Michela Baldo

I graduated in Classics, Italian and Modern Greek Language at the University of Padova in 2000. I moved to the UK in 2002 and I completed a MA (2004) and PhD (2009) in Translation Studies at the University of Manchester. While studying I worked as a part-time freelance translator and I taught Italian language both in secondary schools and at the University of Manchester. After completing my PhD, I worked as a research assistant in an ESRC research project on bilingualism at the University of Manchester and subsequently I took posts as a researcher, teaching fellow or lecturer in Translation Studies at the Universities of Birmingham, Siena (Italy), Leicester and Hull. During these years I also worked for periods as a freelance translator, specialising in the translation into Italian of academic works on queer studies and feminist studies. I joined again the University of Birmingham in September 2020.  

One strand of my research revolves around the translation into Italian of Italian-Canadian works, especially women’s works, with a specific focus on issues such as queerness and self-translation. On the subject I published the book Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return: Analysing Cultural Translation in Diasporic Writing (Palgrave 2019). Another strand of my research concerns the role of translation in Italian queer feminist activism. I am mainly interested in exploring the concepts of performativity and affect in relation to how translations are performed and received within these scenarios. On the topic I have published a few articles and chapters and I am currently co-editing with Jonathan Evans and Ting Guo a special issue of TIS (Translation and Interpreting Studies) on Translation and LGBT/Queer activism. In 2020 I also completed, with co-translator Elena Basile, the translation into English of the book by Italian scholar Lorenzo Bernini Queer Theories. An Introduction (Routledge 2020).