On September 29–30, 2004, more than two hundred participants assembled in Lisbon, to take a fresh look at current orientations in Translation Studies (TS).

In their Call for Papers, the organizers of the Fourth Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) had acknowledged that “perhaps the time has come to challenge some of the widely held assumptions, biases, and other presuppositions borrowed from other disciplines or based on beliefs and claims that are taken for granted.”

Hence, the “Doubts and Directions” in the title of the Congress. Obviously, the contributions (more than 140 papers, 40 posters and six panels) did not all cover the same concerns, the same questions, the same concepts or the same methods. Diversity is a precious asset at a scientific meeting of this kind.