Acknowledgements

This volume pushed itself onto my desk and laptop at a time when I really did not have any resources for a project that required extensive amounts of free time and energy to devote to thinking, reading and writing. Perhaps because of this, it has become very dear to me, and I have developed a very affective relationship to it. The manuscript was written over several years and in the interstices of academic life. Its completion has therefore relied upon invitations that allowed me to get away from my office and everyday responsibilities and provided me with opportunities to give talks related to the topic and get feedback from different audiences. I wish to express my gratitude for these invitations to Hannu Kemppanen (University of Eastern Finland), Yvonne Lindqvist (Stockholm University), Ji-Hae Kang (KATS), Smiljana Narančić Kovač (University of Zagreb) and Estefanía Muñoz Gómez (University College Cork).

The progress of this manuscript has also depended on writing retreats: a thousand thanks for the hospitality and support of my dear friends and colleagues Nike Pokorn, Kristiina Abdallah, Tuija Kinnunen and Outi Paloposki who at different stages of the project opened their doors and let me stay in their summer home or apartment to fully focus on my writing. This concrete form of support and encouragement means a lot to me. For some of the retreats I also received financial support: many thanks to my former employer University of Tampere and its Faculty of Communication Sciences.

I am grateful to John Benjamins Publishing Company for the opportunity to be part of its prestigious translation library, and to Yves Gambier for his early encouragement and to Roberto Valdeón and Isja Conen for their trust in the value of my project and their patience with my scheduling. I am particularly indebted to the two anonymous reviewers who not only devoted their time and expertise to pushing my thinking and writing forward but also generously shared their varied affective responses to the reading experience, allowing me to anticipate the kinds of reactions the book may generate. All remaining failures and gaps are entirely my own responsibility.

This book builds on my earlier research. Some of this research is explicitly co-authored, all of it is a result of collaboration. I wish to thank my co-authors and colleagues in translation studies and beyond collectively for an academic ecosystem that has always been constructive and inspiring. During the writing process I have received a lot of encouragement and support. I am particularly grateful for the enthusiasm from the field. The comments and feedback from professional translators and interpreters on many aspects of the affective in their work have given me faith in the relevance of this book project in times of self-doubt and impostor feelings. Many thanks to Pia von Essen and Tiina Kinnunen in particular for their insights and encouragement. Colleagues have read and commented draft sections of the manuscript and helped me clarify my thinking: many thanks to Tytti Suojanen, Mary Nurminen, Anne Ketola and Kristiina Abdallah. Sari Hokkanen’s revision of the final manuscript was invaluable, and her incisive editorial reading improved my argumentation. Ninni Vaaranka assisted with the bibliography.

For me, this monograph is no ordinary academic book. It represents a balance sheet of my academic career, a summary of what I have accomplished and how I see my contribution to the study of translational phenomena. For long I understood it as an effort at consilience within my own oeuvre; it was only during the revision process that I realized consilience is a more extensive aim as well. I aim to bring together a number of areas and approaches in the study of translation and interpreting through the concept of affect. Given that consilience is a concept I have borrowed from the thinking of Andrew Chesterman, it seems appropriate to use this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge Andrew’s extensive mentoring and influence in my academic career, from the 1990s onward. I also want to acknowledge the role of Douglas Robinson’s pioneering thinking on the affective in translation in my thinking, from the lecture on the somatics of translation in 1988 – my first contact with translation theory – to his more recent publications. They still give me the same mixed sense of excitement and bafflement I felt as a first-year student in 1988, an academic affect I love and hate.

One person requires a very special acknowledgement, both for her contribution to this book project and to my academic life in general. Outi Paloposki generously read all chapters as I was progressing, some of them repeatedly. Without her positive feedback and constant encouragement, I would not have had the stamina to push this through. The same may well be true of my career. I cherish the academic sisterhood we have had over the decades, and I dedicate this book to Outi. Affectionately.