Karen Bennett is Associate Professor of Translation at Nova University of Lisbon, researcher in Translation Studies with the Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS) and editor of the journal Translation Matters. She also has a background in music, having studied piano and musical theory to Grade VIII (Advanced), and musical history and appreciation at GCE level.
She became interested in intersemiotic translation during the course of her MA and PhD in Translation Studies, when she published a series of case studies about the semiotics of music and dance. Her more recent activities have included editing a special issue of Translation Matters dedicated to Intersemiotic Translation and Multimodality, and participation in the Tartu conference on the Transmedial Turn (December 2020) with a paper on Strauss’s opera Salome as a translation of Wilde’s play, and a workshop (with Ricarda Vidal and Madeleine Campbell) entitled Translating with Body and Ear.
Relevant publications:
- ‘The musical power of Salomé: Strauss translates Wilde’, Intersemiotic Translation and Multimodality, special issue of Translation Matters, Vol. 2/1, 43-61 (2019)
- ‘The new iconicity: challenges for translation theory and practice’. Editor’s introduction to Intersemiotic Translation and Multimodality, special issue of Translation Matters, Vol. 2/1, 1-8 (2019)
- ‘The language of dance’, Textos Pretextos 11: Coreo-grafias, Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Comparatistas/Livrododio Editors (2008). 56-67.
- ‘Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” and socialist realism: a case-study in intersemiotic translation’ in Shakespeare and European Politics, Dirk Delabastita, Josef de Vos, Paul Franssen (eds), University of Delaware Press (2008). 318-328
- ‘Star-cross’d lovers in the age of AIDS: Rudolf Nureyev’s “Romeo and Juliet” as intersemiotic translation’ in Literary Intermediality: The Transit of Literature through the Media Circuit, Maddalena Pennacchia Punzi (ed.), Berne: Peter Lang (2007). 127-142;
- ‘Words into movement: the ballet as intersemiotic translation’ in Teatro e Tradução: Palcos de Encontro, Maria João Brilhante & Manuela Carvalho (eds) Porto: Campo das Letras (2007). 125-140;
- ‘Star-cross’d lovers: Shakespeare and Prokofiev’s “pas-de-deux” in “Romeo and Juliet”’, Cambridge Quarterly, 32 (4), 2003. 311-347.
Soundscapes: translating from music 