Alexa Alfer

Senior Lecturer in Translation

University of Westminster

Website: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/page-4220

Alexa Alfer is an experienced professional translator and editor, specialising in academic translation (literary criticism, philosophy, art, art history, history of medicine and science). In addition to her freelance practice, she has taught practical translation and editing modules as well as translation theory at the University of Westminster since 2002.

Alexa’s research interests are informed by her background in literary studies. She is the author, together with Amy J. Edwards, of a forthcoming monograph on A. S. Byatt (Manchester UP, 2011) and is currently developing a new research project on the scholarly, commercial and broader cultural motivations that lie behind decisions to commission or undertake re-translations of classic literary texts. Focusing on the English translations and re-translations of the works of 19th-century German writer Theodor Fontane, the project also considers the changing face and politics of literary translation in the English-speaking world over the past 150 years, as well as the broader context of the reception of German literature and culture in Britain.

From 2007 to 2009, Alexa also held a part-time Research Assistantship with the School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University, where she contributed her translation criticism and editing expertise to a research project on the intersections of literary and medical discourses in the works of Thomas Mann. The project was funded by the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award and directed by PD Dr Thomas Rütten.

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