Prof. Helena Buffery came to University College Cork in Ireland in April 2010 after many years as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, where she completed her PhD in 1997. Her main teaching and research interests are in contemporary Hispanic Theatre and Performance, Translation Studies and Catalan Studies, but she has taught many other aspects of Hispanic languages and cultures over the years and is particularly drawn to the diverse instances of intercultural contact that characterise the Hispanic world. Prof. Buffery was Head of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies from 2013 to 2017. She is currently Vice-Head of CACSSS (Research).

The course The Translation Zone: Languages in Catalan-Speaking Territories will be focusing on Catalan culture and translation in order to address different aspects of translation history, ethics and practice in relation to minority and minoritized languages, identities and communities. The classes would seek to explore and analyze what happens to Catalan literature, film, theatre and performance in translation into other languages (in particular in the Anglophone world), as well as reflect on changing approaches to and affordances of translation within, between and beyond the Catalan-speaking territories in diverse situations of language contact and intercultural encounter involving Catalan-speaking individuals and communities. The course will be structured in four parts: Catalonia in-translation; invisible landscapes; traumatic translations; and cartographies of desire.