China and the Victorian Imagination

China and the Victorian Imagination

Author: Ross G. Forman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-08-15

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1107276497

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What happens to our understanding of 'orientalism' and imperialism when we consider British-Chinese relations during the nineteenth century, rather than focusing on India, Africa or the Caribbean? This book explores China's centrality to British imperial aspirations and literary production, underscoring the heterogeneous, interconnected nature of Britain's formal and informal empire. To British eyes, China promised unlimited economic possibilities, but also posed an ominous threat to global hegemony. Surveying anglophone literary production about China across high and low cultures, as well as across time, space and genres, this book demonstrates how important location was to the production, circulation and reception of received ideas about China and the Chinese. In this account, treaty ports matter more than opium. Ross G. Forman challenges our preconceptions about British imperialism, reconceptualizes anglophone literary production in the global and local contexts, and excavates the little-known Victorian history so germane to contemporary debates about China's 'rise'.


Translating Chinese Classics in a Colonial Context

Translating Chinese Classics in a Colonial Context

Author: Hui Wang

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9783039116317

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This work subjects James Legge's Confucian translations to a postcolonial perspective, with a view of uncovering the subtle workings of colonialist ideology in the seemingly innocent act of translation. The author uses the example of Legge's two versions of the 'Zhonguong' to illustrate two distinctive stages of his sinological scholarship.


Protestant Missionaries in China

Protestant Missionaries in China

Author: Jonathan A. Seitz

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2024-03-15

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0268208026

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With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China evaluates the role of nineteenth-century British missionaries in the early development of the cross-cultural relationship between China and the English-speaking world. As one of the first generation of British Protestant missionaries, Robert Morrison went to China in 1807 with the goal of evangelizing the country. His mission pushed him into deeper engagement with Chinese language and culture, and the exchange flowed both ways as Morrison—a working-class man whose firsthand experiences made him an “accidental expert”—brought depictions of China back to eager British audiences. Author Jonathan A. Seitz proposes that, despite the limitations imposed by the orientalism impulse of the era, Morrison and his fellow missionaries were instrumental in creating a new map of cross-cultural engagement that would evolve, ultimately, into modern sinology. Engaging and well researched, Protestant Missionaries in China explores the impact of Morrison and his contemporaries on early sinology, mission work, and Chinese Christianity during the three decades before the start of the Opium Wars.


The Role of Henri Borel in Chinese Translation History

The Role of Henri Borel in Chinese Translation History

Author: Audrey Heijns

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-29

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1000293777

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Against the historical background of Chinese translation in the West and the emergence of several prominent European translators of China, this book examines the role of a translator in terms of cross-cultural communication, the image of the foreign culture in the minds of the target audience, and the influence of their translations on the target culture. With the focus on the career and output of the Dutch translator Henri Borel (1869–1933), this study investigates different aspects of the role of translator. The investigation is carried out by analysing texts and probing the achievements and contributions of the translator, underpinned by documents from the National Archives and the Literature Museum in the Hague, the Netherlands. Based on the findings derived from this study, advice is offered to those now involved in the promotion and translation of Chinese culture and literature. It will make an important contribution to the burgeoning history of Chinese translation. This book will be of interest to anyone with an interest or background in the translation history of China, the history of sinology in the West, and the role of translators.


Confucianism as a World Religion

Confucianism as a World Religion

Author: Anna Sun

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-04-21

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1400846080

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Is Confucianism a religion? If so, why do most Chinese think it isn't? From ancient Confucian temples, to nineteenth-century archives, to the testimony of people interviewed by the author throughout China over a period of more than a decade, this book traces the birth and growth of the idea of Confucianism as a world religion. The book begins at Oxford, in the late nineteenth century, when Friedrich Max Müller and James Legge classified Confucianism as a world religion in the new discourse of "world religions" and the emerging discipline of comparative religion. Anna Sun shows how that decisive moment continues to influence the understanding of Confucianism in the contemporary world, not only in the West but also in China, where the politics of Confucianism has become important to the present regime in a time of transition. Contested histories of Confucianism are vital signs of social and political change. Sun also examines the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China and the social significance of the ritual practice of Confucian temples. While the Chinese government turns to Confucianism to justify its political agenda, Confucian activists have started a movement to turn Confucianism into a religion. Confucianism as a world religion might have begun as a scholarly construction, but are we witnessing its transformation into a social and political reality? With historical analysis, extensive research, and thoughtful reflection, Confucianism as a World Religion will engage all those interested in religion and global politics at the beginning of the Chinese century.


Chinese Translation Studies in the 21st Century

Chinese Translation Studies in the 21st Century

Author: Roberto A. Valdeon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-11-09

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1351856987

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Chinese Translation Studies in the 21st Century, which presents a selection of some of the best articles published in the journal Perspectives in a five-year period (2012-2017), highlights the vitality of Translation Studies as a profession and as a field of enquiry in China. As the country has gradually opened up to the West, translation academic programmes have burgeoned to cater for the needs of Chinese corporations and political institutions. The book is divided into four sections, in which authors explore theoretical and conceptual issues (such as the connection between translation and adaptation, multimodality, and the nature of norms), audiovisual translation (including studies on news translation and the translation of children’s movies), bibliographies and bibliometrics (to assess, for example, the international visibility of Chinese scholars), and interpreting (analyzing pauses in simultaneous interpreting and sign language among other aspects). The book brings together well-established authors and younger scholars from universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The chapters in this book were originally published in various issues of Perspectives: Studies in Translatology.


Translating China for Western Readers

Translating China for Western Readers

Author: Ming Dong Gu

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2014-11-06

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1438455127

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This book explores the challenges of translating Chinese works, particularly premodern ones, for a contemporary Western readership. Reacting against the "cultural turn" in translation studies, contributors return to the origin of translation studies: translation practice. By returning to the time-honored basics of linguistics and hermeneutics, the book inquires into translation practice from the perspective of reading and reading theory. Essays in the first section of the work discuss the nature, function, rationale, criteria, and historical and conceptual values of translation. The second section focuses on the art and craft of translation, offering practical techniques and tips. Finally, the third section conducts critical assessments of translation policy and practice as well as formal and aesthetic issues. Throughout, contributors explore how a translation from the Chinese can read like a text in the Western reader's own language.


Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East

Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East

Author: Arie L. Molendijk

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-07-21

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 019108705X

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This volume offers a critical analysis of one the most ambitious editorial projects of late Victorian Britain: the edition of the fifty substantial volumes of the Sacred Books of the East (1879-1910). The series was edited and conceptualized by Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900), a world-famous German-born philologist, orientalist, and religious scholar. Müller and his influential Oxford colleagues secured financial support from the India Office of the British Empire and from Oxford University Press. Arie L. Molendijk documents how the series has become a landmark in the development of the humanities-especially the study of religion and language-in the second half of the nineteenth century. The edition also contributed significantly to the Western perception of the 'religious' or even 'mystic' East, which was textually represented in English translations. The series was a token of the rise of 'big science' and textualized the East, by selecting their 'sacred books' and bringing them under the power of western scholarship.