Dr Veronique Lane
Lecturer in French Studies and Comparative LiteratureProfile
I have been teaching translation pragmatics and comparative literature as well as cognitive sciences and medical humanities at Lancaster University, since 2017.
Prior to Lancaster, I have also taught French and comparative literature as Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University in the US, and have been awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC, $85,000).
At Lancaster, I teach translation theory and practice; modernism; mental health and mental disorders; I supervise MA and PhD students in these areas, and am an active member of the Health Hub. I also serve as Dissertation Convenor in the School of Global Affairs and Deputy Chair of the Faculty Research Ethics Committee.
Recent publications include two edited volumes in L'Esprit Créateur (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018) and Translation and Literature (Edinburgh UP, 2020), and the first book theorizing literary back-translation with case studies by leading scholars from the US to the UK, France, Italy, Turkey and China (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). I'm also the creator and admin of the website Literary Back-Translation: if you know a literary back-translation which isn't in the online catalogue, please get in touch through the contact form. All contributions are gratefuly acknowledged on the website: <https://literarybacktranslation-edinburghup.simdif.com>
My current research and engagement activities include workshops designed with mental health practitioners to improve the cognition of patients with schizophrenia, support group sessions for caregivers in collaboration with the S&PAA, and the publication of my second monograph on translation, cognition and mental health (also forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press).
Research Grants
2012-14: Postdoctoral Fellowship, awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC, $80,000)
Additional Information
I convene the undergraduate final-year dissertation module, and have supervised several MA dissertations and translation projects.
I am currently co-supervising three PhD theses, on translation and the phenomenology of reading, on translation in video games, and on AI translation and mental health.
Research Overview
Véronique carries out research in neurolinguistics, cognitive sciences, translation pragmatics, and medical humanities.
Recent publications include two journal special issues she has edited for L'Esprit Créateur (Johns Hopkins, 2018) and Translation and Literature (Edinburgh UP, 2020).
She has also edited and contributed to the first book on literary back-translation, in collaboration with scholars from the US to the UK, France, Italy, Turkey, and China: her own contributions in the book include a substantial introduction theorizing literary back-translation and delineating its ethical and philosophical implications, as well as a double chapter, "Theorizing Back-Translation: From Antoine Berman on Retranslation to the Three Layers of The Monk" (Edinburgh UP; 2025).
Her second monograph, Translation and Cognition, offers a comparative analysis of the translation processes of seven modernist writers-translators with lived experience of mental ill health - Friedrich Hölderlin, Gérard de Nerval, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, T.S. Eliot, H.D. and Antonin Artaud - and provides the first unified theory of translation as impacting cognition and mental health onto which other teachers and researchers will be able to build.
Her current research project investigates the therapeutic value of the translation process for NHS patients on the autism-schizophrenia spectrum.
PhD Supervision Interests
Medical Humanities, Neurolinguistics and Cognition, Translation Theory, Literary Translation, Narratives of illness, Lived experiences of mental ill health, Autism-schizophrenia spectrum
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Literary Back-Translation
01/12/2024 → …
Research
External Examiner
Examination
Translation as an Empirical Process: From Modernist Translation to Contemporary Transfiction
Invited talk
Antonin Artaud’s Therapeutic Experiences of Translation
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Translation, Modernism, and Madness: The Case of Antonin Artaud
Invited talk
Antonin Artaud, from Mental Breakdown to Modernist Breakthrough
Invited talk
The Anachronistic Fate of Modern French Drama: The Theatre of the Absurd Upstaged by The Theatre of Cruelty
Invited talk
L'incantation littéraire: les formes d'une force
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
- FHASS Health Hub