Whitfield, Agnès
[Français]
Born in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1951, Agnes Whitfield studied French and Québec literature at Queen's University, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne and Université Laval (Ph. D., 1981). She worked as a professional translator with the Canadian Secretary of State Translation Bureau (1976-1980), and taught translation and Québec literature, at Queen's University (1980-1990), and since 1990, at York University, where she chaired the School of Translation (1992-1996), and is now Professor of English.
Agnes Whitfield is the author of Le Je(u) illocutoire. Forme et contestation dans le roman québécois contemporain (PUL, 1987), co-editor of Critique et littérature québécoise (Tryptique, 1992), La Nouvelle: écriture(s) et lecture(s) (XYZ, 1993),
and La Francophonie ontarienne : bilan et perspectives de recherche (Le Nordir, 1995), and editor of Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, 2005), short-listed for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize, Writing Between the Lines: Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (WLUP, 2006), and L’écho de nos classiques: Bonheur d’occasion et Two Solitudes en traduction (Éditions David, 2009).
Dr. Whitfield has published over sixty articles on Canadian and Québec fiction, women’s life writing, theory of translation and women literary translators in journals such as Voix et images, Études canadiennes, Québec français, Méta, Lettres québécoises, Queen's Quarterly, and Canadian Literature, and in International Conference Proceedings (Porto, Amsterdam, Paris, and Cambridge). Since 2002, she is the translation review editor for the University of Toronto Quarterly. Her books of poetry include: Ô cher Émile je t'aime ou l'heureuse mort d'une Gorgone anglaise racontée par sa fille (Le Nordir, 1993), Où dansent les nénuphars (Le Nordir, 1995), and Et si les sirènes ne chantaient plus (Écrits des Forges, 2001).
Short-listed in 1991 for the Governor General's Award for Divine Diva, her translation of Daniel Gagnon's novel, Venite a cantare, Dr.Whitfield is an accredited member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario and the Literary Translators Association of Canada. As President of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies (1995-1999), she signed a Research Exchange Agreement with the European Society for Translation Studies, and created the Canadian Vinay-Darbelnet Awards in translation studies.
Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna's Centro di Studi Québecchesi in May 2003 and Seagram Visiting Chair at the McGill University Institute for the Study of Canada (2003-2004), Dr. Whitfield was Joint Chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (2009-2010). As SSHRCC/Heritage Canada virtual scholar (2006-2007), she carried out eight national surveys of university professors, librarians, publishers and booksellers in English and French, to assess the contribution of literary translation to linguistic duality in Canada. Other SSHRC funded projects include a study of Hannah Josephson, the American translator of Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion, and a bibliographical tool to facilitate literary exchange between Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Romania. Dr. Whitfield is a member of the nternational Research Group Voice in translation based at the University of Oslo.
Agnès Whitfield
Email : AgnesW@YorkU.ca
Last Update : 2012-01-18
