This panel session consists of four papers that together examine the dynamic intersections among the history of publishing, gender, translation practices, and cultural production in a Catalan-language literary setting. The panel sheds light on often-invisible forms of mediation, including editorial, translational, material and institutional, emphasizing their role in the emergence of emancipatory narratives and alternative literary canons. The session offers an exploration of how mediation operates as both a site of power and intervention by drawing on literary studies, book history, translation and Catalan studies and gender studies. Its focus lies on book-historical analyses of anthologization and canon formation in feminist and queer translation theory.

Recent critical work has emphasized the political and sociological dimensions of translation, paratexts, and literary networks (Bielsa 2023, Cronin 2017). In this panel, our aim is to apply them to Catalan-language production, gendered mediation, and transnational circulation. By connecting nineteenth-century realist networks, twentieth-century anthologies, and twenty-first-century debates on non-binary language, this panel demonstrates the enduring nature of mediating practices and their evolving relationship to gender and institutional recognition, while adapting to new trends in translation studies.

The first paper examines 19th-century Catalan realism through Narcís Oller’s epistolary correspondence with translators and literary intermediaries, including Albert Savine, Isaac Pavlovsky, and Émile Zola. Drawing on Casanova’s notion of the “World Republic of Letters,” the paper revisits Oller’s homosocial transnational networks to show how sustained dialogue with translators and foreign interlocutors shaped both the dissemination and the program of his novels. Using translation and correspondence as collaborative and strategic practices, the paper pinpoints traditional narratives of authorship and literary influence.

The second paper turns to women’s translational praxis through a case study of Hortènsia Curell de Carbonell, foregrounding her translation methods and intellectual agency. This paper aims to rediscover Curell de Carbonell’s work through the lens of methodological innovation and cultural mediation. It is the presenter’s aim to challenge the narratives that marginalized women translators in the 20^th century as secondary or purely instrumental figures. By situating her practice within broader debates on authorship, creativity, and gendered work in translation, the paper contributes to feminist recovery work while expanding the understanding of how translation can become instrumental in mediation and part of emancipatory narratives.

A third contribution analyzes the persistent underrepresentation of women poets in Catalan-language poetry anthologies published between 1947 and 2017. Focusing on a study of more than forty anthologies that include monolingual, bilingual, and translated books, the paper examines paratexts, selection criteria, and editorial rhetoric to identify patterns of exclusion that persist even after the Spanish Transition to democracy. By reading anthologization as a practice comparable to translation, involving the (re)creation of context and literary borders, the paper interrogates competing constructions of a “feminine” poetic tradition and highlights the active role of anthologies in shaping reception and canon.

The final paper analyzes translation as a site of allyship in contemporary movements for non-binary language. Focusing on the translation of non-binary linguistic structures from English and German into Catalan, the paper argues that professional translation has functioned as a laboratory for sociolinguistic experimentation and political alliance. Faced with the challenge of rendering “they/them” and other non-binary forms in Romance languages, translators increasingly collaborate with non-binary activists, contributing to a shift from gender-neutralizing strategies toward explicit morphological innovation, notably the -i neomorpheme. The paper situates these practices within broader debates on institutional resistance and linguistic authority, illustrating how translation becomes a catalyst for language change and social visibility.

Together, these papers offer conference attendees an interdisciplinary and rich conversation about gender, mediation, book construction, and Catalan literary culture. The session is designed to foster dialogue across historical periods and methodological approaches, making it valuable to scholars of translation, gender, and book history. Each presenter will speak for 12–13 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of discussion to encourage audience engagement. It is our aim to open the debate beyond Catalan studies and that the audience can relate it to other contexts and realities.

The panel is organized by a scholar who is a member of the research project “Catalan translation in the 21st century: the construction of a new literary and cultural canon (TCXXI)”, led by Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya and University Autònoma de Barcelona (Ref. PID2024-156306NB-C22), funded by the Spain’s Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. This ensures that the session has a strong grounding in recent debates in gender and translation, and it is recognized by a public institution.