Jean Boase-Beier

• 1993-2006 Member/Chair of Standing Committee of University Assembly
• 1994-2001 & 2006-present Member of Advisory Panel of the British Centre for Literary Translation
• 1995-2002 & 2003-2004 Chair, Teaching Committee in School of Languages, Linguistics and Translation Studies
• 1995-2009 Member of Senate
• 1999-2007 Member of University Council
• 1999-2004 Member of University Learning, Teaching and Quality Committee and Undergraduate Studies Executive
• 2000-2001 Chair, German Sector in School of Language, Linguistics and Translation Studies
• 2002-2004 Deputy Dean, School of Language, Linguistics and Translation Studies
• 2005-2008 Teaching Director, School of Literature and Creative Writing
• 2008-2009 Deputy Head of School of Literature and Creative Writing
• 2009-2012 Head of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing

Professor Jean Boase-Beier studied English and Linguistics at the University of Regensburg, Germany, where she also lectured in Linguistics and German and led a research project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft (German Research Council) on Word Formation. She taught Literary Translation, Linguistics, German and Stylistics at UEA from 1991 and set up UEA's MA in Literary Translation in 1993. A former Executive Committee member of the British Comparative Literature Association, former member of the Advisory Panel of the British Centre for Literary Translation,  and former Executive Committee member of the Translators Association, she is also a translator between German and English and the editor of the Visible Poets series of bilingual poetry books (Arc Publications).

Jean Boase-Beier was promoted to Professor in 2008. She held an Arts and Humanities Research Council Leadership Fellowship on ‘Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust’ in 2013 - 2014. She retired from UEA in January 2015 but continues to research and publish, and to hold occasional workshops at UEA. She is also a translator of poetry and holds regular public (including online) readings, workshops and school events. 

Recent and current research: Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust, an AHRC-funded research project, included a book on Holocaust poetry and its translation (published by Bloomsbury in 2015), considering the issues of translating poetry that relates to real events, and to what extent we are aware of the translator’s intervention when we read such poetry in English.  As part of this project, an exhibition and translation workshops were held. In 2019 an Anthology of translated Holocaust poetry was published. Other recent projects include a co-edited book on interdisciplinary aspects of translation (published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014), a co-edited book on Holocaust witnesses, their writing, and the translation of that writing (published by Bloomsbury 2017), a co-edited collection of literary translation case studies (published by Palgrave Macmillan 2018) and a number of journal articles on poetry, poetic style, translation, and the Holocaust. Current research is on poetry written in asylums and hospitals during the 'Third Reich' in Germany.

My research interests are translation theory and practice, and the link between them; poetry and its translation, especially Holocaust poetry; theories of poetics and stylistics; the interactions of stylistics and translation. In particular I am interested in what constitutes knowledge and cognitive context, and how we read and write and translate texts, especially poetic texts.

Recent PhD supervision in: literary translation; stylistics and poetics; Holocaust and post-Holocaust writing; cognitive literary theory.

Professor Boase-Beier was Convenor of the MA in Literary Translation in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing until 2015.

Professor Boase-Beier was Head of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing from 2009 to 2012.

Jean Boase-Beier taught Literary Translation, especially Translation Theory (LITEM037: Translation Theory) and Translation and Style (LITEM033: Stylistics for Translators), at MA level. She was Convenor of the MA in Literary Translation, and supervised a large number of PhD students on topics in translation and literature. She continues to hold occasional workshops for the MA in Literary Translation.

Literary translation; translation theory; poetry; German poetry; Holocaust poetry