Malin Podlevskikh Carlström
Associate Senior Lecturer
Department of Languages andAbout Malin Podlevskikh Carlström
Research
I am employed as an Associate Senior Lecturer in Russian at the Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Gothenburg. I have a PhD in Slavic Languages (2020) and a Master's degree in Translation Studies (2010), both from the University of Gothenburg. Between July 2021 and June 2023, I was a visiting postdoc fellow at the School of Languages and Translation Studies, University of Turku (Finland), an institution to which I am still affiliated. My research interests include intertextuality, paratexts, contemporary Russian literature and translation reception.
Teaching
I teach the department's online and campus courses in Russian, as well as some of the department's interdisciplinary courses in literature and translation. Previously, I have also taught Russian literature, translation studies and courses in translation from Russian to Swedish within the Professional Translation Programme.
Research
My doctoral thesis The Trials of the Intertextual: The Translation and Reception of Tatyana Tolstaya’s Kys’ in Sweden and the United States is transdisciplinary and focus on intertextuality in Russian literature and how intertextual references such as allusions and quotations are translated. The material consists of Tatyana Tolstaya’s novel Kys' (2000), the Swedish translation Därv (2003) and the English translation The Slynx (2003). The first part of the thesis deals with translation strategy, that is, how the extensive intertextuality in Kys' was translated into Swedish and English. The second part instead deals with translation reception, and based on reviews in general media sources, I draw conclusions about how the translated work has been read the two target cultures.
The significance of the paratext for translation reception is another of my central interests. As thresholds, paratexts may aid our understanding of a text and add an ideological, hermeneutical or commercial framing to a literary work. I have analyzed, for example, book-cover design in relation to translation and marketing, translation criticism, and the (in)visibility of translation and translators on Swedish book covers of novels translated from Russian.
During my postdoc, I worked on the VR-funded research project What is "Swedish" in Swedish literature? Publication, marketing and reception of Swedish literature in Russia. The project included work on a translation bibliography of Swedish literary works that have been translated into Russian between 1946 and 2021, and analyses of how different authors and genres of Swedish literature have been marketed and received in Russia. I have also researched the opposite relationship, i.e. how contemporary Russian literature is received in Sweden.
I am a member and board member of Swedish Network for Translation Studies (SNÖ) a Swedish non-profit organization that aims to serve as a forum where Swedish early career researchers can interact. Another goal of the organization is to work for increased status and visibility for translation studies in Sweden. I am also a member of Svenska slavistförbundet.