September 28, 2018

Zhang Yingyu’s The Book of Swindles

All this week we have been sharing Sinophone literature in English translation as part of our National Translation Month feature. Below is a roundup from The Book of Swindles—a seventeenth-century story collection, offers a panoramic guide to the art of deception....

September 28, 2018

Emotion Takes Place

“Ling Hon Lam’s book is a major breakthrough in early modern Chinese literary and theater studies. Lam challenges conventional wisdom that sees emotion as an expression of inner faculties, and seeks to reframe emotion as affective performativity, theatrical manifestation, and...

September 28, 2018

Zhenjun Zhang on Liu Yiqing’s Hidden and Visible Realms

This week for National Translation Month we have been featuring Sinophone literature in English translation. As part of that feature, we have a guest post today written by Zhenjun Zhang, an associate professor of Asian studies at St. Lawrence University...

September 27, 2018

Q&A with Max Oidtmann on Forging the Golden Urn

A Qing law mandated that the reincarnations of prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks be identified by drawing lots from a golden urn. In Forging the Golden Urn, Max Oidtmann traces how a Chinese bureaucratic technology was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions...

September 27, 2018

Book Excerpt! The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction

It is the final week of National Translation Month. All month long we have been featuring excerpts from recent titles and guest posts from translators and scholars. This week we have been focusing on Sinophone literature in English translation. Today...

September 27, 2018

Clare O’Farrell on Translating Foucault at the Movies

“Like all of his great interviews, Foucault at the Movies presents Foucault speaking in his own voice. We find Foucault saying that “the art of living” means that psychology must be killed; that the body must be dismantled; that memory must function...

September 26, 2018

China Trans Formed

“After Eunuchs deftly explores how the introduction of Western biomedicine transformed understandings of gender, sexuality, and the body in Chinese contexts from the twentieth century onward.” ~Ari Heinrich, University of California, San Diego Today we are happy to bring you...

September 26, 2018

Michael Berry On the Art of Translation and Wu He’s Experimental Novel Remains of Life

Yesterday on the blog we shared an excerpt from Chi Pang-yuan’s memoir The Great Flowing River that recounted the beginning of our “Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan” series, as part of our ongoing feature for National Translation Month. The experimental...

September 25, 2018

New Book Tuesday! Redemption, The Freedom Schools, Where Are the Women? and More

Our weekly list of new books is now available! Redemption Friedrich Gorenstein. Translated by Andrew Bromfield Where Are the Women? Why Expanding the Archive Makes Philosophy Better Sarah Tyson The Freedom Schools Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement...

September 25, 2018

Book Excerpt! Chi Pang-yuan’s The Great Flowing River

This week for National Translation Month we are focusing on Sinophone literature in English translation. For today’s post we are sharing an excerpt from The Great Flowing River by Chi Pang-yuan, translated by John Balcom, a powerful personal memoir set...

September 25, 2018

Trivia Tuesday: Wm. Theodore de Bary, U.S. Naval Officer and Sinologist, Elevated Asian Studies at Columbia and Beyond

Sources of Chinese Tradition, compiled by Wm. Theodore De Bary and Irene Bloom, is a seminal collection of primary readings for scholars, students, and general readers. For over 40 years, the readings in this volume on the social, religious, and...

September 22, 2018

Peter France On the Poet Konstantin Batyushkov

September is National Translation Month, a time to celebrate literature in translation. Throughout the month we have been sharing excerpts and guest posts but have devoted Saturdays to featuring poetry titles. Today we have a guest post written by Peter...