Dear List Members,

We are pleased to announce the following Call for Papers for the International Conference “Translating Latin in the Contemporary World”, to be held in June, 11-12, 2026, at the University of Bologna (Italy).

The conference will address the topic of translation of Latin texts into modern languages – both natural and computer-based – by combining theoretical, historical, and cultural perspectives on translation. The goal is to bring together scholars from translation studies, classics, modern languages, comparative literature, linguistics, and digital humanities, to foster an interdisciplinary discussion of how the translation of Latin continues to shape the cultural and intellectual landscapes of the contemporary world. The conference will feature two keynote lectures by Alexandra Lianeri (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and Siri Nergaard (University of South-Eastern Norway).

We invite proposals that address the topic of translation of Latin texts into modern languages from a variety of perspectives, including but not limited to the following areas:

• Challenges arising from the translation of Latin into modern languages – such as linguistic categories absent from either source or target language, stylistic and rhetorical features, or translation of realia
• Case studies of Latin translations that have played a key role in the development of a given national literature or intellectual tradition
• Instances of ideological or cultural manipulation of Latin texts in their modern translations
• Comparative analyses of multiple translations of the same Latin text into a given language
• The impact of digital humanities, machine translation, and artificial intelligence on the translation and interpretation of Latin texts
• Didactic perspectives on the use of AI-based tools for the automatic translation of Latin texts
• Pedagogical perspectives on translation as a hermeneutic tool for learning Latin
• Cognitive approaches to translation and their relevance to the study of classical languages.

Contributions focusing on less commonly studied languages and traditions are particularly welcome.

Please send abstracts of up to 300 words for 20-minute papers (followed by a 10-minute discussion). Abstracts may be submitted in Italian, English, French, German, or Spanish; however, the working languages of the conference will be Italian and English. Submissions will be subject to blind review by the scientific committee. Please send your proposal to translating.latin@gmail.com by 15 January 2026, attaching an anonymous abstract and including the following information in the body of the email: paper title, author’s name, affiliation, and email address for correspondence. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 February 2026.

For further information please visit the conference website: https://eventi.unibo.it/translating-latin-contemporary-world

Teresa Torcello

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Latin Language and Literature

University of Bologna, Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies