Marta Arnaldi

Marta Arnaldi is a postdoctoral researcher, the author of an award-winning collection of poetry (Itaca, 2016), and a ballet dancer (London, RAD). After studying Medicine and Surgery at the University of Turin, she obtained a BA in Italian Literature from the same university (2010). Her graduate education includes an MA in Modern Philology from the University of Pavia (2013), an M.St. in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford (2014), and a DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages, also from Oxford (2018). Her forthcoming book – The Diasporic Canon: American Anthologies of Contemporary Italian Poetry 1945-2015 – is the first monograph to be dedicated to the history of a national literary canon in another language and country (Legenda, 2021). Her second monograph, which looks at the interplay between medicine and translation in contemporary English, French and Italian poetry, is under preparation thanks to the full support of a Laming Research Fellowship at The Queen’s College, Oxford.

Translation as a cross-disciplinary concept lies at the heart of her current programme of research. Generously supported by Wellcome Institution Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) and John Fell Fund, Translating Illness consists in a series of collaborations with international research partners and organisations based in Finland, Norway, Italy, and the United States. It also comprises a seminar series taking place at The Queen’s College, Oxford, from January to June 2020, which has been turned into podcasts episodes available to download on the University of Oxford Podcasts website – https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/translating-illness. What do medicine and translation have in common? In what sense, and to what extent, is translation used in contexts as varied as the transfer of meaning from one language (or medium) to the other, the concept of knowledge translation, and the process of protein synthesis? How will a nuanced understanding of translation help us advance in literary and linguistic studies as well as in clinical research? Translating Illness explores these questions in an interdisciplinary way, with the aim to promote a culture and practice of translation that acknowledges its impact on health and wellbeing. This project builds upon and expands the work currently undertaken at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, University of Oslo (2017-2020): https://www.med.uio.no/helsam/english/research/projects/body-in-translation/. Special thanks go to Eivind Engebretsen (Oslo), Rita Charon (Columbia), Elizabeth Leake (Columbia), Millicent Marcus (Yale) and Tuomo Lahdelma (Jyväskylä) for their support of the project.