Even though Translation Studies and Hermeneutics share a common interest in the communicative mediating processes, these two disciplines have co-existed and developed with strikingly little interaction since the advent of Translation Studies in the mid-20th century. While growing into a discipline distinct from philology, linguistics and cultural studies, TS has constantly drawn upon all of those fields. Only recently, however, has a new field of studies emerged within TS that fuses the latter with Hermeneutics: Translational Hermeneutics. This new sub-discipline taps into the holistic approach to research found in the phenomenological tradition and incorporates hermeneutical exegetical methods as it redirects its attention to the individual person as the center of the mediating process. 

The purpose of the symposium was to explore avenues in which Hermeneutics and Translation Studies could complement one another and thereby strengthen research on both oral and written mediation of textual content. The discussions helped to develop the contours and goals of and simultaneously set limits to the scope of this emerging field of studies, Translational Hermeneutics. This volume presents some selected contributions from that symposium. Those are, interestingly enough, either situated in theory or in literary studies of traditional orientation with a focus on the symbolic nature of an opus regarding the hermeneutical method, and an application in postcolonial studies. The great focus on theoretical observations might be due to the fact that this symposium, for the first time ever, brought together scholars from all over the world who are interested in Hermeneutics and Translation Studies.