What happens to a text when it moves from one language into another? Where does fidelity to the original end and a new text begin? And how much of the translator herself remains in every translation she creates?

The conversation brings together Adriana Zaharijević, a translator of feminist theory and philosophy, including works by Judith Butler; Tijana Parezanović, an English studies scholar, literary translator, and author of the textbook Foundations of Translation for Students of English; and Jelena Kupsjak, an anthropologist and translator of the Croatian edition of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World.

Drawing on concrete examples from their own work, they will discuss words that resist translation, concepts that have no simple equivalent in another language, solutions that emerge through conversations with others, and the differences between translating theory and literature.

The discussion will also turn to what usually remains invisible once we hold a finished book in our hands: uncertainties, mistakes, compromises, unexpected solutions, and moments when translation begins to transform both the text and the language in which it takes shape.

The conversation is an invitation to think of translation not simply as the transfer of meaning, but as a creative process in which languages meet, collide, and change.

Adriana Zaharijević. Is a Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Her work brings together political philosophy, feminist theory, and social history. She is the author of four monographs, including Life of Bodies: The Political Philosophy of Judith Butler and Judith Butler and Politics, and has been translating feminist theory and philosophy from English into Serbian for two decades, including works by Judith Butler.

Tijana Parezanović. Is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Alfa BK University in Belgrade. Her work spans Anglophone literatures, translation studies, popular culture, literature teaching, and literary translation. She is the author of Terra Australis: Mythopoetics of Belonging and the textbook Foundations of Translation for Students of English.

Jelena Kupsjak. Is Assistant Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, University of Zadar. Her anthropological work includes medical anthropology, psychiatry, politics of difference, and ethnography. She translated the Croatian edition of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins.