.
2005
Agnes Whitfield. “Two Solitudes/Deux Solitudes: The Paradoxical Destiny of a Canadian Classic,” Annual Hugh MacLennan/Seagram Lecture, McGill University, 7 April 2004.
2004
Agnes Whitfield. “Canadian Studies and Translation Studies: Attention, travaux sur le pont!” Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University, 19 November 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Translation and Inter-cultural communication in Canada,” Lecture in CANS 200 Introduction to the Study of Canada, Canadian Studies, McGill University, 11 November 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Translation Issues in The Tin Flute: Hannah Josephson and Alan Brown's English version of Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion,” Lecture in CANS 410 Literary Montreal, Canadian Studies, McGill University, 30 September 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “Is it time for a Cultural Turn in Translation Pedagogy?” Dipartimento di Studi Inter-disciplinari su Traduzione, Lingue e Culture, University of Bologna at Forli, 12 May 2003.
2003
Agnes Whitfield. “The Representation of History in Canadian Women’s Writing,” Doctoral Seminar, Letterature e Culture dei Paesi di Lingua Inglese, University of Bologna, 9 May 2003.
2003
Agnès Whitfield. “La nouvelle francophone au Canada et au Québec: formes et identités” Centro interuniversitario di Studi Quebecchesi, University of Bologna, 14 May 2003.
2003
Agnès Whitfield. “Panorama de la nouvelle québécoise,” Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3, Bordeaux, 4 May 2001.
2001
Agnès Whitfield. “Écrire et traduire la nouvelle au Québec,” Alliance française, Université deTours, 19 October 1999.
1999
Agnès Whitfield. “La Traduction au Canada : pratiques institutionnelles et formation des traducteurs et traductrices,” Institut pluridisciplinaire d'études canadiennes, Université de Rouen, 18 March 1999.
1999
Agnès Whitfield. “La nouvelle au Québec,” Public Lecture, Paron-Sens (France), 6 April 1998.
1998
Agnès Whitfield. “Stylistique ou idéologie : le cas de Deux Solitudes,” Advanced research seminar “Practices/Discourses/ Institutions/Theories: an overview of translation studies in Canada,” York University, 4 March 1998.
1998
Agnès Whitfield. “Pertinence ou non-pertinence : le défi de la traduction,” École de traduction et d'interprétation, Université de Genève, 11 November 1997.
1997
Agnès Whitfield. “Analyse du discours et traduction publicitaire,” Département de Langue et littérature française, McGill, 4 December 1996.
1996
Agnes Whitfield. “Gabrielle Roy's Autobiographical Writing,” Public Lecture, Études françaises and Canadian Studies, Trent University, 2 March 1994.
1994
Agnès Whitfield. “La Traduction publicitaire,” Département d'études françaises, Trent University, 2 March 1994.
1994
Agnes Whitfield. “Bilan prospectif de la recherche en littérature québécoise,” Séminaire du CRÉLIQ, Université Laval, 6 February 1992.
1992
Conferences
Agnes Whitfield, “Recognizing What Translators Do: A Tribute to Hannah Josephson (1900-1976),” Invited Lecture, Norwegian Literary Translators Association, Oversatte Dager, Kulturhuset, Oslo, 19 February 2016.
2016
Published Reviews
J, Felx, Éternité reconquise sur le temps, compte-rendu de Si les sirènes ne chantaient plus, Lettres québécoises, 106 (2002), 33-34.
2002
Jean-Pierre Boucher, La nouvelle: écriture(s) et lecture(s), sous la direction d'Agnès Whitfield et Jacques Cotnam (review), University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 65, Number 1, Winter 1995/96, pp. 275-277.
1995
A. Lamontagne, Regards métacritiques, review of Critique et littérature québécoise, Canadian Literature 147 (1995), 170-172.
1995
Barbara Godard, Critique et littérature québécoise ed. by Annette Hayward and Agnes Whitfield (review),
University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 63, Number 1, Fall 1993, pp. 231-235.
1993
Emile J. Talbot, Le je(u) illocutoire: Forme et contestation dans le nouveau roman québécois by Agnès Whitfield, review. World Literature Today. Vol. 63, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 68-69
1989
R. Major, Prises de parole, review of Le je(u) illocutoire, Voix et images, 14(2), 322–325
1989
Paul Perron, Le jeu illocutoire: Forme et contestation dans le nouveau
roman québécois by Agnès Whitfield (review)
University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 58, Number 1, Fall 1988, pp. 193-196
1988
Chantal Gamache, Le « je(u) entre l’indiviuel et le collectif
Le Je(u) illocutoire. Forme et Contestation dans le nouveau
roman québécois d’Agnès Whitfield, Lettres québécoises, No. 48, p. 63.
1987
Other
Bilinguisme à la Cour supreme : Le refus anglophone de l’égalité du français, La Presse, 31 May, 2022, https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/opinions/2022-05-31/bilinguisme-a-la-cour-supreme/le-refus-anglophone-de-l-egalite-du-francais.php
2022
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN4252 6.0 | A | Canadian Topics: Life-Writing | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | TUTR |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN4252 6.0 | A | Canadian Topics: Life-Writing | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/EN2130 6.0 | A | The Short Story | TUTR |