This presentation highlights the political and partial nature of periodicals by examining the transatlantic reception of Lagerlöf’s translations in English in a selection of literary reviews such as the TLS (1902-), the Review of Reviews (1890 – 1937), the American Review of Reviews (1890 – 1937) and the more specialized American-Scandinavian Review (1913-). 

Webinar 2026

Program

30 January 2026

3 pm (French Time) 

• ‘Periodical Travel Reviews as Places of Translation (18th-19th Century) Marius Haugen (NTNU, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet)

The travel review was an important genre in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century French periodical press, not only by critiquing travelbooks, but also in retransmitting experiences of the foreign to its readers.

By extension, the travel review was deeply entangled with translation, both as a practice and a metadiscourse.

As a practice, reviews frequently contained excerpts from existing translations, but often also shorter translations done by the reviewers themselves. The latter situate translation as a part of a larger practice of appropriation, remediation, and rewriting, through which the review transmitted a modified version of the travel book and its (already mediated) experiences of the world.

As a metadiscourse, reviews evaluated specific translations, but more importantly engaged with the discussion of what a translation should be and do. Travel reviews were, for instance, privileged places for discussing the potentially instrumental role that translations could play in the cultural and geopolitical rivalry between France and Great Britain.

This seminar will explore the complexity and diversify of the relationship between translation and the travel review, as it developed in the French periodical press at the turn of the eighteenth- and nineteenth century.

Marius Warholm Haugen is  Professor of French Literature at the NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His primary research interests lie within eighteenth- and nineteenth-century studies, in particular literature and gambling, Lottery Fantasies, Follies, and Controversies A Cultural History of European Lotteries (2026); travel writing and periodical studies, literary appropriation, translation, and rewriting.

For a full profile and list of publications.

19 February 2026

6 pm (French Time)

• Lúcia Granja (UNICAMP, São Paulo) : translation of French novels in 19th-century Brazilian periodicals « Le Jornal do Commercio au XIXe siècle : médiations culturelles, sérialisation littéraire et enjeux politico-idéologiques »

Cette communication se propose d’examiner la trajectoire du Jornal do Commercio, l’un des périodiques les plus influents du XIXe siècle au Brésil, en mettant particulièrement l’accent sur la première moitié du siècle. Le Jornal do Commercio fut un journal brésilien majeur, basé à Rio de Janeiro. Fondé en 1827, il a circulé pendant 189 ans, jusqu’à la cessation de ses activités en 2016, conséquence des effets de la crise politique-économique brésilienne de 2014. Il s’agissait du plus ancien journal en circulation en Amérique latine sous la même dénomination, c’est-à-dire sans changement de nom.

Après un bref panorama de son histoire, l’analyse se concentrera sur les dynamiques de médiation et de transfert culturel qui marquent sa fondation et son fonctionnement, notamment le rôle joué par les Français dans la création et la gestion du journal, dans le contexte politique complexe de l’indépendance brésilienne.

Seront abordées la place pionnière du Jornal do Commercio dans la publication de la littérature sériée et les spécificités de la sérialisation au Brésil, en comparaison avec le modèle français. L’étude portera également sur la traduction et la circulation des feuilletons français au Brésil durant l’âge d’or du roman-feuilleton, ainsi que sur l’identité et le rôle des traducteurs.

Enfin, la réflexion s’étendra à des enjeux plus larges, tels que les effets de l’isolement informationnel du Brésil avant l’installation du câble télégraphique sous-marin dans les années 1870, ainsi que les liens politico-idéologiques tissés autour de ce périodique au cours du XIX^e siècle.

L’objectif est de mettre en lumière la manière dont le Jornal do Commercio a participé, à la fois, à la circulation internationale des idées et des formes littéraires et à la construction d’un espace médiatique et politique proprement brésilien.

Lúcia Granja est professeure de Littérature brésilienne à l'UNICAMP (São Paulo, Brésil) et directrice dethèse. Elle est spécialiste de la relation entre la presse et la littérature au XIX^e siècle et de l'histoire de la maison d'édition des Frères Garnier. Elle est aussi connue par l'étude de l'œuvre de Machado de Assis, dont témoignent plusieurs articles et livres. 

Lúcia Granja is Professor of Brazilian Literature at UNICAMP (São Paulo, Brazil). She is a specialist in the relationship between the press and literature in the nineteenth century and in the history of the Garnier brothers' publishing house. She is also a specialist of the work of Machado de Assis. 

Publications choisies :

• « Les Garnier à Paris et à Rio de Janeiro : être éditeur en France ou en Amérique Latine ? », in Revue Histoire et civilisation du livre. Paris : Droz, 2022, vol. XVIII, p. 177-193
• « Au rythme des arrivées des paquebots : la viralité des nouvelles autour de la Guerre franco-prussienne à Rio de Janeiro » (Plateforme Médias 19)
• « L'éditeur Baptiste-Louis Garnier : esclavage, immigration et culture médiatique au Brésil », in La Presse Francophone des Amériques, Laval: Presses Universitaires du Laval, 2024, p. 83-98)
• « Un comte traverse la mer : un roman d ́Alexandre Dumas en bas de page et aux annonces du Jornal do Commercio », in Le commerce transatlantique de la librairie, un des fondements de la mondialisation culturelle. France, Portugal, Brésil, XVIII^e-XX^e siècle. Campinas, São Paulo: UNICAMP/Publicações IEL, 2012).

26 March 2026 

• Eloise Forestier (Ghent University)‘Lost in Reception: Periodical Reviews and the Transatlantic Legacy of Selma Lagerlöf in English Translation’

Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) has never been out of print and remains one of the most translated Swedish authors. There appears, however, to be a consensus among scholars regarding Lagerlöf’s history of poor translation into English, with the finger of criticism most often pointing to her American translator, Velma Swanston Howard (1868–1937). Swanston Howard’s legacy was seriously undermined by Peter Graves’ 1998 chapter on the reception of Lagerlöf in Britain, in which Graves quotes from the Times Literary Supplement (17/4/1913): a horrified critic claims that Lagerlöf is “so mauled, so mangled in translation” that “we can but guess at the nationality of the translator.”

Stepping away from the British sphere, a perusal of American reviews quickly shows how much praise Swanston Howard received for her work.

This presentation highlights the political and partial nature of periodicals by examining the transatlantic reception of Lagerlöf’s translations in English in a selection of literary reviews such as the TLS (1902-), the Review of Reviews (1890 – 1937), the American Review of Reviews (1890 – 1937) and the more specialized American-Scandinavian Review (1913-). While the political dimension of periodicals is well established, what is perhaps less emphasized is how the (anglophone) press of the time functioned not merely as a channel of circulation. It was a contested space shaped by cultural bias, as well as political and linguistic tensions, all of which could significantly fracture the reception of literary texts. This contribution, as part of a new project on undervalued Anglo-Swedish feminine translation partnerships, opens an initial window onto the entangled interactions that underpinned the translation and press industries at the turn of the twentieth century.

Bio: Eloise Forestier obtained her PhD in 2020 at Ghent University. After a first postdoc on transnational feminism in Swedish periodicals of the late 19C, she has recently been appointed senior FWO (Flanders Research Foundation) postdoctoral researcher for a project on Anglo-Swedish feminism and translation at the turn of the 20th century. She has published several articles on women editors from Britain, France, and Sweden. Her first monograph, Transnational Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Swedish Literature and Periodical Culture: Entangled Dreams and Cross-Cultural Encounters was published in 2024 (Brill). Eloise is also part of the editorial team of JEPS (Journal for European Periodical Studies).

12 June 2026

• Clément Dessy (ULB): translation in fin de siècle periodicals, 12 June 2026 TBC